Limerick was a long time considered as the second city in Ireland: of late years it has been superseded by Cork, and thrown one degree lower in the scale. It consists of two distinct parts; the English and the Irish town. The former stands upon an island of the Shannon, and is connected with the latter by a bridge, called Baal's Bridge by some, O'Brien's Bridge by others: I know not which is its proper name. It has thirteen arches, like all old bridges very small. The channel which it crosses is not the main stream of the Shannon; that runs on the other side of the island, upon which the English town stands, while the branch alone passes through Limerick. It is, however, of sufficient importance to admit vessels of five hundred tons burthen up to the town.
The course of the Shannon is somewhat remarkable. Its head is Lough Allen, in the county of Leitrim, so near to Sligo Bay that the river almost converts into an island all that western part of Ireland which lies between the above-named bay and the Shannon mouth. During the whole of its course, which is nearly two hundred miles, it is constantly expanding itself into large lakes, or dividing its channel and forming islands. Lough Allen, from which it issues, is a lake thirty miles in circuit: Lough Ree, through which it next flows, is fifteen miles in length; and Lough Derg is larger than either. The Shannon has now communication with Dublin from two different parts, by means of the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal. If the district by which it
To the two former divisions of Limerick a third may now be added, in the vast additions made of late years towards the south-west, under the name of Newtown-Perry. These buildings were begun about fifty years ago, by the permission and under the patronage of Lord Perry, a part of the old walls of the town being thrown down to make way for them. Here the streets are wide and regularly built; the houses good, but built of red brick. There are as handsome shops as can be seen even in London. But the old town is one of the most frightful, the most filthy places in all Ireland. True, I saw it under every possible disadvantage . The rain, which had kept off for some hours, began to come on again very soon after I commenced my walk about Limerick, and the streets were almost ankle deep in mud: this, however, would not have been if it were a generally clean town.
My principal object in going into the Old Town was to see the cathedral. Indeed it scarcely furnishes any other object worth seeing. This is a fine old building, one of the best Ireland has to show, at least as far as my knowledge goes. It is a Gothic structure of the thirteenth century, built by Donal O'Brien, then king of Limerick. It has never been suffered to fall into a dilapidated state, but has been constantly kept in good condition. Much were it to be wished that it were better placed; but it is squeezed into such a poking kind of corner, and so beset with miserable buildings patched upon it, that the way to it is found with difficulty. The choir is handsomely fitted up. In doing some repairs to the roof, not many days before I was in the church, a cannon-ball was found deep within one of the spars, which must have lodged there in some of the sieges the town has sustained, and was never before discovered. In the time of Oliver Cromwell it was besieged by Ireton, who was repulsed in several attacks, and would in all probability have been compelled ultimately to abandon the siege, had not the daemon of discord found his way into the town, and insinuated himself among the inhabitants: — animosities arose among them: some declared in favour of the Pope's Nuncio, some in favour of King Charles, and some were for surrendering to the English army. A house divided against itself cannot stand, — and Limerick fell. Ireton entered and took possession of it: but here ended his career; he died there in a very short time. In 1690
On the quay is a very handsome custom-house, with docks, at which the ships unload their cargoes. There is a house of industry somewhat singularly situated, running as it were into the river. Flourishing linen, woollen, and paper manufactories are carried on here; and a great deal of ship beef and pork is salted. The reputation of this place for gloves is well known; but I found that there are many more Limerick gloves manufactured at Dublin and at Cork than in Limerick. For my own part, I think their reputation is rather, if I may be pardoned a familiar expression, great cry but little wool; I could never find in what their great superiority consists. This I know, that at Cork I was asked five shillings a pair for Limerick habit-gloves, while for very excellent ones not so called I paid half that price. There is a great manufactory of gloves at Cork, and most excellent ones; the kid leather very nice, and the work particularly good. I suspected them at first to be French, smuggled into sale in this way; but I was assured by persons of credibility that they were not so.
