Sir Walter Scott, author of celebrated novels such as Waverley and Ivanhoe, died on this day in 1832 but did you know that he visited Holycross Abbey and Cashel on his first and only visit to Ireland in the summer of 1825?
According to an article in the Dublin Penny Journal dating from December 1832, ‘no beauty of sylvan scenery seems to have arrested his attention, or excited his interest in the same degree as the ecclesiastical ruins at Glendalough, Holycross and the Rock of Cashel.’
The article further notes that Scott was only supposed to change horses in Cashel on his way back to Dublin from Cork ‘but no sooner had he caught a glimpse of this venerable and majestic pile, standing on so striking a position on the summit of a lofty and precipitous rock, that he declared it was quite impossible for him to proceed that day’.
Sources:
https://www.libraryireland.com/articles/WalterScottIrelandDPJ1-25/index.php
