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STORIES OF
Washington Irving's story of " The Broken Heart" is believed to be based in a degree upon this incident
Many legends are extant concerning St Kevin, who ensconced himself in St. Kevin's Bed, a small cave in an overhanging cliff above the lake of Glendalough, in county Wicklow, a wild and desolate place encompassed by huge barren mountains. St. Kevin is supposed to have founded a city and built seven churches in Glendalough in the sixth century, a portion of one of the buildings remaining to this day, and known as the kitchen or cell of St Kevin. But to our legend. The saint, it is said, was madly loved by a fair maid of the name of Kathleen; but as her affection was not reciprocated by him, he fled to this wild retreat, believing the spot to be inaccessible to her. On waking from his slumbers one morning he was horrified to find Kathleen standing by his side, and in a fit of fury hurled her from the beetling rock into the depths below. Moore's "By that Lake whose Gloomy Shore" tells this story in verse, so does Gerald Griffin's " The Fate of Cath-leen," while R. D. Williams, indignant with those who could trifle with the name of a saint, takes his own view of the matter in "St. Kevin and Kathleen," having consulted
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