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“As the soil is, so the heart of man,” says Lord Byron. It is, indeed, remarkable how closely the character and disposition of a people will be found to assimilate to the natural features of the clime they inhabit, and how deeply the human mind is tinctured by the bright or gloomy scenes upon which it is accustomed to dwell. Pursuing this fanciful theory, we imagine we can trace in the chequered character of the Irish people a reflection of the varied aspect of the country. Their exuberant gaiety, their deep sadness, their warm affections, their fierce resentment, their smiles and tears, their love and hatred, all remind us forcibly of the light and shadows of their landscapes; where frowning precipices and quiet glens, wild torrents and tranquil streams, lakes and woods, vales and mountains, sea and shore, are all blended by the hand of Nature beneath a sky, now smiling in sunshine, now saddening in tears.

The object of the Publisher has been to transfer to the pages of these volumes the most interesting and remarkable gems of Irish Scenery, and to present to his subscribers a series of Pen and Pencil Illustrations of the charms of the Green Isle of the West. But while the artist and authors have been seeking by lake and mountain the wild and beautiful in Nature, they have not overlooked the time-honoured memorials of Art, which lie scattered so plentifully through the country. The desolate castles and fortalices, moss-grown and hoar with age; the mouldering relics of ecclesiastical greatness; the green raths and mounds, with their old legends and fairy traditions; the solemn and mysterious monuments of Pagan superstition; in short, nothing has been omitted that was likely to awaken interest or excite attention, and that could consistently with the design of the work be brought within its limits.

The Engravings have in every instance been taken from Drawings made on the spots they illustrate, by Mr. Bartlett, whose pencil has already attained a high reputation, by his graceful and truthful delineations of the scenery of America, Switzerland, Scotland, the Bosphorous, &c.

The literary department has been confided to Mr. N. P. Willis and Mr. J. S. Coyne. The first-named gentleman has contributed a portion of the letter-press which describes the scenery of the north of Ireland, part of Connemara, the river Shannon, Limerick, and Waterford. The latter writer has contributed the entire volume illustrating the scenery of Cork and Kerry, the far-famed lakes of Killarney, Glengariff, Bantry Bay, the southern and western coasts of the island as far north as Galway Bay, Dublin and its vicinity, and the picturesque beauties of the county of Wicklow.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.

The prominent association with the name of Ireland, to one not daily conversant with English newspapers, is that of a prolific mother of orators, soldiers, patriots, and poets. Out of sight of the froth that is thrown up from the active cauldron of her political evils, and out of hearing of the squabble and fret, the jibe and jeer, the querulous complaint, and the growling reply which form the perpetual and most marked under-tone of English news, the inhabitant of other countries looks at the small space Ireland occupies on the map,—a little isle on the westernmost extremity of Europe—and counts her great names, and reads her melancholy, but large and brilliant page in history, with wonder and admiration. Whatever horrors the close-seen features of her abortive revolutions may present, and whatever littleness may belong to the smaller machinery of her political intrigues, conspiracies and the like, the distant eye reads, in the prominent lines of the picture, an undying love of liberty, and an untamed and restless energy of genius and character. To America particularly Ireland is sympathetically, as well as geographically, nearer than the other countries of Europe; and receiving thence, as we do, a long-continued and steady influx of population, we look to the general tone of her national sentiment, and the preservation of her heroic character with the interests of kindred. In a work like this, however, of a pictorial character, and intended for circulation among all parties, the great questions at issue in Ireland can only be thus far adverted to; and, in recording my own observations while travelling in the country, I shall be excused, (from the evident necessity of omitting all political and religious inference or discussion,) if, with the superficial material that remains, I should seem to avoid topics of momentous and evident interest, and confine myself to those only which are entertaining or trifling.

I turned my face westward, after the “splendid failure” at Eglinton Castle, and on the first of September followed the example of St. Patrick, and embarked at the narrowest point of the Channel for Ireland. Port Patrick was named, they say, after the saint; who, besides being subject, like the uncanonized, to sea-sickness, evidently knew enough of geography to decide what point of Scotland was nearest to the opposite shore. It is consolatory to possess a weakness in common with great men; and in taking a preventative glass of brandy-and-water, and going regularly into my berth for a two-hours’ passage, I was pleased to remember a fellow-weakness, not only in St. Patrick, but in the “Queen’s Earl” of Desmond, who, in writing to Queen Elizabeth after his arrival in Ireland, to take possession of his father’s forfeited titles, says. “I was so sea-sick as, whilst I live, I shall never love that element, and I besought them to land me anywhere.”

We ran into the pretty harbour of Donaghadee, after a two-hours’ passage, and I was a little surprised to find every thing very neat and Scotch-looking—the street clean, the inn tidy and thrifty, and not a beggar to welcome us to Ireland. The piers are of a very white granite; (the harbour, I believe, was the design of Sir John Rennie;) and with a couple of towers, used as powder-magazines, and crowning a very abrupt mound, the port has an air both picturesque and flourishing.

There were four of us to go on to Belfast; and the landlady, a very stout and smiling person, came out of doors, and separated our baggage from that of the mail passengers, ordered a car out for our approval, and settled the quo modo of our conveyance with a good-natured energy that amused me. As the ride to Belfast was to be my novitiate in car-travelling, I looked at the machine, which a man drew out with one hand, with some interest. An Irish car has been often described, and most people know that it is the smallest possible quantity of wood, iron, and contrivance that will carry five people. The driver’s seat is generally a tight fit, and the horse’s tail and haunches answer for his foot-board; but he has the advantage of riding face foremost. The passengers sit dos-a-dos, two on a side, and their legs are delivered over to the care of Providence; the small shelf, which hangs outside the wheel for their support, offering no security against damage by collision with mile-stones or passing vehicles. As the shafts are raised, the car tilts backward; so that you sit sideways upon a declivity, which, with the excessive motion of the car, keeps the upper passenger continually sliding down upon his neighbour. A narrow trough between the backs of the seats carries a common-sized portmanteau comfortably, and with this you have all the capabilities of the Irish car.

Our baggage followed us in a sort of decapitated hackney-coach, which I was told was an “inside car,” and we made our exit from the neat town of Donaghadee at a pace that, if we could contrive to hold on to our seats, promised to bring us early to Belfast. I should suppose a gentleman sitting in a loose chair on the top of an American stage-coach would feel something the security of a passenger on an “outside car.” My neighbour nearest the horse chanced to be an American lady, as new to “jaunting” as myself, and never having been instructed as to whether the top or the bottom of the inclined plane we occupied was the place of honour, I sat alternately above and below, and left Ireland, I am sorry to say, with this point of etiquette unresolved. It is a choice between the roles of cushion and fender.

The driver was very talkative, and assured us that up-hill or down-hill was all one to his horse, and he would take us to Belfast without drawing breath. When he did come nearly to a stand-still at the foot of a slight rise in the road, we reminded Pat of his brag at starting. “I think he likes to walk just here a bit, your honour;—it’s a thrick he’s got coming the road so often!”—was the answer, made with a gravity that defied unbelief. The black mare in the other car was his chief topic, however, and for her “the misthress had refused manny a time a hunder guineas.” To the imminent hazard of our legs, the other driver, who seemed quite aware of the subject of his friend’s eloquence, kept up a continual show-off, by passing us at a hard gallop and pulling up to pass us again, and between whipping and a violent string-halt, the black mare certainly proved a beast of very high action.

It was market-day at Belfast, and the streets were thronged with the country people, the most inactive crowd of human beings, it struck me, that I had ever seen. The women were all crouching under their grey cloaks, or squatting upon the thills of the potato-carts, or upon steps or curb-stones; and the men were leaning where there was any thing to lean against, or dragging their feet heavily after them, in a listless lounge along the pavement. It was difficult to remember that this was the most energetic and mercurial population in the world; yet a second thought tells one that there is an analogy in this to the habits of the most powerful of the animal creation—the lion and the leopard, when not excited, taking their ease like the Irishman.

I had thought, among a people so imaginative as the Irish, to have seen some touch of fancy in dress—if ever so poor—a bit of ribbon on the women’s caps, or a jaunty cock of the “boy’s” tile, or his jacket or coat worn shapely and with an air. But dirty cloaks, ribbonless caps, uncombed hair, and not even a little straw taken from the cart and put under them when they sat on the dirty side-walk, were universal symptoms that left no room for belief in the existence of any vanity whatsoever in the women; many of them of an age, too, when such fancies are supposed to be universal to the sex. The men could scarce be less ornamental in their exteriors; but the dirty, sugar-loaf hat, with a shapeless rim, and a twine around it to hold a pipe; the coat thrown over the shoulders, with the sleeves hanging behind; the shoes mended by a wisp of straw stuffed into the holes, and their faces and bare breasts nearly as dirty as their feet, were alike the uniform of old and young. Still those who were not bargaining were laughing, and even in our flourishing canter through the market, I had time to make up my mind that if they had taken a farewell of vanity, they had not of fun.

Very nearly amputating the legs of a young lady who sat on an outside car, drawn up near the side-walk, Pat, cantering to the last, checked his horse at the door of the “Donegall Arms.” It was a handsome house in a broad and handsome street; but I could not help pointing out to my companion the line of soiled polish at the height of a man’s shoulder, on every wall and door-post within sight, showing, with the plainness of a high-water mark, the average height, as well as the prevailing habit of the people. We certainly have not yet found time to acquire that polish in America, and if we must wait till the working classes find time to lean, it will be a century or two at least before we can show as polished an hotel as the Donegall Arms at Belfast, or, (at that particular line above the side-walk,) as polished a city altogether.

Pat made us a very smiling and civil speech after he was paid, (not having learned his antecedents from an English grammar, apparently,) and, as we had breakfasted in Scotland at daylight, we ordered dinner in the next breath, though it was not far into the “small hours” of afternoon. The landlord brought us a most tempting and voluminous bill of fare, among which were several French dishes, unexceptionably spelt. With a vague impression that I was about to take leave of luxuries, at least till my tour in Ireland was completed, and having full purveyor’s authority from my friends, I took the carte at its word, and wrote off a dinner to which (on paper at least) I might have asked a Frenchman. Off frisked the waiter with an alacrity that promised well. We contrived to wile away an hour with dressing and looking out of the window; and, in consideration of an elaborate dinner, we relinquished the usual gratification of ringing the bell every five minutes to know if it was ready. As the second hour began rather heavily, I was taking a turn toward the kitchen-door, I cannot say entirely without some hope of a fragrant intimation of the soup, when the waiter met me in the passage.

“Is the lady very hungry, sir?” he asked, with the most eager appearance of a desire for information.

“Then, sir, I think you’d betther have mutton-chops; they’ll be ready so much quicker.”

The words were not out of his mouth before two covered dishes issued from the kitchen, and made their way to our parlour, paying, as they passed, a tribute to my nostrils, of most unequivocal mutton-chops and potatoes. I saw how it was. They had followed a leetle too soon for my friend’s diplomacy; but the French carte was done into Irish, and meant mutton-chops. The waiter would have let us down easier if they had given him time. I was too much amused with the entire absence of any thing like discomfiture in his face to make any remonstrance, and we dined excellently well on chops and potatoes.

Our dinner, notwithstanding its long name on the bill of fare, having been despatched with the brevity of unornamented chops and potatoes, we had the “big end of the afternoon,” as the waiter called it, to dispose of. The landlord (a very well-dressed and well-mannered person, by the way,) offered us a “walking dictionary” to the objects of curiosity in the town; but the dinner had made us cautious of Irish definitions, and we preferred to find out the curiosities by ourselves, and learn their names afterwards.

One of the first things we stumbled on, at the end of a street of very tempting and brilliant shops, was an exhibition of pictures. “Adam and Eve will shortly close,” (so read the placard,) was certainly a very inviting announcement, and we were in haste to pay our money and get in. The exhibitor, to my surprise, called me by name, as he gave me my change, and reminded me of having visited his pictures at Boston, in the United States—a good memory that would have been a more serviceable talent to a politician, but not without its agreeableness anywhere. It is very pleasant to meet one who knows even your name in a strange land. Dubufe has painted “Adam and Eve” in the garden, and in another picture, “Adam and Eve” being driven forth from Paradise; and very clever pictures they are. But it is curious to observe how particularly clean they are before they sinned, and how very dingy after. I presume the Frenchman has good authority for representing them as dirtied with their “fall,” but one cannot help thinking what a moral thing it would be if sinners were known now-a-days by their complexions.

Taking leave of my friend, the exhibitor, who was about to “close” our first parents in Belfast, and “open” them in Dublin, we strolled down to the quay, and admired the Irish carts with solid wheels and a structure altogether very antique and primitive; read the advertisements, stuck on every wall, of vessels bound to “New York;” (we took a pleasure somehow in reading them quite through;) and having “done” that end of the town, returned towards the inn. The landlord was in search of us, with a permit, signed by himself as a subscriber, to visit the botanical gardens. Declining a guide again, we started on our discoveries in the direction he pointed out, and strolled through a succession of clean and spacious streets, to the other suburb of Belfast. The houses in this quarter were large and comfortable-looking; but they had a kind of noseless and flattened aspect, which I could not immediately account for. They are built, it afterwards struck me, without projections either at the roof or over doors or windows, the front wall of the house being an entirely plane surface, from basement to eaves. I found the same fashion in most of the towns of Ireland; but it impressed me more in Belfast, first, perhaps, because the nakedness it gave to the expression of the houses accorded with the lonely desertion of the streets in this quarter of the town. I was told in Dublin, that builders were compelled by law to raise a certain height of front wall above the edge of the roof, to prevent danger from the sliding off of slates and tiles; a law which quite obviates Tom Pipes’s objection to living on shore, though it is not very productive of the ornamental.

Just at the edge of the town, we were compelled to charge through a phalanx of car-drivers, whose obliging distress at seeing us on foot was expressed with a variety of eloquence that was worthy of a better theme. We persisted in thinking that the dirt was good enough “for the like of us,” however, and walked them off their beat, taking with us a solemn assurance that the botanical garden, which they knew to be our destination, was “three miles off, and Irish miles into the bargain”—four English miles, that is to say, which we walked in the incredibly small space of five minutes! Not content with this enterprising investment of eloquence and imagination, one of the drivers mounted his car, and gave us what I took to be a purely ostentatious display of the paces of his horse, driving backwards and forwards in every description of gait that could be got up by cries, kicks, whipping, chirupping, coaxing, and other persuasives. As the man never looked at us even for applause between his flourishes, I had no idea that it was meant for our eyes particularly, till, within forty yards of our destination, he suddenly drove up, and with a smile of the most winning sincerity, recommended us to take his car to the botanical garden. “Where is the botanical garden?” I asked of a little girl who stood listening, without any apparent surprise, to Pat’s proposal. She pointed to the gate, a few steps farther on. “Thin, sir,” said the driver, (as little disconcerted as the waiter at the metamorphosis of my French dinner,) perhaps your honour’d like me to wait for you going back!” My natural resentment at the imposition was entirely absorbed in admiration of the boldness, fertility of invention, readiness and perseverance displayed by this ragged character. What would not such qualities achieve, (and they are natural to the whole nation, I believe,) well regulated and directed into the proper channels? With the same outlay of thought, ingenuity, and assurance, as was expended in this fruitless endeavour to procure a sixpenny fare, what return would an American expect? Certainly enough to buy the car and horse, with a long lease of the driver.

The botanical gardens are laid out with great taste, and beautifully kept. We enjoyed our sunset stroll through the long alleys extremely; and spite of a cautionary placard, and the keeper standing under the porch and looking on, I plucked a heart’s-ease, as an expressive remembrance of my visit. As the keeper made no objection, either by word or look, I inferred that heart’s-ease, though planted among forbidden flowers, in Ireland, is at least not grudged to the stranger.

We strolled leisurely back to the inn, luxuriating in what reminded us more of our own country than of Great Britain—a clear and beautiful twilight. It seemed to me that it had rained without intermission for the three months since I landed in England, and I relished the sight of the blue sky. Fox’s question to his Irish friend, “Is that shower over yet?” seemed a better joke to me before I left Ireland, but certainly I found sunshine of the very best quality at Belfast.

and in some fear of oversleeping the hour for the coach in the morning, I reiterated, and “sealed with a silver token,” my request to be waked at six. Fortunately for a person who possesses Sancho’s “alacrity at sleep,” the noise of a coach rattling over the pavement woke me just in time to save my coffee and my place. I returned to my chamber the moment before mounting the coach for something I had forgotten, and as the clock was striking eight, the faithful damsel knocked at my door and informed me that it was past six!

If the landlord’s cleverness at a free translation of French did not entitle him to the character of “scholar,” his manners and courtesy certainly gave him claims to that of “gentleman.” He waited on us to the door with an abundance of smiles and good wishes, and a dish of cakes, which he insisted on the lady’s taking (the cakes, not the smiles and wishes,) as provant for the road. As we were expected to dine with a brother Boniface at Newry, and a sack of cakes might endanger the appetite of an economical person on the road, our host’s liberality must either be put down as an uncommon deficiency of esprit de corps, or a very great stretch of courtesy towards his guests. As we profited by the dilemma with both its horns, we may as well hang our belief on the latter.

We started off on King William’s route to the battle of the Boyne, in a rain that would have damped the courage of Count Schomberg and his forty thousand men, more particularly if they had had my rheumatism. I had trusted to the sky as I had to the French carte and the chambermaid; for a fairer promise of a bright morrow was never read in a sunset, and we had taken outside places to enjoy the scenery and the sunshine. I must record that one of the four gentlemen “insides,” a stranger to us, offered the lady of our party his place—a politeness which, though a matter of course in America, is not thought at all necessary in old countries. The kindness was declined; but it was pleasant to know that there are “bowels” in Irish “insides:” and this is but one among many points of resemblance between our two countries, which I recorded in my travels in Ireland. I am afraid there is a stage of “high civilization,” at which several of these little eccentric virtues are polished away, under the names of “humbug” and “officiousness.”

Our coach was well horsed for performance, and driven at ten miles in the hour; and when we had once absorbed the water from our cushionless seats, and arranged our umbrellas so as to give and receive drippings as advantageously as possible, we began to enjoy the rapid motion and the County Down. There was something very graceful, I thought, in the shape of the hills and the general outline of the country; though, to my eye, the scantiness of wood was a great drawback to its beauty. The hills were entirely denuded, and not a single tree stood in the fields, or anywhere but in the immediate vicinity of gentlemen’s seats, and even there the planting seemed to have been but recent. I should have said of the same landscape in America, that, within a very few years, it had been entirely burnt over, so complete was the nakedness, and such mere “brush” were the far-between plantations I speak of. The same impression has been made upon me since, in most other parts of Ireland; though, in the southern counties, the very great number and extent of new plantations show an awakened attention to the subject, and promise soon to remedy the deficiency.

But what shall I say of the human habitations in this (so called) most thriving and best-conditioned quarter of Ireland? If I had not seen every second face at a hovel-door with a smile on it, and heard laughing and begging in the same breath everywhere, I should think here were human beings abandoned by their Maker. Many of the dwellings I saw upon the roadside looked to me like the abodes of extinguished hope—forgotten instincts,—grovelling, despairing, nay, almost idiotic wretchedness. I did not know there were such sights in the world. I did not know that men and women, upright, and made in God’s image, could live in styes, like swine, with swine,—sitting, lying down, cooking and eating in such filth as all brute animals, save the one “unclean,” revolt from and avoid. The extraordinary part of it, too, is that it seems almost altogether the result of choice. I scarce saw one hovel, the mud-floor of which was not excavated several inches below the ground-level without; and, as there is no sill, or raised threshold, there is no bar, I will not say to the water, but to the liquid filth that oozes to its lower reservoir within. A few miles from Drogheda, I pointed out to my companions a woman sitting in a hovel at work, with the muddy water up to her ancles, and an enormous hog scratching himself against her knee. These disgusting animals were everywhere walking in and out of the hovels at pleasure, jostling aside the half-naked children, or wallowing in the wash, outside or in—the best-conditioned and most privileged inmates, indeed, of every habitation. All this, of course, is matter of choice, and so is the offal-heap, situated in almost every instance, directly before the door, and draining its putrid mass into the hollow, under the peasant’s table. Yet mirth does live in these places—people do smile on you from these squalid abodes of wretchedness—the rose of health does show itself upon the cheeks of children, whose cradle is a dung-heap, and whose play-fellows are hogs! And of the beings who live thus, courage, wit, and quenchless love of liberty are the undenied and universal characteristics. Truly, that mysterious law of nature by which corruption paints the rose and feeds the fragrant cup of the lily, is not without its similitude! Who shall say what is clean, when the back of the most loathsome of reptiles turns out, on examination, more beautiful than the butterfly? Who shall say what extremes may not meet, when, amid the filth of an Irish hovel, spring, like flowers out of ordure, the graces of a prince in his palace?

The Irish cabin, repulsive as it is, is not unsung. One of the most beautiful women I saw in Ireland, sang for me, with an expression and humour perfectly delightful, the following amusing description, of which I begged a copy, regretting that I could not set down the music as well. It was admirably suited to the words, which I was told, clever as they are, had never found their way into print.

To pass suddenly from the bleak highway, and a row of Irish hovels into a gentleman’s desmesne, following a road which, perhaps, for two or three miles runs through the woods of a highly preserved park, planted, walled, turfed, and laid out with the most expensive care and taste, is, indeed, the change from the desert to the oasis, and one that, in its full force of contrast, can be felt only in Ireland. The surface of the country is so beautifully varied, the rivers are so swift and bright, and the vegetation is kept so green by the constant moisture, that wherever ornament of this kind is attempted, the spot becomes a paradise of natural charms. Ravensdale, which we passed on the road to Drogheda, is one of these.

As we drove into Drogheda we entered a crowd, which I can only describe as suggesting the idea of a miraculous advent of rags. It was market-day, and the streets were so thronged that you could scarce see the pavement, except under the feet of the horses; and the public square was a sea of tatters. Here, and all over Ireland, I could but wonder where and how these rent and frittered habiliments, had gone through the preparatory stages of wear and tear. There were no degrees—nothing above rags to be seen in coat or petticoat, waistcoat or breeches, cloak or shirt. Even the hats and shoes were in rags; not a whole covering, even of the coarsest material, was to be detected on the thousand backs about us: nothing shabby, nothing threadbare, nothing mended, except here and there a hole in a beggar’s coat, stuffed with straw. Who can give me the genealogy of Irish rags? Who took the gloss from these coats, once broadcloth? who wore them? who tore them? who sold them to the Jews? (for, by the way, Irish rags are fine rags, seldom frieze or fustian.) How came the tatters of the entire world, in short, assembled in Ireland? for if, as it would seem, they have all descended from the backs of gentlemen, the entire world must contribute to maintain the supply.

I had been rather surprised at the scarcity of beggars in Belfast; but the beggarry of Drogheda fully came up to the traveller’s descriptions. They were of every possible variety. At the first turn the coach made in the town, we were very near running over a blind man, who knelt in the liquid mud of the gutter, (the calves of his legs quite covered by the pool, and only his heels appearing above,) and held up in his hands the naked and footless stumps of a boy’s legs. The child sat in a wooden box, with his back against the man’s breast, and eat away very unconcernedly at a loaf of bread, while the blind exhibitor turned his face up to the sky, and, waving the stumps slightly from side to side, kept up a vociferation for charity, that was heard above all the turmoil of the market-place. When we stopped to change horses, the entire population, as deep as they could stand, at least with any chance of being heard, held out their hands, and in every conceivable tone and mode of arresting the attention, implored charity. The sight was awful: old age, in shapes so hideous, I should think the most horrible nightmare never had conceived. The rain poured down upon their tangled and uncovered heads; seaming, with its cleansing torrents, faces so hollow, so degraded in expression, and, withal, so clotted with filth and neglect, that they seemed like features of which the very owners had long lost, not only care, but consciousness and remembrance; as if in the horrors of want and idiotcy, they had anticipated the corrupting apathy of the grave, and abandoned everything except the hunger which gnawed them into memory of existence. The feeble blows, and palsied fighting of these hag-like spectres for the pence thrown to them from the coach; and the howling, harsh, and unnatural voices in which they imprecated curses on each other in the fury of the struggle, have left a remembrance in my mind, which deepens immeasurably my fancied nadir of human abandonment and degradation. God’s image so blasted, so defiled, so sunk below the “beasts that perish,” I would not have believed was to be found in the same world with hope.

Yet strangely enough, these desperate beings, snarling and howling like dogs upon each other, tried, upon those from whom they begged, every shape of flattery; and often with a wit, that, though it was like wit from a skeleton, showed still that the nearly extinguished mind had been quick and penetrating; and that amid all this apathy and despair, there was a memory of the springs of human action. I thought I should be able to recal many quick witticisms I had heard at Drogheda and elsewhere; but it is a kind of memory that floats away in the cloud of unimportant events, occurring in so busy a life as travel; and I remember but one—and that more from the hideousness of the speaker, than the excellence of her wit. I thought I had given away all my pence, when this woman, quite the weakest looking and sickliest I had observed, caught my eye. Another dive into my pocket brought forth a sovereign, a shilling, and a penny. “I won’t throuble you for the gowld,” said she watching me as I turned over the pieces in my hand; “I don’t like the colour of it.” I laid my finger on the penny: “Och! that’s too black intirely,” she cried again; “something batwane: now, there’s a dilikit white shillin’, the colour o’yer honors hand, plazes me more!” I was amused with their efforts, often successful, to penetrate and remove, by some apposite suggestion, any hesitation in the giver’s generosity. “I’ll change it for yer honour, and divide it among ’em,” said a cripple to a young man beside me, who had drawn sixpence from his pocket, and held it doubtfully in his hand. The sixpence was thrown into the beggar’s hat, who had well foreseen that the giver would not have the courage to falsify a creditable imputation before strangers. I am sorry to add, that the “division” was but a figure of speech; and the sixpence was clutched with a flourish of the cripple’s crutch, which promised to show fight for the lion’s share.

Drogheda fills an important page in history, and probably has been the scene of more bloodshed than any other town in Ireland. The adherents of the Stuarts occupied its garrison after the death of Charles I., and, as the loyalty of the Irish was, during the protectorate, the chief hope of the exiled heir to the throne, Cromwell saw the necessity of checking it by a decided movement. “He landed at Dublin on the 15th of August, 1650, with 8,000 foot and 4,000 horse; a great quantity of ammunition and a splendid retinue. He remained a fortnight to recruit his forces, and then marched with 10,000 men to Drogheda, which was bravely defended by Sir Arthur Aston; but at length surrendered, in consequence of a proclamation from Cromwell, that quarter should be shown to all who would lay down their arms. The saintly protector kept his word for two days; at the expiration of which time, having disarmed all the garrison, he ordered the whole to be massacred in cold blood; and this inhuman butchery was so faithfully executed by the wretches who obeyed him, that only thirty escaped with their lives, and those thirty were transported to Barbadoes.”

The “Battle of the Boyne” is the chief historical feature of Drogheda, however, and the ground I had travelled over since landing at Belfast, was the track of William’s army on their way to this brilliant victory. I was very content not to have done it in the king’s time, as he was six days marching from Belfast to Drogheda, a distance the coach does in about as many hours. He had the advantage of us in weather, however, for historians laud him for encountering the “dust” in reviewing the troops after his landing. It appears that William had a troublesome crown to wear; and previously to his Irish expedition, had contemplated retiring to Holland, and relinquishing to his queen a sovereignty that was too vexatious for his impatient spirit. He changed his mind, however, and set sail to join his army under Count Schomberg, in June of 1630. The scene of the contest between the two monarchs, James and William, at the “Boyne Water,” is too interesting for the traveller to pass without refreshing his memory with the story. William landed at Carrickfergus, attended by Prince George of Denmark, the young Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Oxford, Scarborough, and Manchester, and other persons of distinction; was met by Duke Schomberg, the Prince of Wirtemberg, Kirk, and other officers; received an address from the northern clergy, presented by Walker, and published his proclamation for the suppression of rapine, violence, and injustice. His military genius prompted him, and the present distracted state of England, together with the formidable preparations of France obliged him to a vigorous prosecution of the war. From Belfast he advanced to Lisburne and Hillsborough. Here he commenced the exercise of his civil authority, by an act highly acceptable to the inhabitants of the northern province. The teachers of dissenting congregations, which abounded in this province, had acted with zeal against the cause of popery and the late king. One of this order had the merit of first encouraging the populace to shut the gates of Derry. Several had patiently endured the hardships of the siege; and in every part of Ulster these ministers had shared deeply in the distresses of war. William now issued his warrant, granting them an annual pension of twelve hundred pounds, to be paid by the collector of customs in the port of Belfast; a pension afterwards inserted in the civil list, and made payable from the exchequer. His forces were ordered to take the field; and when some cautious counsels were suggested by his officers, he rejected them with indignation. “I came not to Ireland,” said he, “to let grass grow under my feet.” At Loughbrickland, his whole army assembled from their different quarters, and were joined by the king and his train. William ordered them to change their encampment, that he might review the regiments on their march to the new ground. The officers imagined, that on a tempestuous and dusty day, he would content himself with a general view from some convenient station; but they saw him dart quickly into the throng, riding eagerly from place to place, examining every regiment distinctly and critically. His soldiers were thus pleased and animated; every man considering himself as under the immediate inspection of his royal leader, who took his quarters in the camp, was the whole day on horseback, at the head of an advanced party, viewing the adjacent country; reconnoitring, or directing the accommodations necessary for his soldiers. When an order was presented to him to be signed for wine for his own table, he passionately exclaimed, that his men should be first provided. “Let them not want,” said he, “I shall drink water.” An army of thirty-six thousand men, thus animated, and excellently appointed, advanced southward, to decide the fate of Ireland; while the fleet coasted slowly in view, to supply them with every necessary, and thus to increase their confidence.

Six days had elapsed from the time of William’s landing, when James received the first intelligence that a prince, who, he confidently believed must be detained in England by faction and discontent, was already on his march to meet him. He committed the guard of Dublin to a militia, under the command of Lutterel, the governor, and marched with six thousand French infantry to join the main body of his army, which, at the approach of the enemy, had retired from Dundalk and Ardee, and now lay near Drogheda, on the banks of the river Boyne. His numbers were about thirty-three thousand. His council of officers reminded him, that the naval armament of France was completed, and the fleet, perhaps, already on the English coast; that Louis had promised, as soon as the squadron attending on William should return, he would send a fleet of frigates into the Irish seas to destroy his transports, that he would be thus fatally detained in Ireland, while Britain was threatened by foreign invasion, and the domestic enemies of the reigning prince concerting an insurrection. In such circumstances, they advised him to wait the event of those designs formed in his favour, not to hazard an engagement against superior numbers; to strengthen his garrisons, to march to the Shannon with his cavalry and a small body of foot, and thus to maintain a defensive war against an enemy, which, in a strange and unfriendly climate, without provisions or succours, must gradually perish by disease and famine. James, on the contrary, contended that to abandon the capital were to confess himself subdued; that his reputation must be irreparably ruined: that the Irish, who judged by appearances, would desert; and what was still of more moment, his friends in England and Scotland must be dispirited, and deterred from their attempts to restore him. He expressed satisfaction, that he had at last the opportunity of one fair battle for the crown. He insisted on maintaining his present post; and from such animated language, his officers concluded that he meant to take a desperate part in the engagement; yet, with an ominous precaution, he dispatched Sir Patrick Prout, one of his commissioners of revenue, to Waterford, to prepare a ship for conveying him to France in case of any misfortune.

William was no stranger to the motions of the French, and the machinations of his enemies. Whatever was the proper conduct for James, it was evidently his interest to bring their contest to an immediate decision. On the last day of June, at the first dawn of morning, his army moved towards the river in three columns. He marched at the head of his advanced guard, which by nine o’clock appeared within two miles of Drogheda. William, observing a hill west of the town, rode to the summit with his principal officers, to take a view of the enemy. On their right was Drogheda, filled with Irish soldiers. Eastward of the town, on the farther banks of the river, their camp extended in two lines, with a morass on the left, difficult to be passed. In their front were the fords of the Boyne, deep and dangerous, with rugged banks, defended by some breast-works, with huts and hedges, convenient to be lined with infantry. On their rear, at some distance, lay the church and village of Donore; three miles further was the pass of Duleek, on which they depended for a retreat. The view of their encampment was intercepted by some hills to the south-west; so that Sgravenmore, one of William’s generals, who counted but forty-six regiments, spoke with contempt of the enemy’s numbers. The king observed, that more might be concealed behind these hills, and many be stationed in the town; “But it is my purpose,” said he, “to be speedily acquainted with their whole strength.”

His army was now marching into camp; when William, anxious to gain a nearer and more distinct view of the enemy, advanced, with some officers, within musket-shot of a ford opposite to a village, called Old-bridge: here he conferred for some time on the methods of passing, and planting his batteries; when riding on still westward, he alighted and sat down to refresh himself on a rising ground. Neither the motions of William nor of his army were unnoticed. Berwick, Tyrconnel, Sarsefield, and some other generals, rode slowly on the opposite banks, viewing the army in their march, and soon discovered the present situation of the king. A party of about forty horse immediately appeared in a ploughed field opposite to the place on which he sat. In their centre they carefully concealed two field-pieces, which they planted unnoticed under cover of a hedge, and retired. William mounted his horse; at that moment the first discharge killed a man and two horses on a line, (at some distance,) with the king; another ball instantly succeeded, grazed on the banks of the river, rose, and slanted on his right shoulder, tearing his coat and flesh. His attendants crowded round him, and appeared in confusion. An universal shout of joy rung through the Irish camp at the news that Orange was no more. It was conveyed rapidly to Dublin; it was wafted to Paris: Louis received it with ecstacy; and the guns of the Bastile proclaimed the meanness of his triumph.

While some squadrons of the enemy’s horse drew down to the river, as if to pursue a flying enemy, William rode through his camp to prevent all alarms or false reports of his danger. On the arrival of his artillery, the batteries were mounted, and the cannonading continued on each side, not without some execution, till the close of evening. Some deserters were received, and gave various accounts of the strength and disposition of the enemy. One, who appeared of some note, spoke so plausibly, and, at the same time, so magnificently of their numbers, that William seemed disconcerted. To Sir Robert Southwell, his secretary of state, who had given him different intelligence, he expressed his suspicion that the enemy was really stronger than he imagined. Southwell communicated the king’s doubts to Cox, his under-secretary, through whose channel the intelligence had been conveyed. Cox, with an acuteness which seems to have laid the foundation of his future fortune, led the deserter through the English camp; and when he had surveyed it, asked to what he computed the amount of William’s forces. The man confidently rated them at more than double their number. The king was thus satisfied that his reports arose from ignorance and presumption. Other deserters made reports more unfavourable to the enemy; and the king was assured, that James, in expectation of a defeat, had already conveyed part of his baggage to Dublin.

About nine at night William called a council of war, not to deliberate, but to receive his orders; and here he declared his resolution of passing the river in front of the enemy. Duke Schomberg, with the caution natural to his years, endeavoured to dissuade him from this hazardous enterprise; and when he could not prevail, insisted that part of the army should be immediately detached to secure the bridge of Slane, about three miles westward of their camp, so as to flank the enemy, and to cut them off from Duleek, the pass through which they might retreat. It is generally imputed to the indifference with which his counsel was received, that this general retired in disgust, and received the order of battle in his tent, declaring that “it was the first ever sent to him.” Nor did James discover more attention to this important pass of Slane. In his council of war, Hamilton recommended that eight regiments might be sent immediately to secure the bridge. James proposed to employ fifty dragoons in this service; the general, in astonishment, bowed, and was silent.

William directed that the river should be passed in three different places; by his right wing, commanded by Count Schomberg, son of the duke, and General Douglas on the west, at some fords discovered near the bridge of Slane; by the centre, commanded by Duke Schomberg, in front of the Irish camp; and by the left wing, led by the king himself, at a ford between the army and the town of Drogheda. At midnight William once more rode through his camp with torches, inspecting every post, and issuing his final orders.

Early on the succeeding morning, Count Schomberg with the cavalry, and Douglas with the infantry, which composed the right wing, marched towards Slane with greater alacrity than the troops sent from the other side to oppose them. They crossed the river without any opposition, except from a regiment of dragoons stationed over night at the ford, of which they killed seventy, before their retreat could be secured. They advanced and found their antagonists drawn up in two lines. They formed, ranging their horse and foot, squadron with battalion, till on the arrival of more infantry they changed their position, drawing the horse to the right, by which they considerably out-flanked the enemy. But they were to force their way through fields, enclosed by deep ditches, difficult to be surmounted, especially by the horse; who, in the face of an enemy, were obliged to advance in order; beyond these lay the morass, still more embarrassing. The infantry were ordered to plunge in, and while the horse found a firm passage to the right, forced their way with fatigue and difficulty. The enemy, astonished at their intrepidity, fled instantly towards Duleek, and were pursued with slaughter.

By the time when it was supposed that the right wing had made good their passage, the infantry in the centre was set in motion. The Dutch guards first entered the river on the right, opposite to Old-bridge. The French Protestants and Enniskilleners, Brandenburghers, and English, at their several passes to the left, plunged in with alacrity, checking the current, and swelling the water, so that it rose in some places to their middle, in others to their breasts, and obliged the infantry to support their arms above their heads. The Dutch had marched unmolested to the middle of the river, when a violent discharge was made from the houses, breast-works, and hedges, but without execution; they moved on, gained the opposite banks, formed gradually, and drove the Irish from their posts. As they still advanced, the squadrons and battalions of the enemy suddenly appeared in view, behind the eminences which had concealed them. Five of these battalions bore down upon those Dutch who had already passed, but were received firmly, and repulsed. The efforts of the Irish horse were equally unsuccessful. Two attacks were bravely repelled, when the French and Enniskilleners arrived to the support of the Dutch, and drove back a third body of horse, with considerable execution.

In the meantime General Hamilton led the Irish infantry to the very margin of the river, to oppose the passage of the French and English. But his men, although stationed in the post of honour at the requisition of their officers, shrunk from the danger. Their cavalry proved more spirited. A squadron of Danes was attacked with such fury and success, that they fled back through the river. The Irish horse pursued, and, on their return, fell furiously on the French Huguenots, who had no pikes to sustain their shock, and were instantly broken. Caillemote, their brave commander, received his mortal wound, and when borne to the English camp, with his last breath animated his countrymen who were passing the river. As he lay bleeding in the arms of four soldiers, he collected strength to exclaim repeatedly, in his own language, “À la gloire, mes enfans! à la gloire!” “To glory, my boys! to glory!” The rapidity of the Irish horse, the flight of the Danes, and the disorder of the French, spread a general alarm; and the want of cavalry struck the minds even of the peasants, who were but spectators of the battle, so forcibly, that a general cry of “Horse! horse!” suddenly raised, was mistaken for an order to “Halt,” surprised and confounded the centre, was conveyed to the right wing, and, for a while, retarded their pursuit. In this moment of disorder, Duke Schomberg, who had waited to support his friends on any dangerous emergency, rushed through the river, and placing himself at the head of the Huguenot forces, who were now deprived of their leader, pointed to some French regiments in their front, and cried, “Allons, messieurs; voilà vos persecuteurs.” “Come on, gentlemen, these are your persecutors.” These were his last words. The Irish horse, who had broken the French Protestants, wheeled through Old-bridge, in order to join their main body, but were here cut down by the Dutch and Enniskilleners. About sixteen of their squadron escaped, and returning furiously from the slaughter of their companions, were mistaken by the Huguenots for some of their own friends, and suffered to pass. They wounded Schomberg in the head, and were hurrying him forward, when his own men fired and slew him. About the same time, Walker, of Londonderry, whose passion for military glory had hurried him unnecessarily into this engagement, received a wound in his belly, and instantly expired.

After an uninterrupted firing of an hour, the disorder on both sides occasioned some respite. The centre of the English army began to recover from their confusion. The Irish retreated towards Donore, where James stood during the engagement, surrounded by his guards; and here, drawing up in good order, once more advanced. William had now crossed the river at the head of Dutch, Danish, and English cavalry, through a dangerous and difficult pass, where his horse floundering in the mud, obliged him to dismount, and accept the assistance of his attendants. And now, when the enemy had advanced almost within musket-shot of his infantry, he was seen with his sword drawn, animating his squadrons, and preparing to fall on their flank. They halted, and again retreated to Donore. But here, facing about vigorously, they charged with such success, that the English cavalry, though led on by their king, were forced from their ground. William, with a collection of thought which accompanies true courage, rode up to the Enniskilleners, and asked, “What they would do for him?” Their officer informed them who he was: they advanced with him, and received the enemy’s fire. But, as he wheeled to the left, they followed by mistake; yet, while William led up some Dutch troops, they perceived their error, and returned bravely to the charge. The battle was now maintained on each side with equal ardour, and with variety of fortune. The king, who mingled in the hottest part of the engagement, was constantly exposed to danger. One of his own troopers mistaking him for an enemy, presented a pistol to his head; William calmly put it by. “What!” said he, “do you not know your friends?” The presence of such a prince gave double vigour to his soldiers. The Irish infantry were finally repulsed. Hamilton made one desperate effort to turn the fortune of the day, at the head of his horse. Their shock was furious, but neither orderly nor steady. They were routed, and their general conveyed a prisoner to William. The king asked him, whether the Irish would fight more. “Upon my honour,” said Hamilton, “I believe they will; for they have yet a good body of horse.” William surveyed the man who had betrayed him in his transactions with Tyrconnel, and in a sullen and contemptuous tone exclaimed, “Honour! your honour!”

Nor was this asseveration of Hamilton well-grounded. The right wing of William’s army had by this time forced their way through difficult grounds, and pursued the enemy close to Dunleek. Langan rode up to James, who still continued at Donore, advising him to retreat immediately, as he was in danger of being surrounded. He marched to Dunleek at the head of Sarsefield’s regiment; his army followed, and poured through the pass, not without some annoyance from a party of English dragoons, which they might easily have cut to pieces, had they not been solely intent on flying. When they reached the open ground, they drew up and cannonaded their pursuers. Their officers ordered all things for a retreat, which they made in such order, as was commended by their enemies. Their loss in this engagement was computed at fifteen hundred; that of William’s army scarcely amounted to one-third of this number.

Here was the final period of James’s Irish loyalty. He arrived at Dublin in great disorder, and damped the joy of his friends, who, at the intelligence of William’s death, every moment expected to receive him in triumph. He assembled the popish magistrates and council of the city; he told them that in England his army had deserted him; in Ireland they had fled in the hour of danger, nor could be persuaded to rally, though their loss was inconsiderable; both he and they must therefore shift for themselves. It had been deliberated, whether, in case of such a misfortune, Dublin should not be set on fire; but on their allegiance he charged them to commit no such barbarous outrage, which must reflect dishonour on him, and irritate the conqueror. He was obliged, he said, to yield to force, but would never cease to labour for their deliverance; too much blood had been already shed; and Providence seemed to declare against him; he therefore advised them to set their prisoners at liberty, and submit to the Prince of Orange, who was merciful. The reflection on the courage of his Irish troops was ungracious, and provoked their officers to retort it on the king. They contended, that in the whole of the engagement their men, though not animated by a princely leader, had taken no inglorious part. They observed, that while William shared the danger of his army, encouraging them by his presence, by his voice, by his example, James stood at a secure distance, a quiet spectator of the contest for his crown and dignity. “Exchange kings,” said they, “and we will once more fight the battle.” Their indignation was increased, when they saw the prince, who inveighed against Irish cowardice, fly precipitately to Waterford, breaking down the bridges to prevent a pursuit, and instantly embark for France. They, who did not impute this conduct to a defect of spirit, at least, complained, that his Irish adherents were shamefully sacrificed to his interests and designs in England. Nor did the officers of William express entire satisfaction at his conduct. They complained, that the enemy were not pursued with sufficient vigour, without weighing the disadvantage sustained by the loss of Duke Schomberg, or the danger of pursuit through a difficult pass, and an unknown country. They contended, that at the very moment of victory, ten thousand men should have been detached to Athlone and Limerick, to seize these important places, and prevent the Irish from re-assembling. But they were strangers to those anxieties which oppressed the king’s mind. He every moment looked for an invasion in England, and expecting to be recalled, deemed it imprudent to divide his army, or to remove to any distance from the coast. Drogheda was summoned; the Irish governor hesitated; but being assured, that if the cannon were brought up no quarter was to be expected, he surrendered on condition that the garrison should be conveyed, unarmed, to Athlone; and William now advanced slowly towards the capital.

While the reader has been refreshing his memory with this warm page of history, we have been refreshing ourselves with a warm dinner at Drogheda—a better dinner, it may as well be recorded, than one usually gets at English inns, and twice the time to eat it. I smiled while at table, at another instance of the national talent for persuasion, and reminded my companions that no service had been rendered us since our landing in the country, unaccompanied with a bit of advice, or an attempt in some way to change our mode of arriving at the object in question. The waiter at Belfast had interfered with my selection of a mutton-chop from the dish, and had run after us from the hotel to change the direction of our walk; and I have already given, (a little out of place, for they occurred after dinner,) instances of the suggestive and persuasive talent of Irish beggars. “No, sir,” said the waiter at Drogheda, when I asked for a bit of a very promising beefsteak, “take the fish, sir, and be that time there’ll be a hot one!” I followed his advice, and after doing excellent trencher-service on the second steak, asked for a glass of brandy-and-water. “The whiskey’s betther, sir,” was the reply, and it was poured out before I had time to give an opinion upon it. So whiskey was my fate, though taste and rheumatism (the latter by advice) were both of contrary mind. You might pass a life in English inns without finding a waiter with an opinion, and two lives without getting advice, or, indeed, anything else not charged in the bill.

We left the rain behind us at Drogheda, and got a fair view of the country, till the night closed in about us, a few miles from Dublin. The cultivation improved, and the seats of the gentry occurred oftener as we approached the capital, though still there was the same dearth of human beings which I had remarked all the way—scarce a soul to be seen out of the streets of the towns for the entire distance. I think two groups of men and women, digging and weighing potatoes in the field, (in both cases, the men weighing and the women digging,) were all the people I observed off the road in a hundred miles’ travel. I remarked the same indolence of attitude everywhere that had struck me in Belfast—the hands uniformly thrust into the pockets or breast, and the shoulder against the wall or the post; the pocket, if by chance the hand were out, gaping with a most expressive fixedness, and the hand dropping into it, when the action was achieved, with the ease of a foot into a slipper. If this national love of ease does not extend to Irish horses it is not for want of temptation. I saw several standing up to their bellies in the bogs, grazing, in great apparent comfort, from the sward just at their breasts, without drawing up a leg oftener than once in fifteen minutes. Grazing in a bog must be very delicate work, however, and from several leaps over mud-fences and stone-walls, which I observed during the day, by very indifferent looking steeds, I should think the Irish horse an animal of rather uncommon judgment and tractableness.

Who ever entered a great city without paying tribute in his heart to the truth of that part of natural history, which asserts, that “man is a gregarious animal?”^[2] What delight, after long travel through the lonely fields and over the bleak hills of the country, to be driven suddenly into the streets of a crowded metropolis, to see the gay shops, the whirling past of splendid equipages, the press of vehicles, the thronging of gay and busy multitudes, and to hear once more, with unaccustomed ears, the stir and murmur of these seas of human life! What heart’s blood does not quicken with sympathy at the spectacle? What heart’s grief is not unseated or charmed to sleep by the grand monotone of human stir and utterance? The entrance to any great city, for the first time, more especially, is to me a thing looked forward to and looked back upon as an era. I am free to confess that I have numbered the Capitals of the world, and those I have not seen are as unopened chambers in my soul—cardinal sensations unfelt—great pleasures still possible while life exists, and so to be hoped and struggled for. Oh! to see Rome again with new eyes—Athens—Constantinople! There is a flood in the feeling with which such events come to pass, which carries the soul off its feet. We forget everything, in the magnitude of the novelty—even, (as the story has it,) “the skeleton under our cloaks.” But I am getting into an essay.

At another time, I made a visit, of more leisure, to Dublin, and I shall defer all description of it till I come to that portion of my journal. Retracing, subsequently, my route from Belfast to Dublin, I followed the artist of this work to Malahide; whose village and castle are much visited, from their vicinity to the capital. Malahide stands in a very secluded spot, upon a creek of the Irish sea, scarce twelve miles from Dublin, and promised at one time, from the commodiousness of its bay, to become the principal sea-port of Ireland. The inlet, on whose margin it is placed, possesses sufficient depth to admit vessels of considerable tonnage, and the islands of Lambay and Ireland’s Eye, check the violence of the storm, and break the fury of a raging sea, thereby affording a safe asylum in waters at all periods but little agitated. “These advantages,” says Wright, “were fully appreciated by our ancestors, and the preference given to the little cove of Malahide excited the keen envy of the corporation of Dublin, who caused a fine to be imposed upon Sir Peter Talbot, of Malahide Castle, for suffering vessels to break bulk at this port, contrary to the king’s grants made to the city of Dublin. No commercial advantage is now derived from the security of the harbour, nor any benefit from its marine position, except that it has encouraged the settlement of a little colony of hardy sailors, engaged in the perilous life of deep-sea fishing; and others who follow the more secure, but less profitable employment, of oyster-dredging. For all their produce they find a convenient market, and an expeditious sale in Dublin.