There were formerly a great many monastic institutions at Limerick. King Donal O'Brien, who founded the cathedral, founded also a convent for black nuns of the Augustine order. Edward the Third took this convent under his especial protection. A priory for canons regular of St. Augustine was founded in the reign of King John by a citizen of the town, Simon Miner. It stood near Baal's Bridge. A sumptuous monastery of Dominicans was founded in 1240 by another O'Brien, king of Thomond, which was endowed with very large possessions in and about the city. All these possessions, at the suppression of monasteries, were granted to the Earl of Desmond, at a yearly rent of five shillings. Another O'Brien, in the reign of Henry the Third, founded a monastery of gray-friars. This stood just without the wall of the town; and, with the priory of St. Augustine, was granted by Henry the Eighth, at the suppression of monastic institutions, to Edmund Sexton a citizen of the town, at an annual rent of two shillings and sixpence. No vestiges of any of these monasteries remain. There is a convent of nuns now in the town, but not inhabiting any of the ancient religious houses. I would have gone to see it, but being Saturday no strangers were admitted. Three other bishoprics, formerly
Had it not been for the continued bad weather, I believe I should now have gone to Kilmallock, and from thence to Tipperary; it would only have made a circuit of about eight miles in going to the latter place. But such was the morning in which I set off from Limerick, and such had been the weather now for three days, that I began to think my good fortune in this respect had wholly forsaken me, and that nothing remained but to hasten back to Dublin as fast as possible. I accordingly pursued my route this day through a never-ceasing rain from Limerick by Tipperary to Cashel. I will not say any thing of the country; it seemed to me the most dreary and dismal imaginable. At Tipperary I first heard of the disturbances which just now commenced in these parts; only two nights before the Mail had been attacked on the other side of Cashel by a very desperate gang, and a soldier had been killed. I did not, however, from this first account at all understand the nature of the attack, but thought its object had been to rob the passengers.
On arriving at Cashel, I found that the attack had been of a much more serious and alarming nature: it took place on the other side of Littleton, which is about eight miles from Cashel; and the object was not so much to get money, as arms. Two guards always attend the mails in Ireland: there were besides at this time two dragoons travelling on the outside of the mail, and two sailors, one of whom was for some purpose, I do not recollect what, charged with a large sum of money. Very different accounts were given of the number of the assailants; the truth was, that in such a scene of terror, tumult, and confusion, it was impossible for any one to give a probable guess at their numbers; some estimated them at about fifteen or twenty; others computed them at fifty: that they were a strong party was certain. The attack was begun by firing at the leading horses, one of which was so desperately wounded that it fell immediately, and thus was the coach effectually stopped. A desperate conflict then ensued, in which one of the dragoons upon the top of the coach was mortally wounded, and one of the guards very severely. The sailor who had the money about him seeing the leading horse fall, with astonishing presence of mind leaped from the top of the coach, and having an immensely strong clasp-knife in his pocket, cut the traces of the leaders, when, giving a severe
It may easily be guessed in what state the whole company in and about the mail must be when they arrived at Littleton, between two and three miles from the scene of action. The wounded dragoon and guard were left there, where the dragoon died in a few hours; he had been interred the very morning that I was at Littleton. No attempt was made by the assailants to demand money; they demanded only the surrender of the arms. Such a story was not to be heard unmoved; no one could have heard it with indifference two hundred miles from the spot where it had happened, and two years after; but to think of being then but a few miles from it, that I was the next morning to pass over it, that the affair had happened only two nights before, occasioned a feeling not to be described. It was not apprehension for my own safety, I did not consider that as in any clanger; I was not to travel by night; I had no arms to excite the desires of those unhappy wretches: — I know not what it was, but my mind was wholly untuned to thinking of any thing else; nothing was present to it but the idea of the shocking scene which had passed, and the inevitable consequences with which it must be attended. That the situation of the lower classes in Ireland, and particularly in this part of the country, was very deplorable, could not be doubted; but who could witness without deep regret the mistaken, the perverted notions they had adopted of the means by which it was to be ameliorated? Such violence must be repelled by violence; and the consequence ensued, which was reasonably to be expected, that martial law, that
Yet for one moment I felt an impulse to stop the carriage and ascend the rock. The rain had ceased in the night, the morning was fine, the sun was shining upon the mouldering towers and turrets, and they assumed an air of magnificence which methought ought not to be passed by. The next moment, however, the idea that though the heavens were bright and clear, all was gloom in the moral atmosphere, came too forcibly over my mind to be repelled, and I pursued my route. At present my feelings upon this occasion seem strange to me, they seemed so in a few hours after, but at the moment they were irresistible. I have often asked myself since, why I did not see the ruins of Cashel, — I could never answer the question satisfactorily.
