The Sunny Side of Ireland Part 14

Inlet of Bantry Bay. Well wooded, mild climate, winter resort beyond compare. Gulf Stream strikes coast in vicinity. Excellent hotel accommodation. Good cottage accommodation. Plenty coaching and boating facilities in summer; splendid sea bathing. Arbutus grows wild.

KENMARE.--One of the starting-points for the Grand Atlantic Coast Drive. Thriving pleasant town at the head of the fiord.

Macgillicuddy Reeks stand out behind the town. Mountain climbers will make ascent best from point beyond Sohaleen Bridge. Both the Cork and Kerry sides of the bay are very beautiful and worthy of investigation. The Southern Hotels Company has one of its branches outside the railway station. The Lansdowne Arms is an old coaching inn, famed for its mountain mutton and good claret.

~KILKEE.~--The best bathing-resort in the three kingdoms. Splendid facilities. The cliff scenery and coast walks attractive. Good villa and cottage accommodation. Modern hotels on esplanade.

~KILLARNEY~, see page 136.

~LEHINCH.~--Bracing air from Atlantic. Good bathing. Bold coast line. New hotel, fine golf links. Promises to be the most up-to-date watering place in Clare.

~LEENANE.~--The pleasant place on Killary Harbour. It has the Mweelrea mountains behind it and the sea in front. The bay is remarkable for sea fishing, while the salmon and trout angler will have his heart's desire in Errif Lake. The Leenane Hotel stands close to the sh.o.r.e, and the Aasleagh Hotel, high above the Errif, is surrounded by demesne lands. The mountain scenery is remarkable.

~LISDOONVARNA.~--Inland watering place. An old favourite health resort now more easy of access than hitherto. The spas are sulphurous and chalybeate. The hotel accommodation is unusually good, but still insufficient for the summer and early autumn visitors. The driving tours in the locality take in the most delightful scenery in county Clare.

~LUCAN.~--A very old spa. Beautiful sylvan retreat within nine miles of Dublin. Scenery on upper Liffey and drives in vicinity through charming country. The Hydro, equipped with every modern advantage.

~PARKNASILLA.~--THE PREMIER WINTER RESORT OF IRELAND. Hotel well sheltered on fiord of Kenmare Bay. The grounds around beautifully wooded and planted with luxuriant shrubs. Absolutely free from winter cold. This country side the pride of Kerry. The seascape and islands in vicinity delightful. Admirable arrangements for boating, fishing, and coaching.

~POULAPHOUCA.~--Approached from Harristown on the Tullow branch. The upper Liffey winds here through a beautiful glen with a splendid fall beyond Poulaphouca bridge. Splendid facilities for shooting and fishing are afforded in the surrounding mountain country.

Convenient centre for pedestrian and cycle tours. Hotel immediately above the Fall, also good hotel at Blessington: and four miles higher up in the Wicklow Highlands, at Lacken, excellent hotel.

~QUEENSTOWN.~--"The Paradise of Pensioners." The port of Cork Harbour. Centre of American tourist traffic. Well sheltered. Long the winter quarters of invalids. Every facility for visitors.

Within easy reach of Cork city. Excellent train service. In summer steamer trips on beautiful river. Several good hotels; splendid villa accommodation. A bright cheerful town, full of life and change of colour. A well known specialist (Dr. A. Thomson), in his "Physician's Note Book," puts the query--"Where should a consumptive patient pa.s.s the winter months if he can't go abroad?"

and answers himself, "There is no place within Great Britain and Ireland so well adapted for the residence of a consumptive patient as Queenstown."

~RECESS.~--Midway between Clifden and Kylemore, on the edge of the western Glendalough, guarded behind by mountain scenery, secluded, but all the more attractive to those weary of the busy haunts of men. The lake and mountain scenery exceptionally wild. It is an ideal resort for sportsmen.

~TRAMORE.~--One of the most attractive watering places in Ireland.

Its name in English signifies "the great strand," and it is no misnomer. The bathing facilities are the best on southern coast, and are not, indeed, surpa.s.sed on any other coast. Splendid new hotel up-to-date in every respect, and other hotels to suit all cla.s.ses, with fine race-course, plenty of lodgings and houses to be had in the season. Twenty minutes run from Waterford by train.