The lordship of Malahide was granted by Henry II. to an ancestor of the present proprietor, the eldest representative of Sir Geoffrey Talbot, who held Hereford Castle against King Stephen for the Empress Maud. He was contemporary with Sir Armoricus, of Howth, and other bold adventurers, who sought acquisitions by the sword, at a time when disorganisation amongst the inhabitants appears to have left their country an easy prey. Of all the successful chieftains, whose grants were confirmed, and enjoyed by their descendants, the Talbots and St. Lawrences alone continue in possession. Attainder dispossessed some, improvidence impoverished others. The piety of the first Talbot, who settled here, induced him to grant away a portion of his estate, called Mallagh-hide-beg, to the Abbey of St. Mary’s, in Dublin. It may be mentioned, in continuation of the family history, that Thomas Talbot was summoned to parliament in 1372, by the style and title of Lord Talbot de Mallagh-hide, and that in the year 1475, by a grant of Edward IV., in addition to the different manorial rights, and privileges of holding courts leet and baron within his lordship, the Lord of Malahide was created high admiral of the seas, with power to hear and determine upon all offences committed upon the high-seas or elsewhere, by the tenants, vassals, or residents of the manor of Malahide.

In the dark records of 1641, Thomas Talbot is written down an outlaw, for having been a participator in the Irish rebellion; and, in 1653, a lease was granted of the hall of his forefathers, together with five hundred acres of land, for a period of seven years, to Myles Corbet, the regicide, who sustained the weight of his guilt within its walls for several years. The exterior of the castle is venerable, and the principal front displays much grandeur. The date of its foundation is probably coeval with that of the acquisition of the manor; but uniformity is preserved in the front alone, which this brief description professes to illustrate. There a centre of strong masonry, and jealousy pierced with windows, is flanked by two lofty, handsome round towers, finished with a graduated parapet. The entrance is through a low pointed doorway, in the northern front, giving access, by a spiral staircase, to the oak-parlour. This ancient apartment is the most interesting in this spacious and comfortable residence; it is wainscotted with dark oak, highly polished, and divided into small compartments, ornamented with rich carvings of figures, in small life, chiefly scriptural subjects.

During the desecration of this venerable apartment, by the presence of a regicide, we are told the little effigy of the Blessed Virgin, which occupied the panel immediately above the chimney-piece, miraculously disappeared, and in a manner equally unaccountable, returned to its position upon Corbet’s flight from Malahide. A window, whose light is derived through the medium of the stained glass that adorns it, augments the gloomy effects produced by the solemn character of the architectural decorations, and reminds the spectator of the proud spirits of these halls, that have passed away from their earthly grandeur. Other ages find here their illustration in coats-of-mail, vizors, gauntlets, and greaves of ponderous cast, exhibited to the curious. The other state-apartments are spacious, yet comfortable, but have lost much of their interest, by being deprived of all their original furniture and decorations.

The paintings, which adorn the different apartments, are of the highest merit; and the manner of their acquisition confers upon them a deep degree of interest. The portraits of Charles I. and his queen, are by Vandyke; of James II. and his queen, by Sir P. Lely; a fascinating portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth, together with one of her son, the first Duke of Richmond, were the gifts of that celebrated lady to Mrs. Wogan, from whom they have passed, as heir-looms, to the present owner. There is also a half-length of King James’s faithful adherent, Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnel, and portraits of his daughters; all by Sir P. Lely. But the chef-d’œuvre of this collection is an exquisite painting by Albert Durer, intended for an altar-piece, and representing the Nativity, Adoration, and Circumcision, divided, as was his manner, into compartments. Many other works of conspicuous merit are here omitted, not from inclination, but necessity.

Adjoining the castle, and embowered in a thick grove of chestnuts, that, in their leafy honours, cast a melancholy gloom upon the picture, are the roofless ruins of a venerable church, silent, sad, and solitary; its solitude, more striking from the appearance of a low and lonely tomb, standing in the centre of the temple, bearing on its surface the effigy of a female, habited in the costume of two centuries ago. She was the daughter of a Baron Plunkett, of Killeen, and in early life had been betrothed to the young Lord of Galtrim. Upon the day of celebrating the nuptials, and at the delivery of the last words of the solemn contract, the bridegroom was called away from the altar-steps to head his followers, and scatter a gathering of the Irish. Oh, vanity of earthly hopes! in a few short hours he was borne homewards to his widowed bride,

This sepulchre the curious now often visit to contemplate the resting-place of one who had thus the unusual fortune “to be maid, wife, and widow in a single day.” Her fortune afterwards proved less wayward, for she lived to marry, as her third husband, Sir Richard Talbot, of Malahide.

The scenery around the castle is of a tame and sombre kind. The ancient moat is filled up, and transformed into a sloping bank, decorated with shrubs; stately timber everywhere decorates the park, and the sea-view, which the castle commands, is terminated and adorned by the picturesque island of Lambay. This islet rises, with much boldness, from the water, is situated about three miles from the coast, and occupies an area of thirteen hundred and seventy-one acres. The ruins of an old fortress upon it have been repaired, and converted into a sporting-lodge by the proprietor; rabbits and sea-fowl being there very abundant.

The next object of interest visited by the artist, on the east coast north of Dublin, is the “Montpelier of Ireland,”^[3] Ross-trevor. This popular and lovely watering-place is situated on an acclivity, ascending gracefully from the margin of a landlocked bay, and backed by precipitous and lofty mountains; villas, noble mansions, rustic cottages, and every variety of rural dwelling, decorate the lovely scene—a happy combination of mountain, of low-land, of wood and water. The rank of the inhabitants contributes to the neat and comfortable appearance of the place; and the public decorations are in character with the greatness and sublimity of the surrounding landscape. A handsome church and steeple are well placed at the upper extremity of the market-place, strongly relieved on the dark front of the mountain behind.

I noticed here particularly, what I had frequently remarked, the readiness of the Irish smile, even on faces furrowed and pale with misery. A smile is seldom exchanged in England between the rich and poor; but in Ireland you cannot begin to relax your countenance before the beggar in the road, without an instant sympathy in the features of the wretched being imploring your pity. I found my observation of these good-humoured traits of the people unsettling, spite of previous conviction, the opinions I had formed of the blood-thirstiness and cruelty of the Irish character. It is impossible to believe even the evidence of history against so lighthearted and smiling a people. In looking since into many books on the subject of Irish disturbances, rebellions, &c. I was gratified to find an apology for the bloody hue of the country’s history, which, in some degree, justified my impression. Mr. G. C. Lewis, in his clever work, says, “Many people have wondered at the singular and apparently wanton cruelty which characterises the Irish crimes; the killing of children, the cutting out of tongues, the mutilations of ears and noses, the cardings and severe beatings, or the shocking maiming of animals; all these betoken a mind thoroughly reckless about the infliction of pain.

“It is unfortunately far easier to account for this disposition of the Irish peasantry than to remove it. Their indifference to the sufferings of which they are the cause, arises from the consciousness that their conduct will be approved by their own class; that public opinion, so far as they come in contact with it, is in their favour. A man who murders for his own gain, must make up his mind to general execration if he is detected. He must be prepared, (like Bishop and Williams, the murderers of the Italian boy,) to die on the scaffold, in the midst of the yells and curses of the lowest of the populace. But a Whiteboy, who carries into effect the wishes of his own order, who executes a law of opinion, has nothing to fear but the power of a magistrate; he knows that the sharper the pain which he inflicts, the louder and more general will be the approbation of his fellows. Nothing is more common than to see how persons, when acting as members of a body, will throw off those moral restraints by which they are habitually governed in their individual capacity. Not only does this arise from the consciousness of power, (every member of a body, as Thucydides has remarked, thinking himself worth more than a unit,) but also from the anticipation of support from his party, and the absence of the check of general reprobation. Hence we have seen, that aristocracies have, in their collective capacities, perpetrated acts from which individuals among them would have shrunk with horror; hence we see, that in mobs people mutually encourage and urge on one another into excesses which they would never have coolly planned as isolated individuals. That the difference between England and Ireland in the carelessness of human life, arises, not so much from the nature of the people, as from the difference of the circumstances in which they are placed, appears from the fact, that, when in England the opinion of a large body has been in favour of atrocious crimes, atrocious crimes have been committed. Of this, the outrages perpetrated by the Trades’ Unions afford a sufficient proof: the murder of Mr. Ashton, in Cheshire, by two men, who were hired by the Trades’ Union, and received ten pounds for killing him, is equal in atrocity to almost any Irish murder.”

I would fain hope, (though one or two highly educated and intelligent Irishmen have assured me that Mr. Lewis’s view is an incorrect one,) that in this statement lies some apology for Irish murders.

Ross-trevor is the united surnames of two respectable families, whose properties were here united by a marriage of their representatives. On the beach stands a slender and graceful obelisk, erected to the memory of one of the former name, who fell at the attack on Baltimore, the brave General Ross.

On the road from Newry to Ross-trevor, stands the pretty Castle of Narrow-Water, situated most picturesquely among the graceful mountains of Ulster, on the river Newry. The broad surface of the river is here contracted by a protruding rock, on whose surface stands the castle, in a position that enables it to command, in the most entire manner, the only pass to the town of Newry. The date of its foundation is not precisely known, but it was subsequent to the Restoration, and its erection is ascribed to the Duke of Ormonde. When its defensive properties were no longer necessary, it was abandoned to a commercial speculator, who established salt-works within it, and upon their removal, it was occupied for some time as a dog-kennel. This interior desecration has not detracted from the permanent beauty that accompanies its position, nor impaired the majesty of its exterior form. The contraction of the channel rendered this an advantageous place for the establishment of a castle, for the defence of a pass or exaction of toll; and it is supposed, that the founder constructed a causeway of large stones, with an opening for vessels in the centre, directly across the river here. The rocks used in its construction continued to interrupt the navigation for many years back, and engineers were consulted upon the practicability and expense of their removal; but, considering it to be a natural formation, they represented the task as difficult, and returned an estimate in proportion. Accident discovered the true character of the rocky bar, which, in the year 1831, was removed at a trifling expense, and the navigation opened from the sea to Newry.

I left Belfast for Larne, in company with my kinsman, Dr. Wall, of Dublin, on a rainy morning at daylight. Cowering under an umbrella, on an outside car, we felt that the promise for the day’s enjoyment was a poor one; but we had scarce reached the base of Cave Hill, before the clouds broke away, and the chequered light thrown over the landscape through the flying clouds, was more favourable even than clear sunshine to the scenery. The view of Belfast Lough from Cave Hill is exceedingly fine, commanding, besides the whole of the Lough, the greater part of the Down county, and in clear weather, the coast of Scotland. The fine sheet of water lying below the eye, (the Vinderius of Ptolemy,) is called, indiscriminately, the Bay of Carrickfergus and Belfast Lough. It is, (says Curry’s Guide to the County of Antrim, to which I am indebted for much information,) about twelve miles long and five broad, measuring from Groomsport, in Down, to Whitehead, on the Antrim side. The breadth gradually diminishes from the entrance to the embouchure of the river Logan, and the channel, formerly very shallow near that place, has been so deepened by skilful management, as to admit vessels which draw thirteen feet of water, close to the wharfs. There is a deep pool, called Carmoyl or Garmoyle, about one mile from the south shore, opposite Hollywood, where vessels ride at low water, when the bank within twenty yards is completely dry. There are scarcely any rocks in this bay, except one reef on the north side, (which is covered at high water,) called by the Irish the Briggs, i. e. the tombs; but by the Scotch the Clachan, from its resemblance to a village when uncovered at low water. There is a shoal a little south-west of Carrickfergus, over which lies three fathom of water at ebb-tide. The Speedwell, a Scotch ship, in King William’s reign, was the only ship ever known to suffer on it. The Down coast is distinctly seen during the drive to Carrickfergus, and is beautifully diversified with seats and villages; of these the most important are Hollywood and Bangor, whose sites appear peculiarly well chosen. Near the latter town, at a little inlet called Groomsport Bay, the Duke Schomberg first cast anchor. At the entrance are seen the Copeland Isles, so called from a family of that name settled on the coast of Down in the twelfth century; and passing a few miles onward, by a range of fine villas, the town and castle of Carrickfergus are presented in the front field of the view. The latter is a bold and magnificent object, standing upon a reef of rocks projecting into the bay, by which means in this approach its outline is most clearly and strongly defined to the eye of the spectator. The shore near Carrickfergus is said to be particularly adapted to bathing, from its freedom from mud and ooze, and the cottages erected along the shore, are let at high rents during the bathing-season. It was in the Bay of Carrickfergus that Paul Jones appeared in 1778, and, after a bloody engagement, captured the British sloop-of-war, Drake.

The Castle of Carrickfergus forms a most noble projection on the bay, and in every view of the town is a most conspicuous and picturesque object. At common tides three sides of the building are enclosed by water. The greatest height of the rock is at its further extremity, where it is about thirty feet, shelving considerably towards the land; the walls of the castle following exactly its different windings.^[4] Towards the town are two towers, called, from their shape, half-moons, and between these is the only entrance, which is defended by a strait passage, with embrasures for fire-arms. About the centre of this passage was formerly a draw-bridge; a part of the barbican that protected the bridge can still be seen. A dam, west of the castle, is believed to have been originally made to supply the ditch at this entrance with water. Between the half-moons is a strong gate, above which is a machicolation, or aperture for letting fall stones, melted lead or the like, on the assailants. Inside this gate is a portcullis, and an aperture for the like purpose as that just mentioned; the arches and each side of this aperture are of the Gothic kind, and the only ones observed about the building. In the gun-room of these towers are a few pieces of light ordnance. A window in the east tower, inside, is ornamented with round pillars; the columns are five feet high, including base and capital, and five inches and a half in diameter. The centre column seems to be a rude attempt at the Ionic; the flank columns have the leaves of the Corinthian; their bases consist of two toruses. Within the gates is the lower yard, or balium; on the right are the guard-room and a barrack; the latter was built in 1802. Opposite these are large vaults, said to be bomb-proof, over which are a few neat apartments occupied by the officers of the garrison, ordnance-storekeeper, and master-gunner. A little southward are the armourer’s forge, and a furnace for heating shot; near which, on the outer wall of the castle, is a small projecting tower, called the lion’s den.

The tower is divided into five stories; the largest room was formerly in the third story, with semicircular windows. It was called Fergus’s dining-room, and was twenty-five feet ten inches high, forty feet long, and thirty-eight broad. Within the keep was formerly a draw-well, thirty-seven feet deep, the water of which was anciently celebrated for medicinal purposes. This well is now nearly filled up with rubbish.

The following notice of this castle is given in a survey by George Clarkson, in 1567. “The building of the said castle on the south part is three towers, viz., the gate-house tower in the middle thereof, which is the entry at a draw-bridge, over a dry moat; and in said tower is a prison and porter-lodge, and over the same a fair lodging, called the constable’s lodging; and in the courtain between the gate-house and west tower in the corner, being of divers squares, called Cradyfergus, is a fair and comely building, a chapel, and divers houses of office, on the ground, and above the great chamber and the lords’ lodging, all which is now in great decaie as well as the couverture being lead, also in timber and glass, and without help and reparation, it will soon come to utter ruin.”

We enjoyed the delightful view of Carrickfergus Bay, by snatches, during almost the whole of the road from Cave Hill to Larne. It was the first week in February, a time of the year when in America we have almost forgotten the colour of the snow-covered ground, and here were fields of the brightest and tenderest green, cattle grazing, birds singing, every sign of an October morning, indeed, except the leaves on the trees. The wintriest picture of the scene was an occasional bleaching-field, where, in long stripes upon the grass, lay the white linen, resembling the vanishing snow-wreaths in an American thaw. There seemed to me very little difference between summer and winter in Ireland, for in my first visit to the country, in August, I was travelling with the same degree of clothing, and I am sure the winds were as chilly then as now, and the fields no greener.

We came very suddenly upon Larne, and at the same moment that we turned over the edge of the deep glen on which it lies, the sun broke out upon the lovely bay and village below, illuminating the whole scene with a light such as a painter would have chosen. It was, indeed, a delicious picture, and there was something Italian, no less in the soft vapoury light in which it was bathed, than in the position and aspect of the town. Island Magee lay in fine outline across the bay, and on a narrow tongue of land, called the Curraàn, stood the ruins of an old castle, giving a romantic and foreign look to the entire scene. Our car-driver descended too fast for us, though our breakfast was at the foot of the hill, and entering a narrow and old-fashioned street, he deposited us at a small and tidy inn, so like the same thing in Italy, (the street and inn of a small village between Rome and Florence,) that the illusion was difficult to shake off. We ordered our breakfast, and started out for a stroll along the crescent of the little bay, and, hungry as we were, the impression made on us by its spring-like softness and beauty, is among the most agreeable of my Irish recollections. Larne, (says the Guide Book to the Giant’s Causeway,) was anciently called Inver, (which signifies lowly situated.) Its trade was once of some importance, and even yet it is not contemptible. The duties in the year 1810, amounted to £14,000, and there is still occasion to make it the residence of a collector. The chief articles of commerce here are rock-salt and limestone, both of which are exported in very considerable quantities. There is a good deal of cotton-weaving, and a manufacture of sail-cloth, with some other traffic connected with nautical affairs, Larne being the best harbour on this coast, from Belfast Lough to Derry.

The town consists of two divisions, usually called the old and new towns; the old one is built on rather an irregular plan, the latter consists of one long avenue, in which there are several excellent houses. The population amounts to about three thousand souls. There are, besides the parish church, one Methodist meeting-house, three Presbyterian, and one Roman Catholic chapel.

The most interesting historical record, in the vicinity of Larne, is the castle of Olderfleet, before mentioned, standing on the extremity of the peninsula, called the Curraàn,^[5] a sort of natural pier, forming the northern side of the Larne harbour; and completely commanding the strait by which it is entered. In the road from the town to the castle, the ruins of a little chapel, called Clondumales, are passed. The castle is now an insignificant ruin, but the advantage and dignity of its situation can never fail of attracting the visitor. It is supposed to have been erected by one of the Bissetts, a powerful Scotch family, upon whom Henry III. bestowed large possessions in the barony of Glenarm, some of which were forfeited by Hugh Bissett in the reign of Edward II. for rebellion. James M‘Donnell, Lord of Kantyre, asserted his claim to this land in right of the Bissetts, but his son Æneas was content to accept of them on conditions approved of by Elizabeth, viz., that he would not carry arms under any but the kings of England, and would pay an annual tribute of hawks and cattle.

It was on the peninsula of the Curraàn that Edward Brace effected his landing, in 1315, with the expectation of making himself king of Ireland, which vain and foolish ambition caused so much bloodshed through the east of Ireland, and was productive of such dreadful calamities, to the English settlers particularly.

The castle of Olderfleet became important as a defensive fortress against the predatory bands of Scots, who infested the north-eastern coasts, and was generally under the direction of a governor. In 1569, we find Sir Moyses Hill held this office, but in 1598, being thought no longer useful, it was abolished. After changing proprietors several times, the castle was finally granted to Sir Arthur Chichester, in 1610, by James I. At Olderfleet will be found a ferry-boat, which plies regularly between that point and Island Magee, for which passage one penny is demanded; and, having landed, the pedestrian will find two roads, one towards Brown’s Bay, another along the Larne side: let him take the former. Of this island a curious and brief account is to be met with in a private MS. in this county, which mentions that in the reign of Elizabeth it was a complete waste, without any wood, although a fertile soil; and that the queen had granted a lease of it to Savage, a follower of the Earl of Essex. At this time, says the MS., it was inhabited by the Magees, from whom it derives its name.

Not far from the landing-place stands a druidical cromlech. The covering stone, which rests on three supporters, is six feet in length, and of a triangular shape; its inclination is to the rising sun. On the east of Brown’s Bay is a rocking-stone, or giant’s cradle, which was said to acquire a rocking, tremulous motion at the approach of sinners or malefactors: there were many of these over the face of the kingdom, but they are now dislodged in most places, so that the few which remain are most interesting curiosities. They were so ingeniously poised, that the slightest impulse was capable of rocking a mass which the greatest strength was unable to dislodge; nor does there appear to be any contrivance adopted but the circumstance of placing the stone upon its rude pedestal. Until a very late period, Island Magee was the residence of witches, and the theatre of sorcery: in 1711, eight females were tried upon this extraordinary charge in Carrickfergus, and the memory of Fairy Brown is still a cause of terror among the neighbouring peasantry.

The inn parlour at Larne was very clean, and the breakfast excellent. Two books graced the old-fashioned sideboard, of which one was a volume I scarce thought to stumble upon so far from home, a Biography of the Heroes of the American Revolution, printed in Cincinnati, Ohio. I had no time to refresh my memory with it, however, for the day shone bright through the little inn-windows, and our expeditious landlord, who was to drive us himself to Glenarm, had his tandem-car at the door, by the time we had polished our first egg-shell. The car and team were the worst we met with on our excursion, but all deficiencies were made up by the enthusiasm with which we were driven. I never saw a much more damaged grey mare than the wheeler, but she was “persuaded” in a style that would have worked speed into a tortoise. Our Jehu was a merry, pleasure-loving looking boy, with a very big arm, and a most formidable whip, and spite of the dreadful dislocation of the car’s movement, I was in a constant laugh at the tender terms with which he accompanied blows that threatened to break in the poor creature’s ribs at every repetition. Imagine the contrast between tune and accompaniment in a performance like this: “Come up, woman!” (thwack!) “Go along, pet!” (thwack! thwack!) “Whew, sweetheart!” (thwack!) “Hip, old mare!” (thwack! thwack! thwack!) And “da capo” for twelve Irish miles.

The coast from Larne to Glenarm reminded me of the road along the Mediterranean in the south of France. The hills are not so high, nor the road carried so loftily as that over the maritime Alps, but the profiles of the coast of Antrim are bolder and finer, and, indeed, nothing can surpass the beauty of the successive views got at every turn of the road. We rounded a noble promontory into Glenarm, the church-spire first breaking on the view, and the towers of the castle immediately after—the whole apparition of the town and its fine points of picturesque resembling the moving tableaux of theatrical scenery. We lost no time in making for the castle, and, turning out of the street, came directly upon the bridge connected with its lofty and superb barbican. A small mountain-river brawls between the town and the lofty structure which, in feudal days, lodged its master the M‘Donnell, and from the deep water rises directly the stern old wall, with its embrasures and towers, in as high preservation as on the day it was completed. A great part of the walls and ornamental architecture of Glenarm are modern, but all the additions are executed in the finest spirit of antiquity. A more beautiful gem than the castellated structure, nestled between the overhanging sides of this ravine, I never have seen. It has all the charms, beside, of high care and cultivation, the deer park stretching away up the valley, and the green swards and walks within the grounds kept with the nice care which distinguishes the noble demesnes of England. The excellent Guide to Antrim, (which is graced with drawings by the distinguished scholar Petrie,) gives the following information relative to Glenarm and its dependencies.

“The village of Glenarm consists of about two hundred cottages, and appears originally to have been built for the clansmen of the noble family, whose castle stands beyond the river. The castle is a stately, ancient pile, in a commanding position; from our front there is a view of the bay and its enclosing promontories, and from the other a prospect up the wooded glen towards the deer park. The castle is large, and contains some excellent apartments; its exterior presents something of the character of a baronial castle of the fifteenth century. The approach to the castle is by a lofty barbican standing on the northern extremity of the bridge. Passing through this, a long terrace, overhanging the river, and confined on the opposite side by a lofty, embattled curtain-wall, leads through an avenue of ancient lime-trees, to the principal front of the castle, the appearance of which from this approach is very impressive. Lofty towers, terminated with cupolas and gilded vanes occupy the angles of the building; the parapets are crowded with gables, decorated with carved pinnacles, and exhibiting various heraldic ornaments.

The hall is a noble apartment, forty-four feet in length by twenty in breadth and thirty feet high; in the centre of which stands a handsome billiard-table. Across one end passes a gallery, communicating with the bed-chambers, and supported by richly ornamented columns, from the grotesque ornaments of which springs a beautiful grained ceiling.

On the principal floor are several noble apartments; the dining-parlour, forty feet by twenty-four, and the drawing-room, forty-four by twenty-two, are the most spacious: the small drawing-room, library, &c., though of considerably less dimensions, are most commodious apartments. The demesne of Glenarm is very extensive, and beautifully wooded: it has latterly been much improved, and many obstructions to the view removed. There is also an enclosure in the glen, called the Great Deer Park, which is generally supposed to be the most comprehensive park in the kingdom, and the venison fed here the choicest.

The parish church stands near one of the entrances to the demesne, upon the beach, with a small enclosed cemetery around. There are no monuments in the interior.

In the burying-ground, around the church, stand the remains of a cruciformed building, formerly a monastery for Franciscan friars of the third order.

This monastery was founded in 1465, by Robert Bissett, a Scotchman, who was banished his country for aiding in the murder of the Duke of Athol, and was established here by Henry III. The estates were subsequently forfeited by the rebellion of Hugh Bissett, in the reign of Edward II. About this time, John More M‘Donnell, son of John, Lord of the Isles, landed here, and marrying Mary, daughter of Sir John Bissett, claimed the lands called Glenshiesk, that is, the baronies of Carey and Glenarm; and thus it was that the Antrim family became entitled to the Bissett’s property. The barony of Dunluce became the property of the M‘Donnell’s in right of M‘Quillan’s daughter, who married a M‘Donnell, and so the claim of the M‘Donnells to three baronies of the county became perfectly plain. This family was ennobled by the title of Viscount Dunluce, in the person of Sir Randal M‘Sorley M‘Donnell, of Dunluce, June 25th, 1618. The same distinguished personage was two years after raised to the Earldom of Antrim. His son Randal, afterwards Marquis of Antrim was equally remarkable for his abilities and misfortunes. He was treacherously arrested on one occasion by Munro, while entertaining him with hospitality at his castle of Dunluce, and confined in the castle of Carrickfergus, whence he escaped to York, and complained to the queen. Returning to Ireland again with instructions, he was seized once more by the avaricious and treacherous general, and committed to the same castle, from which he a second time effected his escape, and flying into England, by the assistance of the Marquis of Montrose, was commissioned to raise a force in Ireland for his majesty and transport it into Scotland to oppose the Covenanters. The marquis married, first, the widow of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and, secondly, Rose, daughter of Sir Henry O’Neill, of Shane’s Castle, but dying without issue, the title of marquis became extinct, and the earldom devolved on his brother Alexander.

The monastery of Glenarm, though founded by the Bissetts, appears to have been retained by the crown from the time of Edward II., and granted to Alexander M‘Donnell in 1557, in the reign of Queen Mary, at which time he was presented by the lord deputy, the Earl of Sussex, with a gold sword and silver-gilt spurs for his services against the Scots.

The remains of the monastery are very insignificant. Near the eastern end stands a monument, dated 1720, bearing the crest of a hand and dagger, but the inscription is not legible. The tomb-stones all round are ornamented by the arms of each family carved thereon; and from the ages on the slabs, it would appear, that longevity is a gift bestowed upon the innocent inhabitants of Glenarm. The ages on the tombs, some exceeding one hundred years, may, perhaps, prove this to be that blessed portion of “this sainted isle,” where the inhabitants live so long, that they sometimes find a continuance of existence burdensome, in which case their friends are said to convey them to an adjacent country, where the spirit will sooner relax its tenacious hold.

There are some members of the Antrim family buried at Glenarm; but the Abbey of Bona Margery, near Ballycastle, is their place of rest. In the fifteenth century, O’Neill the Great was killed in the camp of Sorley Boy, and his body, being removed to Glenarm, was interred in the Franciscan monastery of that place. Not long after, a friar from Armagh appeared at the monastery, and was admitted to its shelter and hospitality; and when near about to take his leave, he thus addressed the abbot: “Father, I am come from our brothers of Armagh, to beg that you would grant me leave to remove the body of the great O’Neill, who lies buried here, to the grave of his ancestors at Armagh.”

The abbot paused awhile, then answered, “Have you brought hither the corpse of my Lord James, of Cantyre, which was interred amongst the strangers at Armagh?” To which the friar replying, that he had not; “Then,” said the abbot, “while you walk over the grave of my Lord James, of Cantyre, at Armagh, I will trample upon the great O’Neill at Glenarm;” and so, at midnight, dismissed his guest.

The Bay of Glenarm is formed by a deep circular winding of the shore, and is protected on each side by lofty headlands. There is deep water here, and a quay might readily be formed by building upon a natural basaltic pier on the north side of the bay. This would be not only of great advantage here, but of very universal benefit to the shipping in the northern part of the Irish Sea; for, from the tremendous swell, and precipitous shore, the land is unapproachable when the wind blows from the north-east, nor is there a sheltering harbour on this coast from Lough Foyle to Larne. Further, the fishing along the coast is at present so exceedingly precarious, that it does not yield a sufficient return to the poor seaman, who has the hardihood to prosecute it. This would be remedied, to a certain extent, by the erection of a pier in this harbour, where the little skiff might fly for protection when the sea assumed one of those angry perturbations which are so sudden and so frequent on the Antrim coast. At present, for seven months and upwards, the fisherman’s boat is drawn up on the beach, and the inverted hulk secured by a quantity of large stones until the return of the milder season; for as he has no place of retreat in the hurricane, and he dares not approach the shore while it continues, he is obliged to abandon this vocation altogether, and seek another and less perilous mode of subsistence.

We were very glad to be rid of our two miserable jades and the Larne post-car, and, with many a lingering look behind at the romantic castle of Glenarm and its green valley and bright river, we took the new road to Cushendall. If the engineer of the new and capital coast-road of Antrim had worked with a poet and painter at his back, he could not have laid out its course more agreeably to the eye and the imagination. It is constructed with equal skill, taste, and enterprise, cliffs cut through, chasms crossed, water-courses walled and bridged—a roughly-ribbed and jagged coast, in short, traversed by a road as smooth and almost as level as a tennis-court. I have been surprised by the excellence of the roads all over Ireland, but by none so agreeably as this.

With an easy car, a smart little Shetland mare, a silent, but good-natured driver, and a bright sun, we should have been difficult not to have enjoyed our drive from Glenarm to Cushendall. We crossed the outlets of several deep and romantic glens, and observed that there was not one without its waterfall. Over one or two, at the brow of the precipice from which the white torrent took its first leap, we noticed light bridges, and plantations in their neighbourhood, indicating park-scenery on the table-land above. We soon entered upon the curve of the Red Bay, and crossed the entrance of the wild Vale of Glenariff, “called sometimes Glen-aireamp, the valley of numbers, and Glen-aireachaib, the valley of chiefs.” Up this glen is the waterfall with the musical name of Isnaleara, which sends its waters to the sea near the caves of Red Bay. The prospect to the west is terminated by the lofty conical summit of Cruach-a-crue, while that to the north is limited by the extraordinary mountain of Lurgeidan, not unlike the frustum of an enormous cone of considerable altitude, but whose base is disproportionately narrow. Passing the neglected hamlet of Waterford, at the mouth of the Glenariff river, the caves of Red Bay are reached: they are excavations probably formed at some remote period by the inroads of the tide, which is now excluded by the embankment in front, in a species of soft red sand-stone. There are three of tolerable magnitude, one of which is very appropriately converted into a smith’s forge, and affords a very Cyclopean appearance. A second is reported to be the residence of a female, (Nancy Murray, the driver called her,) whose trade is the sale of illicit spirits. The ruined castle of Red Bay towered above us as we passed from a lofty arch cut through the southern extremity of one of the red cliffs, and beneath this is a cave, said once to have been used as a school. The castle was built, it is said, by the Bissetts, from whom the Antrim family derive this barony.

A fine conical mound rose up before us as we approached Cushendall, and a few minutes brought us in sight of this most picturesque little village. I was immediately reminded of Amalfi, in looking down upon it; and, indeed, this whole coast has the peculiar character of that of the Bay of Salerno. The softness of the atmosphere added something no doubt to the resemblance—for I descended Scaracatoja, on my way to Salerno in the same month, and with very much such weather.

We entered the small inn of Cushendall, and found the hostess, a remarkably handsome young woman, reading the Bible. Religion and neatness are inseparable, as every traveller knows; and after a look into the cheerful kitchen and tidy little parlour, I regretted that night had not overtaken us at Cushendall. While our next Jehu was getting ready his car, however, we sat down by the kitchen-fire and lunched upon most exemplary bread and butter, our modest and neatly-dressed landlady attending upon us with a kindness and ease that would have graced the castle of Glenarm. If I were ever in want of romantic scenery and a pleasant retreat from the world, Cushendall would be among the first spots that would occur to my memory. Our horse and car from this inn were the best we saw on our tour to the north, and, with a fine lad for a driver, we whirled away towards the wild mountain-road that lies between Cushendall and Ballycastle. We left the coast for some time, and on reaching it again, came in sight of the magnificent headland of Fair Head, one of the noblest points of this remarkable coast. “The promontory of Fair Head rises perpendicularly to the height of six hundred and thirty-one feet above the level of the sea. On approaching its summit, the tourist will perceive two small lakes, Lough Dhu and Lough-na-Cranagh, and near to its highest point, a curious cave, said to have been a Pict’s house.” The view from this headland is of a most enchanting description—to the west, the whole line of finely variegated limestone and basaltic coast, as far as Bangore Head; the beautiful promontory of Renbaan or Whitehead, majestically presenting its snow-white front to the foaming ocean—the swinging-bridge and bay of Carric-a-rede—beyond this, Sheep Island—and directly in front, the island of Raghery; and to the east, the Scottish coast, &c. as already described.

The promontory of Fairhead is formed of a number of basaltic colossal pillars, many of them of a much larger size than any to be seen at the Causeway; in some instances exceeding two hundred feet in length, and five in breadth; one of them forming a quadrangular prism, thirty-three feet by thirty-six on the sides, and of the gigantic altitude we have just mentioned. It is said to be the largest basaltic pillar yet discovered upon the face of our globe, exceeding in diameter the pedestal that supports the statue of Peter the Great, at Petersburgh, and considerably surpassing in length the shaft of Pompey’s Pillar, at Alexandria. At the foot of this magnificent colonnade is seen an immense mass of rock, similarly formed, like a wide waste of natural ruins, which are by some supposed to have been, in the course of successive ages, tumbled down from their original foundation, by storms or some violent operation of nature. These massive bodies have sometimes withstood the shock of their fall, and often lie in groups and clumps of pillars, resembling many of the varieties of artificial ruins, and forming a very novel and striking landscape—the deep waters of the sea rolling at their base with a full and heavy swell.

Near Fair Head is a singular fissure in the face of the precipice, called Fhir Leith, or the Gray Man’s Path. The entrance to the pass at the top is extremely narrow; and a joint of green-stone, which has fallen across it, forms a sort of natural gate, through which the bold inquirer must descend, and which conducts to a gradually expanding passage leading to the base. There are said to be one or two similar chasms along the summit, which have frequently proved fatal to cattle pasturing upon the headland. These clifts suggest the probability of accidents of a more serious kind, and in the Dublin Penny Journal, (the best conducted and most valuable work of its kind in Great Britain,) I find the following anecdotes relative to accidents in this neighbourhood. “From the Aird Snout, a man, named J. Rane, tumbled down while engaged in searching for fossil-coal, during a severe winter; and, strange to say, was taken up alive, although seriously injured by the fall. Another man, named Adam Morning, when descending a giddy path that leads to the foot of Port-na-Spania, with his wife’s breakfast, who was at the time employed in making kelp, missed his footing, and tumbling headlong, was dashed to atoms ere he reached the bottom. The poor woman witnessed the misfortune from a distance; but supposing, from the kind of coat he wore, that it had been one of the sheep that had been grazing on the headland, she went to examine it, when she found instead, the mangled corpse of her husband.” Another story is told of a poor girl, who, being betrothed to one she loved, in order to furnish herself and her intended husband with some of the little comforts of life, procured employment on the shore, in the manufacture alluded to, with some other persons in the neighbourhood. Port-na-Spania, as will be observed, is completely surrounded by a tremendous precipice from three to four hundred feet high, and is only accessible by a narrow pathway, by far the most difficult and dangerous of any of those nearly perpendicular ascents to be met with along the entire coast. Up this frightful foot-way was this poor girl, in common with all who were engaged in the same manufacture, obliged to climb, heavily laden with a burden of the kelp; and, having gained the steepest point of the peak, was just about to place her foot on the summit, when, in consequence of the load on her shoulders shifting a little to one side, she lost her balance, fell backwards, and ere she reached the bottom, was a lifeless and mangled corpse. To behold women and children toiling up this dreadful ascent, bearing heavy loads, either on their heads or fastened from their necks and shoulders, is really painful, even to the least sensitive, unaccustomed to the sight—and yet the natives themselves appear to think nothing whatever of it.

An anecdote is also related of a man who was in the habit of seating himself on the edge of a cliff which overhung its base, at Poortmoor, to enjoy the beauty of the widely-extended scene. One fine summer morning, however, having gained the height, and taken his accustomed seat, while indulging in the thoughts and feelings which we may suppose the scene likely to inspire, “a change came o’er the spirit of his dream”—the rock upon which he was perched gave way, and, in the twinkling of an eye, bore him on “its rapid wing” to the foot of a precipice, where it sunk several feet into the earth—safely depositing its ambitious bestrider on the shore, at a distance of fully four hundred feet from the towering eminence off which he had made his involuntary aërial descent.

The shore in this neighbourhood is beautifully indented with coves, made partly by the action of the sea, and partly by the wear of the mountain-torrents. One of these forms a beautiful fall, called The Leap, which in rainy seasons is an object of great beauty. Night closed upon us as we entered Ballycastle, and we were happy to find ourselves at another comfortable inn, and within a two-hours’ drive of the Causeway. This little town possesses a very strong interest for the historian and antiquarian, as well as the geologist and traveller. The collieries of Ballycastle have, at different periods, occupied the attention of speculators; and it is confidently believed they will still prove a source of wealth to Ireland. But a more than ordinary interest is attached to them from a discovery made about seventy years ago by the miners employed in the works. Mr. Hamilton, in his Letters on the Antrim Coast, says, that about the year 1770, while the miners were pushing forward an adit towards the bed of coal in an unexplored part of the Ballycastle cliff, they unexpectedly broke through the rock into a narrow passage, so much contracted and choked up with various drippings and deposits on its side and bottom, as to render it impossible for any of the workmen to force through that they might examine it further. Two lads were therefore made to creep in with candles, for the purpose of exploring this subterraneous avenue, they accordingly proceeded for a considerable time, with much labour and difficulty, and at length entered into an extensive labyrinth, diverging into numerous apartments, in the mazes and windings of which they were completely bewildered and lost. After various vain attempts to return, their lights were extinguished, their voices became hoarse and exhausted with frequent shouting; at length, becoming completely fatigued, they sat down together in utter despair. Meanwhile their friends without, alarmed for their safety, used equal exertions to indicate their presence, but in vain; at length, it occurred to one of the subterranean wanderers, that the sound of his hammer against a stone would be better heard than the sound of a human voice, which artifice succeeded in directing their friends to the place where the two young adventurers were seated in despondence, and so ultimately restored them to the light of the sun, after an absence of twelve hours.

Thirty-six chambers were discovered here, all trimmed and dressed by excellent hands; also baskets and mining-instruments, and other demonstrations of the original miner’s knowledge and expertness in the art, equal to that of the present age. No tradition remains in the country of the working of this mine; and the peasantry, who attribute all works of antiquity in this kingdom to the Danes or the giants, in this instance prefer the former. But this conclusion is erroneous, as is very satisfactorily proved by the writer of the above extract. Another argument in favour of the supposition, that these collieries were wrought anciently, is derived from this curious circumstance. Bruce’s Castle, on the Island of Raghery, appears to have been built with lime, which had been burned with sea-coal, some cinders of which may still be detected in the mortar, and bear a strong resemblance to those of Ballycastle coals. Now these coals, in all probability, were brought from Ballycastle; for the English collieries were not then in general use, and this was more than five centuries ago.

About two miles north-west of the town of Ballycastle, on a narrow peninsula, composed of white limestone, which projects its perpendicular front into the sea, are the ruins of the ancient Castle of Kenbaan, or the White Promontory—a name derived from that of the precipitous cliff on which it stands.

At present little remains of this building except a part of the massy walls of the tower or keep, which, from its bold and romantic situation, adds not a little to the beauty of the scenery of this wonderful coast. During summer, it is often frequented by parties, and the scene of many a festive collation; where instead of the grim warder pacing at its gate, are seen inside the portal the “fairest of the fair.”

Tradition states, this building to have been erected by the Irish sept of M‘Hendrie; but as its scanty ruins bear a striking resemblance to those castles reared by the first English settlers on the coast from the Boyne to the Bann, we think its erection may, with greater probability, be ascribed to them, or, if it be an Irish castle, it is at least erected on the plan of those of the adventurers.

Be this as it may, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we find it held by the Scottish clan of M‘Alister, who arrived in Ireland with the M‘Donnells from Cantyre. In 1568, the M‘Alisters entered into a conspiracy against the English quartered in those parts, and in an encounter which took place, two English horsemen were slain; and soon after “Rannel Oge M‘Alister Caraghe,” chief of the M‘Alister, was killed in revenge, by some English soldiers. On this commotion, Captain William Piers, governor of Carrickfergus, and seneschal of the county of Antrim, proceeded with some troops to the Glynns, where he made three of the M‘Alisters prisoners, one of whom he hung in chains; and Alexander, chief of that sept, making his submission about this time, the M‘Alisters sunk beneath the English power. Many of this name are still to be found in the Glynns.

We were up with the lark on the morning that we left Ballycastle for the Causeway, but our attentive host had anticipated us, and our breakfast was smoking before a brilliant turf-fire. Dawn was just creeping into a sky fortunately clear, as we flourished away, Irish fashion, from the inn-door, and broad daylight found us near the far-famed Carrick-a-Rede. The new road runs close to this singular chasm, and we had no difficulties to contend with, but the mud and water with which the wet season had covered the whole country. The “flying-bridge,” as it is called, is removed during the winter, but the scenery of the spot, in other respects, is not susceptible of change, as there is not a tree within sight, and the grass on the summit is as bright in winter as in spring. Carrick-a-Rede signifies the rock in the road, and it is so called because it interrupts the salmon in their passage along the coast. The rock is an insulated crag of rudely prismatic basalt, connected with the main land by a bridge of ropes, thrown across a chasm, sixty feet in breadth and eighty-four in depth. This flying-bridge which is not unlike the connecting-bridge between Holyhead Mountain and the South Stack, is thus formed;—two strong cables, parallel to each other, are fastened to rings inserted in the solid rock, on each side of the chasm, and the narrow interval of the ropes is occupied by a boarded pathway. The danger in crossing is attributable to an irregularity in planting the foot upon the board, which, of course, recoils against the impression too soon, and precipitates the unguarded and courageous venturer into the deep chasm below. Persons accustomed to walk along planks may safely venture over, and the women and boys attached to the fishery, carry great loads across with the utmost contempt of danger, and apparent ease. It should be remarked, that the Island of Carrick-a-Rede is of nearly equal elevation with the main land, three hundred and fifty feet. In the cliffs, near the island, is a very beautiful cave, about thirty feet in height, formed entirely of columnar basalt, of which the bases appear to have been removed, so that the unsupported polygonal columns compose the cave.

The chief use of this insulated rock appears to be that of interrupting the salmon, who annually coast along the shore in search of rivers in which to deposit their spawn. Their passage is generally made close to the shore, so that Carrick-a-Rede is very opportunely situated for projecting the interrupting nets. It will be here inquired, why the fishermen do not spare themselves the trouble of throwing across this very dangerous bridge, and approach the island by water; but this is perfectly impracticable, owing to the extreme perpendicularity of the basaltic cliffs on every side, except in one small bay, which is not accessible but at particular periods. This fishery, and, indeed, all those along the northern coast, are very productive. The only residents in the little cottage on the island are the clerk and fishermen, and they remain only during the summer months. The fishermen are paid, and all the expenses of fishing defrayed, by proportionate allowances of salmon.

About three miles east of the Giant’s Causeway we came in sight of a detached and lofty rock, elevating its head near the centre of a small bay, and crowned with the ruins of the Castle of Dunseverick. This picturesque spot was once the seat of the family of O’Cahan, or as they were commonly called, O’Kane. Mr. M‘Skimmin, the distinguished antiquarian of Carrickfergus, displays great learning in an essay in the Dublin Penny Journal, the object of which is to prove that Dunseverick is the ancient and celebrated Dun Sooarke of Irish history—the seat of successive chieftains and powerful families of the north. It is at present a lonely remnant of a structure, and though traces of the outworks are visible, the “keep” is the only part that is still erect, and this too, from its appearance, will soon be as prostrate as the rest. Immense masses of the rock have been hewn away, evidently for the purpose of rendering the castle as inaccessible as possible. An enormous basaltic rock, south of the entrance, also appears to have been cut of a pyramidal form, and flattened on the top, perhaps as a station for a warder, or for the purpose of placing upon it some engine of defence. That the insulated rock on which the castle is placed, should, from its peculiar strength, have been selected by the early settlers in Ireland as a proper situation for one of their strongholds is not to be wondered at; but of that original fortress, M‘Skimmin remarks, there are no remains. The present ruin, though of great strength, the walls being eleven feet in thickness, is evidently of an age not anterior to the English invasion, and most probably erected by the M‘Quillans, but the annals of the time are silent as to the period of its re-edification.

In all the views between Ballycastle and Dunluce, the Island of Rathlin, (or Rathkerry,) is one of the most conspicuous features, stretching its length along the shore within six miles of the cliffs, and backed by the misty tops of the far-seen Scotch coast. The island is the property of Mr. Gage, who holds it by a lease in perpetuity under the Countess of Antrim. This gentleman is completely lord of the isle, and banishes his subjects to the continent of Ireland for misconduct or repeated offences against his laws. Raghery is about five English miles in length by three and a half in breadth. It contains about two thousand acres, one quarter of which grows corn, &c. There are three town-lands, called Shandra, Alla, and Knockard, upon which the majority of the inhabitants, generally about one thousand, reside. It appears from a late census that its population is not increasing, and varies very little. There are two places of worship here, a Protestant church and a Roman Catholic chapel.

The extreme western end of the island is called Keuramer, and is three hundred and fifty-two feet above the ocean. Formerly distinctions existed between the inhabitants of each end of the island, and the qualifications of each were looked upon as totally dissimilar. This, however, is not quite done away.

Near Ushet, at a place called Doon Point, the disposition of the basaltic columns is very remarkable, some being perpendicular, others horizontal, others carved. The base of this little promontory is a natural pier or mole. Above this is a collection of columns of a curved form, apparently assumed in conformity with the surface on which they rest, and inducing a belief that they were so moulded when in a state of softness; and above both these arrangements, there is a variety of differently disposed columns, partaking of every position in which basalt has been discovered in other places. The form of Raghery Island is that of a right-angle, whose sides or legs are Kenramer and Ushet Points. On the external vertex of the right-angle stands Bruce’s Castle. In the early ages of Irish history, the proximity of Scotland and Ireland invited mutual predatory expeditions, to which it is said the Scotch were more addicted than the Irish. In these occasional partial invasions the island of Raghery was found very useful, both as a depôt and place of retreat. During the civil wars which devastated Scotland, between Robert Bruce and Baliol, the former fled to Raghery for shelter; and fortifying himself in the castle which now bears his name, made a bold and successful resistance to his enemies. The short time which Bruce remained upon the island, may be very fairly assigned as a reason for his not having been the founder or builder of the castle; besides, in all probability, it was the existence of this fortified place or Raghery which induced the exiled king to fly thither for shelter.

After passing Dunseverick Castle, the road turns away from the shore, and makes nearly straight for the Causeway, leaving the promontory of Bangore Head far on the right. We were looking out anxiously for the Causeway; but even when within half a mile of it, the other headlands looked more attractive than the low line of the shore pointed out to us by the driver, and after seeing Fair Head, the whole of this shore might be passed by the undirected traveller, without suspicion of the neighbourhood of wonders equal to those he had left behind. We stopped at the door of a low hut at last, and a very well-dressed and intelligent-looking man made his appearance from the smoke, and offered his services as a guide. From the season in which we travelled, as well as from the early hour at which we arrived, we missed the throngs of beggars, guides, and mineral-sellers of which all travellers complain; but as we started on the path to the Causeway, we saw dark figures rising up in all directions, and radiating to us from a mile around, with every appearance of haste and expectation. The guide led us down a slippery and stony road, cut in the side of the hill which concealed the Causeway from our view, and, rounding the shoulder of it, we descended to a small mound, from which we got our first view of The Causeway. We were at too great a distance to distinguish any peculiarity in the view, except the lines of the basaltic pillars, indistinctly marking the face of the cliff, and I was naturally disappointed with the first glance—but as we descended to the shore, and approached nearer around the bend of the bay, it seemed to me that the ruins of some templed and gigantic city, that had been hurled from the sky, were heaped up before me in a mountain of confused architecture. The Giant’s Causeway, indeed, resembles nothing so much as a mountain of hewn stones—frusta of noble columns, remnants of vast porticoes, cast down from a height into the sea. The upright and regular pillars in the face of the cliff, give you an impression that there is a city overwhelmed and buried behind them, and the disinterred Pompeii itself was not so like as this to the idea I had formed of Pompeii before visiting Italy.

