Letters

Summary

1. BERKELEY TO AN ILLUSTRIOUS ASSEMBLY

TCD ms 888/2, fols. 244–53. Additional drafts present in TCD ms 4309, fol. 13 and BL Add. ms 39305.

10 January 1705/6

by Mr. Berkeley Jan: 10, 1705/6

Mr. President and Gentlemen,

There is one of the rarities of this kingdom which though I judge considerable enough to take place among the rest, yet so it is I neither find it described nor so much as mentioned by those who are curious in enquiries of this nature. I mean the cave of Dunmore. Wherefore having had the curiosity to see it, in defect of a better I present you with my own account of this wonderful place so far as I shall be able to copy it from what I remember either to have seen my self or heard from others.

This rarity is distant four miles from Kilkenny & two from Dunmore his Grace the Duke of Ormond's country house whence it has its name. Its mouth or entrance is situated in a rising ground and affords a very dismal prospect being both wide & deep & all its sides rocky & precipitious save one which is a slope, part whereof is fashioned into a path & in some places into steps by the frequent descents of those who out of curiosity visit this stupendous cave. This as well as the rest of the sides is overrun with elder and other shrubs which add to the horrour of the place & make it a suitable habitation for ravens, screechowls & such like feral birds that dwell in the cavities of the rocks.

At the foot of this descent by an opening which resembles a wide arched gate we entered into a vast cavern the bottom whereof is always slabby by reason of the continual distillation of rock water. Here we bad farewell to day-light plunging into a more than Cimmerian darkness that fills the hollows of this subterranean dungeon into whose more retired apartments we were admitted by two passages out of this first cavern; for having by candlelight spy’d out our way towards the left hand & not without some difficulty clambered over a ruinous heap of huge unwieldy stones, we saw a farther entrance into the rock but at some distance from the ground;