One thing I must observe, that I was wholly disappointed in the situation of these ruins. I expected to have seen them crowning an enormous mass of dark towering craggy rock; I had figured to myself something like the towering height on which stands the fortress of Notre Dame de la Garde, near Marseilles; I saw what should rather be termed a green knoll than a rock; a smooth eminence covered with green sod, the height by no means considerable. It is nothing to the hill on which stands the fine old castle at Norwich.
At Littleton where I breakfasted, every tongue was still occupied with the same tale: the funeral of the soldier had just taken place, the wounded guard was then in the house, — I saw him not, but I knew he was there; it was impossible not to shudder at the situation in which he had been so recently. The driver stopped when we came to the spot where the dreadful scene had passed, and pointed it out to me; it was just within a sort of lane formed by inclosures, at the verge of a wide extent of bog, part of the great Bog of Allen. I was glad when we had passed it, and tried to think of the thing no more. The only truly dismal day that I passed during my two excursions, was that from Limerick to
The Bog of Allen extends over an immense tract of country in the centre of Ireland. I never heard any attempt at a computation of the number of acres it contains, but it occupies parts of nine different counties; those of Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Longford, Roscommon, Galway, Tipperary, and the King's and Queen's Counties. What immense forests must have been submerged to have formed such a tract! if, as seems the strong probability, all these bogs are submerged forests. At the edge of it in the county of Kildare is the Hill of Allen, the scenery of which, at this moment, accords so perfectly with what is described in the Temora of Ossian, that many people say, if Ossian did not take his descriptions from it, Macpherson must. There is in the declivity of the hill a natural cave, where the traditions of the country now say that Oscar lay after his death guarded by his faithful dog Bran; near the cave is a well which is called Oscar's Well, and at the foot of the hill is a stream called Dorthula. But Mr. Laing in his edition of Macpherson's works says that the latter had no other authority for his poem of Temora but an old Irish ballad; that all he says of his friends having collected for him in the Highlands the broken and scattered fragments of the poem, is so much a flight of imagination, that he might well be supposed to have kissed the Blarney Stone. If an Irish ballad was indeed the foundation of the poem, it is not extraordinary that the localities, the scene being laid in Ireland, should be accurately described.
No part of the country that I passed over abounds in ruins like the county of Tipperary; the eye is perpetually presented with them, there is scarcely a moment without some in sight. I am informed, however, that it yields much to the county of Galway, that there they are even more frequent. The noted ruins of Holy-Cross Abbey are in the county of Tipperary. At a small village between Cashel and Kilkenny is a church, which attracted my attention very much as I was walking about while the horses were baiting for half an hour. The church is a new built one; but at the west end is an archway extremely similar to those of Innisfallen and Aghadoe, very perfect, but with very little of the old wall remaining round it, and against this the new church is built; not including the archway in the new wall, but leaving the old part projecting
I arrived at Kilkenny about three o'clock, and stopped at the Castle, according to my invitation, the remainder of that day and the next. I had the pleasure of meeting a large dinner-party on the day of my arrival: I had always heard the society of Kilkenny represented as exceedingly pleasant, and so I found it I went with Miss Ryan the sister of Dr. Ryan, whom I have mentioned before, to visit a convent of nuns; the sisters were twelve in number, whose time was principally devoted to the education of poor girls. They had a very, large school, I think nearly a hundred, who were entirely instructed by them; the children were all very industriously employed, and looked clean, healthy, and happy. The nuns have a nice and spacious garden, beyond which they never stir, and they seemed all perfectly comfortable and happy; none among them were very young, they were all forty or upwards. What struck me much was, that living thus retired from the world I never saw people more inquisitive for news, or more anxious to know what was going forward in the world. At Kilkenny I saw filberds which I think must have been from trees planted by Fin Mac Cool and his giant race, for they were truly giants of their kind.
