As the principal object of my journey was to visit the North of Ireland, I had not intended staying more than a fortnight at Dublin, but I was detained there nearly a month by the illness of my servant. It was not till the eleventh of August that I could set off on my remoter travels. The country on this side of Dublin is flat, dull, and monotonous; and the weather being unfortunately very wet, it was seen to particular disadvantage. The road runs near the coast, and to a considerable distance has the Hill of Howth, with Lambay and Ireland's Eye, constantly in view. When these are lost, some other little islets lying off the coast succeed, as the Skerries, Racabitt, and Patrick's Island.
At Swords, seven miles from Dublin, are very extensive ruins. Here was originally a monastery, which at the abolition of religious houses was converted into a palace for the Archbishop of Dublin; nothing now remains but walls overgrown with ivy: a round tower stands only fifty feet from the church, so that at a little distance it has the appearance of a turret belonging to it. This tower is between seventy and eighty feet in height. On account of the rain I did not stop to examine it; but I am informed that the upper part for several feet was rebuilt within the last half century; if so, though to appearance one of the most perfect in Ireland, it is not one of the best specimens remaining of these extraordinary structures. At Balruddery, twenty miles from Dublin, upon the very edge of the sea, are the ruins of a church, which have a very picturesque effect.
The town of Drogheda is twenty-four miles from Dublin; it stands on the river Boyne, only five miles from its mouth, and vessels of a considerable size
Just beyond Castle Bellingham, which is ten miles from Drogheda, the road comes directly to the edge of Dundalk Bay. This bay is very extensive, but the water is so extremely shallow that no vessel, scarcely even a fishing-boat, can at any time come near the shore. When the tide is down, the extent of sand is so great as immediately to suggest the idea, (like the North Bull in Dublin Bay,) that by industry a vast tract might be rescued entirely from the water, and rendered cultivable land. But sufficient encouragement is not given to Irish industry to induce such speculations. Vast quantities of cockles are gathered in this bay. On the shore are extensive salt-marshes, where a number of sheep and cattle are always feeding; the sheep thrive here particularly well. The marshes and sands abound with sea-fowl, as wild-geese, barnacles, gulls, and many others.
The road continues along the Bay for three miles, when at Lurgan Green it turns to a greater distance from the coast. Between that place and Dundalk my attention was arrested by seeing in a hedge-row, among a number of ash-trees with which it was interspersed, two of the kind now well known in England as the weeping-ash. One of these was of a great height, and was evidently a tree of many years growth; it must have been much, much more ancient than the date when these trees came into general notice in this country; it had, however, been
It is remarkable that this tree, now to be seen in almost all plantations, was scarcely known till within somewhat more than the last thirty years. At that time the existence of the parent tree, though then of a great age, was known to very few; — chance led to my becoming acquainted with it. It stands in the village of Gamlingay in the county of Cambridgeshire, where a woman, who had been servant in my father's family, went to live with her husband. Seeing this woman occasionally, she talked to us very much of a great curiosity in their village, a weeping-ash tree; and one day when some of the family were at the village she carried us to see it. It was then in a field close by a farm-house, a large forest-tree, the trunk growing to a great height quite straight, without a shoot, and from the head the long branches hung sweeping to the ground, forming a perfect arbour within; it did indeed appear to us a great curiosity. She said that her husband had taken some grafts from it which he had grafted upon common ash stocks, and if the experiment should succeed, she would request my father's acceptance of one. In due time one was brought and presented to him at his living of Wimpole in Cambridgeshire; and the man having been servant in Lord Mardwicke's family, another was presented to His Lordship's steward to be planted in the grounds. These I have good reason to think were the first two known out of Gamlingay.
