[p. 103] On the 5th of September I again left Limerick to make an excursion westward and set out on the stage for Ennis. The road passed thru a pleasant country with fine views over the Shannon and Fergus and the rich lands which border both rivers. We overtook the funeral just on leaving the town of a Mr. Fitzgerald120 a funeral I lamented much in the course of the day as two or three gentlemen to whom I had letters had left home to attend it. We passed thro' Newmarket where we changed horses at an inn most charmingly situated. Beyond this begin those tracts of naked rock which are said to be so abundant in the county of Clare. About Clare there is a great deal of this. It is all limestone. There are patches of green among the worst parts but in some places these are very diminutive. At Ennis no Gentlemen to whom I had letters were at home. I therefore amused myself with a walk to Clare abbey,121 a pleasing ruin in itself but exciting [p. 104] the usual regret from its Nakedness. I afterwards walked into the Church Yard at Ennis where there were two funerals and several people besides crying over the graves of their deceased relatives. This is a common practice. A new funeral recalls or is supposed to recall the emotions of grief for those who had been not long buried. The Church122 has been a large building but a very small part of it is now used for Divine Service, the rest is unroofed — the East window is singular & has a very fine effect.
[p. 105] After this walk I called on Mr. Weldon123 to whom I had a letter and by his assistance procured a man and car to carry my baggage and in the morning set off to cross Mount Callen to Miltown. The road offers extensive views over the vale of Fergus but they are naked with only here and there a patch of woods. Mount Callen and the whole country round it is covered with a peat bog. There is a pretty strong chalybeate spring on the ascent. Before reaching the top at a very great distance to the North appear the summits of two distant mountains the smaller conical the larger with a flat top at a distance that implied great elevation. [p. 106] These lofty eminences always excite my attention — the rarest plants are found on high mountains or their neighbourhood.
Near the highest part of the road is a druidical altar or as it would be called in Wales a Cromlech composed of two thick slabs placed on edge parallel to each other and another laid upon them124. I got on the top and had an extensive view in three directions.
The road hence to Miltown is all on a peaty soil but most of it very dry. A great quantity of oak and fir is dug up in these bogs not turned black as is frequently the case but preserving at a little distance from the surface the appearance and colour of fresh wood. Some native oak still remains in Ireland but the fir formerly [p. 107] the most abundant seems to be totally extirpated. I was informed that in this neighbourhood the trees uniformly bore marks of fire near the roots — the tradition of the country is that they were burnt in order to destroy the wolves and robbers with which they were infested. The whole shore shows evident traces of having been once covered with a forest extending many miles in all directions tho now trees will not bear the violence of the western winds125.