Morning journal and courier., 1889-06-29
AiIeach-Firin, plat of the king -rath
 royal of the world; Dun, to which led horse-roadS, through
 five mighty ramparts

And so they did. You can trace three of
 these ramparts and one of the roads as clear-
 ly as path in your own garden. And that
 one road leads squarely to-day to the one
 narrow stone doorway into "the Shining
 Dun, "the Royal Seat," the Grianan. It is a massively walled circular enclosure, three hundred and sixty feet in circumference,
 with walls fifteen feet thick at the base and
 seventeen feet high. Stone steps lead right
 and left to the first platform; the second is
 similarly reached; and the last, or grand,
 platform is ascended by seven stone stairs ir-
 regularly placed. Two intramural galleries,
 one seventy, and the other forty, feet long,
 for retreat exist beneath the walls This
 grand antique, which can be seen through
 the valleys of the lonely region for thirty
 and forty miles with the aid of field glass,
 Is clearly located AS the Regia of Ptolemy;
 while, as Eochy Ollahir, the Dagda, known
 to be its one-time possessor, exactly synehro-
 nizes with Assyrian monarch, Darcylus, its
 existence can be definitely traced to the peril
 cd 1053 before Christ. What a thrill flashes
 through one when standing alone upon the
 Grianan's somber wallsl On the crests of
 these circling mountains burned the signal
 fires in the dim days, tiara of flame to
 wake the helots and their herds. Hither
 they streamed, these skin-clad hordes.
 Within these very ramparts huddled the
 afrighted women and the aocks. Within
 these very walls kings watched over battles.
 Here were the feasts of victory; the wsilings
 and lamentations; the weird, wild rites; all
 thousand years before barbarous man
 looked beyond the god of day to the one
 great God.
 But what can be adequately said of the in
 numerable pagan, semi-pagan, early Chris-
 tian, Danish, Norman and Elizabethan anti
 quities of marvellous interest and beauty
 meeting the eye and enchanting the mind at every hands What marvels for contempla-
 tion, what miracles of speculation and dis rlnfp in old rr,l alone. From eighty to one hundred and ten feet high, from thirty to fifty feet in circum- ference at their base, these majestic monu-
 msnts to early Christian art and effort in
 preservation of sacred relics, raised their
 lofty heads all over Ireland to the known
 number of one hundred and eighteen.
 Built from ten to twelve hundred years ago,
 but thirteen are wholly destroyed, eighty-one are existing in 6 not altogether imperfect state, while fourteen stand as grandly per feet as when their rude builders fashioned what no modern art or wealth has surpassed. Along the northern Blackwater and the Boyne, past the desolate Hill of Tara, to Drogheda and the sea are such vast aggregs tions of antiquities from the remotest pagan to the tOrch-burnipg Cromwellian era, as do not exist in other like compass beneath the sun. At Armagh, at Cong, at Trim, at Kells, at Dowhpatrick, at Killarney, at Cash- el; in every city, hamlet and vale, and on every mouut, Dosloo every I1Ver ana streau, are rath, cromlech, tumulus, ruins of abbeys and castles in such bewildering number, SO beautiful in setting of scene and ivies, and so rich in sthnologc and historic lore, that the traveller or the student cannot but pause in dismay at the wondrous surfeit. Wander where you may, upon the bowling coast of the west; among the misty peaks of the north; within the grewsome wilds of Con- naught in the matchless vale of Glendal- ough; along the storied Shannon, Blackwa- ter and Lee; or beneath the very walls of brilliant Cork and Dublin themselves; it Is ever the same. Time and all other destroy CTS cannot efface these splendid remains of 8 splendid past. And as pass the centuries, those who love these silent old presences will more and more throng to these en- trancing shores for their loving study and gentle contemplation; and then shall the veay present desolation and poverty of this land become it's most shining mantle.
 EDGAR l.. MARKHAM.