Since that time the breed has spread very much; but I believe it may with truth be affirmed, that all are descendants in a direct or remote line from the same parent. The dispersion of the family has brought the parent into more notice, and occasioned investigations to ascertain if possible its origin and age; but the oldest people in the place, one man eighty-eight years of age, could only say that he remembered the tree ever since he was a boy, and always a large and well grown one. The last time I saw it was about three years ago. A very neat small house had been built close by it, where lived the curate of the parish, and the tree was enclosed in his garden; he had rescued it from the axe, to which it had been sacrilegiously doomed. It was not in so great beauty as when I first knew it; one side had suffered exceedingly in a hard winter, and so much had died, that on that side the arbour was quite laid open; on the
Dundalk is a large town, forty miles from Dublin, having one street running through it to the extent of a mile, from which diverge several smaller ones. The last coronation that took place of a monarch of all Ireland was at Dundalk; it was for a long time a royal residence. There is a good port, and a cambrick manufactory, the principal one in Ireland. The country beyond this place becomes much more hilly and stony, interspersed with some tracts of bog. The road passes a very fine seat of Lord Clermont's, well wooded, but having the air of a deserted and abandoned place.
Newry, fifty miles from Dublin, is a large and very commercial town, standing on a river called the Newry-water, which runs up from Carlingford Bay. A canal goes from this town to Lough Neagh. A singular kind of pitch-stone is found in the neighbourhood, but in one particular spot only. About seven miles from Newry the road passes a small fresh-water lake called Lough Brickland.
Dromore, sixty-six miles from Dublin, is a very ancient city standing on the river Lagan. For many years it had been declining exceedingly, since, though a bishop's see, it was deserted by its shepherd; his residence was fixed at Magheralin, a village at a little distance. But Dr. Beresford when he was bishop built a house in the town, at which he came to reside in 1781, and ever since it has revived, and is now in a tolerably flourishing state. It is ancient as a see, its first foundation dating as far back as the sixth century, but it was refounded by King James the First with extraordinary privileges. Among other marks of his royal favour, he ordered that the bishops should be distinguished as by divine providence Bishops of Dromore; all the other bishops in Ireland, excepting those of Meath and Kildare, are only styled Bishops by divine permission.
Hilsborough is sixty-nine miles from Dublin. This is one of the neatest towns I saw in all Ireland, which it owes principally to the cares, the attentions, and
Lisburn, four miles beyond Hilsborough and seventy-three from Dublin, is a very neat town situated on the river Lagan. It has every appearance of a place of much industry and commerce, and has long been celebrated as one of the principal marts of the Irish linen manufactory. Much of its present flourishing state is ascribed to the number of French refugees who settled here at the revocation of the edict of Nantes; and they, coming from the parts where were the best linen manufactories in the French dominions, improved by their knowledge those of the country which afforded them an asylum. — But more of this place and of its manufactures hereafter.
Here the road enters the county of Antrim, and continues along the valley of the Lagan quite to Belfast, where the river joins the Bay of Belfast, or Belfast Lough. This valley and the lough run in a direction from south-west to north-east, and the valley is skirted from a very little way beyond Lisburn by a continued chain of mountains. The country constantly improves, till in the neighbourhood of Belfast it becomes very beautiful, being scattered over with a number of villas, the summer residences of the citizens of Belfast. The town stands exactly at the junction of the river with the bay, or perhaps it should rather be said that the bay from its mouth is constantly contracting itself till at Belfast it is narrowed to the breadth only of a river; when it assumes the name of the Lagan. The same is the case with Carlingford Bay in the county of Down; it narrows up to the river called Newry-water; and such also is the Kenmare river in the county of Kerry, a bay narrowing gradually till it becomes no wider than a river. The Lagan is crossed at Belfast by a very old bridge of twenty-one arches, which, like most old bridges, is very narrow, with the arches
Belfast is one of the most opulent towns in Ireland: it is the largest town in the county of Antrim, though not the county town, and is a principal deposit of the linen-trade. It has increased in wealth and size very much within a few years; there are many streets entirely new-built, and nearly at the entrance of the town is a spacious and handsome linen-hall almost new. For its present flourishing state it is much indebted to the late Marquis of Donegal: this family has a large property in the town; many of the new streets are upon ground leased from them. The late Marquis built at his own expense a handsome assembly-room over the Exchange. Large as the town is, it contains only one parish; the church is a neat one, but has nothing in it particularly striking. A very large portion of the inhabitants are not, however, of the church of England. This county and Down, approaching the nearest to Scotland of any part of the island, have been very much colonised by Scotch families, consequently dissenters from the church of England; yet many do not adhere to the religion they brought over with them, but have adopted other persuasions. Unitarianism is more prevalent here than in any part of Ireland; the catholics are not numerous, though they have two chapels. There are eight congregations of protestant dissenters of different descriptions, including a quakers and a methodists meeting.
