Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1884-10-17
IRISH SCENERY.
An Excursion from Limerick TO Kill
laIoe-The Lower shannon.

bright little town lies seventeen miles
up the Shannon, aud half mile above
it the Shannon flows out of Loueh
Derg. For myself, l had been favor
ed with one of those sudden changes
of climate, which seem peculiar to
this country of contrasts and sharp
transitions. l had left Connemara in
cold and downpour. In Galway the
dripping wet had been so warm as to
be unpleasantly enervatlpg. At Ennis
the skies had cleared as by enchant-
ment; and there and at Limerick the
heavens were cloudless, while the
transparent atmosphere was so dry,
though balmy, that the contents of my
portmanteau began to feel more com
Portable to the touch. Nothing could
be more beautiful than the deep,
bright blue of the river, as l had seen
1t at CORDIALLY under the day sun,
and the thick shade of the trees in the
CORDIALLY gardens was agreeable rather
than otherwise The railway drive to
Killaloe along the Tipperary side of
the river lies on the wholo through a
rich country, although here and there
we have half-reclalmed peat bog or
rushy and swampy fields that would
be all the better for draining. The
people seem to devote themselves to
b. eeding donkeys; and it was a pretty
sigl t to see the rough-coated colts frisk-
ing around their sober dams or scram-
bling like overgrown kids about the
grass banks. Nearly half way to Xii
laloe we pass Castle Connell, sur
rounded by masses of wood, sheltering
handsome country houses from the
winds that must sweep down in the
winter from the round, green hills
beyond. Castle Connell, like killaloe,
is a famous rod d-fshing quarter; and
here are the great rapids of Doonass,
where the river throws itself over the
broad bed of rocks, slopins rapidly
downward for nearly half mile.
But, beautiful as is the situation of
Castle Connell, that of KIllaloe is
more enchanting. Turning out of the
little station, where The train runs
into something like cul de sac in the
side of mountain, the first object
that strikes you is the long, low. mar
row, hog backed bridge, supported on
coGnects the counties of Tlpperary
and Limerick; and on the Limerick
bank stands the little town, looking
endways on 10 the river from terrac
ed slope, out of some old-fashioned
gardens with their clipped yew hedges.
70 the left is the lvy-covered abbey
church with its quaint architecture
within and its clamorous jackdaws
without. There are trees everywhere
hanging over high garden walls below
the bridge, and almost the only blot
on the landscape is preternaturally
ugly we;r, while above is an extreme
ly picturesque one. Nothing can be
pretiier than the walk up the narrow
valley, following the river round
gentle sweep of half mile or so
toward the pass between the hills
where it winds out of Lough Derg.
The heights to the right are clothed
with woods, till the woods give place
to the green pastures, which shade
away in their turn into round ridges
of brown moorland.
A narrow strip of bright meadow
land borders the water, and herd of
red Durhams are standing belly-deep
in a side channel, switching the
troublesome flies with their tails, be-
hind the breakwater of sedge- grown
island. Strolling back by path that
leads up towards the town over the
crest of a grassy eminence, when we
turn we get a glimpse of the lower
end of the Lough, averaging in
breadth from two to three miles. The
CLASSY sheet of water is shut in upon
all sides by green spurs of the
Limerick and Tipperary mountains,
often skirted by black belts of timber.
with the boat in the cur
rent beneath, from which an angler
is welding a formidable rod. it is as
graceful a scene-savage, pastoral,
and piscatorial-as any asplrant to
the academy need care to paint.
OF a very different character is the
scenery on the L3wer Shannon on
the tideway between Limerick and
Tarbet. The steamer, slipping her
swings slowly around with
the current; then for several miles we
thread the comparatively narrow
channels, where the river twists
between mudbanks and sand
spits. On many of these banks and
spIts are cairns of stones supporting
frameworks of IRON carrying primitive
beacon lights, the illumination of
which can scarcely be costly. Now
and then we steam past rocky reefs
with seaweed, on which sea
fowl, strings of waders, and focks of
lapwing are busy picking up living
among the shellfsh. Till at last it
fades out of sight in its smoke, the
city of Limerick, with its mills, It's
cathedral tower, and the tall spires of
its churches, is picturesque object
behind US. Then of a sudden the
river expands into wide, lake-like
estuary, and, in fact, the Lower
Shannon is succession of sea -lochs,
half closed in at not unfrequent IN
tervals by low promontories or bold
bluffs and headIands. The scenery
is far from grand; it can hardly be
called fine; and certainly | should
net recommend the voyage in wet or
even in misty weather. But it has a
great charm of its own, with an in
fnite variety of object, on so glorious
q day as that on which | saw it. Ex-
cept for the occasional fine weather
haze in the distance the lights were
clear and vived in the extreme, and
there was scarcely ripple on the sur
face of the water. Now we were in a
great circular loch with low sandy
shores; now we had passed into an
other and a narrower one with banks
that were well-righ precipitous; while
always on the Glare shore was the
range of mountains, which break into
bold headlands between Kilrush and
the watering place of Kilkee. AS
everywhere IN Ireland, timber was
scarce; which makes one appreciate
the more those respectable woods
which emhosom some of tbe;few man
sions along the banks. But what
strikes the fancy more than the finest
of the modern mansions are the
venerable ruins, of which there are
many. from castles once evidently OF
pretensions to the tall,
square, lonely keeps which are com
mon in all this country. By far the
noblest of these ruins Is that OF
Bunratty, near the mouth of the river
of the same name and once the
stronghold of the chief of the
O'BrieRs.