Our guide kept on his way to the vast projecting quay which descends from the base of these mountain façades into the sea. To borrow the very correct language of a clever tourist, “The principal or grand Causeway, consists of an irregular arrangement of many hundred thousands of columns, formed of a dark rock nearly as hard as marble. The greater part of them are of a pentagon figure, but so closely compacted together, that, though the pillars are perfectly distinct, the very water which falls upon them will scarcely penetrate between. There are some of the pillars which have seven, and a few which have eight sides; a few also have four, but only one has been found with three. Not one will be found to correspond exactly with the other, having sides and angles of the same dimensions; while at the same time the sum of the angles of any one of them are found to be equal to four right-angles—the sides of one corresponding exactly to those of the others which lie next to it, although otherwise differing completely in size and form. Each pillar is formed of several distinct joints, closely articulated into each other, the convex end of the one closely fitting into the concave of the next—sometimes the concavity, sometimes the convexity being uppermost. In the entire Causeway it is computed there are from thirty thousand to forty thousand pillars, the tallest measuring about thirty-three feet. Among other wonders, there is also the Giant’s Well, a spring of pure fresh water, forcing its way up between the joints of two of the columns—the Giant’s Chain, the Giant’s Bagpipes, the Giant’s Theatre, and the Giant’s Organ, the latter a beautiful colonnade of pillars, one hundred and twenty feet long, so called from its accurate resemblance to the pipes of an organ.”

The same tourist from whom I have quoted, gives an amusing account of his stumbling upon a legendary explanation of the building of the Causeway. “In lately travelling,” he says, “from Dublin to Belfast, we happened to enjoy as companions, a ‘traveller’ for a Manchester firm, and a rough, ruddy-faced farmer from the black north. The conversation turned on the Causeway. ‘Oh,’ exclaimed the rider, ‘I was there last spring; I just looked at it on my way from Colerain to Ballycastle—never was so disappointed in my life—terrible cold coast, wind from the north-east enough to cut you in two—dreadful hungry place, I assure you, gentlemen, not a morsel to satisfy the cravings of nature, not even a tree to shelter the poor goats that were glad to hide themselves under the precipices. Irishmen should come and see our Giant’s Causeway, the railway! that’s a stupendous work, gentlemen!’

“The wrath of the man of Antrim was roused. ‘You Englishmen,’ said he, ‘are all for the making of money. Why, man alive, if a dacent place that I know about is paved with goold, some of yees would be after getting a pickaxe to pocket the paving-stones. Did’nt ould Fin M‘Coul all as one as make that Causeway for the honour and glory of Ireland? and what’s the use of talking about your dirty bit of a railway. Sure, ar’n’t they going to have one from Dublin to Dunleary? We’ll bate the conceit out of yees by and bye!”

“Mr. Trusselbags adjusted his neckcloth, and, with a knowing wink to me, rejoined; ‘And pray, my good fellow, for what purpose did this Fin M‘Coul make the Causeway? Perhaps you can tell us.’

“ ‘With all my heart. You see, sir, a big Scotch giant, one Benandonner, used to brag that he would lick Fin M‘Coul any day. And he used to go over the Highlands, crowing like a cock on its own dunghill, that all he wanted was a fair field and no favour. So, by my souks, Fin M‘Coul went to the King of Ireland, ould Cormac, may be ye’ve heard of him, (there was no grand-jury presentments in them days,) and he says to his majesty, says he, I want to let Benandonner come over to Ireland without wetting the sole of his shoe, and if I don’t lather him as well as ever he was lathered in his life, it’s not myself that’s in it. So Fin M‘Coul got leave to build the Causeway, and sure he did, all the road clane and nate, to Scotland. And Benandonner came over wid his broadsword and kilt, and right glad he was to get a dacent excuse for laving his own country. He was bate, of coorse, though he stuck up like a Trojan; and then he settled in the place, and became obedient to King Cormac, and got a purty, dacent girl to his wife, and they say the great Earls of Antrim are descended from them.’ ”

A writer in one of the numbers of the Christian Examiner, gives an account of a curious phenomenon observed, while rowing in a boat along the Causeway. “We had now,” he says, “got into the centre of the bay, and could observe the whole bending of the shore from Bangore promontory to Portrush point, and while, as was natural, our eyes were principally directed towards the Causeway, to which we were approaching, and asking concerning this place and that, one of the men said, ‘Look, gentlemen, there are the merry dancers on Portrush Point!’ and on looking in that direction we all observed this most extraordinary phenomenon. Portrush Point, which, a few moments before presented a very unmeaning appearance, and was certainly the least interesting object on the coast, now assumed a most commanding aspect. A lofty mountain arose instead of a long flat—a conical peak like Croagh Patrick, rugged rocks with their serrated points pierced the clouds; and instantly all this vanished, and a beautiful softly-swelling wooded hill presented itself, a lofty embattled castle, a broad belt of full-grown wood, green lawns, and all the decorations of a nobleman’s domain. You might conceive yourself at once transported to Plymouth-harbour, and that you saw Mount Edgecombe before you. And, again, as by talismanic touch, all this disappeared, and on a plain two embattled armies seemed to oppose one another, and dense masses of troops, horse and foot, stood motionless as if in suspense for the battle signal, and now they rushed together, and the opposing battalions closed on each other, and a loose, shapeless cloud rose up, as if it were the mingled dust and smoke ascending from the conflict; and all at once, the whole vision dissolved away, and nothing was seen but the low, uninteresting peninsula of Portrush. I had never before heard of this phenomenon appearing on the coast of Ireland. I had read something like it as occurring in the Straits of Messina, and, on the present occasion, particularly as taken by surprise, my astonishment and delight cannot be expressed. So vivid was the delusion—so strange, so beautiful, so magnificent was the optical representation, that were I in the remotest part of Ireland, and assured that I would see it again, I should, without hesitation, put my foot in the coach, and, at almost any sacrifice of time or trouble, attend to witness it again. The boatmen assured me, it was by no means of frequent occurrence. Some of them declared they never saw it before, and he who was best acquainted with its appearance said, that it required a concurrence of wind, tide, and weather that did not often coincide to produce it.”

Proceeding eastward toward the promontory of Bangore, the traveller comes to the Pleaskin Cliff, commonly said to be the most beautiful promontory in the world. The natural basaltic rock here lies immediately under the surface. About twelve feet from the summit, the rock begins to assume a columnar tendency, and is formed into ranges of rudely columnar basalt, in a vertical position, exhibiting the appearance of a grand gallery, whose columns measure sixty feet in height. This basaltic colonnade rests upon a bed of coarse, black, irregular rock, sixty feet thick, abounding in air-holes. Below this coarse stratum is a second range of pillars, forty-five feet high, more accurately columnar, and nearly as accurately formed as the Causeway itself. The cliff appears as though it had been painted, for effect, in various shades of green, vermillion rock, red-ochre, grey lichens, &c.; its general form so beautiful, its storied pillars, tier over tier, so architecturally graceful—its curious and varied stratifications supporting the columnar ranges; here the dark brown amorphous basalt—there the red-ochre, and below that again the slender but distinct lines of wood-coal; all the edges of its different stratifications tastefully varied, by the hand of vegetable nature, with grasses, ferns, and rock-plants—in the various strata of which it is composed, sublimity and beauty having been blended together in the most extraordinary manner.

West of the Causeway lie one or two very remarkable caves, one of them accessible both by land and sea, the other, the Cave of Dunkerry, accessible by water alone. The entrance to the latter assumes the appearance of a pointed arch, and is remarkably regular. The boatmen are singularly expert in entering these caves. They bring the boat’s head right in front, and, watching the roll of the wave, quickly ship their oars, and float in majestically upon the smooth heave of the sea. The depth of Dunkerry Cave has not been ascertained, for the extremity is so constructed, as to render the management of a boat there impracticable and dangerous. Besides, from the greasy character of the sides of the cave, the hand cannot be serviceable in forwarding or retarding the boat. Along the sides is a bordering of marine plants, above the surface of the water, of considerable breadth. The roof and sides are clad over with green confervæ, which give a very rich and beautiful effect; and not the least curious circumstance connected with a visit to this subterraneous apartment, is the swelling of the water within. It has been frequently observed, that the swell of the sea upon this coast is at all times heavy, and as each successive wave rolls into the cave, the surface rises so slowly and awfully, that a nervous person would be apprehensive of a ceaseless increase in the elevation of the waters until they reached the summit of the cave. Of this, however, there is not the most distant cause of apprehension, the roof being sixty feet above high-water mark. The roaring of the waves in the interior is distinctly heard, but no probable conclusion can be arrived at from this as to the depth. It is said, too, that the inhabitants of some cottages, a mile removed from the shore, have their slumbers frequently interrupted in the winter’s nights by the subterranean sounds of Dunkerry Cave. The entrance is very striking and grand, being twenty-six feet in breadth, and enclosed between two natural walls of dark basalt, and the visitor enjoys a much more perfect view of the natural architecture at the entrance, by sitting in the prow with his face to the stern, as the boat returns.

Of the other cave, an agreeable writer, whom I have before quoted, says, “When the day is fine, and the sun shining in all its lustre, it is truly a grand and interesting sight. The sublime massiveness of the surrounding rocks—the curious stainings and colours of the sides of the roof—the musical cadence of the echoes—the dark mysteriousness of its retiring recesses, contrasted with the brilliancy of all without, and the slow, solemn heave of the translucent water, bearing idly on its surface the purple sea-star, and revealing, fathoms-deep below, multitudinous vegetations, covering its rocky bottom. I do not wonder that mythology had peopled such caverns with naiads, and goddesses, and tritons, nor did I cease to expect that our communicative guide would be able to annex to such a spot as this some legendary lore. At the same time I confess I did not find him in this instance quite fortunate. To be sure, he told us how two bold sea-captains, by name Willoughby and Middleton, not content with witnessing the manifold echoes of a common musket, must needs bring into this cavern a six-pounder, and how, on discharging it, an immense mass of the roof fell in, whereby their lives were placed in imminent peril. He also told us of a piper, who, one day, when the tide was out, wandered into the furthest recesses, no doubt curious to ascertain, in these secret solitudes, the peculiar sound of his romantic instrument. Engaged in the delights of his sweet craft, he wandered on and on, none could tell whither, for he never came out; nor were there ever any tidings of him, save that while the people were at prayers in the church of Ballintoy, and just as the clerk was about giving out the first Psalm, the sound of bagpipes was heard under-ground, and tunes were recognized rising up from beneath, which were rather unsuitable to the solemnity of the place.”

A visit to the Causeway is rather a leg-weary business, and admiration is well known to travellers in Italy to be the most effective of tonics. On emerging from the cave and climbing the cliff once more, we were not sorry to find our car-man ready to take us to Bushmills, a mile distant, where we found a most excellent inn, and breakfasted on salmon, very much to the refreshment of our enthusiasm. The day was bright and summery, and in high good spirits we mounted our car towards noon, and took our way to Dunluce Castle. It was but a mile or two from Bushmills, and before we were well settled in our seats, this finest of ruined castles (I think the most picturesque ruin I ever saw) broke upon us, like an apparition, in the road. Dunluce stands on a perpendicular and insulated rock, the entire surface of which is so completely occupied by the edifice, that the external walls are in continuation with the perpendicular sides of the rock. The walls of the building were never very lofty, but from the great area which they enclosed, contained a considerable number of apartments. One small vaulted room is said to be inhabited by a Bonshee, whose chief occupation is sweeping the floor. This story originates in the fact, that the floor is at all times as clean as if it had just then been swept; but this difficulty can be explained without the introduction of Maw Roi, the fairy, by the fact, that the wind gains admittance through an aperture on a level with the floor, and thus preserves the appearance of cleanliness and freedom from dust, just now described. In the north-eastern end is a small room, actually projecting over the sea, the rocky base having fallen away, and from the door of this apartment there is a giddy view of the sea beneath. The rock on which the castle stands is not surrounded by water, but is united at the bottom of the chasm to the main land by a ledge of rock a little higher than the surface of the ocean. The castle was entered by a bridge formed in the following manner:—two parallel walls, about eight feet asunder, thrown across the chasm, connected the rock with the main land. Upon these planks were laid crosswise for the admission of visitors, and removed immediately after the passage was effected. At present but one of the walls remains, about thirteen inches in thickness, and the only pathway to the castle is along its summit, over the awful rocky chasm. The distance at which the other parallel wall was placed may be perceived by the traces of its adhesion to the opposite rock.

On the main land, close to the castle, a second collection of similar buildings are seen, erected at a later period by one of the Antrim family, in consequence of the giving way of an apartment on the verge of the rock. Beneath the cliff on which the castle stands, is a cave penetrating completely through from the sea to the rocky basin on the land-side of the castle. It may be entered by a small aperture in the south end, and at low water there is a good deal of the flooring uncovered, which consists of large round stones; this form is the consequence of the action of the waves. The sides and roof are of basalt, possessing merely the usual characters; here also is a very remarkable echo when the surface of the water is unruffled.

Though all accurate knowledge of the date of erection, and name of the founder of Dunluce Castle are completely lost, yet the history of its proprietors for the last few centuries is extremely interesting, and affords a very characteristic account of the state of society in the feudal periods of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has been conjectured that De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, originally founded this castle, but the architecture is not of so very ancient a date. In the fifteenth century it was held by the English; at which period it seems to have fallen into the hands of a noble English family, called by Camden, M‘Willis, from whose hands it passed into the possession of the M‘Donalds of the Isles, and to their descendants it belongs to this day.

About the year 1580, Colonel M‘Donald, brother to James, Lord of Cantyre, came into Ireland with a band of men to assist Tyrconnell against the great O’Neill, with whom he was then at war. In passing through the Rout, he was hospitably received and entertained by M‘Quillan, the lord and master of the Rout and Kilconery. At that time there was a war between M‘Quillan and the men of Killiteragh beyond the Bann. On the day when Colonel M‘Donald was taking his departure to proceed on his journey to Tyrconnell, M‘Quillan, who was not equal in war to his savage neighbours, called together his militia, or gallogloghs, to revenge his affronts over the Bann; and M‘Donald, thinking it uncivil not to offer his services that day to M‘Quillan, after being so kindly treated, sent one of his gentlemen with an offer of assistance in the field. M‘Quillan was well pleased with the offer, and declared it to be a perpetual obligation on him and his posterity. So M‘Quillan and the Highlanders went against the enemy; and where there was a cow taken from M‘Quillan’s people before, there were two taken back; after which M‘Quillan and Colonel M‘Donald returned with great prey, and without the loss of a man.

Winter then drawing nigh, M‘Quillan gave Colonel M‘Donald an invitation to stay with him at his castle of Dunluce, advising him to settle there until the spring, and to quarter his men up and down the Rout. This M‘Donald gladly accepted; but in the course of the winter seduced M‘Quillan’s daughter, and privately married her; upon which ground the M‘Donalds afterwards founded their claim to the M‘Quillan’s territories. The men were quartered two and two throughout the Rout; that is to say, one of M‘Quillan’s gallogloghs and a Highlander in every tenant’s house. It so happened that the galloglogh, besides his ordinary mess, was entitled to a noggin of milk as a privilege. This the Highlanders esteemed to be a great affront, and at last one of them asked his landlord, “Why don’t you give me milk as you give the other?” The galloglogh immediately made answer, “Would you, a Highland beggar as you are, compare yourself to me or any of M‘Quillan’s gallogloghs?” The poor tenant, heartily tired of both, said, “Come, gentlemen, I’ll open the door, and you may go and fight it out in the field, and he that has the victory let him take milk and all to himself.” The galloglogh was soon slain in the encounter, after which the Highlander came in and dined heartily. M‘Quillan’s gallogloghs assembled to demand satisfaction; and, in a council which was held, where the conduct of the Scots was debated, their great power, and the disgrace arising from the seduction of M‘Quillan’s daughter, it was agreed that each galloglogh should kill his comrade Highlander by night, and their lord and master with them; but M‘Donald’s wife discovered the plot, and told it to her husband. So the Highlanders fled in the night-time, and in attempting to escape into Scotland, were driven into the Island of Raghery.

In 1642, Dunluce Castle was the scene of a villainous act of treachery. In the month of April of that year, General Munroe made a visit to the Earl of Antrim at this castle, and was received with many expressions of joy, and honoured with splendid entertainments; and further, the earl offered him assistance of men and money to reduce the country to tranquillity. But Munroe, when this was over, seized on the earl’s person, and put the other castles of his lordship into the hands of the Marquis of Argyle’s men. He conveyed the earl to Carrickfergus, and imprisoned him in the castle, but from this he soon effected his escape, and withdrew to England.

There are, of course, numerous traditions connected with Dunluce, but I had not time to inquire them out among the people, and it has been well done by that fruit-gathering traveller, Cesar Otway, whose description of a visit to Dunluce I subjoin.

“It was as fine a morning as ever fell from heaven when we landed at Dunluce, not a cloud in the sky, not a wave on the water; the brown basaltic rock, with the towers of the ancient fortress that capped and covered it—all its grey bastions and pointed gables lay pictured on the incumbent mirror of the ocean; every thing was reposing—every thing so still, that nothing was heard but the flash of our oars and the song of Alick M‘Mullen, to break the silence of the sea. We rowed round this peninsular fortress, and then entered the fine cavern that so curiously perforates the rock, and opens its dark arch to admit our boat. He must, indeed, have a mind cased up in all the common-place of dull existence, who would not while within this cavern and under this fortress, enter into the associations connected with the scene; who could not hold communings with the ‘Genius Soci.’ Fancy I know called up for me the war-boats and the foemen, who, either issued from, or took shelter in this sea-cave. I imagined, as the tide was growling amidst the far recesses, that I heard the moanings of chained captives, and the huge rocks around must be bales of plunder, landed and lodged here, and I took an interest, and supposed myself a sharer in the triumphs of the fortunate, and the helplessness of the captive, while suffering under the misery that bold bad men inflicted in troubled times, when the M‘Quillans of the Rout, and the M‘Donnels of the Glyns, either gained or lost this debateable stronghold. Landing in this cavern, we passed up through its land-side entrance towards the ruin: the day had become exceeding warm, and going forth from the coolness of the cave into the sultry atmosphere, we felt doubly the force of the sun’s power—the sea-birds had retreated to their distant rocks—the goats were panting under the shaded ledges of the cliffs—the rooks and chaughs, with open beaks and drooping wings, were scattered over the downs, from whose surface they arose with a quivering undulating motion; we were all glad for a time to retire to where, under the shade of the projected cliff, a cold, clear spring offered its refreshing waters.

“Reader, surely you cannot be at a loss for a drawing or print of Dunluce Castle; take it now I pray you in hand, and observe with me the narrow wall that connects the ruined fortress with the main land; see how this wall is perforated, and without any support from beneath, how it hangs there, bearing time and tempest, and still needing no power of arch, simply by the power of its own cemented material; the art of man could not make such another self-supported thing, it is about eighteen inches broad, just the path of a man, do not fear to cross it, rest assured it wont tumble with you, it has borne many a better man, so come on, who’s afraid?—‘I really cannot bring myself to venture,’ was the reply of both my companions. ‘Sit ye down then, ye giddy-headed cockneys, and bask your day in the sun, Alick and I will step across and visit the Baushee.’ So, with the greatest ease, we tripped across: Carrick-a-Rede is seventy times more fearful. ‘And now, Mr. M‘Mullen, as you and I have this old place to ourselves, come show me every thing, and tell me all about it.’ ‘With the greatest pleasure in life, sir,’ says Alick, ‘for it gave me joy to see a gentleman like you, hopping like a jackdaw over that bit of a wall; and indeed many a good one comes here like yon, gentleman and lady, who I believe have their skulls full of what they call nerve, instead of sensible steady brains.’ ‘Well, Alick, beyond a doubt this is a fine old place.’ ‘Why then, sir, it’s you that may say that, for many a battle and bloody head was about it in good old fighting times, when fighting and fun were all one in merry Ireland.’ ‘Come then, Alick, tell me some of this fighting fun that the good old happy people you speak of enjoyed here in Dunluce.’ ‘And does it become me to tell your honour of the wars of Dunluce? Why I thought as how with your black coat and spatterdashes, you might be a scholar—besides, as you intend to see the Causeway, and the Cave, and Pleaskin, it may be your honour wont have time to hear all I have to tell you about the M‘Quillans and M‘Donnells, and Surly Boy and Captain Merriman—but, at any rate, I’ll tell you, in short, about the boat-race, whereby this castle was won and lost, when the M‘Quillans and M‘Donnells contended for it in the presence of the King of Scotland, and agreed to leave their right to the issue of a row from Isla to Dunluce—he who first touched the land was to have the castle as his prize; so they started on just such a day as this, wind and wave agreed to sit still and let the oarmen have fair play—and to be sure it was they who rowed for honour and glory as for life, and the M‘Quillans prayed enough for St. Patrick, and the M‘Donnells to Columkill of the Isles, and neither, you may be sure, spared the spirits—for it’s hard to say whether John Highlandman, or Pat of the green hills, is better at that work; but, at any rate, on they came, beautiful and abreast, like two swans cutting, with white bosoms, the green waters; and now it was pull Paddy, and now it was pull Sandy, and none on the shore could tell for their lives which was foremost; but at any rate, the Irish boys shouted enough, and prayed enough for the M‘Quillans; and now, sir, they were within stone’s throw, and now almost within oar’s length, when what do you think my Scotchman did? For never put it past canny Sawney, all the world over, for getting the better of others; and if he fails at fair beating, he’ll not pass by cheating: so it was here. The two chiefs were each at their boat’s bow, and M‘Quillan had his long arm outstretched, and M‘Donnell held his lochabar axe in his hand, and all at once laying his left wrist on the gunwale before him, he slashed at it with his hatchet; severed it at a blow, and while it was spinning out blood, he flung it with all his force against the rock; and do you see where that sea-parrot is now perched, on that bird’s-nest ledge, there the bleeding hand lay, and the red mark is said to be there, though I have never seen it, unto this very day.

Such was the cry of the Scotchmen as they landed, and so it was that even the Irish gave it in favour of the foreigner, who, at the expense of his limb, won the prize, and long and many a day the Scotchmen held it, until he became a good Irishman, and to this hour you may see a bloody hand painted in the middle of Lord Antrim’s coat-of-arms.”

From Dunluce we travelled southward to Coleraine, a remarkably neat and pretty town, and thence by Limavady to Londonderry, a part of Ireland abounding in rural beauty, and wearing more the look of England than any other that I had seen. From the hill by which we descended to Derry, the view was like one of an illuminated city, several large factories, with a bright light streaming from every window, standing opposite to us, and the hill within the walls showing apparently a light in every house. We entered the city over a bridge, built by a townsman of my own, Lemuel Cox, of Boston, United States, another of whose bridges I had crossed at Wexford. This over the Foyle is a wooden structure, one thousand and sixty-two feet in length, and considered here a great curiosity.

Londonderry occupies the sides and summit of a steep promontory, almost peninsulated by a noble sweep of the smooth, deep Foyle, whose waters glide majestically on towards a broad estuary, where they are mingled with the ocean. The old town is included within the walls, and entered by the ancient gates, still entire, while the gradual increase of population and commercial prosperity have occasioned an extension of the city avenues to a distance beyond them. The steepness of the ascent from the water’s edge to the summit of the hill, particularly up the Ship-Quay Street, is so great, as to be nearly impracticable by carriages, or, at all events, to be highly dangerous; and they tell a tale of the respectable inhabitants of this old-fashioned street, that when they visited each other in the winter-season, their passage was accomplished by self-moving sledges; a form turned upside down having once conveyed a group returning from an evening party, in safety and with expedition, to the foot of the hill. The Diamond, so the central square, or market-place, is generally called, is the regulating point from which the other streets emanate; and here the town-hall and reading-rooms are erected. Some of the buildings appropriated to the public business are handsome; all are spacious and convenient. The court-house, a fine elevation in the Grecian style, is after a design by Bowden; the principal front displays much grandeur and beauty, but the lateral entrances and fronts are in a very inferior manner. The old palace, the grammar-school, and lunatic asylum, possess no architectural elegance, but are built after liberal and useful designs. On the apex of the hill of Derry stands the church, which is both parochial and capitular: it is a venerable structure, in the pointed style, with finials and graduated battlements, but, incongruously enough as a cathedral, finished with a tower and spire. Within are preserved standards, and trophies, and other relics of the bravery of their ancestors, and of the memorable defence made by the citizens.

Early in the reign of James I., a considerable part of the province of Ulster was vested in the crown, by the attainder of the Roman Catholic families of distinction, and a colonization of the forfeited estates was then suggested to the king by the lord-treasurer, Salisbury. His majesty, conceiving the city of London to be the best qualified to effect so great an object, on the 28th of January, 1609, permitted an agreement to be entered into, between commissioners for the city, and the lords of the privy council, whereby the towns and liberties of Derry and Coleraine, with the “salmon and eel fisheries of the rivers Bann and Foyle, and all other kind of fishing in the river Foyle, so far as the river floweth, and in the Bann to Lough Neagh, should be in perpetuity to the city;” that the liberties of Londonderry should extend three miles every way; with numerous other privileges and conditions, included in twenty-seven articles of agreement. In 1613, the society of the new plantation of Ulster was incorporated; and from this date Derry has been the property of the city of London.

In the wars of William and James, Derry, from the number of its Protestant inhabitants, was looked on with suspicion by one party, and partiality by the other. Hither the Protestants of the north retreated as to a sanctuary; and the improvident precaution of Lord Tyrconnel, in withdrawing Mountjoy’s regiment from the place, produced the unhappy effect of augmenting the breach between the contending parties. The lord deputy had directed that Lord Antrim’s regiment, consisting wholly of Roman Catholics, men “tall and terrible of aspect,” should immediately take up their quarters here, and overcome the Protestants of the north; but dilatoriness in the execution of his measures, and the advance of the ferocious-looking body being communicated to the citizens, by Philips, of Newtown Limavady, the gates were closed against the advanced guard that had arrived within three hundred yards of the walls.

In the history of the siege of Derry, the particulars of the closing of the gates are thus given. “A letter was dropt at Cumber, in the county of Down, where the Earl of Mount Alexander resided, dated December 3d, 1688, informing that nobleman, that on Sunday, the 9th of that month, the Irish throughout the whole island, in pursuance of an oath which they had taken, were to rise and massacre the Protestants, men, women, and children, and warning him to take particular care of himself, as a captain’s commission would be the reward of the man who would murder him.” There was no name subscribed to this letter, and the bad writing and low style of it, seemed to argue that it was penned by one of the lowest of the natives.

A copy of this letter was sent by William Coningham, Esq., from Belfast, enclosed in one of his own, to George Canning, Esq., of Garvagh, in the county of Londonderry. Mr. Canning, whose father had been cruelly murdered at his own house in that place, on the commencement of the massacre of 1641, sent this letter with the utmost expedition to Alderman Tomkins, in Derry, according to the strict injunctions of Mr. Coningham. A gentleman meeting with this messenger on the way, was informed of the contents of the despatches, and sent the information to George Philips, of Newtown Limavady, on the 6th of December, on which day a part of the Earl of Antrim’s new regiment arrived there on its way to Londonderry. Mr. Philips, then in his ninetieth year, with a promptness to be expected in a veteran highly distinguished through the whole of the preceding civil wars, sent a messenger at midnight to the city, with an account of what had been communicated to him, and to acquaint his friends there what description of guests they were likely to have on the ensuing day. He wrote to them, that instead of six or eight companies of Irish Papists and Scottish Highlanders of the same religion, as had been reported, this regiment consisted of about double the number, attended by a multitude of women and boys.

At an early hour next morning, Mr. Philips sent another messenger to Londonderry, expressing his increased apprehension of the consequences of suffering this regiment to enter the city, and advising the citizens to look to their safety. The messenger, who was charged with the delivery of the letter, told them, that he had left some of the foremost companies within two miles of the town, the rest being on their way.

The Protestant inhabitants were terrified; several of them assembled in groups through the streets. The Apprentice Boys, with a mob of the lower orders along with them, muttered something about shutting the gates; they got some private encouragement to do so at first, but that was soon retracted, and the minds of all the men of weight fluctuated in a miserable doubt of the most prudent course to take. In the meantime two companies of the unwelcome regiment arrived at the waterside, commanded by a lieutenant and an ensign. The officers, leaving their men there, were ferried over, and waited on the deputy-mayor and the sheriffs, with their authority for demanding admission. John Buchannan, the deputy, a man secretly devoted to the interest of James, had no objection to give the regiment the most honourable reception; but Horace Kennedy, one of the sheriffs, had given the Apprentice Boys a secret hint during the preceding night, and they were at hand, prepared to shut the gates against the regiment. While they were in some consultation with each other on the subject, the Irish soldiers, impatient at the delay of their officers, or having, it is thought, some intimation of the nature of the reception intended for them, and a strong desire to frustrate it, crossed the river, and appeared on the landing-place, about three hundred yards from the ferry-gate. The young men of the city observing this, about eight or nine of them, whose names deserve to be preserved in letters of gold, viz., Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Daniel Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Steward, Robert Morrison, Alexander Coningham, Samuel Hunt, with James Spike, John Coningham, William Cairns, Samuel Harvey, and some others who soon joined them, ran to the main-guard, seized the keys, after a slight opposition, came to the ferry-gate, drew up the bridges and locked the gate; Lord Antrim’s soldiers having advanced within sixty yards of it. They ran to secure the other three gates, and having left guards at each of them, assembled in the market-place.

Eleven days King James continued his assaults with repeated mortifications, and withdrew from the camp with peevishness, observing, that an English army would have brought him the town piecemeal in half that time. The protraction of the siege gave birth to enemies not previously thought of,—famine and disease; these had just begun to aid the besieger, when a fleet hove in sight, with troops and provisions, to assist the reformed cause in Ireland. The enemy, taking advantage of the apparent inactivity of the commander, threw a boom across the Foyle, and interrupted the navigation.

The situation of the besieged from this period, became truly deplorable, but the resolution and bravery of its garrison, proved equal to those of the most devoted men that we read of in the history of any nation. Their determination seemed to acquire strength from the increased misery: and, amidst famine and death, one of their governors, Baker, failing from fatigue, they threatened instant destruction to the man who should first advise a surrender. Rosen, who conducted the siege, gave them until the 1st of July to consider; upon which day, finding the garrison still obstinate, he drove a miserable number of Protestants, of all ages and sexes, gathered from the surrounding districts, beneath the walls, who, with true Roman fortitude, and like so many Reguluses, besought their countrymen, on bended knees, and with outstretched arms, to disregard their cries, their tortures, and their deaths, and persevere to defend themselves against the basest and most cruel of enemies. The townsmen now erected gallowses on the walls, and threatened to execute their prisoners, if their wretched countrymen were not suffered to escape; but Rosen persevered, and famine and massacre pursued their cold and devastating way. The Protestant Bishop of Meath now boldly remonstrated with King James, upon the inhuman massacre of the unoffending victims without the walls; to which his majesty coolly replied, “That such severities were usual in foreign service;” but ordered the sufferers to be released.

Time had now almost effected for the enemy what their military skill and courage were unequal to; the flesh of horses, dogs, and vermin now constituted the only sustenance of the besieged, and it was calculated that of this miserable food a supply of a few days was all that could be obtained. In this extremity, Walker’s courage and presence of mind never for an instant deserted him; he harangued his brave companions at the crossways, and in his sacred pastoral character addressed them from the pulpit, imploring them to place a firm reliance upon the Almighty Disposer of events. At this critical moment, Kirk, accompanied by his fleet, reappeared below the town, and manifested a determination to attempt its relief. Two provision-ships, convoyed by the Dartmouth frigate, approached the city, within view of the half-famished garrison that manned the walls, and reached the boom, the eventful spot, under a heavy fire of musketry, and discharge of cannon from the enemy. All eyes were now intent; the arm of the soldier was suspended for a moment from its work of destruction, while he hearkened to the heavy sound of the victualling-ship striking against the boom, the final proclamation of death or victory. She dashed with giant strength against the barrier, and broke it in two; but from the violence of the shock, rebounded and ran upon the river’s bank. The satisfaction of the enemy was displayed by an instantaneous burst of tumultuous joy: they ran with disorder to the shore, prepared to board her, when the vessel, firing a broadside, was extricated by the shock, and floated out nobly into the deep again. During the short interval of these momentous events, the feelings of the besieged can only be compared to the criminal—tried, condemned, reprieved: they underwent the trial, they prepared for their sentence with firmness, and they bore the reprieve with the humility that might be expected to belong to such bravery and resolution.

Upon this happy relief the enemy raised the siege and marched to the southward. Two thousand three hundred of the garrison perished in battle, or by famine, and of the enemy above eight thousand, during a siege of one hundred and five days.

The walls of Derry are in high preservation, and form a most agreeable promenade of, perhaps, a mile in circumference. We walked around them in twenty minutes. There is no street around the interior of the walls, but the houses are in many places backed against them. The view over the Foyle and the country beyond, from that part on which stands the pillar erected to the memory of the heroic clergyman, Walker, is exceedingly fine. Walker’s Pillar is a Doric column, eighty feet in height, and finished with a cupola, surmounted by a statue of the patriot, with his arm outstretched, the base of the column surrounded by the cannon used in the defence of the city. Derry is a clean and handsome town, with a general look of thrift and order. We saw no beggars in the streets, and no signs of the extreme poverty which disfigures the aspect of most towns in Ireland.

The road from Derry to Enniskillen follows the Foyle for a considerable distance, and a most lovely river it is—the deficiency of wood on its shores alone proving an exception to the variety of its beauties. Coasting the northern side of Lough Erne, the traveller arrives at Enniskillen, the chief town of Fermanagh, and the most important in the north-west district of Ireland. The town stands on an elevated island, formed by the branching of the river Erne, in its progress from the upper to the lower lake. Though it cannot boast of high antiquity, (says Fraser, in his excellent Guide Book to Ireland,) it may fairly claim what is of far more immediate importance—a comparatively well-built, well-arranged, and well-governed town, a steady trade, and many respectable inhabitants.

The environs of Enniskillen are very interesting, as well from the naturally rich and broken character of the country, as from its comparative improvement. Two miles from the town, in the entrance to the Lower Lough Erne, stands Devenish Island, the most important of the “three hundred and sixty-five islands,” said to dot the bosom of this lovely lake. Most of the other islets present a green and cheerful picture to the eye, but Devenish, says the author of The Story of a Life, “has a deader, duller, paler look than any other of the islets of the lake.” A writer, in the Dublin Penny Journal demurs to this description, and declares the island to be remarkably fertile, and, of course, cheerful in its aspect. The ruins of a supposed monastery, of an ancient abbey, and the cell of a venerable man, stand near the centre of this lonely isle, while the tall shaft of the ancient pillar-tower raises its grey height “like a mountain of some patient and abiding grief.” Around this place of silence and of ruin, reminiscences of mortality lie scattered, in a way but little grateful to the living; the rude stones that lie upon the graves around, so stained with weather, and time-decayed, and overgrown with rank-weeds, that they are scarcely approachable, and thus their legends are lost. The crypt of the founder stands roofless amidst this scene of decay, and the stone coffin that once enclosed his breast, is firmly buried in the earth beside it. There is a veneration, a religious feeling, or perhaps a superstition, attached to Devenish and its ruined piles. In no country of Europe is more tenderness expressed for the loss of relatives and kindred, or so much posthumous affection manifested in the respect paid to their remains. Perhaps it is imagined that those who flourished at an age nearer to the foundation of Christianity were necessarily more holy, and that the stream is sullied by the length of its course? Whatever be the cause, the veneration for ancient cemeteries, crosses, and ecclesiastical ruins, is unconfined.

The sadness of a funeral procession is so characteristic of this consecrated isle, which melancholy has marked peculiarly her own, that its introduction in the accompanying view does scarcely draw upon the imagination.

The insular position of the cemetery renders the funeral ceremony sometimes insecure. The sorrowing friends, accompanied by those who deplore, in strains both loud and long, the loss sustained by the surviving relative, proceed to some place of embarkation, and thence set sail, in barks of frail materials, for the holy isle. The antiquity of this custom, not only in Ireland but amongst the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews, is indisputable. “The mourners go about the streets,” has an obvious reference to persons analogous to the professional Reeners in Ireland. The Romans had their “præficæ mulieres,” who, “with dishevelled locks,” led on the melancholy parade of death; and Homer frequently alludes to this ceremony in describing the last rites of his most conspicuous heroes:

The funeral oration, or song, was anciently composed by the bard, who dwelt in the hall of the chieftains, and contained, in its elegiac numbers, a catalogue of the virtues of the deceased. “O why did he die, who had so many sons and fair daughters? O why did he die, who was lord of the hill and the dale, and the golden valley?” &c.; such wild effusions formerly, and even now, constitute the verbal portion of the elegiac lamentation, called “The Irish Cry.”

The boats that navigate the smooth surface of Lough Erne, are seldom capable of conveying more than ten or twelve persons, and those that can be procured for hire are much less secure than others. Some twenty years since, a party, too numerous for a vessel of such dimensions and construction, embarked with the remains of one who, in life, had been dear to all around, to pay the last sad honour to his name. The reverend companion of their voyage advised and exhorted to lighten the bark, before they entered on the treacherously smiling surface of the deep, and finding all remonstrances vain, himself leaped out into the shallows and returned to shore. For a few minutes, and a few only, the incautious crew proceeded towards the island, when fate, enveloped in a gust of wind, struck suddenly against the boat, and hurried thirty poor victims into the depths of the lake.

The places of embarkation are the promontory of Portora,^[6] at the foot of the eminence on which the endowed school stands, and Tully Devinish on the south-west side. At this latter point, in an old orchard, is shown a rock of about four tons weight; thrown hither from the island by a famous friar, M‘Comhal, the Friar of Devinish, the same who leaped also from his monastery over to Derry Inch.

A curious relic, called Molais’s Bed, already mentioned, possesses virtues of an unique description, and is a prophetic touchstone of that one’s future fate who has the intrepidity to make the experiment. This is done by reclining in the bed: some are relieved of pains in the back by the merit of the stone; and for those whose figures precisely fit to the dimensions, brighter prospects are reserved. The lid of the saint’s coffin, a stone six feet two inches in length, lies at the eastern end of the lower church, and has hitherto been incorrectly noticed as the shaft of a cross.

Of the monastic remains, that called “The Upper Church” is the most perfect and the most modern, or probably has been re-edified at a later period. The basement story of the tower is grained, and in the ceiling are two apertures, coeval with the building, through which bell-ropes were formerly passed. A small pointed doorway leads to a spiral staircase, by which the battlements of the tower are reached. The masonry, sculpture it might almost be called, is very remarkable. The angles of the architraves being delicately fluted, and finished equally at top as at bottom, produce an effect both light and graceful. At the height of five feet from the floor, and adjoining the entrance to the belfry, is a mural tablet, bearing an inscription in ancient characters. There is a second doorway in the south wall, with an ornamental architrave, above which, in a canopied niche, were the arms of the founder, or of some benefactor to the priory. The stone used in the building of the tower is a beautiful gray limestone, susceptible of a high polish; one of the varieties found in the district adjoining the lake. The nunnery, or lower church, according to the local nomenclator, is of a more ancient date than the priory, and much more dilapidated. The eastern window, still perfect, is rudely executed, and divided into three compartments, with lancet heads, and banded on the inside; and in the southern wall are two circular-headed windows, of later construction, illuminating a baptistry just below them. The length of the church is eighty-six feet, a fact that in a few years more must be gathered exclusively from the records of its fate. The cell or crypt of the titular saint is wholly unroofed; the side-walls and gable indicate the strength of the cement used in their erection; and from the remnants of the stone roof yet visible, the ceiling appears to have been coved and separated by a void from an exterior angular roof, also of stone, in the manner of St. Revier’s kitchen at Glendalough.

The religious institutions on Devinish were originally founded by Lasreau, also denominated St. Molaisse. Although a man of acknowledged piety, and eminent for learning, his biography is but imperfectly known. He was a native of Carberry, near Sligo, and the son of Natfraich. Educated in the celebrated seminary of Clonard, at an early age he withdrew to this island, where he erected a monastery that continued to be famous through many succeeding ages. He was established there previous to the departure of Columbkill from Ireland, in 567; he drew up a rule for his followers, received the visit of St. Aidus of Kildare and other holy men, and was so much esteemed that ecclesiastical writers have supposed, or pretended, that he sat for some time in the see of Clogher. The year of his death is not precisely ascertained; it is assigned by some authors to 563, by others postponed to 570; but the day of his decease, the 12th of September, being well attested, was for many years observed as a festival upon the island. The upper and lower churches possessed the advantage of a bell suspended in each, for many years, but at the suppression it was directed that they should be carried to the cathedral of Armagh. Boats were procured for the purpose, and the bell of the upper church was conveyed safely to shore, and carried to the place of its destination; but the boat in which was Molaisse’s bell sunk, with its consecrated load, to the bottom, and has never since been seen or recovered. If a day can influence a deed, it may have done so in this instance, the 12th of September, St. Molaisse’s festival, having been the date of the singular occurrence. Molaisse was succeeded by Natalis, the son of Ængusius, King of Munster, and we are informed that the monastery was plundered of its wealth by the Danes in the year 962.

The walls of Devenish tower are built of hewn stone; those in the external surface cut into truncated wedges, and some of those used within being neatly hollowed. The mortar has fallen away from the external surface of the walls, but within retains its general tenacity. At a height of twelve feet, above the doorway, there is a window with a pointed head, formed by two flags leaning against each other; and a little higher, but not in the same right line, is a second window exactly square. In the upper story are four windows, (usual in all the others,) corresponding to the cardinal points, and above each a key-stone, ornamented with a human head. A projecting course, resembling a block cornice, is carried along the top, and supports a conical cap, or roof, formed by gradually diminishing courses, terminated by a bell-shaped cap-stone. The inside is smooth, and exactly finished, having projecting rests, either meant to support floors, or occasioned by the gradual decrease in the thickness of the walls as they ascend.

Devinish occupies an area of seventy acres, of rich and productive soil. It sustains black cattle, whose approach is almost facilitated by the intervention of the waters through which they are compelled to swim, and sheep, carried over in flat-bottomed boats. A herdsman and his family constitute the population of this romantic abode, and the little cultivation their necessities require varies the tame character of the surface. Devinish had long been the property of the Rynd family, but by the union of the heiress of their house with the grandfather of Sir Edward Denny, of Kerry, it passed to the present owner, to whom it produces a rent of one hundred and ten pounds per annum.

The road from Enniskillen and Devinish island to Ballyshannon skirts the southern shore of Lough Erne, and by ascending the many hills which rise on the left, the traveller easily commands views of the lake, which more than repay him for his trouble. Ballyshannon is beautifully situated at the outlet of the river Erne into Donegal Bay, the debouchure into the tide-inlet being accomplished over a ledge of rocks sixteen or eighteen feet above the level of the tide. It forms altogether a very beautiful bit of scenery. There is little to arrest the traveller or the antiquarian between this and Sligo, the road crossing the heads of the various small bays which indent the coast, and showing on one side constant views of the sea, and, on the other, the towering mountains of Ben-bulben, Benwesky and their brethren.

Sligo lies low, and appears at first to be situated upon a very broad and deep river, the dam across the Garwogue, (which runs through the town from Loch Gill,) preserving its waters from the reflux of the tide. Sligo has a remarkably fine neighbourhood of hills, which though wild are very picturesque; and dirty as the town is on examination, it forms one excellent feature of the romantic views got from the eminences around.

Sligo Abbey is an object well deserving the notice of the antiquary. It was originally erected by Maurice Fitzgerald, lord-justice, about the year 1252. In 1414 it was destroyed by fire, but very shortly afterwards re-erected in the present style of architecture. It is a picturesque ruin of very large dimensions, divided into several apartments. The first has a beautiful window of carved stone, under which is the altar, also of cut stone. Here are two ancient monuments, one bearing date 1616, and the other belonging to one of the O’Connor kings. The latter is in good preservation, the figures and inscriptions being very legible. At the top is represented our Saviour on the cross, and below this, in separate compartments, are the figures of O’Connor and his wife, kneeling, their hands lifted up in the act of supplication. The steeple or dome is still entire, supported upon a carved arch or cupola, the inside of which is also carved. Adjoining these are three sides of a square of beautifully carved little arches, of about four feet in height, which seem to have been anciently separated from each other, and probably formed cells for confession and penance. Almost all the little pillars are differently ornamented, and one in particular is very unlike the rest, having a human head cut on the inside of the arch. There are several vaults throughout the ruins, containing the remains of skulls, bones, and coffins. The abbey and yard are still used as a burying-place.

Sligo is a busy little place, with a large retail trade, and an export trade larger than any other town in that part of Ireland. “It is,” says Mr. Inglis, “a decidedly improving town. With the exception of two or three months in the year, there is employment for the people; and I did not observe many symptoms in the town of a pauper population. In the general aspect of the population, I perceived an improvement. I saw fewer tatters than I had been accustomed to; and fewer bare feet on market-day, when all wear shoes and stockings who can. I observed also, that a large portion of the men wore clean linen shirts. The poor in Sligo are not increased in numbers by ejectments in the country. This is not the practice of the landlords here. They do not drive for rent or eject; they excuse the arrear, and allow the tenant to quit. This has the appearance, at first sight, of generosity, but it is, in fact, matter of necessity. Exorbitant rents are irrecoverable by driving, or by any other means. How much more rational it would be to lower rents and actually to receive the amount of one’s rent-roll.

“I found at Sligo, a considerable change in the dress and manners of the people. Here, I could not discover any traces of Spanish origin. The women were no longer seen with the hoods of their cloaks thrown over their heads; nor were the men seen with huge top-coats, as in the more south-western parts. The women wore caps and bonnets; and the girls nothing on their heads. There appeared to be much love of dress among all ranks; and among the lower classes, singular discrepancies. A well-dressed woman might be seen carrying in her arms a baby, decked out in muslin, lace, and ribbon, and by her side, a boy running with bare feet and ragged clothes; or a girl with a tattered gown, and without shoes and stockings, might display a fine shawl or a handsome frill.”

We must quote also Mr. Inglis’s account of his visit to Loch Gill, (or Gilly.) “The chief object of attraction in the neighbourhood of Sligo, is Loch Gilly; a lake which is not sufficiently known to enjoy the reputation it deserves. I hired a boat at Sligo, and ascended the river, through a succession of beautiful scenery, to the domain of Hazlewood, the property of Mr. Wynn. This is a very lovely spot; the views of the lake, from a hundred points, are enchanting; and, in the disposition of lawn, wood, and shrubbery, taste and art have taken ample advantage of the gifts of nature. Finer evergreens I never saw in the most southern countries. The laurels and bays—grown into great trees—rivalled, if they did not surpass, those of Woodstock or Curraghmore; and here I again found the arbutus, not, indeed, quite equal in its perfections to the arbutus of Killarney, but not greatly its inferior; and giving to the scenery all that advantage of colouring, which is the boast of Killarney. The timber too, on this domain, is equal to almost any I have seen; and I often found myself pausing before some magnificent ash, oak, elm, or lime, throwing its deep shade across the green amphitheatre, which it seemed to have made for itself.

“But I must not forget Loch Gilly, which indeed it would be difficult to do. The domain of Hazlewood extends over that part of the banks of the river where it widens into the lake, and forms the first promontory. I embarked on the lake on the other side. Loch Gilly is about eight miles long, and from one to two broad, and in the character of beauty, will bear a comparison with any lake in Ireland. Its scenery is not stupendous—scarcely even anywhere bold; but it is ‘beautiful exceedingly.’ Its boundaries are not mountains, but hills of sufficient elevation to form a picturesque and striking outline. The hill-sides, which in some places rise abruptly from the water, and which, in others, slope more gently, are covered to a considerable elevation with wood; and the lake is adorned with twenty-three islands, almost every one of them finely wooded. Here too, as well as on Hazlewood domain, I found that the arbutus is not confined to Killarney. The extent of Loch Gilly is highly favourable to its beauty. The eye embraces at once its whole length and breadth; the whole circumference of its shores; all their varieties and contrasts at once; all its islands. One charm is not lost in the contemplation of another, as in a greater lake: the whole is seen at once and enjoyed. I remained many hours on Loch Gilly, rowing here and there, or not moving at all; landing on its islands, two of which—Church Island and Cottage Island—are full of beauty; putting ashore in little coves and inlets; and visiting a holy well, two or three hundred yards from the banks, where I saw eleven devotees, four of whom went from station to station on their knees. I also visited a house of public resort near the lake, which the citizens of Sligo frequent on Sundays; and tasted their favourite beverage, called scolteen; composed of the following elegant ingredients—whiskey, eggs, sugar, butter, carawayseeds, and beer.”