As the church had become too small for the increased size of the town, a chapel of ease was in considerable forwardness when I was there. It was raised from the spoils of one out of the many houses built by the late Earl of Bristol, and Bishop of Derry. Besides that at Ickworth in the county of Suffolk, he built two in the county of Derry; Down Hill, now the property of Sir Hervey Bruce, and that in question, I think, near Derry. The heir to his estates has thought proper to pull down the latter, and selling the materials, sufficient were purchased by the town of Belfast to build a chapel; among these materials were some fluted Ionic columns, which form a very handsome portico.
The principal charitable institutions at Belfast are, a general infirmary for the sick poor, a fever hospital, a lying-in hospital, an asylum for the blind where, as in similar institutions in other places, they are taught such works as they are
A plan was formed some years ago for establishing an university, principally with a view to the education of protestant dissenters. Not much progress had at this time been made in it, and it seemed probable that the scheme would fall entirely to the ground. There are literary societies for the promotion of philosophy, the medical sciences, and music: — the latter has principally in view the revival of that ancient national instrument, the harp, such as it was in former days, not with any of those modern improvements which entirely deprive the instrument of its true national character. This town is considered as a very literary place, it is a sort of metropolis of the north. Besides the great staple article of manufactory — the linen, there are large manufactories of cotton, sail-cloth, sugar, glass, and earthenware. The streets are well paved with trottoirs, and well lighted. All round the town there are very large bleaching-grounds.
The Bay at the flow of the tide is truly beautiful, scattered over on each side for a short distance from the water with country-seats finely wooded, and high hills rising behind them; the hills on the northern shore are much the highest. When the tide is down, a very large portion of the Bay is but a continued sand or rather mud, with a small channel winding through it up to the town. This channel is marked by posts for the direction of vessels coming up at high water, and the depth is then sufficient to admit vessels of a considerable size. Oysters, muscles, and cockles, abound in the Bay, and the shores at low water are scattered over with the shells; but there are no other shells, and no weed or pebbles worth notice. Further down the Bay, towards Carrickfergus, the shore becomes more pebbly, and some shells are to be found of the genera Buccinum, Venus, and Area.
By the kindness of Mr. Hamilton Rowan, I had a letter of introduction to Dr. Macdonnell, one of the principal physicians in Belfast, and a zealous geologist and mineralogist. To this gentleman I was particularly obliged for a vast deal of
Among many other topics of conversation with the Doctor, he was very particular in his inquiries about our new theatrical meteor, Mr. Kean; whether I thought his merits really deserving the encomiums bestowed upon him in the newspapers, and the enthusiasm which he seemed to have excited in London. After the opinion I have already given of this great actor, my answer will be readily anticipated. Upon this the Doctor said: "I understand it to be a well ascertained fact that he was playing at Belfast a few years ago almost unnoticed. What a reflection upon a town which pretends to so much taste and literature that we could not discover such talents!"
Breakfasting with Dr. Macdonnell the day that I was to quit Belfast on my progress round the country, I met a great miner, Mr. Ryan, almost inevitably, therefore, a great mineralogist. He had in his possession a piece of wood,