From hence Mr. Barwis very obligingly accompanied me to the collieries at Castlecomer , stopping by the way to see the celebrated Cave of Dunmore. On the subject of this cave the author of The Post-Chaise Companion becomes quite poetical. "When you approach the cave," he says, "which is situated in the middle of a spacious field, a prodigious flight of birds of different species darken the air by their numbers. The passage into it is down a square hole, or rather precipice, upwards of sixty feet deep by twelve wide. At the bottom thereof is the mouth of the cave, which is but low, arched with rocks, seemingly dropped on the head, where from a number of petrifactions, like icicles, there falls a vast quantity of drops of limpid water, which also petrify into clear crystal lumps upon the rocks whereon they fall; they are white, and nearly transparent. On entering the mouth of the cave, a sudden chillness seizes all parts of the body, and lights which are brought hither burn red and:
The Traveller's Guide is less diffuse upon the subject: it only says; "Near the ruins of Dunmore Castle in an open field is a cave which extends more than a quarter of a mile, as far as it hath been explored, for no adventurer hath yet attempted to penetrate it farther, as the rumbling of a subterraneous current, reverberating through the awful silence of terrific gloominess and pitchy darkness, gives a solemn warning of approaching peril, and perhaps inevitable destruction. It is as remarkable for its petrifactions as for its magnitude." While I was at Dublin, I was talking to a gentleman about this cave. "By no means," he said, "ever think of going there:" and he then told me the following story. — "Three officers who were quartered in the neighbourhood, having heard much about the cave, agreed to go and explore it. They took lights with them; but after they had gone some way the lights were in a moment extinguished,
"After remaining in this situation a length of time which they had themselves no power of computing, but which seemed to them an age, and beginning to suffer very much from hunger, they thought they heard the distant sound of voices in the cavern; they listened, they felt more and more assured of it, and they answered with a loud halloo on their parts; this was replied to with another halloo, which they again answered; and in a few minutes after this exchange of vocal signals was commenced, they began to discern the glimmering of lights; nor was it many minutes longer before they saw five or six men approach carrying large torches, to them a most blessed signal of deliverance. Their situation was indeed truly perilous; they had been entirely deceived when upon their lights being extinguished they supposed they turned back, they had continued to advance, having penetrated further than it was ever customary to go, and the water was flowing directly at the foot of the rock where they sat. When missed at their quarters and inquiry was made after them, no one knew whither they were gone, till at length some one among their brother-officers recollected that he had heard them talk of going to this cave, and suggested the possibility that they might have lost themselves among its turnings and mazes. Some of the people in the neighbourhood best acquainted with the cave were accordingly sent to search for them, and they were happily extricated. They had been in this situation nearly four-and-twenty hours." — "Oh Madam," the gentleman concluded, "never think of going into that cave; it is extremely dangerous, I assure you, from the damps and vapours; besides, 'tis so slippery, that you may get a fall and receive some dreadful injury."
At Kilkenny I talked to Mr. Barwis about it, and told him my story of the
From hence we went to the cave, where, as at most places of the kind, we
were presently surrounded by a whole tribe of guides. I wonder how any body
can ever manage upon such occasions to go without these people; they will in general force themselves into your service:
"Willy, nilly, they will go with you."
