Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Journey to Connaught, April 1709 (Author: Samuel Molyneux)

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Friday, 8th— Left Moat with Staples in ye coach about 9 a clock. Came in 3 hours, thro' indifferent coach roads, wild sheepwalks, and scrubby hills and bogs, to Athlone, which is a handsome large town, scituated on ye noble river ye Shannon. Here we saw ye miserable ruins of ye castle, which was some years ago blown up11, ye magazine of powder there kept taking fire by accident. Here are a horse and foot barrack, and some good brass and iron ordinance. This town is famous for ye manufacture of felts, which are here sold from 2 to 4 shillings price.

Crossing ye Shannon you enter into Connaught. Here I travell'd from Athlone 4 or 5 mile in ye coach with Staples, and about 2 more

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rid to Killeglan12, in 3 hours. Ye miles are here very long, as they generally encrease in bad country and distant parts from Dublin; ye soyl is very rocky and stony; much bog, with sheepwalk & scrubs. I observ'd scarce any corn or enclosures but old ruin'd ones of stones heap'd along in rows, which way of enclosing land, by being so frequently met with in many parts of Ireland, seems once to have been much in use, and indeed I wonder is not so still in these stony parts. In all this journey I think I observ'd many more beggars everywhere than is usual on a road, all owing, as I believe, to the present hard times of war.

At Killeglan we stay'd 8 days13, and met little observable. There are here to be dug out of the hill on which the house stands stones almost globular, some liker an egg, some oblate sphæroids, from ye size of a nutmeg to twice the bigness of one's head. There are other stones in ye same hill, and on ye land adjoyning, which when broke, in ye body of 'em are found inclos'd cockle shells of all sizes, some petryfy'd, some yet perfect fryable shells. In one of these stones, when we broke it, we found 8 or 10 whole small cockles, and a long cilindricall figur'd stone of ye bigness and length of one's little finger, of a substance different from ye cockles, as well as from ye body of ye stone itself; of all these stones I have by me. Round hereabout are also but few curiositys of antiquity, some old chappells and crosses, but not one very

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ancient that I saw: the one whose figure bespoke it the most ancient is here represented; its date, I think, makes it not 200 year old. The Danes indeed have left here some monuments of antiquity which I have not met with elsewhere, and these are forts, not cast up with earth and trenches as usuall, but wholly compos'd of stones heap'd round in a circle of the common compass. Tho' they are now old and ruin'd, and allmost defac'd, they still have the appearance of Danish forts, and are so call'd and generally reputed in ye country, tho' indeed I do not find their common mounts or forts so frequent in these parts to conclude they ever had here so good footing as in ye N. E. parts of Ireland, which lay more opportune for their invasions and setlement. They have here a sort of ropes made of ye roots of firr trees14, here frequently dug out of the boggs: these they beat like hemp, and then twist them into roaps; they are pretty flexible, and I am told, more lasting, especially in damp places, than any other cords: they are made in Athlone, and are much us'd for cording beds in damp clay floors, where they last for ever, whereas till they made these roaps they were us'd to change their hemp cords every day.

Walking here in ye fields, I met with an odd stone all spotted white at one end, ye spots continuing in white streaks down the side of the stone. Breaking it, we found in ye body of ye stone answering to each white spot a long tract or round vein of a more flinty substance than ye rest of ye stone. Of this stone I have some pieces by me, ye spotts and

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round flinty veins within, when broke accross, appearing in rays from ye center to ye circumference.

They tell here an odd story, and gave me ye jaw of a young lamb with perfect large teeth in't. They say it was so yean'd, as large near and wooly as one of a twelvemonth old, but dead, and ye flesh corrupted. Along with it was yean'd another lamb of ye ordinary size, rather less. The yoe that brought them is alive, and, as they say, was big from ye season before, and they therefore think the first lamb lay in her womb so long.