The only point of picturesque attraction between Sligo and Ballina, is the small town of Balisedare, four miles on the road. A very fine stream dashes in rapids past the town, and a narrow and beautiful bay here indents the shore just at their outlet. The remainder of the road is only interesting for its fine sea-views. The town of Ballina is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Moy, which runs through the centre of the town, separating the counties of Mayo and Sligo. The town nearly forms the head of the estuary, which puts in from Killala Bay. The part of the town on the Sligo bank of the river is called Aeduaree, but generally is included under Ballina. From the excellent fishing the Moy affords, and its proximity to Loch Conn, Ballina is the resort of many anglers during the summer-season. The Moy is said to be second only to the Bann for its salmon; and, by an anecdote told in the Dublin Penny Journal, its amphibious productions are yet more remarkable. “Not a hundred years ago,” the narrator goes on to say, “there lived on the banks of the noble river, above named, a person, who, though neither a very well educated man or profound naturalist, was, what is perhaps of more consequence in the eyes of the world, a wealthy farmer, and a justice of the peace for one of the neighbouring counties. It happened that his worship, who was in the frequent habit of visiting his numerous farms on this beautiful river, was obliged to cross a small stream in its vicinity, and, although on horseback, he was apprehensive of wetting a portion of his dress, out of which he took no small pride, and which he denominated his ‘yalla-gaiters.’ He therefore divested himself of those useful and ornamental appendages, and, placing them across the shoulder of his horse, pursued his way; and, after some time, arrived at the town of Ballina. Here, to his great horror, he discovered that he had dropped his ‘yalla-gaiters,’ and was pondering on the propriety of returning immediately in search of them, when his magisterial attention was attracted by a crowd of gaping rustics assembled round the caravan of an itinerant Polito, on which were depicted, in glowing colours, the various animals contained within. The magistrate forced his way into the crowd, and got in front of the caravan just as the showman, who had been delivering to the by-standers a long catalogue of attractions, summed all up by announcing a pair of fine alligators found on the banks of the Nile. ‘Yalla-gaiters,’ roared the magistrate, springing from his horse, and seizing the astonished showman by the collar, ‘you rascal, them is my yalla-gaiters; give them up to me this minute, or if you don’t I’ll cram you into jail, for I’m a magistrate.’ ‘Your alligators,’ says the astonished and affrighted showman, ‘why them there alligators were found on the banks of the Nile.’ ‘Found on the banks of the devil,’ said the magistrate, ‘none of your tricks upon me, you rascal: I say they were found on the banks of the Moy, and they are my yalla-gaiters.’ All the protestations of the poor showman as to his innocence would probably have been vain, had not a friend of the worthy justice, who happened to pass at the time, and who was better skilled in natural history, explained to him his mistake, on which he slipped a crown into the hand of the terrified showman, and desired him to say nothing about the matter.”

By a drive toward Killala, upon the old road leading from Ballina to that place, the traveller finds, at a few miles distance, the ruins of Roserk Abbey, romantically situated among the waving hills which stretch for several miles below Ballina, on the river Moy. Two miles further on lie the better preserved ruins of the once magnificent Abbey of Moyne, erected in 1461. Even these, however, are fast “toppling to their fall.” The abbey of Moyne lies in a sequestered pastoral district on the banks of the Bay of Killala, and the convent was watered by a small rill, which, dipping into the granular limestone, rises again under the abbey. The more prominent associations with the country between Ballina and Killala, are those connected with the famous expedition of the French, under General Humbert, in the Irish rebellion. Humbert landed at Killala, “with a thousand and thirty private soldiers and seventy officers, from three frigates, two of fifty-four, and one of thirty-eight guns, which had sailed from Rochelle on the 4th of the same month, with design to invade the county of Donegal, in which they were frustrated by contrary winds. The garrison of Killala, consisting of only fifty men, (of whom thirty were yeomen, the rest fencible soldiers of the Prince of Wales’s regiment,) after a vain attempt to oppose the entrance of the French vanguard, fled with precipitation, leaving two of their number dead and their two officers prisoners, together with nineteen privates. To compensate, as far as possible by the vigour of his operations, for the smallness of his numbers, seems to have been an object with the French general. He sent, on the next morning, toward Ballina, a detachment, which, retreating from some picquet guards or reconnoitring parties of loyalists, led them to a bridge, under which lay concealed a serjeant’s guard of French soldiers. By a volley from these, a clergyman who had volunteered on the occasion, and two carabineers were wounded, the first mortally. This clergyman was the Rev. George Fortescue, rector of Ballina. The French, advancing to this town, took possession of it in the night; the garrison retreating to Foxford, leaving one prisoner, a yeoman, in the hands of the enemy.” From Ballina, Humbert pushed on to Castlebar, where he obtained a victory over the royalist troops, but he was arrested in his further progress by Lord Cornwallis, who, in a battle at Ballinamuck, completely destroyed or took prisoners the whole French force. The battle of Killala, which took place soon after, is thus described by one of the historians of the rebellion, who adds to it some curious traits of the French army and officers.

“On the 23d of September, thirty-two days after the landing of the French army, and fifteen after its capture at Ballinamuck, a large body of troops arrived at Killala, under the command of Major-General Trench, who would have been a day or two later in his arrival, if he had not been hastened by a message from the Bishop of Killala, concerning the extreme danger of his family, and the rest of the loyalists in that town. The peaceful inhabitants of Killala were now to be spectators of a scene which they had never expected to behold—a battle—a fight, which no person who has seen it once, and possesses the feelings of a human creature, would choose to witness a second time. A troop of fugitives in full race from Ballina, women and children tumbling over one another to get into the castle, or into any house in the town where they might hope for a momentary shelter, continued for a painful length of time to give notice of the approach of an army.

“The rebels quitted their camp to occupy the rising ground close by the town, on the road to Ballina, posting themselves under the low stone walls on each side, in such a manner as enabled them with great advantage to take aim at the king’s troops. They had a strong guard also on the other side of the town, toward Foxford, having probably received intelligence, which was true, that General Trench had divided his forces at Crosmalina, and sent one part of them, by a detour of three miles, to intercept the fugitives that might take that course in their flight. This last detachment consisted chiefly of the Kerry militia, under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Crosbie and Maurice Fitzgerald, the Knight of Kerry; their colonel, the Earl of Glandore, attending the general. It is a circumstance which ought never to be forgotten by the loyalists of Killala, that the Kerry militia were so wrought upon by the exhortations of these two spirited officers, to lose no time to come to the relief of their perishing friends, that they appeared on the south side of the town at the same instant with their fellows on the opposite side, though they had a league more of road to perform.

“The two divisions of the royal army were supposed to make up about twelve hundred men, and they had five pieces of cannon. The number of the rebels could not be ascertained. Many ran away before the engagement, while a very considerable number flocked into the town in the very heat of it, passing under the castle windows in view of the French officers on horseback, running upon death with as little appearance of reflection or concern, as if they were hastening to a show. About four hundred of these misguided men fell in the battle and immediately after it; whence it may be conjectured that their entire number scarcely exceeded eight or nine hundred.” To account for so great a slaughter, we are to observe from the same excellent narrative from which I have already transcribed, that they met with death on every side where they attempted to escape; for, when driven from their post outside the town by a flanking fire of the soldiery, they fled in all directions, they were furiously pursued by the Roxburgh cavalry, who slaughtered many in the streets, and were either intercepted at the other end of the town by the Kerry militia, or directed their flight to the shore, where also “the fugitives were swept away by scores, a cannon being placed on the opposite side of the bay, which did great execution.”

The pursuit of the cavalry into the town “was not agreeable to military practice, according to which it is usual to commit the assault of a town to the infantry; but here the general wisely reversed the mode, in order to prevent the rebels, by a rapid pursuit, from taking shelter in the houses of the towns-folk, a circumstance which was likely to provoke indiscriminate slaughter and pillage. The measure was attended with the desired success. A considerable number were cut down in the streets, and of the remainder but a few were able to escape into the houses. Some of the defeated rebels, however, did force their way into houses, and by consequence brought mischief upon the innocent inhabitants, without benefit to themselves. The first house, after passing the bishop’s, is that of Mr. William Kirkwood; its situation exposed it on this occasion to peculiar danger, as it fronts the main street, which was raked entirely by a line of fire. A flying rebel had burst through the door, followed by six or seven soldiers; they poured a volley of musketry after him, which proved fatal to Mr. Andrew Kirkwood; a most loyal and respectable citizen, while he was rejoicing at the victory, and in the very act of shouting out ‘God save the king!’ In spite of the exertions of the general and his officers, the town exhibited all the marks of a place taken by storm. Some houses were perforated like a riddle: most of them had their doors and windows destroyed; the trembling inhabitants scarcely escaping with life, by lying prostrate on the floor. Nor was it till the close of next day that their ears were relieved from the horrid sound of muskets discharged every minute at flying and powerless rebels. The plague of war so often visits the world, that we are apt to listen to any description of it with the indifference of satiety; it is the actual inspection only that shows the monster in its proper and full deformity.”

Intelligence, activity, temperance, and patience, to a surprising degree, appeared to be combined in the soldiery that came over with Humbert, together with the exactest obedience to discipline. Yet, if you except the grenadiers, they had nothing to catch the eye. Their stature for the most part was low, their complexion pale and sallow, their clothes much the worse for wear: to a superficial observer they would have appeared incapable of enduring any hardship. These were the men, however, of whom it was presently observed, that they could be well content to live on bread or potatoes, to drink water, to make the stones of the street their bed, and to sleep in their clothes, with no covering but the canopy of heaven. One half of their number had served in Italy under Buonaparte; the rest were of the army of the Rhine, where they had suffered distresses that well accounted for their thin persons and wan looks. Several of them declared, with all the marks of sincerity, that at the siege of Mentz, during the preceding winter, they had for a long time slept on the ground in holes made four feet deep under the snow. And an officer, pointing to his leather small-clothes, assured the bishop that he had not taken them off for a twelvemonth.

Humbert, the leader of this singular body of men, was himself as extraordinary a personage as any in his army. Of a good height and shape, in the full vigour of life, prompt to decide, quick in execution, apparently master of his art, you could not refuse him the praise of a good officer, while his physiognomy forbade you to like him as a man. His eye, which was small and sleepy, (the effect, probably, of much watching,) cast a sidelong glance of insidiousness, and even of cruelty: it was the eye of a cat preparing to spring upon her prey. His education and manners were indicative of a person sprung from the lower orders of society, though he knew how (as most of his countrymen can do) to assume, where it was convenient, the deportment of a gentleman. For learning, he had scarcely enough to enable him to write his name. His passions were furious, and all his behaviour seemed marked with the characters of roughness and violence. A narrower observation of him, however, served to discover that much of this roughness was the result of art, being assumed with the view of extorting by terror a ready compliance with his commands. Of this truth the bishop himself was one of the first who had occasion to be made sensible, as has been already related.

The officer left by Humbert at Killala, in command, Lieutenant-colonel Charost, had attained to the age of five-and-forty. He was born in Paris, the son (as the writer was told) of a watch-maker in that city, who sent him over early to some connexions in St. Domingo, where he was fortunate enough to marry a wife with a plantation for her dowry, which yielded him, before the troubles, an income of two thousand pounds sterling per annum. By the unhappy war, which still desolates that island, he lost everything, even to his wife, and his only child, a daughter; they were taken on their passage to France, and sent away to Jamaica. His eyes would fill when he told the family that he had not seen these dear relatives for six years past, nor even had tidings of them for the last three years. On his return to France, he had embraced the military life, and had risen, by due degrees, to the rank which he now filled. He had a plain, good understanding. He seemed careless or doubtful of revealed religion, but said that he believed in God: was inclined to think there must be a future state, and was very sure that while he lived in this world, it was his duty to do all the good he could to his fellow-creatures. Yet what he did not exhibit in his own conduct, he appeared to respect in others; for he took care that no noise nor disturbance should be made in the castle on Sundays, while the family and many Protestants from the town were assembled in the library at their devotions.

Bondet, the next in rank to the commandant, was a captain of foot, a native of Normandy, twenty-eight years of age. His father, he said, was still living, though sixty-seven years old when he was born. His height was six feet two inches. In person, complexion, and gravity he was no inadequate representation of the Knight of La Mancha, whose example he followed, in a recital of his own prowess and wonderful exploits, delivered in a measured language, and an imposing seriousness of aspect. The writer ascribes to him vanity, pride, and an irascible temper; but believed him to have more than an ordinary share of feeling; and that his integrity and courage appeared unquestionable; and says, “on the whole, when we became familiar to his failings, we saw reason every day to respect his virtues.”

Another French officer described by this writer was Ponson, only five feet and a half in stature, but actuated by an unremitted flow of animal spirits, and incessantly noisy. “He was hardy, and patient to admiration of labour and want of rest. A continued watching of five days and nights together, when the rebels were growing desperate for prey and mischief, did not appear to sink his spirits in the smallest degree. He was strictly honest, and could not bear the want of this quality in others; so that his patience was pretty well tried by his Irish allies;” but he expressed a contempt of the forms of religion, to an excess which is justly ascribed to “vanity, the miserable affectation of appearing to be more wicked than he really was.” A fifth officer, named True, is described as a man of brutal behaviour, and of an appearance corresponding to his character; a front of brass, an incessant fraudful smile, manners altogether vulgar, and in his dress and person a neglect of cleanliness even beyond the affected negligence of republicans.

The characters of these officers may be little interesting to some readers, but they were far from being matters of no concern to the inhabitants of Killala and its neighbourhood. If they had all been of the same description as True, or even if they had not been men of active humanity, the county of Mayo might have exhibited scenes of massacre similar to those of the county of Wexford; since without their exertions the Protestants would have been imprisoned by the rebels as hostages, on whom the deaths of their associates, taken prisoners and hanged by the king’s army, should be retaliated. Highly indeed to the honour of the French forces in general, the ingenious narrator of the transactions at Killala, gives the following testimony with respect to the behaviour of Humbert’s army. “And here it would be an act of great injustice to the excellent discipline constantly maintained by these invaders, while they remained in our town, not to remark, that with every temptation to plunder, which the time and the number of valuable articles within their reach, presented to them in the bishop’s palace, from a sideboard of plate and glasses, a hall filled with hats, whips, and great-coats, as well of the guests as of the family, not a single particular of private property was found to have been carried away, when the owners, after the first fright was over, came to look for their effects, which was not for a day or two after the landing. Immediately upon entering the dining-room, a French officer had called for the bishop’s butler, and gathering up the spoons and glasses, had desired him to take them to his pantry. Beside the entire use of other apartments, during the stay of the French in Killala, the attic story, containing a library and three bed-chambers, continued sacred to the bishop and his family. And so scrupulous was the delicacy of the French not to disturb the female part of the house, that not one of them was ever seen to go higher than the middle floor, except on the evening of their success at Castlebar, when two officers begged leave just to carry to the family the news of the battle, and seemed a little mortified that the intelligence was received with an air of dissatisfaction.”

This army, however, so respectful of persons and private property, had come into the kingdom destitute of money for the advancement of their enterprize. Its leaders promised that “ready money was to come over in the ships expected every day from France: in the meantime, whatever was brought in voluntarily, or taken by necessity, to answer the occasions of the army, should be punctually paid for in drafts on the future directory of Ireland, of which the owners of the goods demanded were courteously invited to accept. For the first two or three days, many people did apply for such drafts to the French commissary of stores, whose whole time appeared to be taken up with writing them. Indeed the bishop himself was of opinion that the losers would act wisely to accept of them, not, as he told the people, that they would ever produce payment where it was promised, but because they might serve as documents to our own government, when, at a future period, it should come to inquire into the losses sustained by its loyal subjects. The trouble, however, of the commissary, in issuing drafts on a bank in prospect, was not of long duration. The people smiled first, and he joined himself in the smile at last, when he offered the ‘airy security.’ Thus, though private plunder for the emolument of individuals was neither allowed nor practised, yet the necessitous condition in which this army landed, obliged its leaders to adopt this mode of public regulated plunder for its subsistence. If cash had not been wanting to the rulers of France, they might be supposed to have acted from policy in sending none into a country which must remain hostile, if the invasion should prove abortive; and which otherwise they might think, ought to be obliged to sustain the expenses of its own revolution.”

About four miles from Ballina lies Loch Conn, a large sheet of water, not much less than fourteen miles in length, and varying in breadth from one to three miles, except at the point of junction between the upper and lower lakes, where the breadth is contracted to the size of a river. It is a singular fact, that Loch Conn regularly ebbs and flows, though not at periods corresponding with the tides. The lake is situated considerably above the sea, and has no tide-communication with it. The banks are, in many parts, of fine sand, which shows the high-water line. The shores of the lower lake on the west side, abound in little bays and creeks, and show some bold outlines. The Pontoon Bridge, crossing the channel between the upper and lower lakes, is a very beautiful spot, and the view from the rocky hill just above the inn at this place, is uncommonly fine.

From the point of Castlebar there is little to interest the traveller in search of the picturesque. Castlebar is a place of some stir and business, but having little or no attractions for the eye; and few tourists stop longer in it than to procure a fresh car for Westport. After passing the small but beautiful Loch Dan, the road begins to descend towards Westport, and the scenery becomes exceedingly attractive. In no part of Ireland, says Fraser, is there such an extraordinary combination of scenery as is here displayed, nor is there any town in it, the view of which strikes the traveller so forcibly as does that of Westport, when first seen under a favourable light from many parts of this road. The country around the town is very highly cultivated, the bay stretches out before the eye, with the town set in its curve like a jewel in a tiara, and to the right and left stretch away the ranges of mountains, the majestic Reek rising directly from the shore, and towering nobly over the surrounding landscape. The town of Westport itself is embellished with a wall enclosing a stream, and running through the principal street, and at the further end of this is a gate entering to the grounds of Lord Sligo, the principal proprietor of the country. The best hotel in the west of Ireland is Robinson’s, at Westport, situated on the side of the wall. The lofty eminence of the Reek, or Croagh Patrick, which is the conspicuous feature of all the views in this neighbourhood, is celebrated as a place of religious pilgrimage. Its sides and summit, at certain seasons, are climbed by devotees from all parts of Ireland, who “perform stations” as they ascend.

Just opposite Westport, at the entrance to Clew Bay, lies Clare Island, the residence of the ancient chieftainess of the county Mayo and its multitude of isles—Grana Uaile. One square and strong tower yet remains of her stronghold on the island shore. Of this “heroine of the west” Mr. Otway gives the following interesting account. “Grace O’Mealey, which has been corrupted into Grana Uaile, was the daughter of Breanhaun Crone O’Maille, tainst or chieftain of that district of Mayo surrounding Clew Bay, and comprising its multitude of isles. This district is still called by the old people the Uisles of O’Mealey; and its lord, owning, as he did, a great extent of coast, and governing an adventurous sea-faring people, had good claim to his motto, ‘Terra Marique Potens.’ Breanhaun Crone O’Maille dying early, left a son and daughter—the son but a child—the daughter, just ripening into womanhood, seemed to have a character suited to seize the reins of government, and rule over this rude and brave people. Setting aside, then, at once the laws of tanistry, that confined the rule to the nearest male of the family, she took upon her, not only the government, but the generalship of her sept, and far exceeded all her family in exploits as a sea-rover; and from her success, whether as smuggler or pirate, as the case might be, she won the name of Grace of the Heroes. Acting in this wild and able way, she soon gathered round her all the outlaws and adventurers that abounded in the islands, and from the daring strokes of policy she made, and the way in which she bent to her purpose the conflicting interests of the English government and the Irish races—she was called the Gambler. As a matter of policy, she took for her first husband O’Flaherty, Prince of Connemara; and there is reason to suppose that the grey mare proving the better horse, the castle in Lough Corrib, of whose traditional history notice has been already taken, was nearly lost to the Joyces, by O’Flaherty the Cock, but was saved and kept by Grana the Hen, hence it got the name which it still keeps of Krishlane na Kirca—the Hen’s Castle. Be this as it may, Grana’s husband, the Prince of Connemara, dying soon, she was free to make another connexion, and in this also she seems to have consulted more her politics than her affections, and became the wife of Sir Richard Bourke, the M‘William Eighter. Tradition hands down a singular item of the marriage contract. The marriage was to last for certain (what said the pope to this?) but one year, and if at the end of that period, either said to the other ‘I dismiss you,’ the union was dissolved. It is said, that during that year Grana took good care to put her own creatures into garrison in all M‘William’s eastward castles that were valuable to her, and then, one fine day, as the Lord of Mayo was coming up to the castle of Corrig-a-Howly, near Newport, Grana spied him, and cried out the dissolving words—‘I dismiss you.’ We are not told how M‘William took the snapping of the matrimonial chain; it is likely that he was not sorry to have a safe riddance of such a virago. We shortly after this find Grana siding with Sir Richard Bingham against the Bourkes, and doing battle with the English. The O’Mealeys, on this occasion, turned the fortune of the day in favour of the President of Connaught, and most of the M‘William leaders being taken prisoners, six of them were hanged next day at Cloghan Lucas, ‘in order to strengthen the English interest.’ It is probable that it was in gratitude for this signal aid afforded to her lieutenant, that Queen Elizabeth invited Grana over to the English court; and it certainly confirms the Irishwoman’s character for decision and firmness, that she accepted the invitation of the Saxon, of whose faithfulness the Irish nation had but a low opinion. Accordingly Grana sailed from Clare Island, and before she arrived at the port of Chester was delivered of a son, the issue of the marriage with M‘William Eighter. He being born on ship-board, was hence named Tohaduah na Lung, or Toby of the Ship, from whom sprung the Viscounts Mayo. It must have been a curious scene, the interview at Hampton Court between the wild woman of the west, and the ‘awe-commanding, lion-ported’ Elizabeth. Fancy Grana, in her loose attire, consisting of a chemise, containing thirty yards of yellow linen, wound round her body, with a mantle of frieze, coloured madder-red, flung over one shoulder, with her wild hair twisted round a large golden pin as her only head-gear, standing with her red legs unstockinged, and her broad feet unshod, before the stiff and stately Tudor, dressed out (as we see her represented in the portraits of that day) with stays, stomacher, and farthingale, cased like an impregnable armadillo—what a ‘tableau vivant’ this must have been! and then Grana, having made a bow, and held out her bony hand, horny as it was, with many an oar she had handled, and many a helm she had held, to sister Elizabeth, (as she called her,) sat down with as much self-possession and self-respect as an American Indian chief would now before the president of the United States. Elizabeth, observing Grana’s fondness for snuff, which, though a practice newly introduced, she had picked up in her smuggling enterprises, and perceiving her inconvenienced, as snuffers usually are when wanting a pocket-handkerchief, presented her with one richly embroidered, which Grana took indifferently, used it loudly, and cast it away carelessly, and when asked by Sir Walter Raleigh, why she treated the gift of her majesty in such a way, the answer of the wild Irish girl was of that coarseness that ought not to be read by eyes polite. Moreover, it seems Elizabeth was not happy in the presents which she proffered to the Vanathess; she ordered a lap-dog, led by a silken band, to be given to her. ‘What’s this for?’ says Grana. ‘Oh, it is a sagacious, playful, faithful little creature, it will lie in your lap.’ ‘My lap!’ says Grana; ‘it’s little the likes of me would be doing with such a thing:—keep it to yourself, Queen of the English, it is only fit for such idlers as you:—you may, if it likes you, fool away your day with such vermin.’ ‘Oh, but,’ says Elizabeth, ‘Grana, you are mistaken, I am not idle; I have the care of this great nation on my shoulders.’ ‘May be so,’ says Grana, ‘but as far as I can see of your ways, there’s many a poor creature in Mayo, who has only the care of a barley-field, has more industry about them than you seem to have.’ Of course, Elizabeth dismissed her soon: she offered, at her last audience, to create her a countess. ‘I don’t want your titles,’ says Grana, ‘arn’t we both equals? if there be any good in the thing, I may as well make you one as you me. Queen of England, I want nothing from you—enough for me it is to be at the head of my nation; but you may do what you like with my little son, Toby of the Ship, who has Saxon blood in his veins, and may not be dishonoured by a Saxon title:—I will remain as I am, Grana O’Maille of the Uisles.’ It was on her return from England, and when driven by stress of weather into the small harbour of Howth, that the often-told circumstance occurred respecting her abduction of the young St. Lawrence. Landing from her vessel, she and some of her followers proceeded to the castle and demanded admission, but were refused, on the ground that the noble owner was at his dinner and could not be disturbed. ‘Oh, the Saxon churl!’ says Grana, ‘it’s well seen he has not a drop of Irish blood in his big body; but he shall smart for it.’ And so he did, for Grana, on her return to her vessel, entering into a comfortable cottage, and finding therein a beautiful boy, the eldest son of the baron, (who was out at nurse, according to the Irish fashion,) she carried him off, and brought him with her to her western land, where she kept him many a day, and did not restore him, until, besides receiving a large ransom, she made the stipulation that whenever a Lord of Howth sat at his dinner, his doors should remain open for the admission of all strangers. It is said that the St. Lawrences have kept to the covenant ever since; if so, the observance in its spirit of open hospitality may explain why the lords of Howth are not the wealthiest of our nobility. Grana continued on her return to strengthen her power, and had strongholds guarding all the harbours along the coast of Mayo; and so active and vigilant was she, that it is said that in her castle at Clare Island, where her swiftest vessels were stationed, the cable of her chief galley was passed through a hole made for that purpose in the wall, and fastened to her bed-post, in order that she might be the more readily alarmed in case of an attempted surprise. At her death it would appear that the power which was but concentrated by individual vigour and ability, dissolved with the spirit that gave it energy.”

From Westport to the Head of Killery Harbour, the road follows the coast, presenting fine views of the island of Grana Uaile and the opposite shores of Achill. The country commencing here, and lying immediately south, is inhabited by a “race of giants,” the Joyces, who have given their name to a large district. Jack Joyce is its reigning king, and a visit to this personage is a necessary part of every western tour. Mr. Inglis says, “the Joyces are a large race, but Jack Joyce is huge, even among them. He is as near akin to a giant as a man can well be without being every bit a giant. In height, breadth, muscle, and general aspect, he is like a man—if not of another race—the descendant of another race. Jack Joyce looks upon himself as the greatest man for many a mile round; as a sort of king of that country, Joyce’s country, as indeed he is. King Dan is a very inferior person to him there. But beware, reader! and address this individual in some phraseology more respectful than by the name he commonly bears. The salutation ‘How are you, Jack! or Jack Joyce, my fine fellow, how do you do?’ might be followed by an uncourteous reception. But Jack Joyce is really worth conversing with; he is a shrewed, intelligent, plain-spoken man; but not, of course, induced to favour with his conversation those who do not pay him the respect to which he thinks himself entitled.” Perhaps a fairer judgment of Joyce’s proportions may be got from a writer who is himself of a height and size which might, in his youthful days, have fitted him to be an “ugly customer” to Jack, the author of the Tour in Connaught. He thus describes his visit to the giant.

“I was determined to go and renew my acquaintance with my big friend, whom twelve years ago I found in all his might and glory as ‘mine host,’ at the head of the Killery—so I drove up to Jack’s door, and enquired for Mr. Joyce, and was answered by a very tall young woman, not uncomely, who informed me that Mr. Joyce was within, but that as he had been out all night after cattle on the hills, he was on the bed asleep, but his daughter (for such she was) said, that if I desired it she would call him. I certainly did not like to go away without seeing big Jack, so he was called up, and as he came, loose, unclean, and frouzy, certainly my giant did not appear to advantage; for, some how or other, I had let my imagination play the rogue with my judgment, and magnify my retrospect with regard to this man.

“The first time I saw him, (as I say,) about twelve years ago, he made his appearance just as I drove up to his door, bouncing over the wall that divided the potato-garden from the front of his house, and, I think, a finer specimen of a strong man, tall and yet well-proportioned, I could not conceive. Such do not look as tall as they really are. The great bullet-head, covered with crisp curls, the short bull-neck, the broad, square shoulders, the massive chest all open and hirsute, the comparatively small sinewy loins, and pillar-like limbs, all bone and muscle. Milo, of Crotona, might have shaken hands with him as a brother, and the gifted sculptor of the Farnese Hercules might have selected Jack as his lay-figure. Such was my beau ideal of Mr. Joyce, from what I recollected of him since my former visit. But now, though I acknowledged the identity, yet certainly the man was greatly changed—but still, though I am sure my fancy had been playing tricks, he yet was tall, stout, and able; but I am sure I know fifty English and Irishmen just as large. Having called for some liquor—reader, I hope you will believe me, not to drink, but just to put mine host in good humour—Jack and I got into chat, and, to be sure, he was full of the hard usage of the attorney who had put him out of Leenane; but he said he had got where he was a large and good farm, and all he wished was to see the head landlord, the provost of Trinity College, who was cheated entirely, entirely, by his middlemen, such as attorney R—— and others; but if he could but once get a sight of his great reverence, he would show him how acres, and hundreds of acres are kept from him.

“Upon acquainting him that I had the honour of an intimate acquaintance with the greatest of all possible men, except Lord Leitrim, you may suppose he was mighty civil; and taking advantage of that desire to please, I endeavoured to get from him an account of his family, but he really could not tell anything about them: he seemed to think that size was not so much the characteristic of the tribe or name as of his own immediate family; and to show me that he had not been the means of any degeneracy, he whistled to his son, who was in a distant field, who came at the call, and certainly a taller and more comely stripling, of about twenty years of age, I have not seen. He was at least six feet four inches in height, and I am sure, if fed on animal food as an English farmer’s son would be, he would prove a grand specimen of the human race. I left big Jack and his big family, receiving from them a thousand thanks for promising to introduce him to the notice of the new provost.

“On my road towards Leenane, I met some persons with whom I entered into conversation about the neighbourhood, and about Jack Joyce. I found that he was not a favourite, that he was too apt to resort to his strength to settle disputes, when the fist he threw into the balance made the scale descend in his own favour. Indeed, he acknowledged to me on a former visit, that, as a justice of the peace was a great way off, he used to settle differences amongst the neighbours by taking the parties at variance by the nape of the neck, and battering their heads together until they consented to shake hands and drink a pint of potteen together, which, of course, it was Jack’s office to furnish for a consideration.”

The author of this clever book will excuse us for extending our extract to the description of the scenery he noticed on his return from the visit to the Joyces.

“The descent is very rapid from the high grounds, on which Jack Joyce’s new farm and public-house are situated, to the Killery Bay, and the inn of Leenane. As you descend, by a very good road, there are noble mountain-views, and the long Killery, stretching its dark and deep-cut line through the mountains, was certainly a fine sight, and very unlike anything I have seen elsewhere in the island; not, perhaps, presenting so grand a prospect as either Bantry Bay or Lough Swilly, but it has features all its own. About either of these fine estuaries there appears something that man has done—man has some share in the decoration, or even grandeur of the scene: but here at the Killery man and his works are out of the question; no sail upon the waters; no cultivation along the shore; all as rough nature has left it; even trees seem out of character with the place; and there is the deep bay, and there are the high mountains all around, the same, we may suppose, as when the first sea-rover turned inwards his prow for shelter or curiosity, and sought, and that in vain, for something that marked the occupation and dominion of man.

“Some have said that Killery Bay is like a Norwegian fiord. Never having been in the Scandinavian peninsula I cannot decidedly contradict; but it certainly does not meet my idea of a fiord, which supposes pine-crowded precipices hanging and frowning over the deep blue wave; but this is not the case here; perfectly bare of any timber, the mountains, though rising all around, and assuming all manner of outlines, yet shelve gradually down to the shore, and I would say, that the character of the place is not sublime but savage.”

We arrived in good time at Leenane, and found the new owner, or rather renter, a civil but inexperienced woman, who had lately taken possession, and who complained bitterly of her landlord, who had promised to put the house in good repair, and make it sufficiently decent to induce travellers to stop with her. This it was evident he had not done, and I was ready to partake in her vexation on observing the nice furniture and other accommodations intended for a good inn, stowed away in such a truly uncomfortable and dirty house. Having bespoke our dinner, we expressed a desire to go by boat to see Lord Sligo’s sporting-lodge at Delphi; and here it was well that we asked the price before engaging it, for the landlady, in order, perhaps, to compensate as she might for her as yet unsuccessful speculation, demanded more for a vile, dirty, leaky, brute of a boat, than we should have paid for the hire of one of the gayest and best-appointed cutters in Kingston harbour. However, by appearing to care little whether we should go or not, we by-and-by agreed on more reasonable terms, and went afloat. It was also well that the water was smooth, for the boat was not only leaky and heavy, but the fellows that undertook to row us seemed anything but expert. They were uncouth, savage creatures; the elder of the two knew but little English, and the other none at all, and they both seemed discontented and very much out of humour at being obliged to leave their potato-planting to go rowing a pair of idle Sassenach fools, as they evidently considered us to be.

I consider myself well paid for this boating excursion. Nothing can be finer than the mountain-scenery all around. When you are in the middle of the bay you seem locked in on every side, and were it not for the smell, and colour, and vegetation peculiar to the sea, the incomparable sea, you would imagine you were on a mountain-lake. But there is scarcely any lake that has not a flat, tame end, generally that where the superabundant waters flow off and form a river; but here nothing was tame; on every side the magnificent mountains seemed to vie with each other which should catch and keep your attention most. Northwards the Fenamore mountains—the Partree range to the east—Maamture to the south—a little more to the south-west, the sparkling cones of the Twelve Pins of Binabola; then, a little more to the west, the Renvyle mountain, and off to the north of that again, the monarch of the whole amphitheatre, Muilrea, with its cap of clouds that it has caught, and anon flings fitfully off, as much as to say, I am the great cloud-compeller of Europe, and not one of you, ye proud rangers of the sky, shall come from the banks of Newfoundland without paying me tribute; and, no doubt ample tribute they do pay, and we had every reason to be fearful of partaking in the results of Mr. Muilrea tapping the American; but the alarm was false, the clouds only slowly rolled their huge masses along the topmost ranges, and we could see in their clear glory all the inferior hills as they rejoiced in the lights and shadows of the uncertain day.

After a row of more than an hour, we landed at the little pier at the entrance of the river Bondarragh, and passing a small fishing-village, we went along the river for about a mile and a half, until we reached this much-talked-of lodge of Delphi. Was it called so from any fancied resemblance to the oracular mountain in Greece? As far as a picture can give an idea of scenery, I have some notion of the far-famed throne of the solar god, but I could trace no similarity. I confess, altogether, I was greatly disappointed in this place. I think the mountains fine; I consider the sides of the hills, as they rise from the little lake, singularly picturesque and beautiful; for as the ranges of rock ascend, they assume a tortuous and wavy form, and between each wave of the uprising stratification, the fresh green grass of the young summer seemed to grow luxuriantly; there were then before you, as in manifold variegations, the green and the grey, tinting the whole sides of the mountains. There are two lakes in the valley, one close by the lodge, and the vale, a little above the small pleasure-ground, taking a turn at nearly right-angles, contains the other. By ascending a green eminence you can see both lakes; the upper and larger one, drawing its waters from the magnificent Muilrea, must present sublime views of the gorges of that noble mountain. I greatly regret that I had no time or opportunity to proceed along its banks. Having seen earls’ and dukes’ improvements in the Highlands of Scotland, England, and Wales, and what wonders in the way of planting have been done by Lords Fife, and Athol, and Breadalbane, I expected that this Irish nobleman, having this great mountain-district to himself, would have filled the glens and clothed the sides of the hills with his plantations, and that I should have seen masses of timber, becoming the purse and great mind of a most noble marquis; but it was no such thing. I think, that if a Dublin pawn-broker had got possession of this valley, he would have stuck down about as many firs, and larches, and alders, and erected about as tasty a cottage, and decorated it with about as ornamental a verandah, which, by-the-by, is going fast to ruin, and that is not extraordinary, as the most “puissant” owner every year lets it to certain sporting lodgers, and, perhaps in imitation of some Italian marchese, makes the fishing and shooting of this place a means of increasing his revenue.

Altogether respecting this show-place, I may say nature’s work is grand, and man’s work pitiful; and I think it is worthy of the improvement, that it should be let furnished, with the grass of a cow! year after year.

I have heard it said, that in certain hot summers, residence here is made almost intolerable by insects larger than midges, but not quite the size of musquitoes, that bite bitterly, and make you wish by night for gauze curtains.

Having got as good a dinner as hungry tourists need desire at the inn of Leenane, we proceeded in the evening to Westport, going along the valley through which the Owen Erive river runs, and falling over many pretty cascades, feeds the head of the bay. This road is well laid out, is in excellent repair, and offers, I think, a succession of as fine mountain-views as are in Ireland; here dark and deep gorges, there, a bold, bare bulwark of a hill, presenting his huge shoulder—and now a long, deep, quiet glen, with its green sides covered with flocks; and the bleating of the lambs as they seek their dams along the ravines and precipices breaks sweetly on the lonely silence of all around, and gives a pastoral character to the district. The evening was peculiarly serene, the Partree hills (and, indeed, it is a noble chain, of great and singular variety,) were covered with light flocculent clouds, that under the tintings of the declining sun seemed as intended for a clothing of wrought gold, a raiment of heaven’s own panoply, and so transparent was it, that every grey precipice and every beetling quartzose rock smiled in its turn under the sunshine as they were now revealed, and again veiled, by the golden-fringed clouds that moved so gently, so gracefully up the hill-sides, and then passed away in splendid masses eastward.

We just got out of this fine mountain country, and the sun was setting as we descended into Westport.

Connemara is rich in scenes of wild grandeur and beauty, but it has nothing in its secluded recesses more sublime and lovely than the Lake of Kylemore. It is very small, not more than two miles in length, and its shores are better wooded than most of the neighbouring country. The horizon from every part of this lake is nobly broken up by mountains—Maam Turc, Eagle Mountain, and other fine eminences breaking its low line in every direction. From Kylemore to Clifden the road follows the tortuous windings of mountain-valleys, and skirting the base of the Twelve Pins, developes the finest variety of wild scenery in all Ireland. Clifden itself stands at the head of a narrow inlet of the sea, and the views of it from the eminences around are singularly fine. It has arisen something after the fashion of an American town, having attained its present growth in less than twenty years, and containing two or three streets, a chapel, a church, school-house, inn, &c. Twenty years ago not a house stood on its site. It is the property of Mr. D’Arcy, whose residence is Clifden Castle, two miles from the town; he has the merit of having founded the town. “He pointed out,” says Inglis, “the advantages which would accrue to this remote neighbourhood from having a town and a sea-port so situated; and he offered leases for ever, together with four acres of mountain-land, at but a short distance from the proposed site of the town, at twenty-five shillings per annum. This offer was most advantageous, even leaving out of account the benefit which would necessarily be conferred by a town on a district where the common necessaries of life had to be purchased thirty miles distant, and where there was no market, and no means of export for agricultural produce, and so the town of Clifden was founded and grew.” One of the most beautiful walks in Ireland is the two miles from the town to Clifden Castle. The path runs by the edge of a long narrow inlet, the banks of which are very rugged. “After reaching the entrance of the Harbour of Clifden and rounding a promontory, the Castle comes into view. It is a modern castellated house, not remarkable in itself, but in point of situation unrivalled. Mountain and wood rise behind, and a fine sloping lawn in front reaches down to the landlocked bay; while to the right the eye ranges over the ocean, until it mingles with the far and dim horizon.” This part of the Emerald Isle is likely to rise to some consequence if the new schemes of improvement should be carried out, but it has been considered hitherto by the Irish themselves as almost a savage country. “Connemara,” says a writer in the Penny Journal, “is a word which to English, and even to Irish ears, is expressive of nothing but the ultima Thule of barbarism. Yet its signification is most poetical—‘bays of the sea.’ Towards the north-east extremity of the county of Galway there is a portion cut off, as it were, by a natural barrier of lakes and mountains. If the map does justice to its subject, Connemara will appear black with mountains, dotted with lakes, and studded with bogs; its coast will be seen rugged, and indented with fine harbours; while the inland country, though wild, mountainous, and ill-cultivated, and so little known and visited that its name is a proverb, is yet equal to the finest part of Wales or of Scotland; and the traveller who ventures to enjoy its romantic picturesque scenery, and who from natural or acquired taste can relish ‘the lone majesty of untamed nature,’ may here have his feelings gratified to the full. As a proof how little is known of this singular part of Ireland, it may be mentioned, that a magistrate in an adjoining county, when he heard that a criminal had been arrested who had long hid himself in the mountain fastnesses of these Irish highlands, declared, that ‘the poor fellow had suffered enough, in all conscience, for any crime he might have committed, by being banished seven years to Connemara.’ ”

The inhabitants of this part of the country are, of course, behind the rest of Ireland in knowledge and civilization. But if the reader understands by this that they are barbarians, and destitute of the feelings of humanity, he commits a very great mistake. The Irish highlanders are a warm-hearted, generous people, attached to their wild mountains and romantic glens, and, considering the few advantages which they enjoy, a lively, intelligent race. In the old times their “mountain land” was the retreat of those daring spirits who scorned to submit to the yoke of an invader; and here, preferring poverty and freedom to restraint and submission, they found a shelter amid the deep valleys and craggy rocks, like the ancient Britons in Wales, and the Highlanders in Scotland.

Ballynahinch Castle is the first very attractive object on the road from Clifden to Oughterard, and is the residence of the principal land-proprietor in this part of the country, Mr. Martin. This gentleman is quite a king in his immense domain; and a person in the neighbourhood speaking of him to a traveller remarked, that Colonel Martin was the best Martin that ever reigned. His house stands upon the well-wooded bank of a long, narrow lake, and is backed by a range of dark and lofty mountains. The lake is one of a chain of waters that almost encircle the eminences called the Twelve Pins or Binabola, said to be the most extraordinary and beautiful assemblage of mountains in the kingdom. In the course of Mr. Inglis’s tour in Connemara, he was lucky enough to see a pattern in this neighbourhood, the description of which is too amusing to be passed over. He says, “It fortunately happened that on the second day of my sojourn at Maam a very celebrated pattern was to be held on a singular spot high up among the mountains, on a little plain on the top of the pass between Maamturc and the neighbouring mountain, an elevation of about one thousand two hundred feet, and I, of course, resolved to be present. A pattern was originally a religious ceremony, and was, and still is,

always celebrated near to a holy well; but although some still frequent the pattern for devotional purposes, it is now resorted to chiefly as a place of recreation, where, after the better disposed have partaken of the innocent amusements of dancing and moderate hilarity, drunkenness and fighting wind up the entertainment.

“I was accompanied in my excursion by the innkeeper, and the road being rather toilsome, I was accommodated with a horse. This however was a luxury which I was soon obliged to disencumber myself of, for a great part, or rather by far the greater part of the road, being through bogs, I soon found the horse to be a dangerous companion, and was glad to leave him behind at a cabin door, and make my way through the bog on foot. It requires some practice to be an expert bog-trotter, to know where one may safely rest one’s weight, where one must skip lightly from tuft to tuft, and where one must not risk an advance at all. I had had some experience of bogs before coming to Ireland, and proved so apt a learner in bog-trotting, that during the whole of my journey I never committed so great an error of judgment as to sink even knee-deep.

“The ascent to the spot where the pattern was to be held was picturesque in the extreme. Far up the winding way for miles before us, and for miles behind too, groups were seen moving up the mountain-side,—the women, with their red petticoats, easily distinguishable; some were on foot, some few on horseback, and some rode double. About half-way up we overtook a party of lads and lasses, beguiling the toil of the ascent by the help of a piper, who marched before, and whose stirring strains every now and then prompted an advance in jig-time up the steep mountain-path. Some few we met coming away—sober people, who had performed their devotions at the holy well, and had no desire to be partakers in the sort of amusement that generally follows.

“Everybody in this part of the country is called Joyce; and the spot where the pattern is held is claimed by the Joyces to be in Joyce’s country: but this is not admitted by the Connemara boys, and accordingly two factions, the Joyces and their opponents, usually hold patterns near the same ground, though not close together; but yet so near as to make it impossible that the meetings should break up without a scrimmage. The Joyces are a magnificent race of men, the biggest, and stoutest, and tallest I have seen in Ireland, eclipsing even the peasantry of the Tyrol; and I believe, indeed, their claims on this head are universally admitted.

“When I reached the summit of the Pass and came in sight of the ground, it was about four in the afternoon, and the pattern was at its height; and truly in this wild mountain spot the scene was most striking and picturesque. There were a score of tents or more, some open at the sides and some closed; hundreds in groups were seated on the grass or on the stones, which lie abundantly there. Some old persons were yet on their knees beside the holy well performing their devotions; and here and there apart, and half-screened by the masses of rocks which lay about, girls of the better order, who had finished their pastimes, were putting off their shoes and stockings to trot homeward, or were arranging their dress, or perhaps, though more rarely, exchanging a word or two with a Joyce or a Connemara boy. All was quiet when I reached the ground, and I was warmly welcomed as a stranger by many, who invited me into their tents. Of course I accepted the invitation, and the pure potheen circulated freely.

“By-and-by, however, some boastful expression of a Joyce appeared to give offence to several at the far end of the tent; and something loud and contemptuous was spoken by two or three in a breath. The language, which in compliment to me had been English, suddenly changed to Irish. Two or three glasses of potheen were quickly gulped by most of the ‘boys’; and the innkeeper who had accompanied me, and who sat by me whispered that there would soon be some fighting. I had seen abundance of fighting on a small scale in Ireland, but I confess I had been barbarous enough to wish I might see a regular faction fight; and now I was likely to be gratified. Taking the hint of the innkeeper, I shook hands with the ‘boys’ nearest to me, right and left; and taking advantage of a sudden burst of voices, I stepped over my bench, and retiring from my tent, took up a safe position on some neighbouring rocks.

“I had not long to wait; out sallied the Joyces and a score of other ‘boys,’ from several tents at once, as if there had been some preconcerted signal; and the flourishing of shillelahs did not long precede the using of them. Any one to see an Irish fight for the first time, would conclude that a score or two must inevitably be put hors-de-combat. The very flourish of a regular shillelah, and the shout that accompanies it, seem to be the immediate precursors of a fractured skull; but the affair, though bad enough, is not so fatal as it appears to be: the shillelahs, no doubt, do sometimes descend upon a head, which is forthwith a broken head, but oftener descend upon each other; and the fight soon becomes one of personal strength. The parties close and grapple, and the most powerful man throws his adversary. Fair play is but little attended to; two or three often attack a single man; nor is there a cessation of blows even when a man is on the ground. On the present occasion five or six were disabled, but there was no homicide: and after a scrimmage which lasted perhaps ten minutes, the Joyces remained masters of the field. The women took no part in the fight; but they are not always so backward; it is chiefly however when stones are the weapons that women take a part, by supplying the combatants with missiles. When the fight ended there were not many remaining, excepting those who were still in the tents, and who chanced to be of neither faction. Most of the women had left the place when the quarrel began, and some of the men too. I noticed after the fight, that some who had been opposed to each other shook hands and kissed, and appeared as good friends as before. The sun was nearly set when the pattern finally broke up; and with the bright sun flaming down the cleft, and gilding all the slopes, the scene was even more striking now than when we ascended. The long line of pedestrians and horses stretched many miles down the lengthened defile; and the mountain-notes of the pipe, and the occasional burst of voices, and the lowing of the cattle, roused by these unwonted sounds, filled all the hollow of the hills.

Not far from Clifden is another of those lovely pieces of water with which Connemara abounds, Garromin Lake. The late Dean Mahon chose this solitary spot for his home, and with great taste availed himself of the natural beauties of the scenery, and formed the fine estate now called Glendalough. Passing this oasis in the desert of bog and mountain, the next stopping-place is Flynn’s Inn, near which is another famous place of pilgrimage, St. Patrick’s Well. The west of Ireland seems more particularly to be the inheritance of St. Patrick; and here, if I remember right, he passed much of the novitiate to his canonization. That he “was a gentleman” we all know; but until Mr. Moore gave his biography in brief in the History of Ireland, St. Patrick’s real character and life were (to me at least) buried in the mists of tradition and fun. It will not be malapropos of the pilgrimage to his well, to extract Mr. Moore’s well-drawn-up narration of the saint’s career: “It will be seen that with him, as perhaps with most men who have achieved extraordinary actions, a train of preparation appears to have been laid from the very outset, for the mighty work he was to accomplish. Respecting his birthplace there has been much difference of opinion; the prevailing notion being that he was born at Alcluit, now Dumbarton, in North Britain. It is only, however, by a very forced and false construction of some of the evidence on the subject, that any part of Great Britain can be assigned as the birthplace of the saint: and his own Confession, a work of acknowledged genuineness, proves him to have been a native of the old Gallican, or rather Armoric, Britain. The country anciently known by this name comprised the whole of the north-west coasts of Gaul; and in the territory now called Boulogne, St. Patrick, it appears, was born. That it was on the Armorican coast he had been made captive in his boyhood, all the writers of his life agree; and as it is allowed also, by the same authorities, that his family was resident there at the time, there arose a difficulty as to the cause of their migration thither from the banks of the Clyde, which the fact, apparent from his own statement, that Armorica was actually the place of his nativity, disposes of satisfactorily. His family was, as he informs us, respectable, his father having held the office of decurio, or municipal senator; though, as it appears, he afterwards entered into holy orders, and was a deacon. From a passage in the letter of the saint to Coroticus, it is supposed, and not improbably, that his family may have been of Roman origin; and the opinion that his mother, Conchessa, was a native of some part of the Gauls, is concurred in by all the old Irish writers.