Nothing of all The Post-Chaise Companion's poetical flights, or of his flights of
birds that darken the air on approaching the cave, did I find; not a single
winged chorister of the air, not a solitary croaking ill-omen'd raven, not a
screeching owl, whose habitation is in like sombrous recesses — not any of these
issued forth from the dark abyss, to hail us as welcome visitants, or repel us as
impertinent intruders. The cave is indeed in the midst of a field, the gaping
pit which is to be descended to get to its mouth being so level with the rest of
the surface that it is not seen till arrived almost at its very margin. The descent
is steep, and somewhat slippery, but by no means dangerous. The candles
Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
At Castlecomer we stopped to bait the horses before we went on to the collieries, three miles further: here is a very pretty house and grounds belonging to the Dowager Lady Ormond, who is the chief proprietor of the collieries. The house being on one side of the road, and the principal part of the grounds on the other, a subterranean communication has been made between them under the road. This place suffered very severely in the commotions of 1798. Lady Ormond's house was destroyed, as was a large portion of the town, and it has even now scarcely recovered the disaster. The collieries are very extensive; the veins of coal are numerous, but they are not in general found lasting; hence a number of shafts are to be seen no longer in use. Some of the coal
I had been desired by the friend who charged me to make inquiries about the Kilkenny coal, to be particular in informing myself about a species of coal which he had heard was found in these parts, resembling very much the Cannel, or, as it is commonly pronounced, Kennel coal of England; he had been told, he said, that little boxes and other trifles were frequently made of it, and he desired me to get him one of them. I made the inquiry accordingly, but was answered that if any person had ever seen little boxes made of Cannel coal at Kilkenny, the material had come from England, for no coal of the kind was produced in that neighbourhood; nay, that most likely the workmanship as well as the material was English. The Kilkenny coal has the quality in common with the Cannel, that no black comes off in touching it with the fingers. I have mentioned that vegetable impressions upon the schale are not uncommon. Black chalk also occurs. At Killenaule and Coalbrook in the county of Tipperary, about seven or eight miles from Cashel, are also considerable collieries: I did not see them, but a piece of the coal was given me which seems very much the same as the Kilkenny. The vegetable impressions are more abundant about these veins than about those of Castlecomer .
Here I took leave of my polite and well-informed companion Mr. Barwis; he returned to Kilkenny, while I proceeded forward, the driver having been directed by him to go to Athy. After proceeding somewhat more than a mile, the said driver suddenly stopped, and said we could not go to Athy, I had better go to Carlow, that was much nearer, we could get there before dark, and we could not get to Athy. I told him that I chose to go to the latter place; in fact, going to Carlow now would have been making an unnecessary circuit of seven or eight miles to get to Dublin; and as I had travelled that road before, I wished to vary my route. He said very sturdily, we could not go to
Muttering and grumbling very much he went on. After proceeding some way, I saw a town before us which I knew could not be Athy, that we could not have got so far; and examining it more minutely, I was pretty sure it was Carlow, that town being rendered somewhat remarkable by the ruins on the edge of the river. I would not, however, speak too soon, lest I should be in an error, and determined to wait till we were in the town. When we had crossed the bridge I was very certain that I was not mistaken, and I called to the driver to ask what he could mean by coming to that place in direct opposition to his orders. He answered in a very surly manner, that he was going on to Athy, but it was impossible to go the road I wanted. I never felt much more angry. We were now as far from Athy as we had been at Castlecomer , and had come eight miles for nothing; — since, however, we had come to Carlow, it was making a great circuit to Dublin to go by Athy, and I ordered him to stop.
Here, however, a new difficulty arose; the town was full of troops on their march to the unfortunate county of Tipperary, and not a bed was to be had at any of the inns. I was resolved notwithstanding to go no further with this driver; and meeting with a very civil landlady at one of the inns, I asked whether she could not get me a bed at a private house; — it was indeed now growing dark. She said she had a friend over the way who would sometimes accommodate her with a bed when she was distressed, and sending there one was obtained. I then summoned the driver, and told him that in consequence of his ill-behaviour I should not pay him or give him any thing for himself, that I should send the money to Mr. Barwis, and desire him to settle with his (the driver's) master for the chaise; and as for what I should otherwise have given
The next morning I proceeded to Dublin, and arrived there about two o'clock. I had travelled this road before, and have nothing new to remark upon it. There was a continued march of troops the whole way; we met different divisions at every five or six miles.