The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-21 00:00:00

KILKEE

Is a neat clean village of considerable extent, and is rising
rapidly in importance, as a remarkably salubrious, cheap,
and popular bathing place. It contains apparently about 200
houses. The adjoining coast, facing the mighty and ever
restless Atlantic, is peculiarly wild and romantic in its cha-
racter, and presents many objects interesting to the natural-
ist and the geologist. The entrance to the village is by a
straight line of street, called " Pan-mug-Hanover-street (!)
and from which, near its top, another diverges to the right.
On arriving near the top of the former, atter a somewhat
dreary and monotonous ride from Kilrush, the visitor, all at
once, obtains a view of a fine bay, opening into the far-ex-
tended deep - and if it be the first time he beheld the ocean,
callous indeed must be his feelings if he do not confess the
delightful and impressive effect of the sudden burst upon his
vision of a rare combination of the sublime and the beauti-
ful, in shore and marine seenery. Some miles to the north-
east entrance is a large outward indenture of the coast, called

" Mat-Bay;" and if the appellation be derived from the
Latin, it is felicitously chosen, inasmuch as it is scarcely
possible to conceive in the science of " world making," a
locality more replete with danger, in steep and lofty walls,
shoals, cliffs, treacherous embayments, and is land of ob-
durate rock—" bad" enough, in every respect for the
mariner, to whom it must, in becoming a lee shore in
the frequent storms that beset it, become almost inevi-
tably fatal. The small interior bay ci which the travel-
ler obtains a full and instantaneous view is called Moore-bay.
It faces the north, and is protected considerably from the
open sea by -a rocky point or promontory, forming its western
boundary. It is in the regular form of an elongated horse-
shoe, and has a fine white and smooth sandy beach, gently
sloping, and admirably adapted for bathing. Round the
south curve of this bay, and forming a complete semicircle
or crescent near the water's edge, stands what may be called
in the " court" pt of the village "Marine Parade," consisting
principally of neat two-story cottages, mostly whitewashed,
and of a homely, but neat and lively appearance. A number
of these are the favourite lodging-houses during the summer
months, and are let to families or individuals at astonishingly
low rents. The sea during gales is thrown into the bay in
huge and foaming sheets ' • and in moderate weather (as when
I beheld it) breaks round its whole extent in one simultane-
ous and continuous semicircular wave, with a gentle and
soothing noise—gratifying and refreshing at once to the eye
and the ear.

We alighted at " the Post-office," (which is also a small
inn,) on the west side of the bay, and without waiting for
any refreshment, strolled round the protecting promontory
just noticed, along the bold and remarkable shore on its out-
ward side, to view, as far as our limited time would permit,
the natural and striking wonders of Kilkee—at first by a car-
riage-road round the point, afterwards alternately by the stony
beach and the immense irregular ledges of rock above it, as
we found requisite for a drier and safer footing, and finally
along the brink of precipitous indented and naked rocks or
cliffs, covered to their edges with a close springy sward, and
increasing in height and fantastic formation as we advanced
to the southward. At every step new objects of curiosity
and wonder presented themselves to our astonished view.
The breeze had considerably moderated ; and though the
atmosphere was but moderately clear, an immense expanse
Of ocean was extended before us, in sombre majesty, un-
whitened by a sail. The steady gaze upon the wide expanse,
t.•rminating in the impenetrable haze which blended sea and
sky, and to which fancy, fur the moment, lent additional
ant immeasurable distance, was as the futile ant
tious attempt of snorts

en to penetrate into "
'read space." But the proximate objects and appearances
.n this strange locality claimed even a deeper and more en-
during attention. The water is here of a light blue tint,
with a tinge approaching to that of bright green of the
emerald, and so bfoiutifully clear that the bottom may be dis-
tinctly seen to a considerable depth when the surface is qui-
escent, or rises only in unbroken swells. At one point the
rocks of Duganna, a dangerous reef, partly uncovered when
the tide is down, stretch out to the we3tward, in treacherous
irregularity, their jagged tops, now seen, and anon whelmed
beneath the surge. The waves rolled carelessly against the rug-
gedand diversified shore, breaking alternately at various points,
now climbing the stony or shelving beach, and now butfetting
the walling rocks, their rushing din prolonged amidst the bays
and cavernous recesses along their precipitous sides; and this