“The year of his birth has been likewise a subject of much variance and controversy; but the calculations most to be relied upon assign it to a.d. 387, which, according to his own statement of his having been at the time when he was made captive sixteen years of age, brings this latter event to the year 403, a period memorable in Irish history, when the monarch Nial of the Nine Hostages, after laying waste the coasts of Great Britain, extended his ravages to the maritime districts of Gaul.

“On being carried by his captors to Ireland, the young Patrick was purchased as a slave by a man named Milcho, who lived in that part of Dalaradia which is now comprised within the county of Antrim. The occupation assigned to him was the tending of sheep; and his lonely rambles over the mountain and in the forest are described by himself as having been devoted to constant prayer and thought, and to the nursing of those deep devotional feelings which, even at that time, he felt strongly stirring within him. The mountain alluded to by him as the scene of these meditations is supposed to have been Sliebhmis, as it is now called, in Antrim. At length, after six years of servitude, the desire of escaping from bondage arose in his heart: a voice in his dreams, he says, told him that he ‘was soon to go to his own country,’ and that a ship was ready to convey him. Accordingly, in the seventh year of his slavery he betook himself to flight, and making his way to the south-western coast of Ireland, was there received, with some reluctance, on board a merchant-vessel, which, after a voyage of three days, landed him on the coast of Gaul.

“After indulging for a time in the society of his parents and friends, being naturally desirous of retrieving the loss of those years during which he had been left without instruction, he repaired to the celebrated monastery or college of St. Martin, near Tours, where he remained four years, and was, it is believed, initiated there in the ecclesiastical state. That his mind dwelt much on recollections of Ireland may be concluded from a dream which he represents himself to have had about this time, in which a messenger appeared to him, coming as if from Ireland, and bearing innumerable letters, on one of which were written these words, ‘The voice of the Irish.’ At the same moment he fancied that he could hear the voices of persons from the wood of Toclat, near the Western Sea, crying out, as if with one voice, ‘We entreat thee, holy youth, to come and walk still among us.’ ‘I was greatly affected in my heart,’ adds the saint, in describing this dream, ‘and could read no further: I then awoke.’ In these natural workings of a warm and pious imagination, described by himself thus simply—so unlike the prodigies and miracles with which most of the legends of his life abound—we see what a hold the remembrance of Ireland had taken of his youthful fancy, and how fondly he already contemplated some holy work in her service.

“At the time when this vision occurred St. Patrick was about thirty years old, and it was shortly after, we are told, that he placed himself under the spiritual direction of St. German of Auxerre, a man of distinguished reputation in those times, both as a civilian and an ecclesiastic. From this period there is no very accurate account of the saint’s studies or transactions, till, in the year 429, we find him accompanying St. German and Lupus in their expedition to Britain, for the purpose of eradicating from that country the growing errors of Pelagianism. Nine years of this interval he is said to have passed in an island or islands of the Tuscan Sea, and the conjecture that Lérins was the place of his retreat seems, notwithstanding the slight geographical difficulty, by no means improbable. There had been recently a monastery established in that island, which became afterwards celebrated for the number of holy and learned persons whom it had produced; nor could the destined apostle have chosen for himself a retreat more calculated to nurse the solemn enthusiasm which such a mission required than among the pious and contemplative solitaries of the small isle of Lérins.

“The attention of Rome being at this time directed to the state of Christianity among the Irish—most probably by the reports on that subject received from the British missionaries—it was resolved by Celestine to send a bishop to that country, and Palladius was, as we have seen, the person appointed. The peculiar circumstances which fitted St. Patrick to take part in such a mission, and probably his own expressed wishes to that effect, induced St. German to send him to Rome with recommendations to the Holy Father. But before his arrival Palladius had departed for Ireland, and the hopeless result of his mission has already been related. Immediately on the death of this bishop, two or three of his disciples set out to announce the event to his successor, St. Patrick, who was then on his way through Gaul. Having had himself consecrated bishop at Eboria, a town in the north-west of that country, the saint proceeded on his course to the scene of his labours, and resting but a short time in Britain, arrived in Ireland, as the Irish annals inform us, in the first year of the pontificate of Sextus III.

“His first landing appears to have been on the shore of Dublin, or as it is described, ‘the celebrated port of the territory of the Evolein,’ by which is supposed to have been meant the ‘portus Eblanorum’ of Ptolemy, the present harbour of Dublin. After meeting with a repulse at this and some other places in Leinster, the saint, anxious, we are told, to visit the haunts of his youth, to see his old master, Milcho, and endeavour to convert him to the faith, steered his course for East Ulster, and arrived with his companions at a port near Strangford, in the district called the barony of Lecale. Here, on landing and proceeding a short way up the country, they were met by a herdsman in the service of the lord of the district, who, supposing them to be sea-robbers or pirates, hastened to alarm the whole household. In a moment the master himself, whose name was Dicho, made his appearance, attended by a number of armed followers, and threatening destruction to the intruders; but on seeing St. Patrick, so much struck was the rude chief with the calm sanctity of his aspect, that the uplifted weapon was suspended, and he at once invited the whole of the party to his dwelling. The impression which the looks of the saint had made, his Christian eloquence but served to deepen and confirm, and not merely the pagan lord himself, but all his family became converts.

“In a humble barn belonging to this chief, which was ever after called Sabhul Padruic, or Patrick’s Barn, the saint celebrated Divine worship; and we shall find that this spot, consecrated by his first spiritual triumph, continued to the last his most favourite and most frequented retreat.

“Desirous of visiting his former abode, and seeing that mountain where he had so often prayed in the time of his bondage, he set out for the residence of his master, Milcho, which appears to have been situated in the valley of Arcuil, in that district of Dalaradia inhabited by the Cruthene or Irish Picts. Whatever might have been his hope of effecting the conversion of his old master, he was doomed to meet with disappointment, as Milcho, fixed and inveterate in his heathenism, on hearing of the approach of his holy visitor refused to receive or see him.

“After remaining some time in Down, to which county he had returned from Dalaradia, St. Patrick prepared, on the approach of Easter, to risk the bold, and as it proved politic step, of celebrating that great Christian festival in the very neighbourhood of Tara, where the princes and states of the whole kingdom were to be about that time assembled. Taking leave of his new friend Dicho, he set sail with his companions, and steering southward arrived at the harbour now called Colp, at the mouth of the Boyne. There leaving his boat, he proceeded with his party to the plain of Breg, in which the ancient city of Tara was situated. In the course of his journey, a youth of family whom he baptized, and to whom, on account of the kindly qualities of his nature, he gave the name of Benignus, conceived such an affection for him as to insist on being the companion of his way. This enthusiastic youth became afterwards one of his most favourite disciples, and on his death succeeded him as bishop of Armagh. On their arrival at Slane the saint and his companions pitched their tents for the night, and as it was the eve of the festival of Easter, lighted at nightfall the paschal fire. It happened that on the same evening the monarch Leogaire and the assembled princes were, according to custom, celebrating the pagan festival of La Bealtinne; and as it was a law that no fires should be lighted on that night till the great pile in the palace of Tara was kindled, the paschal fire of St. Patrick, on being seen from the heights of Tara before that of the monarch, excited the wonder of all assembled. To the angry inquiries of Leogaire, demanding who could have dared to violate thus the law, his Magi or Druids are said to have made answer, ‘This fire, which has now been kindled before our eyes, unless extinguished this very night, will never be extinguished throughout all time. Moreover, it will tower above all the fires of our ancient rites, and he who lights it will ere long scatter your kingdom.’ Surprised and indignant, the monarch instantly despatched messengers to summon the offender to his presence; the princes seated themselves in a circle upon the grass to receive him, and on his arrival, one alone among them, Herc, the son of Dego, impressed with reverence by the stranger’s appearance, stood up to salute him.

“That they heard with complacency, however, his account of the objects of his mission, appears from his preaching at the palace of Tara on the following day, in the presence of the king and the states-general, and maintaining an argument against the most learned of the Druids, in which the victory was on his side. It is recorded, that the only person who upon this occasion rose to welcome him, was the arch-poet Dubtach, who became his convert on that very day, and devoted thenceforth his poetical talents to religious subjects alone. The monarch himself too, while listening to the words of the apostle, is said to have exclaimed to his surrounding nobles, ‘It is better that I should believe than die;’ and appalled by the awful denouncements of the preacher, to have at once professed himself Christian.

“There seems little doubt that the king Leogaire, with that spirit of tolerance which then pervaded all ranks, and so singularly smoothed the way to the reception of the Gospel in Ireland, gave full leave to the saint to promulgate his new creed to the people, on condition of his not infringing the laws or peace of the kingdom. But that either himself or his queen had enlisted among the converts, there appears strong reason to question. In adducing instances of the great success with which God had blessed his mission, the saint makes mention of the sons and daughters of men of rank who, he boasts, had embraced the faith; but with respect to the conversion of the king or queen, he maintains a total silence. It has been, indeed, in the higher regions of society that, from the very commencement of Christianity, its light has always encountered the most resisting medium; and it is plain from the narrative of St. Patrick, that while he found the people everywhere docile listeners, his success with the upper or dominant caste was comparatively slow and limited; nor does it appear that so late as the time when he wrote his Confession, the greater part of the kings and princes were yet converted.

“Among the females, however, even of this highest class, the lessons of peace and humility which he inculcated were always hailed with welcome; and he describes one noble young Scotic lady whom he had baptized, as ‘blessed and most beautiful.’ To the list of his royal female converts are to be added Ethnea and Fethlimia, daughters of the king Leogaire, whom he had the good fortune to meet with in the course of a journey over the plain of Connaught, under circumstances full of what may be called the poesy of real life.

“It was natural that the dream of ‘the voice of the Irish,’ by which his imagination had many years before been haunted, should now, in the midst of events so exciting and gratifying, recur vividly to his mind; and we are told accordingly that a wish to visit once more the scene of that vision—to behold the wood beside the Western Sea from whence the voices appeared to come—concurred with other more important objects to induce him to undertake this journey westwards. Resting for the night on his way, at a fountain in the neighbourhood of the royal residence, Cruachan, himself, and his companions had begun at daybreak to chant their morning service, when the two young princesses coming to the fountain at this early hour to bathe, were surprised by the appearance of a group of venerable persons, all clothed in white garments and holding books in their hands. On their inquiring who the strangers were, and to what class of beings they belonged, whether celestial, aërial, or terrestrial, St. Patrick availed himself of the opportunity thus furnished of instructing them in the nature of the true God; and while answering their simple and eager questions as to where the God he worshipped dwelt, whether in Heaven or on the earth, on mountains or in valleys, in the sea or in rivers, contrived to explain to them the leading truths of the Christian religion. Delighted with his discourse, the royal sisters declared their willingness to conform to any course of life that would render them acceptable to such a God as he announced; and, being then baptized by the holy stranger at the fountain, they became in a short time after consecrated virgins of the church.

“The saint had, previously to his leaving Meath, attended the celebration of the Taltine games, and taken advantage of the vast multitudes there assembled to forward his mighty work of conversion. In the course of his journey likewise to Connaught, he turned aside a little from the direct road, to visit that frightful haunt of cruelty and superstition, the Plain of Slaughter, in the county of Leitrim, where, from time immemorial, had stood the Druidical idol Crom-cruach, called sometimes also Cean-Groith, or Head of the Sun. This image,—to which, as to Moloch of old, young children were offered in sacrifice,—had been an object of worship, we are told, with every successive colony by which the island had been conquered. For St. Patrick, however, was reserved the glory of destroying both idol and worship; and a large church was now erected by him in the place where these monstrous rites had been so long solemnised.

“His spiritual labours in the west of Ireland are all detailed with a fond minuteness by his biographers, and exhibit, with little exception, the very same flow of triumphant success which marked his progress from the beginning, baptizing multitudes wherever he went, providing churches for the congregations thus formed, and ordaining priests from amongst his disciples to watch over them. His only rest from these various cares was during a part of the Lent season, when retiring alone to the heights of Mount Eagle, or, as it has been since called, the Mountain of St. Patrick, he there devoted himself for a time to fasting and solitary prayer. While thus occupied, the various sea-fowl and birds of prey that would naturally be attracted to the spot by the sight of a living creature in so solitary a place, were transformed, by the fancy of the superstitious, into flocks of demons which came to tempt and disturb the holy man from his devotions. After this interval of seclusion, he proceeded northwards to the country then called Tir-amalgaidh, the modern barony of Tyrawley.

“He was now in the neighbourhood of the wood of Foclut, near the ocean, from whence the voices of the Irish had called to him in his dream; and whether good fortune alone was concerned in effecting the accomplishment of the omen, or, as is most likely, the thought that he was specially appointed to this place, gave fresh impulse to his zeal, the success which actually attended his mission in this district sufficiently justified any reliance he might have placed upon the dream. Arriving soon after the death of the king of that territory, and at the moment when his seven sons, having just terminated a dispute concerning the succession, were, together with a great multitude of people, collected on the occasion, St. Patrick repaired to the assembly, and by his preaching brought over to the faith of Christ not only the seven princes, including the new king, but also twelve thousand persons more, all of whom he soon after baptized. It is supposed that to these western regions of Ireland the saint alludes in his Confession, where he states that he had visited remote districts where no missionary had been before; an assertion important, as plainly implying, that in the more accessible parts of the country, Christianity had before his time been preached and practised.

“From this period, through the remainder of his truly wonder-working career, the records of his transactions present but little variety; his visits to Leinster, Ulster, and Munster being but repetitions of the course of success we have been contemplating—a continuation of the same ardour, activity, and self-devotion on the part of the missionary himself, and the same intelligence, susceptibility, and teachableness on the part of most of his hearers.

“Notwithstanding the docile and devotional spirit which he found everywhere among the lower classes, and the singular forbearance with which among the highest, even the rejecters of his doctrine tolerated his preaching it, yet that his life was sometimes in danger appears from his own statements; and an instance or two are mentioned by his biographers, where the peril must have been imminent. On one of these occasions he was indebted for his life to the generosity of his charioteer Odran, who, hearing of the intention of a desperate chieftain named Failge, to attack the saint when on his way through the King’s County, contrived, under the pretence of being fatigued, to induce his master to take the driver’s seat and so being mistaken for St. Patrick, received the lance of the assassin in his stead. The death of this charioteer is made more memorable by the remarkable circumstance, that he is the only martyr on record who, in the course of this peaceful crusade in Ireland, fell a victim by the hands of an Irishman. On another occasion, while visiting Lecale, the scene of his earliest labours, a design was formed against his life by the captain of a band of robbers, which he not only baffled by his intrepidity and presence of mind, but succeeded in converting the repentant bandit into a believer. Full of compunction, this man, whose name was Maccaldus, demanded of St. Patrick what form of penance he ought to undergo for his crimes; and the nature of the task which the saint imposed upon him is highly characteristic of the enterprising cast of his own mind. The penitent was to depart from Ireland immediately, to trust himself alone to the waves in a leathern boat, and taking with him nothing but a coarse garment, land on the first shore to which the wind might bear him, and there devote himself to the service of God. This command was obeyed; and it is added, that wafted by the wind to the Isle of Man, Maccaldus found there two holy bishops, by whom he was most kindly received, and who directed him in his penitential works with so much spiritual advantage, that he succeeded them in the bishopric of the island, and became renowned for his sanctity.

The most active foes St. Patrick had to encounter were to be found naturally among those Magi or Druids, who saw in the system he was introducing the downfall of their own religion and power. An attempt made against his life, shortly before his grand work of conversion in Tyrawley, is said to have originated among that priesthood, and to have been averted only by the interference of one of the converted princes. Among the civil class of the literati, however, his holy cause found some devoted allies. It has been already seen that the arch-poet Dubtach became very early a convert; and we find the saint, in the course of a journey through Leinster, paying a visit to this bard’s residence in Hy-Kinsellagh, and consulting with him upon matters relating to the faith. The arch-poet’s disciple too, Fiech, was here admitted to holy orders by St. Patrick, and, becoming afterwards bishop of Sletty, left behind him a name as distinguished for piety as for learning.

“The event in consequence of which the saint addressed his indignant letter to Coroticus, the only authentic writing, besides the Confession, we have from his hand, is supposed to have taken place during his stay on the Munster coast, about the year 450. A British prince named Coroticus, who, though professing to be a Christian, was not the less, as appears from his conduct, a pirate and persecutor, had landed with a party of armed followers while St. Patrick was on the coast, and set about plundering a large district in which on the very day before the saint had baptized and confirmed a vast number of converts. Having murdered several of these persons, the pirates carried off a considerable number of captives, and then sold them as slaves to the Picts and Scots, who were at that time engaged in their last joint excursions into Britain. A letter despatched by the saint to the marauders, requesting them to restore the baptized captives and part of the booty, having been treated by them with contumely, he found himself under the necessity of forthwith issuing the solemn epistle which has come down to us, in which, denouncing Coroticus and his followers as robbers and murderers, he, in his capacity of ‘bishop established in Ireland,’ declares them to be excommunicated.

“Having now preached through all the provinces, and filled the greater part of the island with Christians and with churches, St. Patrick saw that the fit period was at length arrived for the consolidation of the extensive hierarchy he had thus constructed by the establishment of a metropolitan see. In selecting the district of Macha for the seat of the primacy, he was influenced, doubtless, by the associations connected with that place as an ancient royal residence—the celebrated palace of Emmania having stood formerly in the neighbourhood of the eminence upon which Ardmacha, or Armagh, afterwards rose. The time of the foundation of this see by St. Patrick has been variously stated; but the opinion of those who place it late in his career, besides being equally borne out by evidence, seems by far the most consonant with reason, as it is not probable that he would have set about establishing a metropolitan see for all Ireland, until he had visited the various provinces, ascertained the progress of the Gospel in each, and regulated accordingly their ecclesiastical concerns. It may be remarked, that Ware and other writers, who give to this see the designation of archiepiscopal, and style St. Patrick an archbishop, have been guilty of a slight anachronism, as it was not till the beginning of the eighth century that the title of archbishop was known in Ireland. It was, indeed, in all countries a term of rather late adoption; St. Athanasius being, I rather think, the first writer in whose works it is found.

“The see of Armagh being now established, and the great bulk of the nation won over to the faith, St. Patrick, resting in the midst of the spiritual creation he had called up round him, passed the remainder of his days between Armagh and his favourite retreat at Sabhul, in the barony of Lecale—that spot which had witnessed the first dawn of his apostolical career, and now shared in the calm glories which surrounded its setting. Among the many obvious fables with which even the best of the ancient records of his life abound, is to be reckoned the account of his journey to Rome, after the foundation of Armagh, with the view of obtaining, as is alleged, from the pope a confirmation of its metropolitan privileges, and also of procuring a supply of relics. This story, invented, it is plain, to dignify and lend a lustre to some relics shown in later times at Armagh, is wholly at variance with the saint’s written testimony, which proves him constantly to have remained in Ireland, from the time when he commenced his mission in the barony of Lecale, to the last day of his life. In the document here referred to, which was written after the foundation of Armagh, he declares expressly that the Lord ‘had commanded him to come among the Irish, and to stay with them for the remainder of his life.’

“Among the last proceedings recorded of him, he is said to have held some synods at Armagh, in which canons were decreed, and ecclesiastical matters regulated. Of the canons attributed to these early synods, there are some pronounced to be of a much later date, while of others the authenticity has been by high and critical authority admitted.

“The impression that his death was not far distant, appears to have been strong on the saint’s mind when he wrote his Confession, the chief object of which was, to inform his relations and others in foreign nations, of the redeeming change which God, through his ministry, had worked in the minds of the Irish. With this view it was that he wrote his parting communication in Latin, though fully aware, as he himself acknowledges, how rude and imperfect was his mode of expressing himself in that tongue, from the constant habit he had been in for so many years of speaking no language but Irish.

“In his retreat at Sabhul, the venerable saint was seized with his last illness. Perceiving that death was near at hand, and wishing that Armagh, as the seat of his own peculiar see, should be the resting-place of his remains, he set out to reach that spot; but feeling on his way some inward warnings, which the fancy of tradition has converted into the voice of an angel commanding him to return to Sabhul as the place appointed for his last hour, he went back to that retreat, and there about a week after died, on the 17th of March, a.d. 465, having then reached, according to the most consistent hypothesis on the subject, his seventy-eighth year. No sooner had the news spread throughout Ireland that the great apostle was no more, than the clergy flocked from all quarters to Sabhul, to assist in solemnising his obsequies; and as every bishop or priest, according as he arrived, felt naturally anxious to join in honouring the dead, by the celebration of the holy mysteries, the rites were continued without interruption through day and night. To psalmody and the chanting of hymns the hours of the night were all devoted; and so great was the pomp and the profusion of torches kept constantly burning, that, as those who describe the scene express it, darkness was dispelled, and the whole time appeared to be one constant day.

“In the choice of a successor to the see there could be no delay nor difficulty, as the eyes of the saint himself, and of all who were interested in the appointment, had long been fixed on his disciple Benignus as the person destined to succeed him. It was remembered that he had, in speaking of this disciple when but a boy, said, in the language rather of prophecy than of appointment, ‘He will be the heir of my power.’ Some writers even assert that the see was resigned by him to Benignus soon after the foundation of Armagh. But there appears little ground for this assertion, and according to the most consistent accounts, Benignus did not become bishop of Armagh till after St. Patrick’s death.”

As you approach Galway, the universality of red petticoats, and the same brilliant colour in most other articles of female dress, give a foreign aspect to the population, which prepares you somewhat for the completely Italian or Spanish look of most of the streets of the town. It was a market-day when I arrived, and the large square in front of the inn was thronged with hundreds of people, shoeless and stockingless, but all with their “top-hamper,” as a sailor would say, of this gayest of colours. Not only in dress, however, but in vivid gesticulation, and in a certain massiveness of feature, the Galwayians struck me as differing from all the other Irish I had seen. The noise of the potato and pig traders was perfectly deafening, and there seemed the promise of a fight in every group engaged in traffic. After wandering awhile among the baskets and carts, I turned down a well-thronged street, and was immediately struck with the singular architecture of some of the old Spanish houses, still in tolerable preservation. To me it seemed irresistibly like a street in Italy; and Inglis, who has travelled in Spain, says that at every step he saw something to recall Spain to his recollection. “I found,” he says, “the wide entries and broad stairs of Cadiz and Malaga; the arched gateways with the outer and inner railing, and the court within—needing only the fountain and flower-vases to emulate Seville. I found the sculptured gateways and grotesque architecture, which carried the imagination to the Moorish cities of Granada and Valencia. I even found the little sliding-wicket for observation in one or two doors, reminding one of the secrecy, mystery, and caution observed, where gallantry and superstition divide life between them.”

Galway was a famous town when its Spanish merchants were princes; but their fine dwellings were at one period usurped and defaced by the rabble, and little remains of the interiors to show their ancient glory. A gentleman who joined me in my walk took me to Lombard-street, to show me the antique front of the house of the far-famed Lynch Fitzstephen, the “Roman father” of Galway. It is a tottering old house with a tablet over the door, on which is sculptured a death’s head over cross-bones, and a corresponding inscription. The story of his “stern virtue” is thus told.

“A few years before the battle of Knocktuadh, an extraordinary instance of civic justice occurred in this town, which in the eyes of its citizens elevated their chief magistrate to a rank with the inflexible Roman. James Lynch Fitzstephen, an opulent merchant, was mayor of Galway in 1493. He had made several voyages to Spain, as a considerable intercourse was then kept up between that country and the western coast of Ireland. When returning from his last visit he brought with him the son of a respectable merchant named Gomez, whose hospitality he had largely experienced, and who was now received by his family with all that warmth of affection which from the earliest period has characterised the natives of Ireland. Young Gomez soon became the intimate associate of Walter Lynch, the only son of the mayor, a youth in his twenty-first year, and who possessed qualities of mind and body which rendered him an object of general admiration; but with these was unhappily united a disposition to libertinism, which was a source of the greatest affliction to his father. The worthy magistrate, however, was now led to entertain hopes of a favourable change in his son’s character, as he was engaged in paying honourable addresses to a beautiful young lady of good family and fortune. Preparatory to the nuptials, the mayor gave a splendid entertainment, at which young Lynch fancied his intended bride viewed his Spanish friend with too much regard. The fire of jealousy was instantly lighted up in his distempered brain, and at their next interview he accused his beloved Agnes of unfaithfulness to him. Irritated at its injustice, the offended fair one disdained to deny the charge, and the lovers parted in anger.

“On the following night, while Walter Lynch slowly passed the residence of his Agnes, he observed young Gomez to leave the house, as he had been invited by her father to spend that evening with him. All his suspicions now received the most dreadful confirmation, and in maddened fury he rushed on his unsuspecting friend, who, alarmed by a voice which the frantic rage of his pursuer prevented him from recognizing, fled towards a solitary quarter of the town near the shore. Lynch maintained the fell pursuit till his victim had nearly reached the water’s edge, when he overtook him, darted a poniard into his heart, and plunged his body bleeding into the sea, which during the night threw it back again upon the shore, where it was found and recognized on the following morning.

“The wretched murderer, after contemplating for a moment the deed of horror which he had perpetrated, sought to hide himself in the recesses of an adjoining wood, where he passed the night a prey to all those conflicting feelings which the loss of that happiness he had so ardently expected, and a sense of guilt of the deepest dye could inflict. He at length found some degree of consolation in the firm resolution of surrendering himself to the law, as the only means now left to him of expiating the dreadful crime which he had committed against society. With this determination, he bent his steps towards the town at the earliest dawn of the following morning; but he had scarcely reached its precincts, when he met a crowd approaching, amongst whom, with shame and terror, he observed his father on horseback, attended by several officers of justice. At present the venerable magistrate had no suspicion that his only son was the assassin of his friend and guest; but when young Lynch proclaimed himself the murderer, a conflict of feelings seized the wretched father beyond the power of language to describe. To him, as chief magistrate, was entrusted the power of life and death. For a moment the strong affection of a parent pleaded in his breast in behalf of his wretched son; but this quickly gave place to a sense of duty in his magisterial capacity, as an impartial dispenser of the laws. The latter feeling at length predominated; and though he now perceived that the cup of earthly bliss was about to be for ever dashed from his lips, he resolved to sacrifice all personal considerations to his love of justice, and ordered the guard to secure their prisoner.

“The sad procession moved slowly towards the prison amidst a concourse of spectators, some of whom expressed the strongest admiration at the upright conduct of the magistrate, while others were equally loud in their lamentations for the unhappy fate of a highly-accomplished youth who had long been a universal favourite. But the firmness of the mayor had to withstand a still greater shock when the mother, sisters, and intended bride of the wretched Walter beheld him who had been their hope and pride approach pale, bound, and surrounded with spears. Their frantic outcries affected every heart except that of the inflexible magistrate, who had now resolved to sacrifice life, with all that makes life valuable, rather than swerve from the path of duty.

“In a few days the trial of Walter Lynch took place; and in a provincial town of Ireland, containing at that period not more than three thousand inhabitants, a father was beheld sitting in judgment, like another Brutus, on his only son; and like him too, condemning that son to die, as a sacrifice to public justice. Yet the trial of the firmness of the upright and inflexible magistrate did not end here. His was a virtue too refined for vulgar minds: the populace loudly demanded the prisoner’s release, and were only prevented by the guards from demolishing the prison, and the mayor’s house which adjoined it; and their fury was increased by learning that the unhappy prisoner had now become anxious for life. To these ebullitions of popular rage were added the intercessions of persons of the first rank and influence in Galway, and the entreaties of his dearest relatives and friends; but while Lynch evinced all the feeling of a father and a man placed in his singularly distressing circumstances, he undauntedly declared that the law should take its course.

“On the night preceding the fatal day appointed for the execution of Walter Lynch, this extraordinary man entered the dungeon of his son, holding in his hand a lamp, and accompanied by a priest. He locked the grate after him, kept the keys fast in his hand, and then seated himself in a recess of the wall. The wretched culprit drew near, and, with a faltering tongue, asked if he had anything to hope. The mayor answered, ‘No, my son; your life is forfeited to the laws, and at sunrise you must die. I have prayed for your prosperity; but that is at an end—with this world you have done for ever. Were any other but your wretched father your judge, I might have dropped a tear over my child’s misfortune, and solicited for his life, even though stained with murder: but you must die; these are the last drops which shall quench the sparks of nature; and if you dare hope, implore that Heaven may not shut the gates of mercy on the destroyer of his fellow-creature. I am now come to join with this good man in petitioning God to give you such composure as will enable you to meet your punishment with becoming resignation.’ After this affecting address, he called on the clergyman to offer up their united prayers for God’s forgiveness to his unhappy son, and that he might be fully fortified to meet the approaching catastrophe. In the ensuing supplications at a throne of mercy, the youthful culprit joined with fervour, and spoke of life and its concerns no more.

“Day had scarcely broken when the signal of preparation was heard among the guards without. The father rose, and assisted the executioner to remove the fetters which bound his unfortunate son. Then unlocking the door, he placed him between the priest and himself, leaning upon an arm of each. In this manner they ascended a flight of steps lined with soldiers, and were passing on to gain the street, when a new trial assailed the magistrate, for which he appears not to have been unprepared. His wretched wife, whose name was Blake, failing in her personal exertions to save the life of her son, had gone in distraction to the heads of her own family, and prevailed on them, for the honour of their house, to rescue him from ignominy. They flew to arms, and a prodigious concourse soon assembled to support them, whose outcries for mercy to the culprit would have shaken any nerves less firm than those of the mayor of Galway. He exhorted them to yield submission to the laws of their country; but finding all his efforts fruitless to accomplish the ends of justice at the accustomed place and by the usual hands, he by a desperate victory over parental feeling, resolved himself to perform the sacrifice which he had vowed to pay on its altar. Still retaining a hold of his unfortunate son, he mounted with him by a winding stair within the building, that led to an arched window overlooking the street, which he saw filled with the populace. Here he secured the end of the rope, which had been previously fixed round the neck of his son, to an iron staple which projected from the wall, and after taking from him a last embrace, he launched him into eternity.

“The intrepid magistrate expected instant death from the fury of the populace; but the people seemed so much overawed and confounded by the magnanimous act, that they retired slowly and peaceably to their several dwellings. The innocent cause of this sad tragedy is said to have died soon after of grief, and the unhappy father of Walter Lynch to have secluded himself during the remainder of his life from all society except that of his mourning family.”

There is a very good view of Galway from the Claddagh, a suburb of rather a singular character. We strolled thither from our contemplation of the death’s-head over the door of the unhappy Fitzstephen, and found enough in the oddity of the little fishing-town to divert us from the melancholy impression we had received. “The inhabitants of the Claddagh,” says Wright, “about three thousand in number, speak a dialect of the ancient Irish, retain their pristine dress and customs, and, with an old-fashioned pride, boast of the separateness of their origin and race. Strangers, whom they call transplanters, they do not welcome with that hospitality that generally belongs to an ancient state of things, and they appear to have a timidity of forming matrimonial alliances beyond the limits of their own little dynasty. The marriage portion is peculiarly emblematical, and is, perhaps, the bearing adopted in the arms of the town; it is a small fishing-boat, or, amongst the poorest, a share in one, given to the son-in-law.

“Their dexterity in the management of the boat, and in encountering the dangers incident to the fisherman’s life, is proverbial; and landsmen may view with surprise the happy results of skill, prudence, and propriety in the pursuit of a life so full of peril. Part of their time is devoted to the mending of their nets; another, but smaller, to the enjoyments of the alehouse: but when once they put out to sea, they become cautiously alive to their awful situation, and taking with them oaten cake, potatoes, water, and fire, never suffer any species of malt drink or spirits to form part of their store. The fisherman’s return, however, is touched with different tints; safe ashore, he throws his cares overboard, commits the cargo to the happy wife and innocent children that hail his safe arrival, and withdrawing with his messmates to the fireside, makes joyous offerings to the god of wine. During the husband’s festivities are the hours of industry of wife and children; to them belong the exclusive task of disposing of the fish, and the duties of purse-bearer and controller of the household.

“On the eve of St. John the election of a mayor and sheriffs is made by the Claddagh boys. Their mock ceremony is accompanied by real mirth; fires are lighted up in various places through the town, round which boys and girls dance in joyous hilarity, armed with long-handled besoms made of dock stems, with which they gently touch each passenger who refuses to obey the mandate of ‘honour the bonfire.’ The attendants of the mayor and sheriffs are also armed with like rude fasces of authority, which in the plenitude of fun, are ultimately set on fire, and whirled round over the heads of the noisy corporation.

“The noble bay of Galway is the unfailing treasure of the Claddagh boys, and the origin and cause of the growing importance of Galway. The surface spreads over an area of two hundred square miles, the Arran Islands being taken as its sea boundary or breakwater. Its waters wash a coast of thirty miles, indented with secure and deep harbours, and possessing numerous roadsteads. In the deep water, sunfish, hake, cod, and turbot are taken in all their varieties, and on a ground that is believed to be an extension of the Newfoundland Bank. Along the shores crustaceous fish are caught, and large and delicious oysters at Pouldudy, Burrin, and Rinvarragh. Herrings abound here in the season, and their exclusive capture is claimed by the Claddagh boys. The salmon fishing yields an annual revenue of £500, although the retail price is trifling, and the entire draught consumed at home.”

I left the crowded and foreign-looking streets of Galway most unwillingly, and passed my last afternoon in a visit to the fine ruins of Clare Abbey, beautifully situated on the banks of the Clare river near its entrance into Lough Corrib. Thence I kept on my way to Athlone and Clonmacnoise.

The Shannon from Athlone to Clonmacnoise is a dull and uninteresting river. “Surrounded by bogs,” to use the language of Cæsar Otway, to whose sparkling and flowing pen I am indebted for this and other admirable descriptions, “it creeps through dismal flats and swamps; and the narrow tracts of meadow and small patches of cultivation along its banks, only tend, like green fringes to a mourning drapery, to mark off, as by contrast, the extreme dreariness of the picture. A tedious row of about ten miles down the most dreary of navigations, brought us in sight of Clonmacnoise. As I said before, a line of gravel-hills, forming the Aisgir Reada, comes from the east, and cuts the line of the Shannon at right-angles, causing the great river to form a reach or bend; and the hills breaking their direct lines as they approach the stream, form an amphitheatre, upon the southern curve of which are erected the Seven Churches: the northern terminates in a beautiful green hill, like the inverted hull of a ship, round which the river flows at some distance, leaving an extensive flat of swampy meadow between it and the water. As the wind was strong and steady here up the river, causing the labour of rowing to be almost intolerable, we drew up our little cot into a cave, and ascending the green hill, had at once from its summit a view of the sacred spot before us, and of the extraordinary country all around. The Irish saints of olden time, in imitation of their brethren of the Thebaic desert, chose places wherein to honour God and discipline themselves, which marked the austerities of that superstition, which deceivingly told them that they must not stand up to make use of the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. What a dreary vale is Glendalough!—what a lonely isle is Inniscaltra!—what a hideous place is Patrick’s Purgatory!—what a desolate spot is Clonmacnoise! From this hill of Bentullagh, on which we now stood, the numerous churches, the two round towers, the curiously overhanging bastions of O’Melaghlin’s Castle, all before us to the south, and rising in relief from the dreary sameness of the surrounding red bogs, presented such a picture of tottering ruins and encompassing desolation, as I am sure few places in Europe could parallel.

“We had neither time nor patience to remain long on a remote hill, while the ruins of Clonmacnoise were within ten minutes’ walk of us, so we proceeded to the first ruin, which lies separate from all the rest, on the northern side of the churchyard, the large field or common on which the patron is held intervening. Little remains of this church but a beautiful arch of the most florid and ornate Gothic workmanship, forming the opening from the body of the church into the chancel: it now totters to its fall—it is even surprising that it does not tumble; and I suspect that it would long ago have fallen a victim to the elements or to the barbarous violence of the people, were it not that it is considered as part of an expiating penance for the pilgrim to creep on his bare knees under this arch while approaching the altar-stone of this chapel, where sundry paters and aves must be repeated as essential to keeping the station. Adjoining this is a holy stone on which St. Kieran sat, and the sitting on it now, under the affiance of faith, proves a sovereign cure for all epileptic people.

“Here is the largest enclosure of tombs and churches I have anywhere seen in Ireland. What a mixture of old and new graves! Modern inscriptions recording the death and virtues of the sons of little men, the rude forefathers of the surrounding hamlets;—ancient inscriptions in the oldest forms of Irish letters, recording the deeds and the hopes of kings, bishops, and abbots, buried a thousand years ago, lying about broken, neglected, and dishonoured, what would I give could I have deciphered! I should have been glad had time allowed, to be permitted to transcribe them. And what shall I do with all those ancient towers, and crosses, and churches, without a guide? I looked around: there were many people in the sacred enclosure; some kneeling in the deepest abstraction of devotion at the graves of their departed friends,—the streaming eye, the tremulous hand, the bowed-down body, the whole soul of sorrowful reminiscence and of trust in the goodness of the God of spirits, threw a sacred solemnity about them that few indeed, though counting their act superstitious, would presume to interrupt; he who would venture so to do, must be one indeed of little feeling. I saw others straggling through the place—some half intoxicated, sauntering or stumbling over the gravestones—others hurrying across the sacred enclosure, as if hastening to partake of the last dregs of debauchery in the tents of the patron-green.

“After looking about vaguely for some time, this church of St. Kieran was what caught my particular attention. It was extremely small, more an insignificant oratory than what could be called a church;—a tall man could scarcely lie at length in it; a mason would have contracted to build its walls for a week’s wages; yet this, my mendicant guide said, was the old church of St. Kieran. The walls had all gone awry from their foundations; they had collapsed together, and presented a picture of desolation without grandeur. Beside it was a sort of cavity or hollow in the ground, as if some persons had lately been rooting to extract a badger or a fox; but here it was that the people, supposing St. Kieran to be deposited, have rooted diligently for any particle of clay that could be found, in order to carry home that holy earth, steep it in the water, and drink it; and happy is the votary who is now able amongst the bones and stones to pick up what has the semblance of soil, in order to commit it to his stomach as a means of grace, or as a sovereign remedy against diseases of all sorts.

“From the little oratory of St. Kieran, the woman led us on to the largest of the ruined churches, which, after all, is of no great size; but still it is the most remarkable of any, not only for its greater size, but for the beauty of its western entrance, and the exquisite and elaborate workmanship of its northern doorway. This church is said to have been originally erected by the M‘Dermots, princes of the northern parts of Roscommon; a tablet on the wall, near the eastern window records that it was repaired in 1647, by M‘Coghlan, the lord of the adjoining territories.

“Whether the northern doorway into this church existed prior to the repairs of M‘Coghlan, or whether executed by his direction, I am not competent to decide; but I am induced to believe that it was constructed in a more auspicious day of taste in Gothic architecture in Ireland. It is executed in blue limestone, marble it may well be called, and the elaborate tracery, on which the whole fancy and vagary of Gothic license is lavished, stands forth as sharp, fresh, and clean as if but yesterday from under the chisel.

“Amongst the other ornaments of this highly-finished doorway are figures in alto rilievo—one evidently of a bishop giving his blessing, the other of an abbot; the third figure is much mutilated, and that apparently done on purpose.

“Proceeding from M‘Dermot’s church, our attention was directed to a very fine stone cross, the largest in the place, formed of one piece, and covered with carvings in basso rilievo and inscriptions, which had I the ability, my time would not allow me to decipher. ‘Come, my good woman,’ said I, ‘tell what may be the stories told of these figures.’ ‘Why, then, myself cannot tell you anything about them, they are all out ancient; may be Darby Claffy yonder, the ouldest man about the churches, could tell you somewhat.’ Now Darby Claffy was standing idle, leaning not far off against the wall of Dowling’s church, looking up at O’Rourke’s tower, and a finer studio for a sketcher than the head, face, and form of the venerable-looking man could not be seen: eighty winters had dropped their flakes as light as snow-feathers on his head; and there he stood, with his hat off, his fine Guido countenance and expressive face, a living accompaniment to all the grey venerability that was around. ‘Come over here, Darby Claffy, honest man, and tell the strange gintlemen all you know about them crosses and things—musha, myself forgets; at any rate I must run and show Judy Delaney, the simple crathur, where to find her father’s grave. Heaven be wid yees, gintlemen, and don’t forget poor Judy.’ A shilling given to her seemed the source of unutterable joy; her little son that was beside her, appearing as if he never saw so large a coin, snatched it in raptures from his mammy, and danced about the gravestones in triumph. I was pleased to buy human joy so cheaply. The old man did not belie his fine countenance; his mind was stored with traditionary recollections concerning Clonmacnoise, which, if not according to recorded facts, were founded on them; and he spoke with perfect assurance in the truth of what he said, and of the sanctity of all around. ‘Can you, my honest fellow, tell us anything about the figures carved on this cross?’ ‘A little, plase your honour; but sartain I’m no scholar. Come here now, mister, do you see that figure with the keys? That is St. Pether; and that there beside him is St. Kieran. Do you see a book in his hand? That is the Gospel of St. Matthew, which Kieran learned so well from holy Finian, of Clonard, in the county Meath, where in ould times there was a great school, somewhat the same as Maynooth now is, whence young Father Flinnerty has just come home edicated; well, plase your honours, Kieran was called Kieran of St. Matthew, because he knew that Gospel so well. And do now look below Pether and Kieran, and don’t you notice young men smiling, and one playing the bagpipes? Well, this represents the young priests that Kieran brought with him to Clonmacnoise; and as well becomes the divil, he must needs envy their devotions, and he used to come by night and play his bagpipes to divart them there, and draw them off from their vesper duties; and up they’d get from their knees, when the ould boy, in the shape of a piper, would play a planxty, and set a bait, (they couldn’t for their life help it,) jigging it away. Now St. Pether in Heaven saw, to be sure, all this, and so he comes down to tell Kieran of it; and moreover he falls upon Satan in a thrice;—don’t you see him there how he has tumbled the enemy of man? and, as you see there, is sending him headlong to hell.’ There was certainly something like a man playing the pipes cut on the cross, and a representation of two persons contending, and one getting the better of the other; but whether old Claffy was right in his reading I cannot say. This cross is certainly one of the finest I have seen in Ireland; I question whether it is even inferior to those immense ones that are at Monasterboice, in the county of Louth.

“From thence we proceeded, the old man following us, to the church and round tower, which stands in the north-western extremity of the cemetery, and which is usually called M‘Carthy’s church and tower. The round tower, though small, is one of the most perfect in Ireland; it is conically capped, and the ranges of stone forming the cover are of the most beautiful and singular arrangement. The tower stands on the south side of the chancel of the church; and the doorway of the tower, instead of being elevated ten or fifteen feet from the ground, is on a level with the floor of the chancel from which it leads; it is within a few feet of the altar: moreover the archway leading from the nave of the church into the chancel, which is of the most finished and at the same time chaste order of Gothic construction, is wrought into the body of the round tower, part of whose rotundity is sacrificed to give room and form to the display of its light and elegant span. Now these two circumstances convince me that, in the first place, the church and tower were built at the same time; moreover, that as the church was placed more remote than other churches, and nearer invaders coming across the Shannon, the tower was provided as a look-out station and place of ready retreat for the priests to retire to with their sacred vessels and books.

“M‘Carthy’s church, in the north-west corner of the cemetery, was built by the M‘Carthy More of Munster, the greatest sept in Cork; he who held under his sway the O’Learys and the O’Sullivans and the O’Donohus, and I don’t know how many more Milesian O’s and Macs. It is a curious and peculiarly interesting ruin, because, as I said before, there is here evident proof that the round tower and church were built at the same time; for besides that they both are formed of the same kind of stone, and are constructed with the same range and character of masonry, there is part of the rotundity of the tower sacrificed to give play to the full span of the chancel-arch, and exhibits one of the most chaste specimens in the world of what is called the Saxon arch. This tower is not large or lofty; it measures but seven feet in diameter within, and is but fifty-five feet high; it has a conical cap, which is essential, according to antiquarians, to make a round tower perfect; and a freemason, supposing he was master of his craft, would say, ‘Well done,’ to the artist who constructed the beautiful courses of cut stone by which the cut cap was brought to a point. As I have already said, the door of the tower is level with the ground, and I think I could discern the marks of stairs that rose spirally to the top; unlike all other round towers, which, though there are marks of floors, story over story, in no other instance present marks of spiral stairs.”

The Shannon from Portunma to Castle-Connell, including Loch Derg, is very like an American river, and except that its banks are so poorly wooded, it is equal in majestic natural beauty to several of our large waters. There is no point very strikingly picturesque, however, till we reach the ruined castle of the Kings of Munster, the warlike O’Briens, and here the Shannon for a considerable distance resembles the Rapids of the St. Lawrence. At the Rapids of Dunass, as they are called, the whole body of the Shannon pours over a mass of rocks descending considerably for half a mile, and into this picture comes the town of Castle-Connell, with its fine mansions, green lawns, and lofty towers, which adds much to the natural beauty of the river.

From this point to Limerick the Shannon is not navigable by boats, but the road runs close to the river-bank, and the beauty of the scene may thus be enjoyed by the traveller. There is much finer wood below than above Castle-Connell, and the country-seats are numerous and fine; Mount Shannon, Lord Clare’s residence, perhaps the finest among them. Lady Chatterton in her agreeable book mentions that there is a tradition among the peasantry in the neighbourhood of Castle-Connell, that the ruins of the old castle above the town will fall upon the wisest person in the world if he should chance to pass under. A gentleman of much consideration in the neighbourhood fancied himself entitled to the honour of being crushed by them. He never could be prevailed on to approach the ruins, and when obliged to ride along the high road to Limerick, which runs near, he always passed the dangerous spot at full gallop.

I think no American traveller would enter Limerick without exclaiming in the principal street, “How very like New York!” The tall and handsome brick-houses, the iron railings, the broad and clean sidewalks, and something, it struck me too, in the dress and style of the people reminded me very forcibly of my country. There was a chapel-bell ringing for an evening lecture, (it was just twilight,) and well-dressed persons were coming to it from all quarters, and this church-going feature perhaps contributed its share to the resemblance. I had had two hours of daylight ramble through the town before the evening shut in; and I must record my agreeable surprise at the beauty and thriftiness of the fair town of Limerick. In the morning I rose early, and mounted to get a view of Limerick and the Shannon from the Cathedral Tower. This fine river, with its handsome bridges, gives a grandeur to the view which would otherwise be wanting to so flat a country; yet in the charms of cultivation and quiet loveliness, the panorama from this elevated point is well worth the seeking. My guide called on me to admire the size of the bells, and with the words “Limerick bells,” the story connected with them at once, and for the first time since my arrival in the town, recurred to my memory. “The remarkable fine bells of Limerick,” so runs the story, “were originally brought from Italy: they had been manufactured by a young native, (whose name tradition has not preserved,) and finished after the toil of many years, and he prided himself upon his work. They were subsequently purchased by the prior of a neighbouring convent; and with the profits of this sale the young Italian procured a little villa, where he had the pleasure of hearing the tolling of his bells from the convent-cliff, and of growing old in the bosom of domestic happiness. This however was not to continue: in some of those broils, whether civil or foreign, which are the undying worm in the peace of a fallen land, the good Italian was a sufferer amongst many. He lost his all; and, after the passing of the storm, found himself preserved alone amid the wreck of fortune, friends, family, and home. The convent in which the bells, the chef-d’œuvre of his skill, were hung, was razed to the earth, and these last carried away to another land. The unfortunate owner, haunted by his memories and deserted by his hopes, became a wanderer over Europe. His hair grew grey and his heart withered before he again found a home and a friend. In this desolation of spirit he formed the resolution of seeking the place to which those treasures of his memory had been finally borne. He sailed for Ireland, proceeded up the Shannon; the vessel anchored in the pool near Limerick, and he hired a small boat for the purpose of landing. The city was now before him, and he beheld St. Mary’s steeple, lifting its turreted head above the smoke and mist of the old town. He sat in the stern and looked fondly towards it. It was an evening so calm and beautiful as to remind him of his own native haven in the sweetest time of the year—the depth of the spring. The broad stream appeared like one smooth mirror, and the little vessel glided through it with almost a noiseless expedition. On a sudden, amid the general stillness, the bells tolled from the cathedral; the rowers rested on their oars, and the vessel went forward with the impulse it had received. The old Italian looked towards the city, crossed his arms on his breast, and lay back in his seat; home, happiness, early recollections, friends, family—all were in the sound, and went with it to his heart. When the rowers looked round they beheld him with his face still turned towards the cathedral, but his eyes were closed, and when they landed they found him cold!”