Military bands in the summer. Exceptionally good place for families. Tramore is a delightful seaside resort, built on a gradual incline, with a southerly aspect, on the sh.o.r.es of the broad Atlantic. The air is almost proverbial for its restorative qualities, not only in popular but also in scientific opinion. It is beyond all doubt that Tramore has as many hours of sunshine, less rainfall, and more even temperature than any other seaside town in the United Kingdom.

~VALENCIA.~--The next parish to America, the home of Atlantic cable stations. The island remarkable for the number of tropical plants which grow in the open. Climate unusually mild. Boating, sailing, and bathing in the season. Deep-sea fishing with islanders. Good hotel, comfortable, clean, and cheap. Other accommodation difficult to obtain.

~WATERFORD~, see page 112.

~WATERVILLE.~--Princ.i.p.al posting place on Atlantic coast tour.

Splendid watering place, beautifully situated on strip of land dividing mountain lake from sea. Fine strand. Sea and lake fishing.

The station for Mackey Bennet cable system. Three good hotels, M'Elligott's and Galvin's, on the coast, and the Southern Hotel on the sh.o.r.e of the picturesque Lough Currane, within a stone's throw of the sea. Very good cottage accommodation in summer season.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Natural History of the South and West of Ireland.

By R. LLOYD PRAEGER, B.A., B.E., &c.

The Natural History of the South and West of Ireland possesses a special and peculiar interest in the occurrence in this region of a number of plants and animals which are rare in or absent from Great Britain and the adjoining portions of Europe. Let us first consider the general geographical features of this area, and the geological characters which have produced those features. Ireland has often been likened to a saucer, consisting as it does of a great central plain, fringed with mountain groups disposed around the coast. The plain has a slightly undulating floor of Carboniferous limestone; the groups of hills are mostly formed of older rocks, which break through the level limestones.

On our journey from Dublin to Athlone, or from Dublin to Mallow, we pa.s.s across typical portions of the central plain; and the brown ridges of Slieve Bloom and Devil's Bit, and the greener heights of the Galtees, furnish good examples of the ma.s.ses of older rocks that rise out of the plain.

In considering the features and natural history of this wide area, it will be convenient to divide it into districts, which we shall treat of in the following order:--

1. Wicklow and Wexford.

2. Waterford and East Cork.

3. West Cork and Kerry.

4. Clare and East Galway.

5. West Galway and West Mayo.

6. Sligo.

7. The Central Plain and River Shannon.

1. ~WICKLOW AND WEXFORD.~--Here we are on the East Coast, looking across St. George's Channel towards the sh.o.r.es of Wales. The lovely county of Wicklow is the most mountainous in Ireland, having 180 square miles over 1,000 feet elevation, and 25 square miles over 2,000. Wexford is lower and more fertile. The coasts of both counties are in great measure flat and sandy, and are the home of many rare plants. A number of species of light soils and of gravelly sh.o.r.es have here their Irish headquarters, such as the Round-headed Trefoil (_Trifolium glomeratum_) the Sea-Stock (_Matthiola sinuata_), the rare Sea-Cudweed (_Diotis candidissima_), and the Wild Asparagus (_A. officinalis_). The Murrough, a great gravel beach backed by salt marshes which extends from Greystones to Wicklow, and the marshes of the River Slaney, may be specially recommended to the naturalist. These coasts are the only Irish locality for the handsome ground-beetle, _Nebria complanata_, a typical South European animal. The Wicklow mountains, which reach in Lugnaquilla a height of 3,039 feet, are the main portion of the Leinster highlands, formed by a great ma.s.s of granite which stretches from Dublin into county Kilkenny. Considering their elevation this range is singularly devoid of alpine plants and animals, but many interesting species inhabit the lower grounds, famous on account of the beauty of the scenery.

Among the Lepidoptera several rare species are characteristic of the district, such as the "Bath White" b.u.t.terfly (_Pontia daplidice_), and the "Four-spotted Footman" moth (_OEnistis quadra_).

