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"FIRST DAY" KINGSTOWN REGATTA, CO. DUBLIN. -"Old Dunleary," Gaelic, Dun-Laeghaire, "Leary's Fort," was so called after the pagan King of Ireland, who, although himself a Druid and firm in his pagan belief, gave the apostle St. Patrick a hearing at the royal hill of Tara, and protected him in his sacred mission against the fury of the Druid priests. A huge, and ugly, obelisk covers the spot where George IV of unblessed memory, left his last footprint, when leaving Ireland forever, in 1812 - an occasion on which the Irish flunkies, who expected royal favors, made a disgraceful exhibition of their slavishness -
Shout, drink, feast and flatter! O, Erin! how low
Wert thou sunk by misforntune and misery till
This worship of tyrnats hath sunk thee below,
The depths of thy deep in a deeper gulf still!
So wrote Liberty's noble friend and brave champion, Lord Byron, when he read of Dublin, misrepresenting Ireland at the time, crawling on "all fours" to honor "the fourth of the fools and oppressors, called George." Today, however, Kingstown is Dublin's most important suburb, and never appears to such good advantage as during Regatta Week, when the metropolis and the surrounding rural districts turn out en masse to witness the yachting in the splendid harbor. The picture represents a regatta crowd, on the "first day," taking chances "along shore" and on the stony upland, that overlooks the water on which the graceful craft strive for the championship pennant.
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