"No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells, The chord alone, that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks To show that she still lives."
Near Drogheda is Monasterboice, a collection of celebrated ecclesiastical ruins. Within an enclosed churchyard, which stands quite apart from any settlement of to-day, are two tiny chapels, a round tower of considerable proportions (110 feet high and 50 feet in circumference at its base), and three stone crosses, the principal of which, known as St. Boyne's Cross, is reputedly the most ancient religious relique now standing in Ireland. Among its rude sculptures, there is an inscription in Irish characters, in which is plainly legible the name of _Murelach_, a king of Ireland who died in 534, about one hundred years after the arrival of St. Patrick. The height of this cross is twenty-seven feet, and it is composed of two stones. The shafts are divided into compartments ornamented with figures. One group represents "a couple of harpers in paradise," of which Köhl says: "No Irishman of the olden times would have thought paradise complete without his beloved national instrument."
This recalls Lover's verses, but whether or no so rude a symbolism inspired them it is impossible to state.
"Oh! give me one strain Of that wild harp again, In melody proudly its own, Sweet harp of the days that are gone."
The entire region of the Boyne valley is rich in tradition and history, far more so than any other area of its size in Ireland.
From Drogheda, at the river's mouth, to Trim, just beyond Tara, and to Kells on the Blackwater (not to be confounded with the Blackwater of the south), the Boyne's chief tributary, is scarce fifty miles; but there are a succession of shrines of history of which even the most unfamiliar are household words.
At Trim one is in the midst of military and ecclesiastical ruins which will make the lover of architectural remains long for the opportunity of knowing them better. There is the
usual "King John's Castle," in reality Dangan Castle, an ancient military erection of the De Lacys, commonly called, and apparently with justification, "the finest example of Anglo-Norman military architecture in Ireland."