2. ~WATERFORD AND EAST CORK.~--This is a picturesque district, formed largely of slates and sandstones of Old Red Sandstone age. The coast is mostly of very bold character, with towering cliff ranges. The country is generally undulating and fertile, with occasional mountain ranges, of which the Comeraghs are rendered especially interesting and picturesque by the deep "cooms," embosoming tarns, which give them their name. The Comeraghs and the lovely valley of the Blackwater furnish particularly attractive ground for the naturalist. The flora and fauna of this area are intermediate in character between that of the district last considered and of the surpa.s.singly interesting country that lies to the westward, and which will next claim attention. Thus, the coasts yield several of the rare plants mentioned in the last paragraph--for instance, _Diotis_ and _Asparagus_ grow at Tramore; while at the same time we first meet in this area with some of the most famous plants of the south-west--London Pride (_Saxifraga umbrosa_), Kidney-leaved Saxifrage (_S. Geum_), Great b.u.t.terwort (_Pinguicula grandiflora_), Irish Spurge (_Euphorbia hiberna_). Two rare b.u.t.terflies of this district are _Dianthaecia caesia_ and _D. luteago_ var. _Barrettii_; and the largest of the British leaf-beetles, _Timarcha laevigata_, has been taken near Waterford, and at Tipperary.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Drawing, J. St. J. Phillips._ Geological Section from Bantry Bay to Killarney.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo, Welch, Belfast._ A Kerry ditchbank showing Pennywort two feet in height.]

3. ~WEST CORK AND KERRY.~--This is one of the most beautiful and interesting districts in the British Isles, and indeed in Europe. The ancient Devonian rocks which prevail have been folded into a grand series of simple arches and troughs, the axes running north-east and south-west. The arches form n.o.ble mountain ranges, which on the coast project far into the Atlantic in a series of grand promontories, and inland form picturesque highlands, of which Macgillicuddy's Reeks, which rise to 3,404, const.i.tute the highest land in Ireland. The valleys in their lower portions are occupied by the sea, in the form of long island-studded fiords; their upper parts are often filled with Carboniferous limestone, and offer a pleasant contrast of tillage and green pasture between the gaunt brown mountain-ribs. Here we stand on the most western outpost of the European Continent, with the Atlantic on three sides. The effect of the encompa.s.sing ocean, and the western winds which constantly blow in from it, is to produce here and along the whole western coast the most uniform annual temperature to be found in Europe.

Frosts are almost unknown, and great heat and drought likewise. These peculiar climatic conditions have resulted in the acquisition and preservation of a fauna and flora which spread here from more southern lat.i.tudes at some time now long gone by, and which in these favoured spots still remain to remind us of a period when a state of things prevailed very different from what obtains at present. For naturalists tell us that there can be no doubt that these southern plants and animals migrated to Ireland over land-surfaces now destroyed, having spread along the old-time coast line which long ago extended from the Pyrenean highlands to Ireland; and as a relic of their march, we find some of the species still surviving in the south-west of England, while all of them are absent from the rest of England and from the adjoining parts of continental Europe.

An enumeration of a few of the most remarkable of the plants, with a definition of their range, will make clearer this peculiar feature of the natural history of the West of Ireland:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Saxifraga umbrosa.]

London Pride (_Saxifraga umbrosa_). In Ireland along the west and south coasts. Absent from England. On the Continent it is found only in the south.

Kidney-leaved Saxifrage (_S. Geum_). In Ireland in the south-west.

Unknown in England. On the Continent confined to the Pyrenean district

Strawberry-tree (_Arbutus unedo_). In Ireland in the south-west. Unknown in England. On the Continent it grows all along the Mediterranean.

Great b.u.t.ter wort (_Pinguicula grandiflora_). In Ireland in the south-west. Unknown in England. On the Continent it grows on the Alps and in the south-west.

Irish Spurge (_Euphorbia hiberna_). In Ireland along the south and west coasts. In England it is confined to Devonshire. On the Continent it occurs only in the south-west.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo, J. St. J. Phillips._ Among the Arbutus, Cloonee Lakes.]