Descending from the cathedral tower with more difficulty than I ascended, from the dilapidated condition of the narrow stone staircase, I kept down the Shannon on the old-town side, to visit the ancient Castle of King John, the fine round towers of which still show nobly in every view from the other shore. New walls are built in with the old, and if I remember rightly, the castle is now used as a police-station, but it preserves its grandeur amid all the modern tenements which surround it. The old town, through the narrow streets of which I had made my way, is a very different place from the newer Limerick, and as Mr. Inglis remarks, a person entering the city by this avenue, and taking up his quarters there, would infallibly set down Limerick as the very vilest town he had ever entered. “The city is composed,” says an historical writer, “of the English-town, the Irish-town, and the New-town-Perry. The first stands on the northern side of the river, being separated from the latter by a narrow arm of the Shannon, which embraces the English-town in its entire circumference; and on the north-west side of the great branch of the river, in the county of Clare, is the extensive and populous suburb of Thomondgate. The English-town has all the antiquated appearance of a close-built fortress, of the latter part of the seventeenth century: its venerable cathedral, narrow streets, and lofty houses, chiefly built in the Dutch or Flemish fashion, are said to give it a considerable resemblance to Rouen in Normandy. This gloom is however relieved at various openings by a view of the cheering waters of the Shannon, while the vicinity of the canal, and the verdant fields and gardens which skirt the borders of the Abbey-river, afford a pleasant promenade to its dense population. The ground on which the New-town is built is rather elevated, and the soil is general gravelly and dry. The streets are spacious, cut each other at right-angles, and are occupied by elegant houses and merchants’ stores, constructed of brick and limestone, for which the neighbouring district supplies the finest materials. A more superb city-view can hardly be presented to the eye, than the range of buildings from the new bridge to the Crescent, a distance little short of an English mile, including Rutland-street, Patrick-street, George’s-street, and the Tontine; and its interest will be greatly heightened when the line of buildings is continued from the Crescent along the military road, and the projected square built on its left. Shops, tastefully laid out and richly furnished, line these streets, while others diverge to the right and left, which are chiefly occupied by the residences of the gentry. At every opening to the westward salubrious breezes from the Shannon inspire health and vigour; and a walk to the quays is amply compensated by the scenes of busy traffic there presented, and the various enlivening prospects which meet the eye. Here the packet-boat from Kilrush is landing her joyous passengers, whose nerves have been braced and spirits exhilarated by some weeks’ residence on the shores of the Atlantic at Kilkee or Malbay. There turf- and fish-boats are discharging their cargoes, which are rapidly conveyed by Herculean porters to the dwellings of the consumers, amidst various specimens of Munster wit, sometimes delivered in the native language, and sometimes in Anglo-Irish. On the west are seen the distant towers of Carrig-o-gunnell Castle, and the Pool, where the larger ships ride at anchor in perfect security, while many a skiff cuts the blue wave. On the east appear the mill of Curragour, built in 1672, and its rapid current, which roars and eddies amidst rocks of various shapes and sizes; the bridge of Thomond, hoary with age; and the ivy-mantled turrets of King John’s Castle, backed by the mountains of Clare and Tipperary. The city contains nearly fifty public edifices, about one half of which stand on the south-west side of the river.

“The liberties comprehend about sixteen thousand Irish acres, extending from three to four miles south, east, and west of the old city walls.

“The parish of St. Michael’s, or the New-town of Limerick, is divided from the old city by a branch of the Shannon: it is described as containing two thousand houses and ten thousand inhabitants, and as comprising all the wealth and trade of the city.”

I returned to English-town by Thomond Bridge, one of the oldest structures in this part of Ireland. There were several bridges thrown across the Shannon in the twelfth century, two of them by King Turlough O’Connor. It is supposed, however, that these were of wood, and that the first stone bridges were erected by the Anglo-Normans. Thomond Bridge ranks as the most ancient of these, having been erected by the English adventurers as a necessary step to their intended subjugation of the ancient province of Thomond. This simple and apparently unskilful structure is perfectly level, and is built on fourteen arches, under each of which some marks of the hurdles on which it was erected are still visible. According to tradition, the original expense of building it was but thirty pounds. There are also some picturesque ruins of Baal’s Bridge, now pulled down. The new structure of Wellesley Bridge, lately finished, is very handsome—erected from the designs of the late Alexander Nimmo.

The piers near these bridges were crowded with vessels, and the river-side, for some distance, presented the aspect of busy and thriving trade. The capabilities of the Shannon as a medium of trade have been very much discussed of late, and they are well developed in an article in the Dublin Penny Journal, from which we extract a portion. “The name of the river Shannon is familiar to the people of this kingdom; but all else concerning it is known to very few indeed. Most persons have learned from the common geographies, that in the centre of Ireland there rises a river of about the same length as the Thames, which, flowing through ten counties in a wide and fertilizing course, pours its waters into the Atlantic Ocean. The great resources and remarkable peculiarities of this river are still, however, little thought of and little understood. To those who have witnessed the eagerness with which in England the favours of nature are seized on and rendered available, and the indefatigable zeal with which her difficulties are overcome, it may well be matter of surprise that the Shannon does not enjoy the common facilities of unaided river navigation. Yet not only is this the case, but its superior adaptation and vast capabilities for all the purposes of commercial communication, are but imperfectly known to those most interested in the subject. A good deal of attention has latterly been given to the question of the improvement of the Shannon.

“Lough Allen, in the county of Leitrim, supplied by streams from the high and rugged mountains by which it is surrounded, forms the source in which the Shannon is considered to rise. The lake is about ten miles long, and is deeply imbedded in lofty hills, which contain rich and copious stores of iron and coal. Out of Lough Allen the river flows in a narrow and rather shallow and impeded channel; occasionally however widening into small lakes, between the counties of Leitrim and Roscommon, to Savesborough, where it expands into the great Lough Allen, twenty miles long and in some parts four broad. For thirty-seven miles to Portumna, the channel is more confined; but it is still a bold and wide river. From Portumna to Killaloe, its course is through Lough Derg, the largest of the Shannon lakes, being twenty-three miles long. At Killaloe it resumes the character of an ordinary river; but the navigation thence to Limerick is contracted and difficult. From Limerick to its mouth, the Shannon is a tideway, and appears in fact a great estuary or arm of the sea.

“From this sketch of the Shannon’s course, it is manifest that it possesses characteristics altogether different from those of the chief rivers of England. Unlike the equable flow of the Thames through its confined bed, differing but little from a canal, and admitting in much of its length of tracking along its banks, the Shannon pours its waters unconstrained through a very various country: now, with many falls, hastening past its rugged and uneven shores; and now, with gentle stream, coasting the low and rich meadows, which in winter the flood overflows; sometimes with close and narrow channel, and then opening into great lakes, like inland seas, studded with islands. Towing with horses on the banks can therefore be but little employed, and steam-vessels must be used to drag the loaded boats across the numerous loughs. In one respect the Shannon is unequalled by any river that we know of. From the sea to its head, a course of two hundred and thirty-four miles, it is navigable throughout. After the removal of some obstructions, and increasing the depth of the water in a few places, a barge of fifty tons burden may pass along its entire length from Lough Allen to the Atlantic.

“Ten counties possess the advantage of the proximity of the Shannon, which, at the lowest average, waters fifty miles of shore of each. What incalculable benefits then must accrue to this extensive district, by rendering the navigation thoroughly available for the purposes of intercourse! The soils of the counties bordering on the river, and consequently their productions, are different. Hitherto, notwithstanding the existence at their doors of a noble river, there have been no means of interchange. A famine may rage in Leitrim and plenty prevail in Tipperary, yet the river Shannon affords no aid for the conveyance of the surplus produce of the one to supply the wants of the other. Potatos may be very cheap in the south, and yet hardly to be procured in the north; turf may be had in one county for little more than the trouble of cutting it, while in another, at no considerable distance, the people may be suffering intensely from the want of fuel. Yet the Shannon—intended by nature as a great artery for the conveyance of commerce, that life’s-blood of a people’s prosperity—is not merely useless for the purposes of mutual assistance and communication among the inhabitants of its banks, but is actually a bar and impediment to their intercourse. Mr. Rhodes remarks, that the grand designs of nature have been in a great measure frustrated, and the river may not unaptly be compared to a sealed book. Were the navigation completed, how valuable in its effects would be the ready interchange of commodities amongst the various districts along its shores, extending and making equal the comforts of the people; aiding to remove the dangers of famine by opening to each locality the resources of all, and increasing the wealth and knowledge of the peasantry by the introduction of trade and all its attendant benefits! The transport of agricultural produce throughout the country bordering on the Shannon, would, however, form a small portion of the commerce of the river. Considerable quantities of corn are now conveyed by the Shannon and Grand Canal to Dublin, for exportation to Liverpool; and this trade would be vastly increased by the improvement of the river. The mountains of Leitrim, round Lough Allen, abound in iron and coal. Here are situated the Angna iron-works, producing about sixty tons of wrought iron per week: the quantity might be much increased by the opening of the navigation. The extensive coal-beds of this valuable district could also produce sufficient fuel for the entire country along the Shannon, were roads formed and the river laid open to the workings of industry and enterprise. There are excellent slate-quarries at Killaloe and other places; and marble, lime, and stone of every description may be procured in several districts close to the river; besides many natural productions at present unknown or disregarded,—inaccessible they may be said to be from the wretched state of the navigation.

“The extent of the country which would be immediately affected by the completion of this great line of communication, has been estimated at two million acres, in the heart of the island, rich in its various soils and numerous productions; yet where the peasantry are in the most miserable state of destitution, scarcely sustaining life by the wretched resources of poverty, numbers of them annually emigrating to England to obtain that employment denied them at home. Many districts of this country have been among the most disturbed and disorderly in Ireland. The providing of occupation, and of profitable markets for the produce of the soil, will vastly promote the peace and wealth of the country; and the increased comforts of the people will dispose them to habits of order and civilization. The introduction of British manufactures must greatly tend to elevate the condition of the people, and to enrich the English merchant, very important considerations in the discussion of our subject. The imports from Great Britain increase progressively each year, and must be much advanced by introducing so extensive a tract to all the wants of civilized society. The advantages of a great home-market, whose demands are unaffected by political circumstances, cannot but be appreciated by the manufacturer. The benefits attending the completion of the Shannon navigation cannot be anticipated: many years must elapse before they are fully in operation; depending, as they must, so much upon the concurrent circumstances of the general state of the country, as respects the condition and habits of the people, as well as the progress of other public improvements. The opening of the river will have but a partial influence, unless followed by the formation of roads to its banks, and the execution of other works necessary to facilitate the transport of the productions of the country, and to promote the intercourse between the Shannon and the districts more remote from its shores. As the intelligence, the habits, and comforts of the people, and their mode of agriculture improve, the trade of the Shannon will advance; and in the present and disgraceful condition of the inhabitants, we cannot form any reasonable estimate of the valuable consequences of the too-long delayed completion of this great work.

“The general wants of the navigation of the Shannon are simple in their nature, and easily effected: the deepening of the channel in some places—the placing of beacons and buoys, so essential in a river liable to great floods, and consequently of such variable width and depth—the erection of piers and landing-places—the formation of a complete system of roads to its banks from the surrounding country and the neighbouring towns and villages. But above all, and without which all else is useless or impracticable, the entire navigation should be placed under the control of an efficient and active body, responsible for its maintenance in a perfect and available condition, who should be guided in their management, not by their desire of profit, but solely with the view of rendering the river as useful and accessible as possible to the public.”

The Shannon below Limerick is a broad and noble stream, but the nakedness of the shores deprived it of all charm for me. It is besides flat and sterile-looking; and after losing sight of the fine ruins of Carrig-o-Gonnell, I found the passage wearisome enough till we reached the domain of the great benefactor of this part of the country, Lord Monteagle, and began to near my destination at Tarbert. The Knight of Kerry has a fine place in this neighbourhood on the left bank of the river, and these two form oases in the desert. The Shannon near Tarbert assumes the look of an estuary, and the view here is altogether finer than farther up. I confess to great disappointment in the Shannon however, malgré the occasional beauties at and above Limerick: my expectations were too highly raised. Moore’s poem of St. Senanus, (whose “Sacred Isle” is just below Tarbert,) and Sir Aubrey de Vere’s elegant sonnet, give a romance to the Shannon, which paints it, in the fancy, too flatteringly.

The steamer passes Scattery Island after leaving Tarbert, and a good view is obtained of this poetical spot, which is graced with a round tower, one hundred and twenty feet high, and various ecclesiastical ruins. St. Senanus is said to have established a place of worship here before the arrival of St. Patrick, and it is to this day a place of Catholic pilgrimage. “It is recorded in the annals of Minister, that in the year 975, Brian Boroihme recovered this island from the Danes; it also appears that Queen Elizabeth granted it to the mayor and corporation of Limerick and their successors, who lately established their right thereto by a suit at law. The present possessor, a gentleman of taste, has fitted up a handsome lodge, and added many improvements.”

A very interesting book, called Two Months at Kilkee, written by “Mary John Knott,” and embellished with some clever drawings, gives an excellent account of this little watering-place, and we must be indebted to it for a description of the views taken by the artist on this coast. “Kilkee, or Kilqui, is situated at Moore Bay, on the western coast of Ireland, in the county of Clare, about fifty English miles from Limerick, one hundred and seventy from Dublin, and twenty-five from Ennis, and its shore is washed by the Atlantic. Comparatively but a few years since it was only known as the residence of fishermen, whose habitations formed the row of cottages now called ‘Old Kilkee.’ At present there are upwards of one hundred comfortable houses and lodges for the accommodation of visitors, independent of the cottages in which the natives reside. Since that period the town has been gradually rising into importance, and it is probable will ere long, from the safety of its strand, and other peculiar circumstances, be one of the most desirable watering-places on the coast.

“The town, which commands a fine view of the bay, is built close to the sea, and assumes a semicircular form from the shape of the strand, which presents a smooth, white, sandy surface of above half a mile in length, where the invalid can, without fatigue or interruption, enjoy the exhilarating sea-breeze and surrounding scenery. The principal street runs nearly from one end of the village to the other; these extend to the strand, and at every few steps afford a view of the Atlantic wave dashing into foam against the cliff’s which circumscribe its power, and the rocks of Duggana, which run nearly across the bay. Some of the houses at the ‘west end’ of the town, as well as a few in the village, are modern, with sufficient accommodation (including stabling and coach-houses) for the family of a nobleman or gentleman of fortune; and every gradation can be had, down to a cottage with a parlour, two small bed-rooms, and kitchen, the rent varying according to the accommodation and demand. A few of the largest, fully furnished, pay from £15 to £20 per month; but the average for comfortable, good lodges is from £6 to £8, and the smallest from £3 to £4, including a plentiful supply of milk, potatoes, and turf, according to the custom of the place. One circumstance which strongly recommends this place is the prevalence of cleanliness, for which the houses, beds, and natives are remarkable. The walls of several new lodges are now built, and I am informed that upwards of thirty are in progress. It is however evident, that many of the people, anxious to possess a lodge and reap the summer fruits, have overbuilt themselves, to use their own words. A large Roman Catholic chapel has been lately erected near the road: the Protestant place of worship is but temporarily fitted up at the end of the Marine Parade. It is intended to build a handsome edifice for this purpose in the centre of the new square, at the west end. The surrounding country presents a very bleak aspect, without a tree, shrub, or garden-flower to enliven its surface. A number of poor cabins diversify the scene from the village to the hilly distance, to the extreme point of which the hand of man has carried cultivation.

“An extensive bog reaches to the skirts of the town, and affords a plentiful supply of fuel at a very low rate, which confers an incalculable benefit on the inhabitants: a cheerful fire generally enlivens the hearth of the poorest cottage. There are three hotels or boarding-houses in the town, where board and lodging are provided for about twenty-five shillings per week: tolerably well-appointed jaunting-cars are now amongst the advantages which this town affords. There are two chalybeate spas in and near Kilkee, which, it is said, possess properties similar to the celebrated waters of Castle Connell. One of them is situated, as already mentioned, about a mile distant; the other is adjoining the town, but from its present neglected state and difficulty of approach, we believe it is little frequented by strangers. These obstacles might, however, be removed at a trifling expense, if a path were made from the road along the stream, and the spa covered in and placed under the care of some deserving poor person, who, by a small allowance from visitors, might be able to gain something towards a livelihood: these healing waters could be made both attractive and useful to the invalid visitors of Kilkee.

“Near to this spot the antiquarian may gratify his taste by viewing a fine old Danish fort, the most perfect in this neighbourhood, where they may be said to abound. It lies behind the town, on a little hill, and has a thick bank thrown up all round, of about seven hundred feet in circumference: the moat or ditch is about twenty-five feet wide, the centre gradually rises from sixteen to twenty feet, the summit is about three hundred feet in circumference, and nearly level. On the south side are two rather small openings, which lead to subterraneous chambers, and occupy the interior of the centre elevation: they are said to be extensive. The neighbourhood was thrown into consternation some time since by a ventriloquist, who caused sounds of distress and anguish apparently to proceed from these vaults. If the apertures were enlarged, it might afford an inducement to the curious inquirer to descend and explore the probable storehouses of the northern depredators. The lads of the village are now the chief visitors of this antique circle. One of our party was informed by a youth that it was a fine place to dry clothes in, ‘for if all the rogues in the county Clare came, they could not steal them; that out of a joke some of them tried, but could not touch one, because of the spirits or ghosts which are said to frequent it; also that some time since the landlord wished to have the mound removed, but could not get the men to work at it, as they got afraid.’ If it were really the landlord’s intention to have it removed, we need not be surprised at the result, as a disposition prevails in most places amongst the country people not to level their favourite old circles.

Men and women were to be seen in all directions removing seaweed which they had cut from the rocks, and brought to the shore in canoes, together with large quantities of the long-weed, which they tied together in great bundles, and which floated in with the tide, propelling with them all that was loose between them and the shore. This scene brought to our recollection Capt. Cooke’s description of the inhabitants of Otaheite. The women appeared quite as active as the men in leaping in and out of the canoes, standing in the sea up to their waists, and in that state filling carts and creels, which were placed contiguous to the sea to receive the loadings. There is one kind on which they set the highest value; it consists of many leaves, some of them three yards long, attached to a stalk of considerable strength: this they use for manuring potato-ground, the soil here being particularly poor and sterile. This was a scene of enjoyment to the young natives, especially the little girls, who, with their frocks drawn up, and neatly fastened round their waists to keep them dry, ran in and out of the water like amphibious creatures: to young and old it appeared like the joyous scene of a harvest-home.

“We were much amused in observing the dexterity of about a dozen young girls, who went to assist in pushing off a canoe with two men in it, who had long laboured without success to get clear of the land, owing to the resistance of the waves. With a considerable effort the little folks pushed it off; but whilst the men were congratulating themselves on getting clear of the land, and preparing to row away, the lighthearted lasses, bent on diversion, watched the returning wave, and archly uniting their efforts, drew the canoe and its cargo on dry land, and ran away highly delighted.

“The day being unusually fine, induced us to take an excursion on the water; but here, as in some other bathing-places, much cannot be said of boat-accommodation. The natives use canoes for fishing, which are the only description of boat to be found along this coast. About twenty of these comprise the fishing-establishment at Kilkee: they are composed of a frame of light timber or strong wicker-work, covered with sail-cloth, rendered waterproof with pitch and tar. The best kinds have slight timber hoops to support the cloth, which is an improvement. A few years since they were covered with horse- and cow-hides, after the custom of the ancient Irish. These little vessels have neither keel nor rudder; they are particularly calculated to skim over the surface of the waves, and pass safely amongst the rocks on this dangerous shore, where a timber-boat might be dashed to pieces. The expert rowers, with a light paddle or oar in each hand, glide very swiftly over the waves, and turn them with great dexterity. It is surprising at times to see them going along shore; when a breaker approaches that would fill the canoe over its side, they instantly turn the head, which from its being elevated, enables them to ride over in safety, and as quickly return to their course: they are considered much safer when well managed than timber boats of the same size. The weight of the latter would preclude their general use along the coast; as where there are not any sheltered harbours, the fishermen on landing have to carry their canoes above the reach of the waves. When the sail-cloth happens to be torn, it is most expeditiously repaired; a sod of lighted turf is held near the rent until the pitch is melted, a fresh piece is stuck on the aperture, and the canoe is immediately launched; the water hardens the cement, and without further ceremony the fishermen jump in and row off.”

The fair authoress gives an equally interesting account of her visit to the Natural Bridges near Kilkee. “After a residence of seven weeks, an excursion was planned to visit the unfrequented village and bay of Ross, near Loof-Head, whose natural bridges of rock, over an inlet of the Atlantic, are considered amongst the greatest curiosities on this romantic coast; and finding my health and strength so much recruited, that instead of being unable to go a mile in a jaunting-car without feeling quite exhausted, I undertook a ride of twenty-four miles.

“Nothing worthy of note occurred, with the exception of an occasional caution from our careful driver, of ‘Will you be plazed to howld fast,’ or having to get occasionally off the car in passing over sundry hollows in the road; otherwise we might have found ourselves on the ground without the trouble of alighting. On stopping to inquire the shortest path to the ‘Bridges,’ the good-countenanced natives flocked around us; but as they could not speak English, we were at a loss for direction, until a little lad, who understood our language, came up and offered to act as guide. After passing over two fields we reached these remarkable objects—both picturesque, yet quite different—extending across the same natural canal or inlet, which appears as if cut out of the solid rock, and varies from fifty to sixty feet in width, and in its course it makes nearly a right-angle. The inner bridge next to the termination, and which is first seen, is beautifully arched, and formed of numerous thin strata of rock, like sheets lying closely over each other. The under side of the arch looks as smooth as if covered with a coat of dark plaster. It would appear that at some period the whole was a mass of rock, whose strata took an extraordinary curved or arched direction inland, which is likewise apparent in many other places here and along the cliffs to Loop-Head, and that by some convulsion of nature a portion of the under strata was forced out, as the broken edges can be seen at low water, appearing like a sort of abutment from which the perfect arch springs: lines of these indented edges are apparent in an undulating course along the side of the canal nearly to its mouth, and appearing as if chiselled out by the hand of art.

“This bridge, together with that now about to be described, ‘are formed of coarse arenacious clay-slate, with crystals of quartz in the fissures.’

“The latter bridge is a remarkable structure, being nearly as level on the upper as the under surface. When we consider the span, which is forty-five feet, the thickness above the arch, nine feet, and the width, thirty feet, and reflect how impossible it would be for man, with all his boasted powers, to construct, or for a moment to support so great a mass, without a curve underneath, the mind can only contemplate this extraordinary structure as formed by the creative touch of nature’s Divine Architect. From its exposed situation, close to the ocean, it has for ages withstood the force of the overwhelming billows during the westerly tempests. Nearly under this bridge are low caverns or openings between the rocks, as if caused by the coast having been shaken and rent into great fissures, into which the guide (who afterwards joined us) threw large stones, that were heard bounding and echoing to a great depth. Many of the fissures in some places are lined with minute crystals, which sparkle beautifully in the sun’s rays. One of our party picked up a remarkably fine specimen. The guide attempted to disengage some good pieces, but failed for want of proper tools. The canal, or wild rocky valley, when the tide is out, is above a quarter of a mile in length, and when the visitor walks along the bottom of it he can only see naked rocks, the sky, and the breakers foaming in at the end. The bay is lined by a high bank of ‘boulders,’ or large rounded stones, which from their bulk appear to have been accumulating for centuries; they are similar to those of Forankeee Bay, near Kilkee, but in much greater quantity. The ruins of an ancient little chapel and those of a dwelling-house, for many years the residence of the Keane family, in whose possession the property still remains, are to be seen near the village.

“Although the weather was oppressively warm on the road, yet the sharp breeze from the Atlantic rendered our cloaks very acceptable. Whilst the remainder of the company amused themselves in taking sketches of the bridges, or wandering amongst the rocks in search of crystals, I was glad to take shelter in a fisherman’s hut. The poor woman received me with a courtesy of manner, which cultivation may improve but nature alone can impart. The interior of this dwelling soon presented the most complete picture of an Irish cabin I had ever seen. Seated on the only chair in the house, in a short time I found myself surrounded by all the women and children belonging to the few contiguous huts, most of whom seated themselves on the floor. A numerous family of domestic animals, consisting of cocks, hens, cats, and a dog, quite at their ease, were interspersed amongst us; but at my particular request a large pig was not allowed to join the company, although extremely anxious for admission. From the fisherman’s wife, whose propriety of manner as well as that of her neighbour’s quite struck me, I learned many interesting particulars respecting the localities of the place, she being the only one present who could speak English, and acted as my interpreter. It appears they have a very good landlord, and that the tenants were tolerably well off: the poorest hut was not without a featherbed, and many of them had two, which bespeaks a degree of comfort seldom to be met with in an Irish cabin. In this one I observed a new style of ‘waggon-roof’ bedstead, with timber curtains (if I may use the expression): the back, roof, and foot were covered with nice white deal-boards nailed on, as well as the side next the wall: the tout ensemble, however, looked most comfortable. She likewise informed me that her husband was a pilot, and then out in the bay; that they paid two pounds per acre, with liberty to cut as much turf as they chose. That they availed themselves of this privilege was pretty evident, from the fine fire that blazed on the hearth. Here also the women toil in the field, and draw seaweed for manure on their backs. A remark made in Irish by a sweet little boy, and interpreted by his mother, amused me. His sister was giving him a drink of water rather awkwardly out of a large wooden noggin, and looking innocently up in her face, he said, ‘Don’t spill it, agra, (my dear,) for ’tis very good.’ How easily are the wants of nature satisfied! Finding that the women did not know how to make fishing-nets for their husbands, and for which they had to pay, and being furnished by them with a rude netting-needle and twine, I set to work to instruct them, at which they seemed much gratified. After pleasantly spending more than an hour with this interesting group, when about to take my leave, my new acquaintance asked if, when I got home, I should ever think of the people of Ross. I replied, there were too many agreeable circumstances connected with my visit to allow me soon to forget them. Being joined by my party, attended by a numerous escort, we reached our vehicle, and with mutual expressions of kind feelings, we bade each other farewell.”

One of the Caves on the Atlantic is thus described. “The sea has now become smooth by the wind blowing off shore for two or three days, and the weather is settled; and being kindly accommodated with a ship’s small boat, which was picked up at sea by some fishermen, we this evening set out to visit a cavern about two miles from Kilkee. After rowing out of the bay, and finding ourselves on the mighty Atlantic, I may acknowledge we felt more at ease in a boat with a keel and rudder than we had done in a canoe, although the motion was much slower from the boat being heavier. We were accompanied by another party in a canoe, who soon got ahead of us. Having cleared the rocks of Duganna, the great expanse of water presented a magnificent appearance; the nearest point on the opposite shore was that of Newfoundland, two thousand miles distant. In passing along the dark cliffs, the Amphitheatre, the Puffing Cavern, the Flat or Diamond Rocks, in succession, arrested our attention and excited admiration. As we glided over the glassy surface of the water in Look-out Bay, we did not anticipate that it would so soon be the scene of a dreadful shipwreck, where a large number of our fellow-creatures who were on board the ‘Intrinsic,’ were instantaneously hurried into an awful eternity when she went to pieces.

“Having arrived at the mouth of the cave, we lay to, in order to take soundings, and to examine the majestic perpendicular cliffs, one hundred and fifty feet high, by which we were surrounded, throwing their dark shade on the water, which gave it the appearance of a sea of ink. The water here was thirty-three feet deep. We were gently wafted into this magnificent cavern, of which I can only give a faint sketch; but to enable the reader to form some idea of its size, I shall give the best computation we were able to make. The height of the rude arch at the entrance, by comparison with the cliff above, appeared to be about sixty feet, and lowered as it receded to thirty or forty; the breadth at the bottom was the same; there were great blocks and angles of rock projecting on either side; within the entrance to the left were a number of stalagmites, formed by the dropping from above, and standing on a sloping rock, like small brownish sugarloaves. The roof presented a beautiful variety of rich metallic tinges, from the copper, iron, and other mineral substances held in solution by the water, which kept continually dropping from the top, and gave increased effect to the light thrown in at the entrance, which formed a striking contrast with the darkness at the upper end: on the right a number of stalactites lined the side, having the appearance of a drapery of seaweeds, and produced a handsome effect. The echo here is astonishing. After proceeding inward about two hundred and fifty feet, the light becomes very dim, and the cavern narrower, making an angle to the left. A jutting rock at the entrance of this angle shuts out the little light, on which account the inner chamber is rendered nearly dark. Proceeding on slowly, and having a boat not liable to be injured by touching a rock, we allowed it to float in by the effect of the swell, until the awful and profound silence was broken by the noise of the boat touching the rock at the extreme end, which broke upon the ear with an indescribably deep and impressive sound, as it reverberated from the roof and sides. Whilst in the dark part we perceived, what was also noticed by another party, that the dipping of the oars and the dropping from the roof produced a sparkling appearance under the water—caused, no doubt, by the air-bubbles reflecting the little light, which we could scarcely perceive. On leaving this gloomy place and emerging into day, the sunbeams were shining outside the entrance of the cave, about two hundred and fifty feet distant, and hence reflected on the dark rippling water within; and again, being thrown upon the rougharched roof, rendered still more brilliant by its beautiful metallic tints, broke like a scene of fancied enchantment upon the delighted vision. We were followed into the cave by two men in a canoe, who brought some very fine fish just caught; and this curious coincidence probably occasioned the first market that ever was held in this magnificent cavern.”

All this is very similar to the scenery of a watering-place near Boston in the United States, called Nahout, where there is a much-visited spot called a spouting-horn, which, with a change of name, is very well described in Mrs. Knott’s account of the Puffing Rock near Kilkee. It is about fifty feet high and thirty feet square, and has an opening down through the middle to a large chamber beneath; and when the breakers are driven in by strong wind and tide, after filling the lower space, the water is spouted up through the aperture like graceful feathery plumes, and descending in mist, produces, when the sun shines brightly, a most vivid and beautiful iris, whose arch may be seen by standing with your back to the sun. The whole of the coast near the mouth of the Shannon is rather extraordinary, and by crossing the river, we come to the Caves of Ballybunian on the Kerry side. “This bay,” says a traveller who visited them in 1833, “is about five hundred paces in width, and its sands, which are piled up the sides of its inner portion, are dry and firm, though the prevalence of westerly winds and the strength of its currents mar the pleasantness and security of the bathing. The cliffs, which front the northern side, extend about two hundred and ninety yards, and rise gradually from the east to the west, or towards the sea, where they attain a height of one hundred and ten feet. They preserve throughout great perpendicularity, and are composed of two great beds, from thirty to forty feet in thickness, of compact ampelite, divided by a seam of the same slate, but fissile and anthracitous, and pouring out streamlets of water which contain iron and salts in solution, and tinge the rocks with bright yellow ochreous colours. These cliffs are also penetrated by several caves of small dimensions, which open upon the bay, and are crossed in one place by a fissure, occasioned by the fracturing of a rock which dips at a small angle of inclination (four to five degrees) to the east. The last cave on the sea-side, which has also an entrance from the bay, immediately curves round, and allows the sea to be seen, breasting its foaming way with much impetuosity, even on calm days, up two distinct apertures, through which the light gleams with almost starlight brightness.

“Any attempt to describe the connexion and relation of all these minor caves would be obviously a tedious enumeration, not warranted by the importance of the subject. They are most easily navigated in a boat from the northern side, where the rocky passages may be traversed for a considerable distance, without any communication with the open sea: and during this navigation, which is chiefly carried on in a line parallel to the western face of the cliff, the various entrances are often crossed at right-angles, affording the most striking contrast of light and shade—the colour of the waters being often of a hue so sparklingly bright, and so extensively vivid, as to resemble molten silver; while the boat, hurrying through the deep and wave-worn arcades into light and airy arched or vaulted chambers, only in their innermost recesses dark and repulsive, and passing from cave to cave, and hall to hall, with inlets pointing to the sea, or high cliffs affording their protection against the waves, and occasionally well-like apertures, which open through the roof to yield a telescopic view of the heavens, assist, more especially with the sudden transitions from absolute darkness to the most brilliant light, in giving to the whole an appearance of fairy scenery.”

W. Ainsworth having entered from the Kerry shore, does not allude to the entrance from the Clare side; and as I know that much disappointment occurred to a party from Kilkee, who went by the way of Carrigaholt, and attempting to get back the same way, were carried by the tide up to Kilrush, and did not reach home until next morning, I am enabled to give the following hints, as they were communicated to a friend of mine by James Patterson of Kilrush, from whose well-known nautical knowledge and experience the information may be useful to other visitors, and prevent danger and disappointment. This gentleman, it appears, was one of the first who explored the dark and extensive recesses of the great caves, into which he took with him blue-lights and torches. He says that it requires the wind to blow for two days off the land, say easterly or south-east, in order that the sea may be sufficiently calm; should it be at all from the west, the water is so rough that a boat could not enter. When the weather is favourable, he advises to take a boat at Kilrush, and go down with the first ebb of the tide, which may not be half out when the caves are reached, at ten miles’ distance; three or four hours can then be spent in examining them; and on the boat coming out, the flowing tide rushing in brings them back to Kilrush with ease. Parties should also get the opinion of some person well acquainted with the place as to providing suitable boats; for large ones can get into but few of the caves, the entrances being low and narrow, and very small boats are unsafe to cross the river.

The cliffs of Ballybunian contain a great quantity of alum, iron pyrites, &c., which have occasionally taken fire from being exposed to the action of the atmosphere, and which fire was formerly supposed to be of volcanic origin. I shall insert a short account of this phenomenon from a tourist who visited them forty years since; his description is well worth the perusal of every lover of science.

“Some years back a part of these cliffs, between the castles of Sick and Dune, assumed a volcanic appearance. The waves, by continual dashing, had worn and undermined the cliff, which giving way, fell with tremendous violence into the sea; several great strata or beds of pyrites, iron, and sulphur were in consequence exposed to the action of the air and salt-water, the natural effects of which were that they heated and burned with great fierceness. The clay near it is calcined to a red brick, mixed with iron ore, melted in many places like cinders thrown from a smith’s forge. Many who did not consider well the causes, and the effects naturally to be expected from them, have supposed this to be volcanic.”

To the kindness of Captain Sabine I am indebted for an account of the birds which he met with on these coasts. “Of sea-birds, I recognised in flight, of terns, the hirundo and minuta; of gulls, the argentatus, fuscus, and tridactylus, and I heard of a gull with very red legs, which was, I suppose, the ridibundus; of the guillemots, the troile, brunnichii, grylle, and alba; cormorants and oyster-catchers abundant; the oyster-catchers more frequently in groups than in pairs, although it was the breeding season; puffins and razorbills. Of land-birds, the only species worth particular remark is the chough, which breeds in the rocks at Ballybunian, as does the rock-pigeon.”

“Before leaving Loop-head, the visitor is recommended to walk about a mile along the cliffs towards Ross, where their fancifully-curved strata present extraordinary appearances. In the face of the rock, one of the bays is the resort of thousands of sea-gulls, whose young in the autumn, ranged on narrow shelves of rock that line the bay, loudly scream for food, which the parent birds seem to answer as they skim along the surface of the water, looking down for their prey; altogether the noise was so great, that a party who lately visited it rushed forward in amazement to see what could have produced such extraordinary clamour. Near this is a conical hill, called Cahir Croghaune, situated a short distance from the road, and well worth ascending: the view all round will amply repay for the trouble.

“In the spring of 1834, one of the cliffs which had been undermined by the waves, fell into the sea with so loud a noise that the manager at the lighthouse thought it was thunder. When a party recently visited this place they found it dangerous to approach, as many of the fragments appeared ready to follow the fallen masses.”

From the complete absence of ooze, and the exclusive sand and rock which form the western coast of Ireland, the sea-water at Kilkee is remarkably pellucid and bright; and the persons engaged in recovering the sunken cargo of the Intrinsic worked to great advantage, from being able to see objects distinctly at fifty feet below the surface. A very uncommon variety of curious seaweed is also found here, particularly the Carrigheen moss, used by invalids, and said to be as nutritious as isinglass.

The antiquarian finds matter of interest at Kilkee, in the shape of two of the ancient Raths, one on each side of the village. That on the east seems of great antiquity. The circumference outside the rampart is two hundred and fifty-six yards, the top of the mound one hundred and twenty-six; the height of the top of the Rath, above the fosse, which has been filled considerably, is twenty feet; the height of the centre rampart ten feet, and twelve above the fosse. At the south side of the top of the mound is a passage covered with large flags, and leading into the interior. An inhabitant of Kilkee, who some years ago penetrated to the interior, found a chamber of twelve feet diameter, walled at the sides, and covered with broad thick flags. Within his memory, this person said, this and other raths had been the abodes of fairies. About thirty years ago, no gentleman in the south of Ireland could induce his men to open a rath, unless he would first take off the sod himself, and then he was obliged to ply some courageous fellows with whiskey in order to raise their spirits for the accomplishment of his object. A friend of mine informed me, that near Limerick, where he was educated, it was commonly believed that whoever disturbed a rath would die before the expiration of the year, and that his grandfather having ploughed one up in defiance of the superstition, and having chanced to die within the twelvemonth, had secured undisturbed repose to all the raths in the neighbourhood. Mr. Crofton Croker has written a very satisfactory chapter on fairies, expressed with his usual elegance, and a few extracts from it will be apropos to the superstitions of the raths. “In common with other countries,” he says, “particularly the Highlands of Scotland, a traditional belief exists among the Irish peasantry in those romantic little sprites denominated fairies; and it is wonderful, considering their being creatures of imagination, that the superstitions respecting them should have remained so much confined, and so very similar. Whether the fairy mythology of Ireland has been derived from the East, and transmitted hence through the medium of Spain, or has, as some believe, a northern origin, it is of little import to inquire, particularly as nothing more than conjecture can now be advanced on the subject. It is, however, evident that the present fairies of Ireland, if not Gothic creations, were at least modelled in the same school and age with the elves of northern Europe.

“There is an odd mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime in the prevalent notions respecting such beings. Nor could there have been invented a more extraordinary medium between man and his Maker. The most esteemed novelist of the present day has happily described these curious creations of the mind, as

Partaking both of the human and spiritual nature, having immaterial bodies, with the feelings and passions of mortality, fairies are supposed to possess both the power and inclination to revenge an affront: and the motive of fear, which induces some savage nations to worship the devil, prompts the vulgar in Ireland to term fairies ‘good people,’ and in Scotland ‘guid folk;’ nor is it uncommon to see a rustic before drinking, spill a small part of his draught upon the ground, as a complimentary libation to the fairies. Such as use the word fairy are often corrected in a whisper, which caution arises from conceiving that these beings are invisibly present, and the appellation is considered offensive, as denoting an insignificant object. Thus, hoping to deceive by flattery, the maxim most attended to in the intercourse with these ‘little great ones’ is, that ‘civility begets civility.’ Doubtless on the same principle the Greeks, as observed by Augustus Schlegel, called their fairies Eumenides, or the benevolent, and assigned for their habitation a beautiful grove. ‘I cannot think of this policy,’ said my friend C——, ‘without fancying a grin on Medusa, and those little urchins, the northern fairies, holding their sides with laughter.’ The same system of fear and flattery seems to have existed amongst the Irish even towards animals in the time of Elizabeth; for Camden tells us, ‘they take unto them wolves to be their godsibs, (gossips,) whom they tearme Chari Christ, praying for them, and wishing them well, and so they are not afraid to be hurt by them.’

“The circular intrenchments and barrows, known by the name of Danish forts, in Ireland, are pointed out as the abode of fairy communities, and to disturb their habitation, in other words to dig or plough up a rath or fort, whose construction the superstitious natives ascribe to the labour and ingenuity of the ‘good people,’ is considered as unlucky, and entailing some severe disaster on the violater of his kindred. An industrious peasant, who purchased a farm in the neighbourhood of Mallow from a near relative of mine, commenced his improvements by building upon it a good stone house, together with a lime-kiln. Soon after he waited on the proprietor, to state ‘the trouble he was come to by reason of the old fort, the fairies not approving of his having placed the lime-kiln so near their dwelling. He had lost his sow with nine bonniveens, (sucking-pigs,) his horse fell into a quarry and was killed, and three of his sheep died, all through the means of the fairies!’ Though the lime-kiln had cost him five guineas, he declared he would never burn another stone in it, but take it down without delay, and build one away from the fort; saying, he was wrong in putting that kiln in the way of the ‘good people,’ who were thus obliged to go out of their usual track. The back-door of his house unfortunately also faced the same fort, but this offence was obviated by almost closing it up, leaving only a small hole at the top to allow the good people free passage should they require it. In these raths, fairies are represented as holding their festive meetings, and entering into all the fantastic and wanton mirth that music and glittering banquets are capable of inspiring. A fairy chieftain of much local celebrity, named Knop, is supposed to hold his court in a rath on the roadside between Cork and Youghal, where often travellers, unacquainted with the country, have been led astray by the appearance of lights, and by alluring sounds proceeding from within; but when

and the delicious viands change into carrion. The crystal goblets become rugged pebbles, and the whole furniture of the feast undergoes a similar metamorphosis.

“An eddy of dust raised by the wind is attributed to the fairies journeying from one of their haunts to another; on perceiving which the peasant will obsequiously doff his hat, muttering ‘God speed ye, God speed ye, gentlemen;’ and returns it to his head, with the remark, ‘Good manners are no burthen,’ as an apology for the motive, which he is ashamed to acknowledge. Should he, however, instead of such friendly greeting, repeat any short prayer, or devoutly cross himself, using a religious response, the fairy journey is interrupted; and if any mortals are in their train, the charm by which they were detained is broken, and they are restored to human society. On these occasions the production of a black-hafted knife is considered as extremely potent in dissolving the spell. This weapon is believed to be effective, not only against fairy incantation, but also against any supernatural being; and accounts of many twilight rencontres between shadowy forms and mortals are related, to establish its power, gouts of blood or jelly being found in the morning on the spot where the vision had appeared. A respectable farmer has been pointed out to me whose familiar appellation in Irish was, ‘Kill the devil,’ from the report of his having quelled, by means of a black-hafted knife, a phantom that long had haunted him.

“A stanza, containing the track of a fairy procession, is preserved by Dr. Neilson in his Irish Grammar; and as a curiosity the translation may be worth copying.

“Paying a fleeting visit to many an ‘airy castle, rath, and mount,’ Finsar and his troop hold their course from dawn of noon till fall of night, on beautiful winged coursers.

the latter name signifying in English the Musical Hill, so called from the supernatural strains supposed occasionally to proceed from it.

“The most romantic dells are also pointed out as scenes of fairy resort, and distinguished by the term ‘gentle places.’ Beetling linen by the side of a rocky stream that murmurs through an unfrequented glen, is represented as a favourite, or rather common female fairy occupation, where they chant wild and pathetic melodies, beating time with their beetles. The herbs and plants with which such glens abound are considered as under fairy influence, and are collected, with many ceremonies, for charms, by cunning old women, termed ‘Fairy Doctors,’ or sometimes, from their professed knowledge of surgery, ‘Bone-setters.’ A confidence in superstitious quackery exists so strongly amongst the lower orders in Ireland, that many instances are known to me where patients have been carried a distance of several miles to a ‘Bone-setter,’ to whom a fee was given, when they might have received without removal, and free of expense, every attendance from the most skilful surgeons. ‘I would not, if all the doctors in Ireland told me so, treat the poor sufferer thus,’ is the prefatory sentence used by these ‘wise women.’ ‘What do doctors know about sick people? but take the herbs which I shall give you, bury them at sunset in the north-east corner of the fort-field; and when you return, tie a thread three times round the left-hand upper post of the sick person’s bed, and let it remain there for nine nights,’ &c. Camden, it would seem, had some faith in the efficacy of these ‘skilful women,’ who, ‘by means of charms,’ to use his own words, ‘give more certain judgment of the disease than many of our physicians can.’

“Fairies are represented as exceedingly diminutive in their stature, having an arch and malicious expression of countenance, and generally habited in green, with large scarlet caps; hence the beautiful plant Digitalis purpurea, is named ‘fairy-cap’ by the vulgar, from the supposed resemblance of its bells to this part of fairy dress. To the same plant many rustic superstitions are attached, particularly its salutation of supernatural beings, by bending its long stalks in token of recognition.

“Old and solitary thorns, in common with the digitalis, are regarded with reverence by the peasantry, and considered as sacred to the revels of these eccentric little sprites, whose vengeance follows their removal. Any antique implement casually discovered by the labourer is referred to the fairies, and supposed to have been dropped or forgotten by them: small and oddly-shaped tobacco-pipes, frequently turned up by the spade or the plough, the finder instantly destroys, to avert the evil agency of their former spiritual owners. Amongst these remains may be noticed the flint arrow-heads, said to be sportively shot at cattle by the fairies; and in compliance with the popular superstition, termed, even by antiquarians, ‘elf-arrows.’

“The fairies are believed to visit the farm-houses in their district on particular nights, and the embers are collected, the hearth swept, and a vessel of water placed for their use before the family retire to rest. But these dubious divinities seem to preside more especially over cattle, corn, fruits, and agricultural objects. Milking the cows, upsetting the dairy-pans, and disarranging whatever may have been carefully placed in order, are amongst their mischievous proceedings. Cluricaune or Leprehaune is the name given to the Irish Puck. The character of this goblin is a compound of that of the Scotch Brownie and the English Robin Goodfellow. He is depicted (for engraved portraits of the Irish Leprehaune are in existence) as a small and withered old man, completely equipped in the costume of a cobbler, and employed in repairing a shoe. A paragraph lately appeared in a Kilkenny paper, stating, that a labourer returning home in the dusk of the evening, discovered a Leprehaune at work, from whom he bore away the shoe which he was mending as a proof of the veracity of his story; it was further stated, that the shoe lay for the inspection of the curious at the newspaper-office. The most prominent feature in the vulgar creed respecting the Leprehaune is, his being the possessor of a purse, supposed to be, like that of Fortunatus, inexhaustible; and many persons who have surprised one of these fairies occupied in shoe-making, have endeavoured to compel him to deliver it: this he has ingeniously avoided, averting the eye of his antagonist by some stratagem, when he disappears; which it seems he has not the power of doing as long as any person’s gaze is fixed upon him.

“Fairy children, I have been assured, are frequently seen in lonely glens, engaged in mimic fights and juvenile gambols. A story related by Gervase of Tilbury, in the Otia Imperialia, and mentioned in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border as current, with only slight variations, both in the highlands and lowlands of Scotland, is equally so in the south of Ireland, and is perhaps the most common of fairy superstitions. A woman, who had been abstracted to nurse a young fairy, during her residence amongst the supernatural community, accidentally anointed one of her eyes with a substance entrusted to her for the use of her infant charge. On being emancipated from captivity, the ‘good people’ still remained visible to the eye which had been touched by the magic ointment, and hence she daily beheld them engaged (like the Sylphs in Pope’s Rape of the Lock) in their various fairy avocations. The woman, however, remained a silent spectator, until happening to recognize, sporting amongst others, the fairy child whom she had nursed, in all the delicate bloom and beauty of unearthly youth, her prudence forsook her, and at the sight she was betrayed by her feelings into an exclamation of delight; on hearing which the young fairy approached his nurse, and inquired by what means she was conscious of his presence. She pointed to the anointed eye, into which he instantly darted a spear that he held in his hand, and thus, by destroying the organ, shut out for ever the secrets of the invisible world from the mortal eye to which they had been revealed. When a child appears delicate, or a young woman consumptive, the conclusion is that they are carried off to be made a playmate or nurse to the young fairies, and that a substitute, resembling the person taken away, is deposited in their place, which gradually declines and ultimately dies. The inhuman means used by ignorant parents to discover if any unhealthy child be their offspring or a changeling, (the name given to the illusory image,) is, placing the child undressed on the roadside, where it is suffered to lie a considerable time exposed to cold. After such ceremony, they conclude a natural disorder has caused the symptoms of decay; and the child is then treated with more tenderness, from an idea that had it been possessed by a fairy, that spirit would not have brooked such indignity, but made its escape. Paralytic affections are attributed to the same agency, whence the term ‘fairy-struck;’ and the same cruel treatment is observed towards aged persons thus afflicted.

“A pleasing ballad by my friend Mr. Anster has been founded on this superstition; the mother is supposed to speak.

