Looking
north, over the flat plain of Clontarf, he beholds the lofty Mourne
range, relieved against the sky; glancing along the Dublin mountains he
has that wooded and villaed slope, far as the eye can reach, which forms
the southern suburb, a rival for which no city in Europe can boast: to
the east are the deep clear waters of the sea, four hundred feet
beneath; and he gazes with delight on the tranquil and gracefully curved
strand, stretching three or four miles on to Bray, which fringes that
charming inlet known as Killiney Bay; its waves sending upwards, in
measured cadence, their soft, distinct, suggestive murmurs, whilst they
spend themselves on the shore of the ever new, ever delightful, ever
enchanting Vale of Shangannah, immortalized by our Irish poet, Denis
Florence M'Carthy. But this old Obelisk itself, what is it?--What
brought it here? The tourist reads: "Last year being hard with the POOR,
the walls about these HILLS, and THIS, etc., erected by JOHN MALPAS,
Esq., June, 1742." The story of Ireland is before him; it is told in
the landscape, and the inscription, it may be expressed in two
words--Beauty and Starvation.
The famine of 1741 did not deter farmers from the culture of the potato;
on the contrary, it increased rapidly after that period, and we now find
it, for the first time, recognised as a rotation crop.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71