I spent an evening at Carton recently. On the sloping banks near the Rye Water, where primroses and violets grew a few months ago, purple autumn crocuses now bloom. I have never heard these flowers classified as Alpine specimens, but I have noticed that they grow at their best in the Alps. I saw them in profusion in the French Alps above Nice, and whole fields of them between the woods in Austria.
In Carton they have, unfortunately, become battered owing to the almost perpetual rain of the past months; but, like everything else in Carton, they have been scattered with a lavish hand. I had slipped in with some friends just before six o'clock, when all the gates of Carton close, and at that hour, owing to the quiet that falls, one sometimes may discover worlds hidden in the day.
All the gentle world of rabbits seemed stirred to its depths. White tails could be seen flickering into bushes everywhere on the banks of the Rye Water and into the holes of the high banks. They crossed our path frequently in twos and threes, and everywhere in the beautiful wide fields groups of them were sitting.
They seemed to grow tamer as the darkness approached, and one might have stroked some of them as one passed. There was hardly a stir in the soft brown eyes at the approach of a stranger.
The Irish Times, October 7th, 1930.