“Sometimes an intricate legal question arises in the case of a young woman being carried off by the fairies, and returning after an absence of several years, which is by no means uncommon, when she finds her husband married to a second wife. More than one instance of this unexpected reappearance has come within my own knowledge, and I select the relation contained in a letter which I received during the present year, from its being the most recent case. ‘The day before I left Island Bawn,’ says the writer, ‘I heard of an Irish Kilmeny, in the person of the wife of a labouring cottager, who having died about twenty years since, and been buried with the usual ceremonies, the poor man allowed a reasonable period to elapse, and subsequently took unto himself another helpmate, with whom he had since continued to live; when one night last winter, (1820,) they were disturbed by a woman vociferously claiming admission into their cabin, and asserting her right to the full and undisturbed sovereignty of the same, inasmuch as she was the owner’s true and lawful wife, whom he supposed deceased and interred, whereas she had only been with the fairies, from whose power she had now emancipated herself. So minute and clear (if not satisfactory) did she make out her title, that both the husband and his second spouse quailed before this unwelcomed visitant from the “good people.” The first wife allowed her “locum tenens” to remain in the house while she behaved herself respectfully; and all went on smoothly for some time, the stranger supporting the truth of her story by mysteriously telling the fortunes of those who flocked to see so wonderful a woman. Being,’ continues the writer, ‘unable to pay her a visit myself, I requested a young lady who was staying at my sister’s to do so, and who was much more qualified than I should have been, to elicit, if possible, the truth. With her usual kindness she undertook the task, and I cannot do better than copy her letter to my sister.

“ ‘My dear Mrs. L——,

Ballyhogan, 6th January, 1821.

“ ‘In compliance with your brother’s request, I have sat down to give you an account of my visit to the fairy woman. On Thursday morning last, having procured a guide to show me the way to her house, I departed on my mission, and after a walk of about four miles, arrived at the little village of Castle Town, on the Shannon. “That white house younder, Miss, is the one the fortune-teller lives in,” said the guide. I was readily admitted, and found the inside thronged with visitors, to whom the diviner talked in the common gipsy strain. Being more anxious to hear her own story than anything she could tell me of myself, I asked her if the report respecting her having recently returned from the fairies was correct. Her reply was, that she had been with the “good people” many years, and as a reward for her conduct while among them, they had bestowed the gift of fortune-telling. I then begged her to inform me of some further particulars; and after considerable hesitation on her part, and persuasion on mine, she gave me the following history, which I will recount verbatim, as highly illustrative of fairy superstition and Irish manners.

“ ‘My father, whose name was Thady Donohoe, lived in a little place they call Mount Shannon, near Slain; he was a shoemaker, and supported his family by his work, until he lost his health through grief at my folly in not being led by his advice; and I’m sartin shure (certain sure, confident) I suffered all I did for going against my father. He loved me bitter (better) than any of his childer (children), because he had no deaghter (daughter) but myself; and at eighteen he thought to get me married to a neighbour’s son, who was a neat boy (a handsome fellow); and, indeed, not that I say it, I was a neat, clean-skinned girl at that time, though I may deny it to-day; but I was fond of a young man who was working as a labouring boy at a farmer’s house handy by (adjacent). Well, when I tould (told) Paddy Doody, for that was my lover’s name, what my father wished me to do, he said, if I did not run away with him, my father and my brothers would make me marry the other boy, and he should kill himself or go distracted. So I went off with him shure enough, (without hesitation,) and we were married by his parish priest as soon as we came to Castle Town. I never saw my father till he was dying, which was about six months after: he gave me his blessing and a cow before he died. After the funeral I came back to my husband, and we lived very happily for some years. My eldest little boy died, and I was nursing my second, when one night about Midsummer, as we were sitting at our supper, I was fairy-struck and fell off my chair; so with that (instantly) poor Paddy ran out for one of the neighbours, who desired him to send for the priest, which he did to be shure (as a matter of course). But when he came he did not know what to do, but said prayers over me, and anointed me for death; and when the holy oil was put on me I was better, and continued to mend for several days; but I was still very weak and low. I had an impression about (oppression on) the heart, and a dimness in my eyes, and a ringing in my ears, and my face was greatly altered. Well, one night after we all lay down to sleep, it was about twelve o’clock, I heard a great noise, and saw a light in the room. I called Paddy, but he could not hear me. My little child was about three months old, and lay asleep by my side. In one minute the house was full of people, men and women, but no one saw them but myself; and one of the women came to the side of the bed, and said, “Judy, get up, you are to come with us, and I will put one in your place to nurse your child.” So with that they dragged me out of bed, and put an old woman in my place, who took my cratur of a child (creature, a term of endearment,) in her arms. I thought I should die, but I could not speak a word. They took me off with them, and there were several horsemen, with red caps, outside the door; and the women who sat behind them on the horses had blue cloaks. There was a piper on a grey pony that led the way; and when I got to their dwelling I was given a child to nurse. I am not allowed to tell anything that happened while I was there; all I can say is, that I never ate one mouthful of their food, if I did I never could have left them. I came every night to my own house for cold potatoes, and I lived on them. Paddy buried, as he thought, the old woman that was put in my place, but she came away to us. I am twenty years from home, and my husband is married again: this is my son’s house. When I came home Paddy would not own me, but I soon made him sensible (convinced him) I was his wife. I have suffered more than I can tell any one while I was with the “good people;” and I promised the Blessed Virgin if she would release me to do six months’ pinnance, (penance) at a holy well in the King’s County, where I am going next week: if I live to return, my son will let me pass the rest of my days with him, should my husband not allow me.’

“Dr. Neilson gives us, with every appearance of authenticity, a more intricate matrimonial case than the foregoing, where the woman on her return from Fairyland, finding her first husband married, marries again herself. The second wife of the first husband dies, and he having discovered his former spouse claims her; but her second husband, being unwilling to part with her, denies the claim. The question is referred to an ecclesiastical tribunal, where fairy agency will not be acknowledged, and which, under conflicting testimony, is unable to determine the matter. It however ultimately terminates in the friendly arrangement, ‘that both doors of the woman’s second husband’s house should be set open; that Joyce (her former husband) should stand seven steps from the street-door, and Thady in the garden, seven steps from the back-door; that she should take her choice, and abide by it thenceforward.’ The child was sleeping in the cradle, and as Mary was about to depart, she went to the child to take leave of it and shed a tear. She went then towards the street-door, when she heard the child after her; presently she returned and remained without murmuring or uneasiness with Thady Hughes till her death.

“A curious spirit, and one I believe peculiar to Ireland, is the Banshee, or White Fairy, sometimes called the Frogh or the House Fairy. The derivation of both these names appears to me obvious from the credulous personification, that of a small and shrivelled old woman with long white hair, supposed to be peculiarly attached to ancient houses or families, and to announce the approaching dissolution of any of the members by mournful lamentations. This fairy attendant is considered as highly honourable, and in part of an elegy on one of the Knights of Kerry still extant, the family Banshee is introduced as deploring, with wailing accents, the knight’s impending fate; when every trader at Dingle who hears the strain becomes alarmed lest it should forebode his own death; but the bard assures them, with an air of humorous sarcasm, they have no cause for uneasiness, such warning being given only to those of illustrious descent.

“Another species of Irish fairy is the Phooka; the descriptions given of which are so visionary and undefined that it is impossible to reduce them to detail. The name of many lonely rocks and glens in Ireland declares them sacred to this spirit. In the county Cork there are two castles, called Carrig Phooka or the Phooka’s Rock, one near Doneraile, the other not far from Macroon; and in the county Wicklow, the celebrated waterfall Poula Phooka, or the Phooka’s Cavern, is well known.

“Notwithstanding the universal belief in fairy influence, the credence given to witchcraft amongst the vulgar Irish is by no means proportionate. Some few instances are historically preserved; but, considering the extent and reputation which witchcraft obtained during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. in England, these may be viewed as imparted rather than primitive superstitions. The admirable account of Moll White given in the Spectator, presents a collection of the popular notions respecting the sorcery of old women; and those who are inclined to investigate the subject further, may find some hundred volumes written upon it.

“The most remarkable Irish witch on record is Dame Alice Ketyll (whose history is to be found at length in Camden). Amongst the charges made against her, when examined in 1325, was the sacrificing of nine red cocks to her familiar spirit or imp, named Robyn Artysson, ‘at a stone bridge in a certaine foure-crosse high-way.’ ‘Item, that she swept the streets of Kilkenny with beesomes, between Complin and Courefew, and in sweeping the filth towards the house of William Utlan her sonne, by way of conjuring, uttered these words:

‘Unto the house of William, my sonne,

Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town.’

“And amongst ‘the goods and implements of the said Alice, there was a certain holy wafer-cake found, having the name of the divell imprinted upon it; there was found also a boxe, and within it an ointment, wherewith she used to besmear or grease a certain piece of wood, called coultree, which, being thus anointed, the said Alice with her complices, could ride and gallop upon the said coultree withersoever they would all the world over, through thick and thin, without either hurt or hindrance.’ These things, we are told, were notorious; and Dame Ketyll, to avoid punishment, escaped to England; but one of her accomplices, Pernill or Parnell, was burned at Kilkenny, who avouched that Alice’s son William ‘deserved death as well as herself, affirming that he, for a year and a day, wore the divell’s girdle upon his bare bodie.’ Kilkenny seems to have been peculiarly fatal to witches. In October 1578, Cox relates, that Sir William Drury, the lord deputy, caused thirty-six criminals to be executed there, ‘one of which was a blackamoor, and two others were witches, and were condemned by the law of nature, for there was no positive law against witchcraft in those days.’

“Some more recent account of witches is traditionally preserved in Ireland, particularly of Nanny Steer, whose malign glance produced madness, and the malady of many a wretched lunatic who wandered about the country was attributed to her baneful influence.

“In the Queen’s county a young man, named Rutlidge, on the day of his marriage, is said to have become a victim to one of these dreadful looks, from his having neglected to invite Nanny Steer to the wedding, who appeared an unbidden guest, and casting an evil eye on the bridegroom, he immediately became a maniac.

“ ‘In no case,’ says Camden, speaking of Irish superstitions, ‘must you praise a horse or any other beast, until you say “God save him,” or unless you spit upon him. If any harm befall the horse within three days after, they seek him that praised him, that he may mumble the Lord’s Prayer in his right ear. They think that there bee some that bewitch their horses with looking upon them, and then they use the help of some old hagges, who saying a few prayers with a loud voice, make them well again.’ This belief in the fatal effects of an evil eye is as prevalent at the present day as when Camden wrote; and few, if any, of the lower orders will speak to or of a child without spitting out, and excusing himself should a superior be present, with ‘It’s for good luck sure—and God bless the boy, and make a fine man of him.’ So powerful is this superstition, that even people of education and above the ordinary rank, are obliged from policy to accommodate themselves to it in their intercourse with the peasantry, as few things are considered more dangerous and unfriendly, or are longer remembered, than the omission of such ceremony.

“Another vulgar superstition regarding witches is, their power of assuming the shape of some insect or animal; the most favourite forms are those of a fly or hare: under the latter disguise they are supposed to suck the teats of cows, and thus either deprive them of their milk, or communicate an injurious effect to it.

“Of the following story, numberless variations are in circulation amongst the Irish peasantry. A herdsman having wounded a hare, which he discovered sucking one of the cows under his care, tracked it to a solitary cabin, where he found an old woman smeared with blood and gasping for breath, extended almost lifeless on the floor, having, it is presumed, recovered her natural shape.

“In churning, should not the milk readily come butter, the machinations of some witch are suspected. As a test, the iron coulter of the plough is heated in the fire, and the witch’s name solemnly pronounced, with the following charm, on whom this spell is supposed to inflict the most excruciating tortures—

‘Come, butter, come,
Come, butter, come:
Peter stands at the gate
Waiting for a buttered cake:
Come, butter, come.’

And if the milk has lost its good qualities by means of incantation, it immediately turns to excellent butter.

“In the sixteenth century, the same opinion existed in Ireland, somewhat tinged with a relic of Pagan or Druidical rites, fire being considered, before the introduction of Christianity, the immediate representative of the Deity, and the first of May as peculiarly sacred to those rites, many relics of which may still be discovered.

“ ‘They take her for a wicked woman and a witch, whatever she be, that cometh to fetch fire from them on May-day, (neither will they give any fire then, but unto a sick body, and that with a curse,) for because they thinke the same woman will the next summer steale away all their butter. If they find an hare amongst their heards of cattell on the said May-day, they kill her, for they suppose she is some old trot that would fetch away their butter. They are of opinion that their butter, if it be stollen, will soone after bee restored againe, in case they take away some of the thatch that hangeth over the doore of the house, and cast it into the fire.’

“Amongst some Irish manuscripts in my possession, the composition I apprehend of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is a long description, possessing considerable poetic merit, of a contest between Eogan and ‘Conn of the Hundred Battles,’ part of which presents a picture of the appearance of some supernatural hags to the contending chieftains the night previous to the engagement: the translation is extremely literal.

“When Eogan came back from the council, three witches stood before him; frightful beyond description, with red and fiery-looking eyes, and long, lank, grizzly hair hanging down dishevelled over cadaverous countenances. The eyebrows of these fiends were large, rough, and grim, growing into each other, and forming two curvatures of matted bristles. Their cheeks were hollow, shrivelled, and meagre; and their beaked noses covered with parched skin, issued forth prominently from the deeply-wrinkled and knobby foreheads of these monstrous and filthy she-devils! Their blasting tongues, with flippant volubility, held ceaseless gabble; and their crooked, yellow, hairy hands and hooked fingers resembled more the talons of an eagle or a foul-feeding harpy, than the fingers of a human creature. Thus, supported by small inbent and bony legs, they stood before Eogan.

“ ‘Whence come ye, furies?’ asked the chief.

“ ‘We come from afar by our powers,’ replied they.

“ ‘I demand to know your powers,’ said Eogan, leader of the mighty bands.

“ ‘We cause the sea to run higher than the mountain-tops by our breath: we bring snow on the earth by the nodding of our white heads; we spread flames in dwellings by our words, we alter and change the shape of every person, nay, of those in our own occupation, by the rolling of our eyes; we—’

“ ‘Enough!’ cried the mighty Eogan, ‘I now demand your names.’

“ ‘Our names,’ returned the hags, ‘are Ah, Lann, and Leana: we are daughters of Trodan the magician, and we have come from remote countries to warn you of your approaching death; for Eogan shall die by the keen-edged and bone-cleaving sword of the ever victorious ‘Conn of the Hundred Battles.’ ”

“ ‘On your own heads may this prophetic warning light, ye hags of hell!’ returned Eogan. ‘May your forebodings of Conn sink into nothing on the air, and be unanswered by the voices of the mountains. May the trees bear the brunt of your evil words, the venom of your lips fall harmless on the rocks of the valley, and your malice be given to the waves of the ocean.’

“ ‘It is inevitable destiny we speak,’ said they: ‘we have spoken without precipitation and without reward;’ and muttering of their horrid spells, they vanished from Eogan.

“That night came the same three hags to the tent of the King of Spain’s son, and they boded ill to him; and thence they came where the hosts of Conn of the Hundred Battles lay encamped, and they roused that hero with these words:

“ ‘In thy arm be thy strength; in thy sword be thy safety; in thy face be thy foes; in thy strides thy prosperity. The pride of Ireland is against thee, in life and in motion. Be thou restless as the treacherous light that gleams to benighted travellers.’

“In the preceding part of the same poem the support and assistance received by Eogan and his tribe from a sorceress named Eadoin is mentioned, who, in a former engagement, so fascinated the eyes of Eogan’s adversaries by her enchantments, that some rocks on the field of battle assumed the appearance of formidable bodies of armed men; and while Goll and the sons of Moirne, with their valiant associates, attacked these flinty phantoms, and were occupied in contest with invulnerable and senseless stones, the sorceress conveyed the unwilling Eogan and his followers from the scene of warfare, and embarked them for Spain. ‘The rock,’ adds an English note on this passage of the manuscript, ‘which was converted into the resemblance of Eogan and his troops, is at this day called the Scalped Rock, in Irish “Cloch Bhearrha,” in Glean Rogh, near Kin-mare, from the indenture made in it by the arms of Goll, which were shivered and broken into pieces thereon.’

“As in England, a worn horseshoe nailed on the threshold, or near the entrance of a house, is considered as a security against witchcraft; but this remedy is used only in the better description of cabins.

“Many of the ancient Irish chieftains have received deification, and the credulous believe in their frequent reappearance on earth as the messengers of good tidings, such as a fine season or an abundant harvest. Other shades are compelled to perform certain penitential ceremonies in expiation of crimes committed during life; of the latter may be mentioned an Earl of Kildaire, doomed to ride septennially round the Curragh, an extensive common, until the silver shoes of his supernatural steed are worn out. To the former class belongs O’Donnoghue, a chief of much celebrity, whose May-day visit on a milk-white horse, gliding over the Lakes of Killarney, to the sound of unearthly music, and attended by troops of spirits, scattering delicious spring-flowers, has been lyrically preserved by Mr. Moore, and is accurately recorded in a poem by Mr. Leslie on Killarney, and in Mr. Weld’s account of that lake, as also in Derrick’s Letters, where some additional particulars may be found from the pen of Mr. Ockenden. ‘There is a farmer now alive,’ says that gentleman, ‘who declares, as I am told, that riding one evening near the lower end of the lake, he was overtaken by a gentleman, (for such he judged him by his appearance to be,) who seemed under thirty years of age, very handsome in his person, very sumptuous in his apparel, and very affable in conversation. After having travelled for some time together, he observed, that as night was approaching, the town far off, and lodging not easy to be found, he should be welcome to take a bed that night at his house, which he said was not very distant. The invitation was readily accepted; they approached the lake together, and both their horses moved upon the surface without sinking, to the infinite amazement of the farmer, who thence perceived the stranger to be no less a person than the great O’Donnoghue. They rode a considerable distance from shore, and then descended to a delightful country under water, and lay that night in a house much larger in size and much more richly furnished than even Lord Kenmare’s at Killarney.’

“Second-sight, so common in the Highlands, I believe is unknown in the south of Ireland. Story relates a mysterious appearance of stars, accompanied by heavy groans, that preceded the landing of the rival monarchs William and James, seen by ‘one Mr. Hambleton, of Tollymoore, a justice of the peace in his county, and a sober, rational man;’ in company with others who were journeying towards Dundalk; adding, ‘they have a great many tales of this kind in Ireland, and the Inniskilling men tell you of several such things before their battles.’ I should, however, consider these visions, on account of their northern limits, as derived from Scotland, and not genuine Irish superstitions.

“I fear it may be considered that I have dwelt too long upon, and entered too minutely into the notions of the ignorant; but early associations have tempted me to linger over these marvellous relations, and have, perhaps, misled my maturer judgment.

‘Such fancies are the coinage of the brain,
Which oft rebellious to more sober thought
Will these strange phantoms shape; the idle prate
Of fools and nurses, who in infant minds
Plant such misshapen stuff, the scorn and scoff
Of settled reason and of common sense!’

“On the whole, from what may be collected, the present state of Irish superstition closely resembles that of England during the age of Elizabeth; a strong proof of the correct measurement of those who have stated a space of two centuries to exist between the relative degree of popular knowledge and civilization attained by the sister kingdom.”

The Rock of Cashel arrests the traveller on his road from Limerick to Kilkenny—a remarkable-looking eminence, the only one in an extensive plain, and crowned with a pile of the noblest assemblage of monastic ruins in Ireland. It resembles nothing that I remember except the citadel of Gratz, built on just such a rock, with a town at its base. The ruins are supposed by some to have been both a monastic and a regal edifice; and from the want of regularity in plan, as well as peculiarities in the workmanship and style of ornamenting, appear to have been the work of several periods. The town of Cashel, once the residence of the kings of Munster, has now dwindled into a place of very moderate pretensions. “The want of a navigable river,” says Wright, “is the only assignable cause for the desertion of this royal seat, encompassed by a great extent of country, fertile as cupidity could desire, and diversified by gentle undulations. The most ancient structure in the group of buildings on the rock is called Cormac’s Chapel, from the founder, Cormac-mac-culinan, King of Munster and Archbishop of Cashel, who flourished in the beginning of the tenth century, and was slain in battle by the Danes.

“The chapel, the first and perhaps the only edifice that graced the rock in ancient times, is entirely of stone, both walls and roof; the latter ridged up to an acute angle, the sides or legs of which are tangents to a counter-arch, springing from the inner front of the walls. The doorway is in the Saxon style, which pervades also the other parts of the chapel, and is adorned with zig-zag and bead ornaments. Above the archway is the effigy of an archer in the act of shooting at an ideal animal. The ceiling or roof is of stone, groined, with square ribs springing from stunted Saxon pillars, with enriched capitals. There is one rich Saxon arch, ornamented with grotesque heads of men and animals, placed at intervals all round from the base upwards, and a second arch within the recess or crypt, probably intended to receive the altar. The walls are relieved by blank arcades, and the ceiling by numerous grotesque heads. The pilasters, from which the blank arches spring, have been adorned with a variety sculptures, and their capitals anciently gilt over; but the imperfect view which the half-light of the interior admits is fatal to a minute examination. A small cell on the north side of the chapel is supposed to have been built over the remains of the founder, and a niche in the wall canopied his tomb. Above the doorway of the corresponding recess is another of those hieroglyphic emblems—a quadruped, the hind-quarters of which are marked with a cross. The exterior of the chapel preserves an exact uniformity of style, and is adorned with blank arches, separated by short pillars with grotesque capitals, and at the western end it is attached to a lofty square tower.

“The pillar-tower raises its tapering form at the eastern angle of the north transept of the cathedral, and unites with Cormac’s chapel in confirming the superiority of our early ancestors in masonry and ornamental architecture.

“Between the deanery-house and the cathedral is a curious stone, raised on a rude pedestal: one side is carved with a crucifixion, and the other with an effigy of St. Patrick. On this stone the Toparchs of Munster were crowned, as the great monarch of Ireland was upon the Lia-fail, or stone of destiny, now placed beneath the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey.

“About the year 1495 the cathedral was burned by the Earl of Kildare, with the barbarous intention of destroying Archbishop Creagh, whom he supposed to have been within during the conflagration. This turbulent noble was afterwards impeached, and amongst the various charges brought against him was this, of having burned the cathedral of Cashel. He readily confessed his fault, and added, ‘that he never would have done it, but that he thought the archbishop was within it at the time.’ The candour and simplicity of his confession convinced King Henry that he could not be capable of the intrigues and duplicity with which he was charged; and when the Bishop of Meath concluded the last article of impeachment with the remarkable words, ‘You see all Ireland cannot rule this gentleman;’ the king instantly replied, ‘Then he shall rule all Ireland,’ and forthwith appointed him to the lord-lieutenancy of that kingdom.

“The rock of Cashel was regularly fortified in the year 1647, but stormed and taken by Lord Inchiquin, who put all the clergy he found there to death. Divine service continued to be performed here until the Gothic reign of Archbishop Price, who unroofed the choir, and commenced the Cromwellian mode of beautifying a country, by converting its noblest structures into picturesque ruins.

“Many other monastic ruins adorn the vicinity of the city, exceedingly deserving of antiquarian notice. Hore Abbey retains some of its beautiful groined arches and slender tower, and Hacket’s Abbey possesses considerable interest.

“Cashel was constituted a borough by Archbishop Donat in 1216, and enclosed by a stone wall in 1320. Archbishop O’Hedian repaired the several defences, and built a hall for the vicars choral in the year 1421. The city now returns one member to the imperial parliament.

“The great ‘Magician of the North’ arrived at Cashel on his way to the metropolis, and being unprepared for a spectacle so magnificent, one so suited to the peculiar habit of his soul, forgot his intended journey, and was found wandering amongst the lone aisles of the cathedral at the approach of night. Another eminent individual, an eloquent candidate for the suffrages of his countrymen, felt the inspiration of the ruined pile that, hanging over his rude forum, told him of the once proud pre-eminence of his country. ‘Here,’ he exclaimed, ‘my cradle was first rocked, and the first object that in my childhood I learned to admire was that noble ruin, an emblem as well as a memorial of Ireland, which ascends before us, at once a temple and a fortress, the seat of religion and nationality, where councils were held, where princes assembled, the scene of courts and of synods, and on which it is impossible to look without feeling the heart at once elevated and touched by the noblest as well as the most solemn recollections.’ The effect of such an address upon a people of such an enthusiastic temperament may readily be concluded. The orator obtained the reward of his poetic and eloquent appeal.”

The view from the summit of the ruins of Cashel is very extensive and beautiful. The county of Tipperary is spread out below,—one beautiful variegated plain, richly cultivated, and bounded by the Galtee and other mountain ranges; while at the foot of the rocks the beautiful pleasure-grounds of the archbishop spread out in lawn, clumps, and shrubberies, like (to use Mr. Inglis’s simile) a piece of Mosaic work.

There is a legend which says, “that Cashel was first pointed out to the herdsmen of Corc, King of Munster, by a heavenly messenger, who foretold the coming of St. Patrick, and that the king immediately erected a royal palace on the spot, now called Carrick-Phadring or Patrick’s Rock, and from receiving here the rent or revenue of his kingdom, it was called Ciosoil (since corrupted into Cashel), cios signifying rent, and oil a rock.

“The remains of the old cathedral, which overlook the town, prove that it must have been a very extensive and beautiful Gothic structure, boldly towering on the celebrated rock of Cashel, and forming with it a magnificent object, bearing honourable testimony to the labour and ingenuity, as well as the piety and zeal of its former inhabitants. It is seen at a great distance and in many directions. The extent of the nave and choir, from east to west, is about two hundred feet, and the steeple is in the centre of the cross. Divine service continued to be performed in this venerable cathedral till 1752, when Archbishop Price unroofed the choir, and it was speedily converted into a ruin. Archbishop Agar endeavoured to restore it to its pristine glory, but its dilapidated condition rendered the attempt fruitless, and a new cathedral was soon after erected. Near the east angle of the north aisle of the old cathedral is a round tower, from which to the church there is a subterraneous passage. This tower is supposed to be the oldest structure upon the rock of Cashel, from this circumstance, that all the erections upon the rock, which is limestone, are built of the same materials, except the tower, which is of freestone. It is fifty-four feet in circumference at the base, and the height of the door from the ground is eleven feet. It consists of five stories, each of which, from the projecting layers of stone, appears to have had its window. The stone on which the ancient kings of Munster were crowned still remains near this spot.

“Connected with the cathedral, on the south side of the choir, is King Cormac’s Chapel, by some supposed to be the first stone building in Ireland. Dr. Ledwich considers it one of the most curious fabrics in the kingdom, and its rude imitation of pillars and capitals makes it appear to have been copied after the Grecian architecture, and long to have preceded that which is usually called Gothic. This chapel is fifty feet by eighteen in the choir, and of a style totally different from the church. Both on the outside and inside are columns over columns, better proportioned than one could expect from the place or time. The ceiling is vaulted, and the outside of the roof is corbelled, so as to form a pediment pitch. It is very probable it was built by Cormac on the very foundation of the church originally erected here by St. Patrick.

“Hore Abbey, called also St. Mary’s Abbey of the Rock of Cashel, was situated near the cathedral church, and originally founded for Benedictines; but the Archbishop David M‘Carbhuil, of the family of the O’Carrols, dispossessed them of their houses and lands, and gave their possessions to a body of Cistercian monks, and at the same time took upon himself the habit of that order. The noble ruins of this edifice still remain. The steeple is large, and about twenty feet square on the inside; the east window is small and plain, and in the inside walls are some remains of stalls; the nave is sixty feet long and twenty-three broad, and on each side was an arcade of three Gothic arches, the north side whereof is levelled, with lateral aisles, which were about thirteen feet broad; on the south side of the steeple is a small door leading into an open part, about thirty feet long and twenty-four broad; the side-walls are much broken, and in the gable-end is a long window: there is a small division on the north side of the steeple, with a low arched apartment, which seems to have been a confessionary, as there are niches in the walls with apertures.

“A monastery, called Hacket’s Abbey, was founded in Cashel in the reign of Henry III. for Conventual Franciscans, by W. Hacket. In the night of the 14th of February, 1757, the lofty and beautiful steeple of this friary fell to the ground. The edifice was situated at the rear of Friars’-street, but is now so much gone to ruin that it is difficult to trace its divisions.

“Amongst the ruins many ancient pieces of sculpture, containing interesting inscriptions, have recently been discovered.”

Ours is an age of memoirs, reminiscences, autobiographies, and personal sketches, and we miss from the history of the romantic old Irish kings the material (which will be profuse in those of our own time) for forming a familiar idea of their characters, loves, frailties, and lighter qualities. In such a spot as Cashel, where kings have succeeded kings, each with a life of human passions and interests, and where little is left beyond the name and the habitation, the imagination longs for some data by which to paint the fancy-pictures of bygone times. One story has come down to us, the wrong of which it treats having prepared the way for the first conqueror of Ireland, and a poetical and well-told story it is. Lady Chatterton listened to it from the lips of one of the wandering bards of Erin, and she gives it us in his impassioned language. “In ancient days,” he said, “when the Roman Emperor Adrian had a wall built across Britain to keep his hold over that country, we had a glorious king of our own, who reigned over the whole of Ireland; his name was Tuathal, and he was the greatest monarch who ever caused the golden stone to groan at their coronation.^[7]

“His forefathers had governed Ireland for upwards of a thousand years, since the days of his great ancestor Milesius. In his time the royal palace at Tara was the abode of all the beauty and bravery, both of our own land and from foreign parts. The song of the bard and the music of harps were never silent.

“The king’s two daughters, Daireen and Fithir, were so lovely that no prince in all the world was thought good enough to be their husbands. They had been instructed by the queen, their mother, who was the daughter of the King of Finland, in all the curious arts of the time.

“Daireen, the eldest, was like a swan; her voice was sweeter than any harp in the hall; and so full of wisdom were her words, that not only were those in the palace always watching to catch the sound, but it was said, that ‘a voice from the kingdom of souls’ (that which we now call echo) used to repeat her sayings to those outside the walls.

“Fithir, the youngest sister, was gentle as a cooing dove, and fairer and more modest than the snowdrop in spring.

She was several years younger than her sister, whom she adored with all the veneration due to a superior being. Indeed, so fond were these two royal maidens of each other, that it was said by some, that the reason they refused the hand of many illustrious monarchs was that they might never be separated. Others believed that they had made a vow to dedicate their lives to each other, and to the service of their God.

“Daireen, who was proud and haughty to all the world, was gentle as a lamb to her lovely sister, while Fithir would overcome the timidity of her disposition to accompany the more adventurous Daireen when she went to chase the wild deer in the forest.

“The most valorous and handsome youth of that glorious age was the Prince of Leinster. He often visited at the court of his royal kinsman, and was sure to win the prize of all martial exercises, as well as the oak-leaf crown, which was bestowed by the fair hands of the princesses themselves, for the best songs and poems.

“Above all, he excelled in calling forth tones from the harp, which were said to draw tears from the starry eyes of the haughty Daireen; and that this lady, who had never looked on any other man but to command, and who caused even the great king her father sometimes to quail beneath the glance of her dark eye, was seen once to smile on the young prince; and yet, strange to say, the Prince of Leinster was the only visitor at the court who had not sought the hand of either princess.

“Some thought that he was perplexed between the loveliness of both, and knew not which to choose. Fithir, indeed, looked on the handsome youth with admiration, as well she might, but she seldom addressed a word to him, though she seemed to enjoy listening to his eloquent discourse with her sister.

“At last a change came over the Princess Daireen, she was no longer the oracle of the court; the roses forsook her cheeks, her harp became unstrung, and the heart of her father was sad. The noble youths who had been proudly refused by her, were delighted to see this, and many were the hopes her softening manner gave rise to.

“Some say, that about this time the Prince of Leinster declared his love for the gentle Fithir, and that he was rejected either by the maiden herself or the king her father, who would not suffer the younger to marry before the elder. How this was can never be known; but, however, it came to pass, that after a time the Prince of Leinster and the beautiful Daireen were married.

“The nuptials were splendid; for eight days and eight nights the sound of music and mirth never ceased in all Ireland; and the many brilliant colours of the robes worn by the joyful people, caused the face of the country to look like a rainbow.

“At the end of this time, the young prince conducted his bride to his own palace in Leinster; and both he and Daireen implored permission to take the Princess Fithir with them, but the king was unwilling to part with her.

“Poor Fithir was inconsolable for the loss of Daireen; all the joyousness of her heart fled; she who had always till this moment been the light and life of Tara’s halls, and the joy of her father’s soul, now secluded herself from dance and song, and devoted her whole time to the service of her God.

“A gloom was cast on the hitherto brilliant court, and neither minstrels nor tournaments enlivened the silent palace.

“The king caused physicians and others noted for their skill in the healing art, to try and restore the spirits of his darling child, but nothing would succeed. At last the queen, who knew how little medicine can avail when the mind is sad, and who was well aware that the heart of Fithir was bound up in the absent Daireen, implored the king to allow them to visit the young pair in Leinster.

“He consented, and preparations were making for the royal progress, when the melancholy intelligence reached them, that the Princess Daireen had died in giving birth to her first-born son.

“Soon afterwards the Prince of Leinster visited Tara; he was attired in the deepest mourning, and every one was struck with the change his inconsolable grief had made in his appearance. He was gloomy and sullen; no one ventured to speak of Daireen in his presence; the sound of her name seemed intolerable to him.

“When poor Fithir contemplated the change which sorrow had wrought on the countenance of her brother-in-law, she exerted herself to control her own anguish, that she might comfort him. He had brought with him the infant of her adored sister, and Fithir never suffered it to depart a moment from her sight. King Tuathal, though he suffered intensely from the loss of his beloved daughter, was glad to see that Fithir, though at first nearly overwhelmed by the agony of this sudden blow, seemed roused by it from the state of hopeless lethargy into which she had been plunged since Daireen’s departure. The care of her sister’s child had given her some object in life; and though her soft blue eyes were often bedewed with tears, she would smile on the beautiful infant, and caress it for hours.

“Soon the Prince of Leinster talked of returning to his own territory: Fithir joined her entreaties with those of the king, that he would leave his child at Tara; but the youthful father refused; and indeed no one wondered at his unwillingness to part with all that remained to him of the beautiful Daireen, the dear pledge of their love, the only object which could cast a ray of joy over his widowed days.

“On the day previous to the one fixed for his departure, he had a long interview with Fithir; many were the tears they shed together over the unconscious babe, who smiled innocently upon them both.

“Perhaps the widowed prince thought it cruel to separate Fithir from the object of her love, whose little arms were so often clasped round her snowy neck; and therefore he lingered day after day and month after month at the palace. It began to be surmised at last, that he was as much in love with Fithir as he had been with her beautiful sister, and had succeeded in gaining her affections, and obtaining her father’s consent to their nuptials; and soon the rumour was confirmed by the preparations for the marriage.

“The wedding was as splendid as that of Daireen’s; but tradition says, there was a gloom over the whole scene. The harp of the chief bard suddenly broke, while he was chanting the marriage hymn; and the airs to which the guests danced at night sounded like mournful dirges; the brilliantly illuminated halls became dim, and the torches outside refused to burn.

“However, all these ill omens, which were considered to bode bad luck by the sages of the court, did not seem to attract the notice of the young couple, and if the Prince of Leinster was not so joyous a bridegroom as formerly, it was no wonder, considering how recently he had buried the beautiful Daireen.

“Fithir, though timid and retiring, had from childhood been of a joyous disposition; and the king and queen forgot all their sorrow in witnessing the restored health and beauty of the beloved princess. They saw her depart for her splendid home in Leinster without regret, resolving before long to visit her there.

“Fithir was received with enthusiasm by her husband’s subjects; flowers were strewed beneath her steps, and she found everything in the palace as splendid as all she was accustomed to at her father’s court; but nothing could cause her to forget the dear sister whom she had loved so deeply.

“Often did she visit the cairn which covered her remains, and she would take the infant prince to weep over it with her: but she could never prevail upon her husband to accompany her in her daily visits to the grave; indeed, he often chid her for allowing anything to disturb the serenity of her life, and never suffered Daireen’s name to be mentioned.

“One evening, about six months after their marriage, as Fithir was returning through a lonely part of the garden from her sister’s grave, she heard sounds of distress. They seemed to proceed from a tower which flanked the ancient part of the old castle, which she understood had not been inhabited since the death of the late prince.

“Fithir paused to listen; and then, urged by curiosity and a wish to relieve the sufferer, attempted to clamber up the steep bank on which the tower was situated. But the increasing darkness rendered this difficult; and the timidity of her disposition made her fearful of, she knew not what. There was something, too, so melancholy in those plaintive sounds, that it inspired her with a vague apprehension. Could it be the spirit of her sister which hovered over this spot? She was accustomed to think of Daireen as in a state of bliss—she well knew the purity of her mind; her great comfort was in considering that she was in the enjoyment of the happy hereafter they had so often talked of together.

“Could that dear sister be suffering from the omission of some rite or sacrifice, and thus have incurred the vengeance of one of the offended gods?

“Full of painful and perplexing thoughts, she returned to the castle. There was a brilliant entertainment that evening, but Fithir’s heart was sad; she longed for the last guest to depart, that she might tell all her fears to the husband who knew and entered into her every thought and feeling.

“The time at length arrived; but no sooner had she begun her tale, than she was alarmed at the dark and gloomy expression that lowered on her husband’s brow. He rebuked her angrily, and refused to listen to the excuses the trembling princess endeavoured to make for having offended him. He hurried out of the apartment, after having extorted from her a promise never to mention her sister’s name.

“Fithir loved her husband with all the ardour of her affectionate nature; but the memory of her sister was to her so hallowed, that she was miserable at his prohibition.

“It was no unusual thing in those pagan times to marry a kinswoman or sister of the deceased, which custom was probably derived from our ancestors the Egyptians, who received many ideas of religion from Moses and the Israelites. This being customary, Fithir never imagined that the prince’s conscience could be troubled by the idea of having given a successor to his first wife; nor had she felt any compunction herself at having stepped into her sister’s place, because she was thereby fulfilling a sacred duty.

“There was in the castle an old attendant, who had accompanied Daireen to Leinster, and who was ardently attached to both princesses; but her spirits had never recovered the death of Daireen, and she seldom came into the presence of Fithir unless when summoned to attend her.

“To this old lady, whose name was Scota, the princess now confided her cares, and the next evening was accompanied by her in her pilgrimage to her sister’s tomb. On their return, they passed near the old tower, but no sounds of lamentation were heard: days and weeks passed away, no mysterious sound again reached the ears of Fithir, and she began to reproach herself for having disturbed her husband’s mind by her vain imaginings. She redoubled her attentions to him, and peace and happiness seemed again restored.

“To add to her joy, the king and queen were expected on a visit, and the delighted Fithir was busy in preparing for their reception. The day previous to that fixed for their arrival, the prince was absent on a hunting excursion in the mountains; and Fithir, attended by old Scota, was taking her diversion in the beautiful gardens of the palace. Her dear sister’s child could now walk alone, and began to delight her with its innocent prattle. She was in expectation of soon being a mother herself, but she doubted whether her love would be so intense even for her own offspring as for the little Heremon, who had quite the features of her adored sister. It was the first time the prince had been absent since their marriage; and with that tenderness, mingled with sadness, which a first separation from a beloved object sometimes causes, she indulged in reflections on the amiable points of her husband’s character, and the blissfulness of her lot.

“As she gazed on the beautiful views and the distant mountains where her lord was sporting, little Heremon rambled towards the bank on which the ruined tower was situated, and in childish waywardness had clambered up almost to the summit of the precipitous bank. The old attendant Scota was the first to perceive his dangerous situation, and prudently abstaining from screaming, she called her lady’s attention to him. They both followed as quickly as they could climb up the perilous ascent: Fithir’s nimble feet first reached the boy, and clasping him in her arms, she returned thanks to the gods for his preservation.

“But to descend was not so easy; and, after a fruitless attempt, she desisted, and resolved to try and reach the summit. It was with considerable difficulty, while holding the child on one arm, that she at last reached a sort of recess near the bank, but below the foundation of the old tower wall. This recess she found to be a grated aperture or window: it was too closely barred to allow of her passing through; and seeing no other means of escape, she called to Scota to send some attendants with a ladder to rescue her from this dangerous and dizzy height. Scota flew to execute her bidding, and Fithir sat down on the window-sill to repose after her fatiguing effort.

“Was it fancy, or did she really hear that plaintive voice within, which had once before met her ears? No, it was not the wind—a dying voice seemed to pronounce her own name. Fithir shuddered: ‘Am I so soon then to die?’ said she, caressing the child; ‘cannot I live to see thee a man?’ Again, ‘Fithir! dearest Fithir!’ was distinctly pronounced. ‘I will come to thee, my sister, my love,’ said the weeping princess.

“You must know that in those old days, people were said to hear their own name pronounced before they died, by the voice of the dearest friend who was gone before them to the land of spirits. Fithir’s first thought, therefore, naturally was, that her summons was come, and her days in this world were numbered. She listened breathlessly, expecting to hear once more the spirit’s voice; but it was no sound from the abode of the departed that again met her ear. No, this time the conviction was too strong, that those were the living, suffering, plaintive accents of a mortal, to admit of a doubt.

“ ‘Fithir, my own darling sister, come to me, I am dying,’ was uttered in still fainter and more imploring tones.

“At this moment the attendants arrived with a ladder. The first impulse of the bewildered Fithir was to cause the bars of the window to be broken in. Trembling with awe and apprehension, she entered the dark chamber and caused a diligent search to be made: a torch was procured, and by its light a narrow staircase was discovered. A low moaning seemed to proceed from overhead. Fithir, in an agony of expectation, was the first to mount the stairs, and soon she found herself in a small low room, faintly illuminated by a narrow slit in the wall.

“On the ground lay a pale and emaciated form; and in this wreck of mortality, Fithir recognized her beloved sister. In a moment they were clasped in each other’s arms. Neither spoke for a length of time. Old Scota and the astonished servants stood gazing with speechless horror, not knowing whether the wretched object they beheld was the real frame, or the spiritual shadow of their once beautiful mistress.

“The two sisters wept, and then smiled through their tears, as if for some time unmindful of anything in this world but the intoxication of meeting. Perhaps, indeed, both were instinctively afraid to speak, lest the charm of seeing each other should be broken; lest some fearful mystery should be unravelled, which might plunge them in unspeakable woe.

“It was as if they lingered on the brow of a precipice, down which they were destined to be hurled, resolved to make the most of the last moments of life before the blessed light of another day was quenched for ever.

“But at last the sinking frame of Daireen could no longer support itself: the joy which had been excited at the sight of her sister, had brought a glow to her hollow cheek, a hectic, like the fever-spot, which burns brighter the moment before it is extinguished. Her eyes closed: it was then that Fithir, in agony at the apprehension of losing again her beloved sister, exclaimed, ‘Dearest Daireen, who has done this? who is the wretch that has inflicted this dreadful doom?’

“ ‘Ah! who indeed?’ groaned Daireen; then starting up with supernatural force, she exclaimed, ‘Tell me who is my rival, that I may hurl the imprecation of Heaven upon her guilty head? Who—who has deprived me of my husband’s love?’

“ ‘Rival! can it then be? the Prince of Leinster—can he know of this?’

“ ‘Know of it! it was his arms that dragged me here, that cast my struggling form into this horrid dungeon. It is for him I live—yes, for vengeance on him, the father of my child.’

“Stunned by the dreadful disclosure these words conveyed, Fithir sank upon the dungeon floor. Her husband—her idol—he whom she thought so perfect! it was too much.

“Daireen’s shattered frame retained the weary spirit only long enough to learn that it was the prince’s guilty passion for her dear sister had caused her sufferings. Too soon the fatal truth was told; but far from cherishing revenge against her innocent rival, she clung with the energy of despair to the lifeless form of her lovely sister, and her last sigh was breathed upon the bosom of her childhood’s friend.

“The vengeance of King Thuathal was terrible: he invaded, at the head of a large army, the possessions of his guilty son-in-law; and not content with this, he desolated the whole province, and levied a tribute on the kingdom of Leinster, resolved that all the subjects for succeeding generations should suffer for the guilt of the prince.

“This tribute was the cause of most of the misfortunes and civil wars of Ireland. Though sixteen centuries have rolled over our old country, we have still cause to lament the guilty passion of the Prince of Leinster; the fatal beauty of Fithir and Daireen.”

Eight miles from Cashel, on the Suir, in a rich pastoral district, stands the village of Holy Cross, a humble hamlet enough, but interesting from the fine pile of monastic ruins mouldering to decay in the midst of it. “This abbey,” says Wright, “was commenced in 1182, by Donald O’Brien, king of North Munster, and the charter of its foundation was witnessed by Gregory, Abbot of Holy Cross; Maurice, Archbishop of Cashel; and Britius, Bishop of Limerick. The style of its dedication is said to be attributable to a piece of the true Cross, that was presented in the year 1110 to Murtagh, Monarch of all Ireland, by Pope Pascal II. This relic, set in gold and adorned with precious stones, was preserved in the abbey until the approach of the Reformation, when it was saved from annihilation by the family of Ormonde; by them it was committed to the Kanaught, who delivered it to the Roman Catholic hierarchy of this district, to which it anciently belonged. The holy relic measures only two inches in length, is very thin, secured in the shaft of an episcopal cross, and enclosed in a gilt case.

“Peculiar privileges and extensive demesnes were attached to this religious establishment. Its charter was confirmed by King John and by Henry III., who took the abbey under his royal protection. The abbot sat as a baron in parliament, was styled Earl of Holy Cross, and was also vicar-general of the Cistercian order in Ireland. While the relic, from which the abbey takes its dedicatory name, continued here, numbers of all classes and ranks in society made pilgrimages hither; amongst whom the Great O’Neil and one of the proud Desmonds are mentioned. Soon after the general dissolution, however, the abbey and its valuable estates were granted to Thomas Earl of Ormonde, at an annual rent of £15.

“The architecture of the nave is inferior to that of the tower, transepts, and choir. The tower is supported on lofty pointed arches; the roof groined in a style of superior workmanship, and pierced with five holes for the transit of the bell-ropes. The north transept, which is also groined, is separated into two chapels, one of which, the baptistry, was lighted by a window of peculiar design, and contains the baptismal font. Here are the fragments of an altar-tomb: to this the south transept is similar. The choir is adorned with two rich monumental relics, of designs entirely original, and unlike any sepulchral or ecclesiastical architecture to be seen in other countries: one, which separates two little sanctuaries, consists of a double row of pointed arches springing from pillars, enriched with spiral flutings, less rich, but resembling the Apprentice’s Pillar in Roslin Chapel; the base is ornamented with trefoils and finials, and at one side is a small font for the reception of holy water. The interior dimensions favour the idea that this curious piece of architecture received the remains of the deceased during the performance of the funeral mass; but it is also conjectured to have been erected as a shrine for the reception and display of the sacred remnant of the true cross, already spoken of.

“The second memorial alluded to is equally interesting from the beauty of its design; but its sepulchral appropriation is yet uncertain. A projecting canopy of stone is supported by three trefoil arches, springing from slender columns of black marble: the soffit of the canopy is groined, and the pedestal of the monument enriched with sculpture. Its position on the south side of the high altar has led antiquaries to attribute this mausoleum to the original founder of the abbey, Donald O’Brien; but as the architectural decorations do not justify so early a date, nor the armorial bearings resemble those of the O’Brien family, the idea of its being a royal monument is no longer entertained. There are five escutcheons, three of which bear arms, beneath the canopy: the first shield on the dexter side bears a cross; the second, the arms of England and France, quarterly; the third, the arms of the Butlers; and the fourth seems to bear the arms of the Fitzgeralds. From an inspection of these heraldic proofs, and reference to the peerage, it is concluded that this elegant monumental structure was raised to the memory of the daughter of the Earl of Kildare, wife of James IV. Earl of Ormonde, commonly called ‘The White Earl’, who died about the year 1450.”

The entrance into Kilkenny, and the romantic view of the castle of the Ormonds rising above the river, reminded me strongly of one of the views of Warwick Castle. The first impression of the town from a cursory glance is extremely fine; the cathedral of St. Canice, the castle, and other very imposing structures, coming into almost every view, from the unevenness of the ground, and the happily chosen sites of all these edifices. Kilkenny is divided into two parts, called Irish-town, (the neighbourhood of the cathedral,) and English-town, (that of the castle,) the latter, thrifty-looking and well built, and having an air of gentility, in which many of the second-class of Irish towns are rather deficient.

The morning after my arrival, some friends were kind enough to accompany me to Kilkenny Castle, which is being modernized within and un-modernized without; the old furniture giving place to the luxuries of London in our own time, and the walls and towers undergoing castellation. We were first taken through the gardens and conservatories, laid out and supported in princely magnificence; and thence we crossed the public road to the castle, which we were most civilly shown “from turret top to donjon keep.” You would scarce fancy yourself in a castle, however, in any part of it; and my own recollections are principally of the views from the windows, which were unequalled for picturesque richness, particularly one from a balcony overhanging the Nore. I should not forget, however, a picture of a Marchioness of Ormond, which struck me exceedingly, and one or two very choice old cabinets. Historically, this castle is one of the most interesting in Ireland. There is perhaps no baronial residence in Ireland that can boast at the same time of a foundation so ancient, a situation so magnificent, and so many historical associations, as the princely residence of “the chief butler of Ireland,” Kilkenny Castle. It appears to have been originally erected by Richard de Clare (Strongbow) as early as 1172; but this structure having been destroyed by Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, it was rebuilt in 1195, by William Lord Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, in the possession of whose descendants it remained till the year 1391, when it was purchased by James Butler, the third Earl of Ormond, from Thomas le Spencer, Lord of Glamorgan and Kilkenny, whose grandfather, Hugh, acquired it and the earldom of Gloucester in marriage with Eleanor de Clare, third sister and coheir of Gilbert, ninth Earl of Clare and Gloucester. From this period to the present it has been the chief residence of the illustrious house of Ormond; and we trust shall long continue so. Here, in 1399, the earl had the honour of receiving King Richard II., and of entertaining that sovereign for fourteen days. In March 1650, when the city was invested by Oliver Cromwell, and its defence entrusted to Sir Walter Butler, the cannon of the former were opened on the castle, and a breach was effected on the 25th, about midday; but the besiegers were twice gallantly repulsed, and the breach was quickly repaired. On this occasion it was said that Cromwell, apprehending a longer resistance than suited the expedition necessary in his military operations at the time, was on the point of quitting the place, when he received overtures from the mayor and townsmen, offering to admit him into the city. He accordingly took possession of Irish-town, and being soon after joined by Ireton with fifteen hundred fresh men, “Sir Walter Butler, considering the weakness of the garrison, few in number, and those worn out for want of rest by continued watching, and hopeless of relief, determined to execute Lord Castlehaven’s orders, which were, that if they were not relieved by seven o’clock the day before, he should not, for any punctilio of honour, expose the townsmen to be massacred, but make as good conditions as they could by a timely surrender. A parley was beaten, and a cessation agreed on at twelve o’clock the next day, when the town and castle were delivered up.” The articles of capitulation were highly creditable to the garrison; and it is recorded, that Sir Walter Butler and his officers when they marched out were complimented by Cromwell, who said, “that they were gallant fellows; and that he had lost more men in storming that place than he had in taking Drogheda, and that he should have gone without it, had it not been for the treachery of the townsmen.”

Of the original castle, as rebuilt by the Earl of Pembroke, but little now remains. It was an oblong square, of magnificent proportions, with four lofty round towers at its angles. This castle was re-edified by the first Duke of Ormond, towards the close of the seventeenth century, in the bad style of architecture then prevailing on the continent, a taste for which had probably been imbibed by the duke in his repeated visits to France. It retained, however, three of the ancient towers, but changed in character, and disfigured by fantastic decorations to make them harmonize in style with the newer portions of the building. That structure has again been removed by the present marquess, and one of better taste, the subject of our present Engraving, erected on its site, preserving, however, the ancient towers, and restoring them to something like their original character. The architect is Mr. Robertson of Kilkenny.

The interior of the castle will shortly be adorned with its original collection of ancient tapestries and pictures, valuable as works of art, but still more as memorials of some of the most distinguished historical personages of the two last centuries.

Nothing can be finer than the situation of Kilkenny Castle, placed on a lofty eminence immediately overhanging that charming river,

From the military I went to the ecclesiastical eminence of the town, the hill opposite the castle, crowned with the noble Cathedral of St. Canice. This, to me, is one of the most beautiful masses of architecture in Ireland. The hill on which it stands is crowned with noble trees, which hide and disclose the old towers very picturesquely, the tall shaft of the famous Round Tower soaring above all, and the approach is by a long and ancient stone staircase, very like the ascent to some of the monasteries near Sorrento. The graceful proportions of the cathedral give it a lightness and elegance not common to buildings of that capacity, it being (among Irish churches) only inferior in size, I think, to Christ’s Church and St. Patrick’s in Dublin. “It was commenced,” says the chronicler, “about the year 1180, by Felix O’Dullany, who translated the old see of Sagir from Aghaboe to Kilkenny. The greatness of the first design was such as its authors could never have expected to see completed, which induced them to cover in and finish the choir, and proceed at once to consecration, leaving to posterity the sacred task of conducting the noble plan to its consummation. This vast pile is cruciformed, extending two hundred and twenty-six feet from east to west, and the length of the transepts measuring one hundred and twenty-three. The nave is distributed into a centre and two lateral aisles, communicating by pointed arches, springing from plain pillars of black marble. Four pointed windows illuminate each aisle, and the upper part of the nave is lighted by five quatrefoil windows. Many ancient monuments, differing in degrees of pomp and costliness, are erected in the side-aisles, and augment the solitary graves of the venerable place, and the luxurious melancholy which such memorials inspire. The tower, much too low in proportion to the lengths of the choir and transept, is supported upon groined arches, springing from massive columns of marble. The western window is triplicated, and a cross and two Gothic finials crown the centre and angles of the great gable.

“The choir extends seventy-seven feet in length, and is uninterrupted in its simple grandeur by any of the trifling, though not unusual, decorations of cathedral churches. St. Mary’s Chapel is situated to the north of the choir, communicating with the north transept; and the chapter-house and bishop’s court occupy corresponding positions on the south. The pillar-tower seems to claim admission amongst the venerable temples raised to the true religion, by its proximity to the church; but how far it is entitled to that respect, is still a matter of uncertainty.

“The present condition of the cathedral reflects much credit upon the learned incumbents of the see of Ossory for some years past; amongst whom, one of the chief in benevolence and in learning was Dr. Pococke, who raised and set up the inverted monuments, restored the shattered walls, and re-edified the whole structure. The tombs of St. Canice may be esteemed as so many historic records; and to a country whose history is still disfigured or obscured, such memorials are invaluable.

“The chair or throne of St. Kieran, a stone seat with arms of upright stone, having a graceful curve, stands in the north transept. This patriarch is believed to have preceded St. Patrick by thirty years in his holy mission, and to have been the first to preach Christianity in Ireland. Under the second window from the vestibule is a monument to the memory of Bishop Walshe, the unhappy manner of whose death has been, by political influence, unnoticed in the inscription. In the year 1585, the bishop cited one James Dullard, a profligate wretch, to appear in his court and reply to a charge of adultery, but the monster answered the citation by breaking into the palace of the bishop, and stabbing him to the heart with a skean. After the perpetration of this bloody deed he fled into Troy’s Wood, and uniting himself to the banditti that then infested the vicinity, stated the mode in which he had qualified himself for his new vocation; but the banditti, shocked at the crimes, and disgusted with the confidence of Dullard, brought him to a formal trial amongst themselves, and finding him guilty, immediately twisted a gad around his neck, and hung him from a tree in the forest.

“Many sepulchral honours are here raised to the memory of the ancient and illustrious house of Butler; perhaps that of Peter Butler, eighth Earl of Ormonde, who died in 1539, and his countess, Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, are better known to the historian than others erected to the same illustrious family. The effigy of the earl is distinctly relieved in black marble, at full length, and in complete armour, his sword laid across his body, and his feet resting on a dog. The same monument entombs the mortal remains of his haughty countess, whose memory is perpetuated by the Irish, under the name of ‘Moryhyhead Ghearhodh.’ This extraordinary lady, inheriting the martial spirit of her ancestors, was always attended by numerous vassals, well clothed and accoutred, and composing a formidable army. She had several strong castles within the limits of her territory, of which that at Ballyragget was her favourite citadel, on the top of which her chair is still shown. Campion calls her ‘a rare woman, and able for wisdom to rule a realm, had not her stomach overruled herself.’ Her lord being appointed to the government of Ireland, is supposed to have discharged the high duties with honour and approbation; the latter owing to the prudent counsels of his lady, ‘a lady of such port, that the estates of the realm couched to her; so politic that nothing was thought substantially debated without her advice; warlike and tall of stature, very rich and beautiful; a bitter enemy; the only means by which in those days her husband’s country was reclaimed from the sluttish Irish customs to the English habits.’

“James Butler, eldest son of this remarkable lady, supposed to have been poisoned at a banquet, died at his house in Holborn, London. His biographer adds, that ‘his death bred sorrow to his friends, little comfort to his adversaries, great loss to his country, and no small grief to all good men.’

“Dr. Pococke died in the see of Meath, to which he was translated from Ossory; but his public services, his eminent virtues, and great learning, are attested with an honourable gratitude by the erection here of a cenotaph, bearing a feelingly-written inscription to his memory. He not only caused those permanent repairs which a continuation of existence demanded, but exercised a vigilance in the detection of every fragment of antiquity in the cathedral that had escaped the ravages of time or barbarity. The eastern window was formerly adorned with stained glass of so much beauty, that Rimmini, a nuncio of the pope, offered £700 for it to Bishop Roth and the chapter, which they, valuing their honour above gold, very properly refused. During Cromwell’s usurpation his fanatic followers broke in the window, allowing but few fragments to elude their sacrilegious hands: these Dr. Pococke gathered, and caused them to be inserted in the window above the western door.”

There are one or two other very fine remains of architecture at Kilkenny, St. John’s and the Black Abbey being in a very picturesque stage of decay. The former was called the Lantern of Ireland from the great number of its windows. It is now used as a parish church, somewhat to the detriment of its beauty. Kilkenny is a famous town for many reasons—one of which, and it will be no light honour, is its having been the birthplace of Banim, one of the first of the novelists. It is also famous, however, as the scene of the persecutions for witchcraft, which found a parallel in the horrors enacted at Salem in Massachusetts. “The Lady Alice Kettell,” says one writer, “was summoned, in or about 1325, before the bishop, to answer the charge of practising magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. She and her accomplices, Petronilla and Basilia, were accused of holding nightly conferences with an imp or evil spirit, called Robin Artisson, to whom, in order to make the infernal thing obedient to all their commands, they sacrificed nine red cocks in the middle of the highway, and offered up the eyes of nine peacocks. The Lady Alice, by means of this imp and his associates, caused every night the streets of Kilkenny to be swept between the hour of complin-prayer and daybreak. And for what did she do this? To sweeten the town and make it agreeable? no such thing. Witches are not so benevolently inclined; but it was for the good of her greedy son that she did it, one William Utlan, a great land-pirate, an avarus Agricola, a fellow who monopolized all the town-parks, and grasped at great possessions. So the cunning mother had all the filth of the city raked to her son’s door, to help him to manure his meadows; and such of the inhabitants as ventured to go out at night, heard unearthly brooms plying over the causeway, and fearful-looking scavengers were at their dirty work, who scouring away to slow chorus, chanted as follows:

But this was not all: the Lady Alice beat even Captain Freney the robber, and all his Kellymount gang, in riding amid the darkness of night. No sooner were the nine peacocks’ eyes thrown into the fire, than up rose Robin the imp, and presented his potent mistress with a pot of ointment, with which she oiled her broomstick; and then mounting as gay as Meg Merrilies the Scotch hag, and having along with her Petronilla and Basilia, her dear friends, she performed a night’s journey in a minute, and used to hold a Sabbat with other enchanters on the Devil’s Bit, in the county of Tipperary.

“This business made a great noise at the time. The Lady Alice Kettell, having powerful friends, escaped to foreign parts: her accomplice Petronilla was burned at the Cross of Kilkenny. William Utlan suffered a long imprisonment. On searching the Lady Alice’s closet (as Hollingshed relates) they found a sacramental wafer, having Satan’s name stamped thereon, and a pipe of ointment, with which she greased her staff, when she would amble and gallop through thick and thin, through fair weather and foul, as she listed.”

To this account Mr. Crofton Croker replied by the following interesting letter, published in the Dublin Journal.

“The persecution of the Lady Alice Kettell, at Kilkenny, for witchcraft, is perhaps one of the earliest upon record. The Bishop of Ossory is stated to have been her accuser, and to have charged her and two companions with various diabolical acts; among others, that of holding a conference every night with a spirit called Robin Artisson, to whom, as you have related, they were said to sacrifice nine red cocks and nine peacocks’ eyes.

“In this ecclesiastical persecution, the object of which appears to have been to extort money to cover the roof of St. Mark’s Church, in Kilkenny, the connexion with the fairy creed is obvious from the name of the evil spirit. The appellation of Artisson, any Irish scholar will at once perceive has had its origin in the sacrifice said to be nightly offered up, as the translation of it is chicken-flesh; and with respect to the name of Robin, I cannot help thinking, when Sir Walter Scott tells us that ‘by some inversion and alteration of pronunciation’ the English word goblin and the Scottish bogle come from the same root as the German kobold, he might as well have added poor Robin, if only for the sake of good-fellowship, as Robin’s punning namesake, Thomas Hood, would have said.

“That Robin, however, was the popular name for a fairy of much repute is sufficiently well known; but since the mention of his name has accidentally occurred with that of Hood, I may be allowed to observe, that the title assumed by, or applied to the famous outlaw, was no other than one which had been appropriated to a denizen of fairy land; Hudikin or Hodekin, that is ‘little hood,’ or ‘cowl,’ being a Dutch or German spirit, so called from the most remarkable part of his dress, in which also the Norwegian Nis and Spanish Duende were believed to appear,

to use the words of Calderon. There is in Oxford-street a well-known coach-office, distinguished by the sign of ‘the Green Man and Still,’ but why so called I have never had satisfactorily explained by the curious in such matters. The derivation of the Bull and Mouth, the Belle Sauvage, the Talbot, (old Chaucer’s Tabart,) and many other signs, which may be quoted in proof of the mutability of things, are familiar to all, yet the origin of the aforesaid Green Man and Still remains involved in the most mysterious obscurity. I have, however, always been inclined to consider it as remotely derived from Robin Hood; and leaving fancy to fill up the chasm, have found myself willing to translate it as ‘the forester and fairy,’ or the green or woodman, and the still folk or silent people, as the supernatural beings we call fairies were not unusually termed; ‘das still Volk’ being the common German expression.

“This long digression, like the treacherous Friar Rush, might readily lead me on from ‘the merry green wood,’ until I became bewildered in the mazes of conjecture. Allow me, therefore, to return to Kilkenny, the scene of Alice Kettell’s conjurations. That town appears to have been peculiarly fatal to witches. Sir Richard Cox, in his History of Ireland, mentions the visit of Sir William Drury, the Lord Deputy, to it, in October 1578, who caused thirty-six criminals to be executed there, ‘one of which was a blackamoor, and two others were witches, and were condemned by the law of nature, for there was no positive law against witchcraft in these days.’ From that it would appear that the statute of the 33rd of Henry VIII. against witchcraft had either become a dead letter, or had not been enacted in Ireland.

“Ireland has been, in my opinion, unjustly stigmatized as a barbarous and superstitious country. It is certain that the cruel persecution carried on against poor and ignorant old women was as nothing in Ireland when compared with other countries. In addition to the three executions at Kilkenny, a town the inhabitants of which were almost entirely either English settlers or of English descent, I only remember to have met with an account of one other execution for the crime of witchcraft. This latter took place at Antrim, in 1699, and it is, I believe, the last on record. The particulars of this silly tragedy were printed in a pamphlet, entitled ‘The Bewitching of a Child in Ireland,’ and from thence copied by Professor Sinclair, in his work entitled ‘Satan’s Invisible World Discovered,’ which is frequently referred to by Sir Walter Scott in his Letters on Demonology.”

On the same river, “the stubborn Nore,” as Spenser calls it, stands Jerpoint Abbey, founded by Donogh M‘Gilla-Patrick, Prince of Ossory. In wealth, honours, and architectural splendours, Jerpoint was exceeded by no monastic institution in Ireland. The demesne lands extended over fifteen hundred acres of fertile ground, and the buildings included the abbey-church and tower, a refectory, dormitory, and offices, that occupied an area of three acres. The whole of this property, bequeathed for objects purely sacred, was granted at the dissolution to Thomas Butler, tenth Earl of Ormonde, at an annual rent of £49 3s. 9d.

“The style of architecture combines the Anglo-Norman and early English; and those parts that survive, and are approachable, display a beauty and perfection not inferior to anything of coeval structure in the kingdom; but from neglect and barbarity, this most splendid ruin is so injured and polluted, that the proportions of its vast choir and wide-spread arches, the shattered frames of the richly traced windows, with the mouldering fragments of sepulchral monuments, scattered over a surface of mire and filth, prohibit ingress or inspection. Exterior vestiges still appear of those buildings within whose shade the monks, on days of high solemnity, passed in their customary processions; but now they lie in masses of detached ruin, covered over with earth and grass, and distinguishable only by the eminence they form.

“The tomb of the founder is placed opposite the high altar in the south aisle, and adorned with the recumbent effigies of a male and female in antique costumes. The male is represented holding a crucifix in his right hand, which rests upon his breast, while the left points to a harp hanging at his side. A full-length figure of an abbot, in his proper robes, reclines upon the marble torus of another tomb: in his left hand appears a crozier, in the volute of which an Agnus Dei is sculptured. Other monuments of exquisite workmanship present a melancholy disregard of proper feeling, and a wanton profaneness, by their shattered fronts and spoliated appearance; and the inscriptions of all are nearly effaced.

“The monument of Dullany lies obscured in the ruinous confusion and heaps of decay. He died in the year 1202, was interred on the north side of the high altar, and many miracles are said to have been wrought at his tomb.

“The following stanzas,” says Wright, from whom I get the information relative to this abbey, “feelingly and faithfully describe the beauties that linger round this decaying pile:

“The following stanzas allude to the involuntary resignation of the abbey and its vast domans by Oliver Grace Fitz-Oliver, of the Courtstown family, the last Abbot of Jerpoint, in the year 1530:

I entered Waterford over another of my countryman’s wooden bridges, considered, like those built by the same man at Derry, Portumna, and Ross, rather as curiosities. The Guide book says the bridge is eight hundred and thirty-two feet in length, and was built “by Mr. Samuel Cox of America.” They might as well say, the road was invented by Mr. M‘Adam of the eastern hemisphere. It was evening when I arrived, and the broad quay, lined with lamps, and the reflection of lights on the river, with the vague outline of tall buildings on one side only of the street, struck me as giving promise of a very fine city. Though my morning walk rather disappointed me, the quay is certainly a very spacious and well-constructed one, nearly a mile in length, and devoted partly to a promenade between the street and the river. After rambling about in vain to find anything in the other parts of the town to interest me, I called a car-driver, and asked if his horse was able to draw me to the top of the hill opposite the town. I had made my bargain and mounted the car, when the man turned to me before starting, and asked if I knew the toll over the bridge would be a shilling. Satisfied that I was willing to stick to my bargain with this additional expense, he whipped up, and began to chat away most merrily. I was pleased with the considerateness as well as the gaiety of my Jehu, and we were soon on excellent terms. No Yankee was ever more inquisitive, however; and after discovering by direct questions that I was not from Cork, nor Kilkenny, nor Dublin, but all the way from America, Pat said, “Then it’s yer honour has a white skin and spakes like an Irishman, and looks intirely in the face like Mr. Power O’Shay, first-cousin to the mimber.” After this compliment Pat could scarce do enough for me. He stopped several gentlemen on the road, somewhat to my annoyance, to ask where was the view, and to tell them I was come all the way from America to see Watherford, and couldn’t “for ould Pope’s big wall,” which wall, by the way, he helped me over, by allowing me to step from the car to his shoulders, climbing up after me, that I might make a ladder of him also from the other side.

The view from the top of the hill quite repaid me for my trespass. Waterford is beautiful from this distance, and the banks of the Suir above and below the long bridge, are very bold and striking. The broad bosom of the river was covered with large vessels, steamers, and small sailing-craft; the quay was thronged with pedestrians and vehicles, the sun shone brightly, and the scene altogether, with its background of fine hills, was beautiful. There is said to be from twenty to sixty-five feet of water in the Suir at low tide, and vessels of eight hundred tons may come up close to the quay, a circumstance which has been found very favourable for the debarcation of cavalry and military stores. Waterford has always, from this and other reasons, been an important port of Ireland. Its ancient name was Cuan-na-Frioth, or Haven of the Sun. It was afterwards called Gleann-na-Gleodh, or Valley of Lamentation, from the tremendous conflicts between the Irish and the Danes. By old Irish authors, it is frequently named, from its shape, the Port of the Thigh. Its historical record states that it was founded in 155, but made a considerable town under Sitric in 853. It was still inhabited by the Danes in 1171, the time of King Henry’s invasion. There are other historical events connected with King John, Richard II., (who remained nine months at Waterford to assuage his grief for the death of Queen Anne,) the Desmonds, &c. &c. Its great feature to antiquarians, however, is Reginald’s Tower, a fine old remnant of Danish architecture, standing near the lower end of the quay. It was built by Reginald, son of Imar, in 1003. In 1171 it was held as a fortress by Strongbow; in 1463 a mart was established in it; and in 1819 it was partly rebuilt in its original form, and appropriated to the police establishment. Besides these various uses, it has been used as a prison. After the successful storming of the town by the English forces of Strongbow, led on by the redoubtable Raymond le Gros, in 1171, when the city was plundered, and all the inhabitants found in arms were put to the sword, Reginald, Prince of the Danes, and Malachy O’Faelan, Prince of the Decies, with several other chiefs who had confederated to resist the invaders, were imprisoned here after they were condemned to death. They were saved, however, by the intercession of Dermot MacMurrogh, who, with many other Welsh and English gentlemen, came to Waterford to be present at the marriage of Earl Strongbow with Eva, the King of Leinster’s daughter.

I walked back over my fellow-townsman’s “bridge of American oak,” enjoying very much the beauty of the banks of the river on the side opposite the town: with the exception of the banks of the Suir, however, the neighbourhood of Waterford looked bleak and uninviting. The hotel was but indifferent, and I was not sorry to curtail my stay somewhat, and hurry on by the first conveyance towards Lismore.

The views of Lismore Castle, which have been taken always from the most favourable points, prepare a disappointment for the traveller who chances to approach it first from the side toward the town, the insignificant buildings of which shoulder it rather too closely. From all other points, however, it is a most striking and noble object, and justifies its reputation as one of the first of the noble residences and demesnes of Ireland. Its position, overhanging the Blackwater, is very commanding; its gardens, lawns, and walks are laid out with exquisite taste; its antique towers and its modern habitableness are beautifully harmonised; indeed, it is a spot which one’s heart aches to leave—capable, to the imagination at least, of all that a residence can do for the happiness of the most luxurious. This castle was the property of Sir Walter Raleigh, at whose death it was forfeited, and purchased by the ancestor of the Duke of Devonshire. The town of Lismore adds to this historic interest the fact that it was the birthplace of Boyle and Congreve. “Lismore Castle,” says Ritchie, “was founded on the ruins of an abbey by King John, in the year 1185. After being destroyed by the Irish, and undergoing various other fortunes, it was rebuilt, and became an episcopal residence; till at length, in 1589, it passed with the rest of the manor to Sir Walter Raleigh, on consideration of a yearly rent of £13. 6s. 8d., and was afterwards sold by him to the Earl of Cork. In 1626, the famous Robert Boyle was born within its walls. In the rebellion of 1641, it withstood successfully a siege by five thousand Irish, under Sir Richard Beling. On this occasion it was defended by Lord Broghill, the earl’s third son, whose letter to his father is well known, but still worth reprinting here.

“ ‘I have sent out my quarter-master to know the posture of the enemy; they were, as I am informed by those who were in the action, five thousand strong, and well armed, and that they intend to attack Lismore. When I have received certain intelligence, if I am a third part of their number I will meet them to-morrow morning, and give them one blow before they besiege us; if their number be such that it will be more folly than valour, I will make good this place which I am in.

“ ‘I tried one of the ordnances made at the forge, and it held with a pound charge; so that I will plant it upon the terrace over the river. My lord, fear nothing for Lismore; for if it be lost, it shall be with the life of him who begs your lordship’s blessing, and styles himself your lordship’s most humble, most obliged, and most dutiful son and servant,

“ ‘Broghill.’

“Two years after, the castle was attacked again by a still greater fore, and again remained triumphant; but in 1645, it was at length taken by Lord Castlehaven. The defenders on this occasion were Major Power, and a hundred of the earl’s tenants, who are said to have been allowed honourable terms of capitulation, after expending all their powder, and killing five hundred of the enemy. This sounds like one of Napoleon’s bulletins.

“From the Boyle family, Lismore passed into that of Cavendish, in 1748, by the marriage of Lady Charlotte Boyle, daughter of the fourth Earl of Cork, to the fourth Duke of Devonshire. The present Duke has done much to improve and beautify the place, but what is of still more consequence, he is said to be the best of the very few good landlords in Ireland.

“This fortress covered, originally, a considerable space of ground, as may be seen by the walls and towers still remaining. Between the boundaries, however, and the castle, there is now one of the most charming promenades in the world; a little paradise of walks, and plants, and trees. The path leads in some places to the very brink of the precipice which overhangs the Blackwater; whence a view is commanded of the deep vale below, and the eye carried along numerous vistas opening among the mountains beyond. I left the path, scrambled for some distance along the precipice, and returned another way, my mind filled with more pictures, each altogether distinct from the rest, than a week’s walk could have procured me almost anywhere else.

“The principal buildings of the castle surround a large square, and are furnished with modern doors and windows, with more attention to comfort than to good taste. The square, notwithstanding, has a gloomy appearance. I passed in unquestioned. Not a human being was visible, and even the sound of the wind among the trees was no more when I entered the deserted area. At that moment there stepped gravely up to me a large eagle; and I could not help starting back and eyeing him respectfully, as ‘one having authority.’ He contented himself, however, with an attentive examination of my appearance, and I strolled on.

“In the interior of the house, there are none of the incongruities observable outside: all is substantially elegant. In these luxurious days, however, one fine suite of rooms resembles so closely another, that there is no telling the difference; yet at Lismore, I must say, there is some tapestry, and some splendid doors of Irish oak. But the most striking thing is, the view from the windows, a fact which was felt before me by no less a personage than James II. This king-errant entered the castle, like myself, from even ground; and going up to one of the windows in the great room, still called King James’s window, started back aghast on finding himself perched at a vast height over a dark and rapid river.

“The little town of Lismore was formerly a city, distinguished for its learning and the number of its religious edifices. The present cathedral is a very handsome church, rebuilt a few years ago on the site of the old, and as much as possible in its character. Of the town itself, all I can say is, that it is reasonably clean, and that the inhabitants have an appearance of more than ordinary comfort.”

The Blackwater, even in this country of lovely rivers, is eminently lovely. Its banks are bold, verdant, graceful, and gemmed with beautiful structures, offering, in its whole length, perhaps as great a variety of enjoyable scenery as any river in the world. In the view taken for this work of The Blackwater below Dromana, one of the best of its thousand bright spots is presented to the reader. This spot, too, has an historic interest of a very high character, Dromana having been one of the residences of the powerful Lords of Desmond, in whose lives is embodied no small portion of the poetry of Irish history. “With possessions of nearly four counties,” says Croker, “the Earls of Desmond, when actuated by private motives, were enabled to take the field with an armed force so considerable as to excite just apprehensions in those who had the government of an imperfectly subdued country. But the history of Gerald, the sixteenth earl, who had been called ‘Ingen’s rebellious exemplar,’ is briefly given in Baker’s Chronicle, and with so much affecting simplicity, that I am induced to transcribe the words.

“ ‘Desmond possessed whole counties, together with the County Palatine of Kerry, and had, of his own name and race, at least five hundred gentlemen at his command, all whom, and his own life also, he lost within the space of three years, very few of the house being left alive.’

“If, on the one side, it was necessary for the wellbeing of the country to suppress such desolating feuds in a question of individual property as that at Affane, (noticed in a subsequent paper,) and to prevent the oppressive and cruel extortion established by an Earl of Desmond in the reign of Edward II., called coigne and livery, or the power of levying indiscriminately and at will whatever victuals, provender, and money his necessities required; so, on the other, the Earl of Desmond seems to have been driven into rebellion by the unrelenting policy of those who had the direction of public affairs. And it is to be feared there is too much truth in Dr. Curry’s opinion, that ‘his vast estate was a strong inducement to the chief governors of Ireland to make or to proclaim him a rebel, their prey being insured to them in either case by his forfeiture.’

“As securities for her husband’s conduct and pledges of his innocence, their only son, an infant, together with O’Healy, Bishop of Mayo, and O’Rourke, a Franciscan friar of noble descent, were presented to Sir William Drury by the Countess of Desmond; but the earl, though with expressions of loyalty, declining to comply with the summons of Sir William Pelham, (the successor to Drury as lord-justice,) and hesitating in obeying the unnatural command to bear arms against his brother, who had been declared a traitor, was also proclaimed one himself on the 2d of November, 1579, if he did not surrender within twenty days.

“Desmond naturally doubted the faith of those who had already deceived him, by whom his property had been injured, his complaints neglected, and his grievances unredressed. When he complied with the summons of Drury to appear at Kilmallock, whither he came ‘with a well-appointed company of horse and foot, he was committed to custody,’ says Leland, ‘on bare suspicion; but upon making the most solemn promises of loyalty and fidelity, he obtained his liberty, retired from the camp, but refused to attend the deputy, and was therefore still considered as a favourer of foreign invaders and their cause. Upon this bare suspicion, (Sir Nicholas) Malby attacked his town of Rathkeal. This the earl considered as an unprovoked and unwarrantable attempt which he was justified in repelling.’

“Two members of the council, the Lords Gormanstown and Delvin, refused to sign the proclamation against Desmond, and one hour after it was published, his countess, we are told, ‘came to the camp to intercede for her unhappy lord; but the forces had marched towards her husband’s country, which they entered with fire and sword.’

“The fathers O’Healy and O’Rourke, who had become sureties for Desmond’s loyalty, were executed, and his infant son was sent a state prisoner to the Tower of London. Even as an additional goad to drive Desmond to desperate measures, the Earl of Ormond, his former rival, was named to take the field against him. So violent was the animosity existing between these two noblemen, that when, on a former occasion, they had agreed to a public reconciliation under the decision of a special commission, an aperture was cut in a door for them to shake hands through, ‘each fearing to be poignarded by the other.’

“To state Desmond’s case with impartiality, it is necessary to point out that his haughty and tyrannic disposition made him regard the acts of others with suspicion; and though of English extraction, in common with most Irish chieftains, he knew not how to demean himself as a subject, and resisted every encroachment on his feudal dignity. A more dangerous man, therefore, to any peaceable government could not have existed—arrogant, oppressive, and ferocious. Irritated at the severe conduct of the English governors towards him, whom an invasion compelled to adopt decisive measures, the enraged earl, collecting his followers on the Ballyhoura Mountain, for the first time appeared as the avowed enemy of Queen Elizabeth, and proceeded to attack the town of Youghal, which he captured without much opposition, and deposited the plunder in his castles of Strancally and Lisfinneen, having garrisoned them with the invading Spanish troops. Elated by this success, the earl, with a view to intimidate Sir William Pelham, wrote to him, stating that he had entered into a league for the defence of the Catholic religion with the King of Spain, under the sanction of the pope, and invited Sir William to co-operate with them. Immediately on such a declaration, Lord Ormond and Sir Warham St. Leger made a fierce attack on the estates of Desmond, destroying the tillage, burning and ruining his castles, and murdering, in cold blood, the foreigners by whom they were garrisoned.

“A series of acts of devastation on the part of the English, that were vainly opposed by Desmond, ensued for six months; at the end of which time that nobleman, his countess, and Saunders, the papal legate, escaped with their lives only from the royal troops, and Lady Desmond once more appeared before the lord-justice, beseeching him in tears, on her knees, forgiveness and pity for her consort. But Sir William Pelham remained inexorable; and coldly speaking of the queen’s clemency, referred to her majesty’s mercy, at the moment when Lord Desmond’s brother, Sir James, was condemned and executed by martial law, and his reeking limbs exposed to the public gaze on the gates of Cork.

“A mutiny amongst the English army was suppressed, by openly giving up Desmond’s country to plunder instead of their pay; and the greater part of the population, to escape the revolting cruelties attendant on military exaction, fled for protection, and found it, from the bravest and most noble of enemies,—a British seaman,—Sir William Winter, the vice-admiral of England, who was stationed off the coast of Kerry to intercept reinforcements from Spain, receiving many of the despairing fugitives on board his squadron.

“During this time, the garrison of Kilmallock kept the adherents and forces of Desmond in check, so as to prevent their forming an union with the disaffected of the northern provinces, particularly with Lord Baltinglass, notwithstanding an effort made by Sir John of Desmond and Dr. Saunders, in which their attendants were made prisoners; and shortly after, Captain Zouch, the companion in arms of Raleigh, surprised, near Castle Lyons, Sir John, with his relative James Fitz-John, of Strancally, both of whom were executed, and their mangled remains displayed in barbarous triumph.

“Pursued from one retreat to another, the Earl of Desmond, after many ineffectual efforts at reprisal and several narrow escapes, was forced ‘to keep his Christmas (1582) in Kilquegg Wood, near Kilmallock,’ where being attacked, his followers were all put to the sword, and he and his countess escaped by remaining concealed under a bank of the river up to their chins in water. About the middle of the following year, Desmond’s chief force, consisting only of sixty gallowglasses, was surprised in the act of boiling horseflesh, and half of them slain, by a party from Kilmallock, in Harlow or Agherlow Wood. On the death of Dr. Saunders, who perished miserably, having fallen a victim to famine and the effects of exposure to the weather, and whose body was discovered partially devoured by wolves, an intimation was made to Desmond, that on submission his individual pardon would be granted; but the same unyielding spirit that animated this earl at Affane, inspired his reply: ‘Tell the lords-justices,’ said Desmond, ‘that I would rather forsake my God than forsake my men.’

“In September following, the earl, accompanied by three horsemen and a priest, encountered a party of Lord Roche’s followers, from whom, being well mounted, they escaped, except the priest, who gave a lamentable account of the extremes to which Desmond was reduced.

“The last scene of the earl’s life is, however, the most tragical. His necessities having compelled him to take some cattle belonging to a poor woman, he was pursued by a few musketeers and kerns in the English pay, who on entering a little grove in a lonely and mountainous glen, four miles east of Tralee, about midnight, discovered, seated round the fire of a ruinous hovel, four or five of Desmond’s known adherents, all of whom immediately fled on their entrance, leaving one venerable and powerless old man: a soldier, named Daniel Kelly, made a blow at him with his sword, and wounded him so severely as almost to dissever his arm; repeating the blow, the old man ejaculated, ‘Spare me, spare me! I am the Earl of Desmond.’ But the appeal was made in vain, for Kelly struck off his head and conveyed it to the Earl of Ormond, by whom it was sent over, ‘pickled in a pipkin,’ to England, where it was spiked on London Bridge; and his body, after eight weeks’ concealment, obscurely interred in the little chapel of Killanamana, in Kerry. For this service Elizabeth’s ‘well-beloved subject and soldier, Daniel Kelly,’ was rewarded with a pension of twenty pounds yearly, which he enjoyed for many years, but was ultimately hanged at Tyburn.

“The account given by Spencer of the state of Desmond’s country, who was a spectator of it, exhibits a dreadful and impressive picture of the calamitous effects of civil warfare. He tells us, that ‘any stony heart would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glynns, they’ (the people of Munster,) ‘came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death. They spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy when they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue there withal,—that in short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly became void of man and beast.’

“In the Earl of Ormond’s services against Desmond, the destruction of forty-six captains, eight hundred notorious traitors, and four thousand common soldiers is enumerated; yet a letter that has been preserved in the Scrina Sacra, from Desmond to Lord Ormond, is written in that tone of submission which renders it but too probable that vindictive motives alone urged the latter to refuse every overture of Desmond’s to obtain mercy.

“Neither the death of Desmond, nor the depopulation of the country, restored tranquillity to the south of Ireland; and Elizabeth, by the advice of Sir Robert Cecil, sent over James, the only son of the late earl, who had been educated in the Tower under the eye of the English government, in expectation that the adherents of his father would rally around their young lord, and become peaceable subjects. This was the more desirable, as a remaining member of the family, termed in history the Sugan Earl, had assumed the title of Desmond, and appeared in arms against the queen.

“Reared in confinement, inexperienced in popular tumult, and ignorant of political intrigue, the young Earl James arrived at Youghal on the 14th of October, 1600, under the guardianship of Captain Price, and submissively waited on the Lord President of Munster, to whom he delivered despatches explanatory of the purpose of his journey into Ireland, and his patent of creation as Earl of Desmond, copies of which may be found in the Pacata Hibernia. The president sent the young earl to Kilmallock, whither the news of his coming had preceded him, and the followers of the Desmond family crowded to welcome their chief, ‘insomuch as all the streets, doores, and windowes, yea the very gutters and tops of the houses were filled.’ ‘That night the earle was invited to supper to Sir George Thornton’s, who then kept his house in the town of Kilmallock; and although the earl had a guard of soldiers which made a lane from his lodgings to Sir G. Thornton’s house, yet the confluence of the people that flockt thither to see him was so great, as in half an hour he could not make his passage through the crowd; and after supper he had the like encounters at his returne to his lodging.’ Old and young hurried into Kilmallock from the surrounding districts; the former showered their blessings on the earl, the latter offered their vow of allegiance; and according to an ancient custom, every one flung upon him wheat and salt, as a prediction of future peace and plenty, so powerful was the bond of feudal clanship.

“James, the young earl, had been brought up a Protestant in England, and the day following his arrival at Kilmallock, being Sunday, he attended service in the parish church. On his return his followers collected around him, and with tears and groans reproached him with his apostasy. They implored him on their knees not to forsake the religion of his fathers. James meekly urged, in reply to their vehement entreaties, the plea of religious freedom to be the true spirit of the Gospel: but this reasoning did not satisfy his adherents; they looked on him as an agent of the English government, sent amongst them to sap the foundation of their faith; and the very voices that yesterday were loudest in acclamations of joy, swelled the uproar of imprecations poured upon James Fitzgerald; for they denied his right to the title of his ancestors, whose religion he had renounced. Every mark of ignominy and insult was heaped upon him by the infuriated crowd: they cursed him, they spat upon him; and abandoning Kilmallock, left the Earl of Desmond to return to England, where he died in obscurity a few months after. His dissolution is announced in the Pacata Hibernia, with an air of the greatest sang froid. ‘The eleventh (January, 1601) the lord president had intelligence from England that James (the late restored Earle of Desmond) was dead, and that eighteen hundred quarters of oates were sent into Munster for the reliefe of our horses.’

“The fate of the Sugan Earl, as he is styled, was little more fortunate than that of his predecessor. After one or two defeats, he was hunted from place to place, and so closely followed that it was often known to his pursuers where he had been concealed the preceding night.^[8] The Galtee mountains were the chief retreat of the Sugan Earl; and his kinsman, the White Knight, being induced by money or fear, perhaps both, betrayed and seized him as he lurked in the cave of Skeenarinky, not far distant from Mitchelstown. Being forcibly carried to Kilmallock, he was thence conveyed to Cork, where he was tried and found guilty of being a traitor, on the 14th of August, 1601. But his life was spared by a piece of state policy; and the earl, transmitted to the Tower of London, died there a prisoner, after seven years’ confinement, and was buried in its chapel. His brother John emigrated to Spain, and was distinguished as Earl or Count of Desmond, which title was also given to his son, Gerald, who died in the service of a foreign court, without issue, about the year 1632.”

The view of the small town of Lismore from the highly picturesque bridge, which was built by the Duke of Devonshire, if not the most striking, is the most beautiful in this district of country. The Blackwater, both above and below the bridge which leads into the town, flows through one of the most verdant of valleys, just wide enough to show its greenness and fertility; and diversified by noble single trees and fine groups. The banks bounding this valley are in some places thickly covered, in other places thinly shaded with wood. Then, there is the bridge itself, and the castle, grey and massive, with its ivy-grown towers; and the beautiful spire of the church; and the deep-wooded lateral dells that carry to the Blackwater its tributary streams. Nothing can surpass in richness and beauty, the view from the bridge, when at evening, the deep woods and the grey castle, and the still river, are left in shade, while the sun streaming up the valley gilds all the softer slopes and swells that lie opposite.

There is, besides the cathedral, a large Roman Catholic chapel, a small Presbyterian meeting-house, a court-house, and good inn, a classical school, and schools for poor children, endowed and supported by the Duke of Devonshire. Lismore, in former ages, was a place of great learning and piety; it is now reduced to a small town, yet kept in good repair by the proprietor, the Duke of Devonshire, whose large venerable castle, rising from the wooded rocks hanging over the river, forms the principal feature of the town.

Lismore is the best halting-place for those who are anxious to see the beauties of this part of the Blackwater and the adjacent country. The river Mr. Inglis describes as equal to the finest parts of the descent of the Rhine; and as boats can always be hired, we would advise tourists in fine weather to proceed by water. Though from a little below Lismore, to its embouchure at Youghal, it is a tidal river, wanting the constant current which constitutes one of the charms of river scenery, and presenting at ebb-tides, disagreeable muddy sides, yet these drawbacks are amply compensated by the bold banks, extensive improvements, and striking natural features along its course. At and above Lismore, it is a fine deep inland river, pursuing its peaceful course, and gliding among the trees and underwood which adorn the lovely valley. The newly-made roads across the Knockmeldown and Kilworth ranges to Clogheen and Mitchelstown, now also afford great facilities to those who wish to ascend the mountains, or to explore the dells, glens, and table-lands of this interesting district.

Illustrations have been repositioned in order to retain the integrity of paragraphs.

Images of the illustrations, and their captions, were obtained from scans of two different books. The last line naming the publisher was missing from some of these pages. It is not known if that line was never printed there or whether it was hidden in the binding. The scans indicate that the books had suffered from acid damage, and this has reduced the clarity of the illustrations.

Differences between the spelling of place names in the body and in the captions have been retained. Some spelling of the French and German translations of the captions were corrected, mostly in the placement of diacritic marks.

[The end of The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland Volume 1 by N. (Nathaniel) Parker Willis & Joseph Stirling Coyne]

	Pages
CHAP. I. Embark from Port Patrick—Donaghadee—Carrickfergus—An Irish Jaunting-Car—Hollywood—Cave Hill—Belfast—Fondness of the Irish for Dancing and Music—The Irish Harp Society—An Irish Harper—A Peasant’s Cabin—Drogheda—The Battle of the Boyne	1-20

CHAP. II. Drogheda—Malahide Castle—Miraculous Image of the Blessed Virgin—Ross-trevor—Character of the Irish Peasantry—Monument of General Ross—Castle of Narrow Water	20-26

CHAP. III. View of Belfast Lough from Cave Hill—Castle of Carrickfergus—Road from Cave Hill to Larne—Larne—Ruins of the Castle of Olderfleet—Curraàn, where Edward Bruce landed—Island Magee—Cromlech and Rocking-Stone	27-31

CHAP. IV. Beauty of the Coast between Larne and Glenarm—Village and Castle of Glenarm—Monastery of Glenarm—Its ancient History—Anecdote of an Abbot—Glenarm Bay—Vale of Glenariff—Inn of Cushendall—Promontory of Fair Head	31-37

CHAP. V. The Grey Man’s Path—Accidents on the Cliffs—Ballycastle—Discovery of an ancient Colliery—Castle of Kenbane—Carrick-a-Rede—Danger in approaching this insulated Rock—Castle of Dunseverick—Rathlin Island	37-43

CHAP. VI. First View of The Giant’s Causeway—Strange phenomenon on Portrush Point—Pleaskin Cliff—Cave of Dunkerry	43-48

CHAP. VII. Breakfast at Bushmills—Dunluce Castle—The Banshee Housemaids—Perilous Pathway to the Ruins—Ancient Traditions of the Castle—Extraordinary Boat Race	48-53

CHAP. VIII. Dunluce to Coleraine and Limavady—Londonderry, its situation and appearance—Siege of Derry—Closing the Gates by the Apprentice Boys—The Town Walls and Walker’s Pillar—Road from Derry to Enniskillen—Devenish Island—The Irish Funeral Cry—Lough Erne—Monastic and Antiquarian Relics on Devenish Island—Round Tower	53-62

CHAP. IX. Ballyshannon—Sligo Abbey and Town—Hazlewood and Lough Gill—Ballina—Salmon Fishing on the Moy—Roserk Abbey—The Abbey of Moyne—Killala Bay—Landing of the French in 1798, and occupation of the Town	62-72

CHAP. X. Lough Conn and Mount Nephin—Pontoon Bridge—Castlebar—Westport—Clew Bay—Clare Island, and the Ruins of Grana Uaile’s Castle—Traditions respecting her—Killery Harbour—The Joyce Country, and “big Jack Joyce”—Leenane—Lord Sligo’s Lodge at Delphi	72-80

CHAP. XI. Connemara, its wild grandeur—The Lake of Kylemore—Harbour of Clifden—The Castle—Character of the Connemara People—Ballinahinch Castle—Remarkable Mountains—The Twelve Pins of Binabola—A Pattern in Connemara	81-85

CHAP. XII. Garromin Lake—Flynn’s Inn—St. Patrick’s Well, a famous place of Pilgrimage—Life of St. Patrick	85-95

CHAP. XIII. Approach to Galway—Spanish Aspect of the People and the Town—A Street in Galway—Story of Lynch Fitzstephen, the Warden of Galway—View of Galway from the Claddah—Singular Character of the Claddah people—Clare Galway Abbey	95-100

CHAP. XIV. The Shannon—Clonmacnoise, Ruins of the Seven Churches there—Doorway of M‘Dermot’s Church, and antique Stone Cross—The Shannon, from Portuma to Castle Connell—The Rapids of Doonass—View of Limerick and the Shannon from the Cathedral Tower—The Cathedral Bells—Castle of King John—Description of the Town—Thomond Bridge, Baal’s Bridge, and Wellesley Bridge—Course of the Shannon	101-112

CHAP. XV. The Shannon near Tarbert—Scattery Island—Kilkee, a favourite Watering-Place—Singular Scene on the Shore—Primitive Fishing Canoe—An Irish Cabin—The Puffing-Rock—Caves of Ballybunnian—Volcanic appearance of the Cliffs—Ancient Baths at Kilkee—Fairy Superstitions—Witchcraft in Ireland	112-138

CHAP. XVI. The Rock of Cashel—Ecclesiastical Ruins thereon—Noble View from the summit of the Ruins—Legend of the Foundation of Cashel—The Cathedral—King Cormac’s Chapel—Hore Abbey—Hacket’s Abbey—Romantic Irish Legend of Daireen and Fithir—Abbey of Holy Cross—View on entering Kilkenny—The Castle of Kilkenny—The Cathedral of St. Canice—Its Antiquarian Relics—St. John’s and the Black Abbey—The Lady Alice Kettell, the reputed Witch—Jerpoint Abbey, a splendid architectural Ruin	138-159

CHAP. XVII. Waterford—The Wooden Bridge over the Suir—Lismore Castle, once the property of Sir Walter Raleigh—The Blackwater below Dromana—Beauty of this River—Dromana and the Lords of Desmond—Town of Lismore	160-170

To face Page
Portrait of Mr. Willis to precede the Vignette, (Phoul a Phuca.)
Map of Ireland	1
Carrickfergus Castle	2
Belfast Lough	5
Interior of a Room at Malahide Castle	23
Rosstrevor Pier	24
Monument of General Ross, Rosstrevor	25
Narrow-Water Castle	26
Larne	29
Glenarm	32
Glenariff, County Antrim ^[1]	35
Fairhead	36
Kenbane Castle	39
Carrick-a-Rede	40
Dunseverick Castle	41
The Giant’s Causeway (from above)	43
Scene on the Giant’s Causeway	45
Plaiskin Cliff, near the Giant’s Causeway	46
Dunkerry Cave	47
Dunluce Castle	48
Londonderry	53
Walker’s Pillar, Walls of Londonderry	58
Devenish Island	59
Ballyshannon	62
Abbey of Sligo	63
Hazlewood and Lough Gill	64
Ballina	65
Roserk Abbey	66
Abbey of Moyne	67
Lough Conn and Mount Nephin	72
Pontoon Bridge and Lough Conn	73
Clew Bay, from Westport	74
Delphi Lodge, Connemara	79
Leenane, Connemara	80
Eagle Mountain, Killeries	81
A Pattern in Connemara	83
Garromin Lake	85
A Street in Galway	95
Galway from the Claddagh	99
Abbey of Clare-Galway	100
The Seven Churches, Clonmacnoise	101
Entrance Doorway of Temple M‘Dermott	103
Ancient Cross, Clonmacnoise	104
Doonass Rapids, near Castle Connell	105
The Shannon, from the Tower of Limerick Cathedral	106
Castle of Limerick	107
Old Baal’s Bridge, Limerick	108
Wellesley Bridge, Limerick	109
Puffing-Hole near Kilkee	120
Approach to Cashel from the North	138
Rock of Cashel	139
Ruins at Cashel	140
Cormac’s Chapel, Cashel	141
Interior of Cashel Abbey	142
Holy Cross Abbey	149
Interior of Holy Cross Abbey	150
Kilkenny Castle	151
St. Canice, Kilkenny	153
Jerpoint Abbey	158
The Quay, Waterford, and Reginald’s Tower	161
Lismore Castle	162
The Valley of the Blackwater	163

PREFACE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE BINDER.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

Transcriber’s Notes