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deficiency thus arising, have rendered it scarce. The
county has, nevertheless, some small copses and under-
woods, the remains of the ancient forests. Many trunks
of large timber trees, particularly juniper, yew, and fir,
have been found in the bogs; the wood, when dried, is
always black. The waste and neglect of past ages is now
being remedied; there are many thriving young planta-
tions; several of the hills are clothed with wood; the
ash grows in such abundance in hedge rows as to prove
it to be indigenous to the soil; hazel is encouraged, in
order to make hoops for butter-firkins; Scotch firs
thrive on boggy bottoms, and larch still better.
The county is wholly included within the great lime-
stone plain of Ireland, of which it forms the most
elevated portion. The uniformity of its geological struc-
ture is broken only at Moate and Ballymahon, in each
of which places an isolated protuberant mass of sand-
stone rises from beneath the general substratum. The
predominating colour of the limestone is a blueish grey
of various degrees of intensity; it is often tinged with
black and sometimes passes into deep black, particularly
in those parts in which it is interstratified with beds of
clay-slate, calp or swinestone, or where it abounds with
lydian stone. The black limestone in the latter case is
a hard compact rock, requiring much fuel for burning
it, and is by no means serviceable for agricultural pur-
poses. The structure of the limestone varies from the
perfectly compact to the conjointly compact and foliated,
and even to the granularly foliated: beds of the last kind
are quarried and wrought for various purposes in the
northern baronies. Copper, lead, coal, and yellow and
dove-coloured marble have been found in small quanti-
ties, but not so as to induce searches for the parent bed.
A pair of elk’s horns, found in a bog, were presented to
Charles I. shortly before the commencement of the civil
war; stags’ horns in a state of great decomposition
have been found near the shores of Lough Iron.
The manufactures are merely such as supply the
demands of the inhabitants, being confined almost wholly
to friezes, flannels, and coarse linens. There are no
fisheries of any consequence, although all the lakes are
stored with fish of various kinds and excellent quality.
The Inny is well stocked with bream, trout, pike, eel,
and roach; salmon is found only in the Inny and
Brosna, coming out of the Shannon; Lough Dereveragh
is celebrated for its white and red trout; and about-
the month of May a small fish of a very pleasant flavour,
called the Goaske, of the size of a herring, is taken in
this and the neighbouring lake. In the ditches near the
borders of Lough Hoyle an incredible quantity of the
fry of fish is caught from September to March. In the
bogs, and especially in slimy pits covered with water, is
found a muscle, flatter and broader than the common
sea muscle, the shell brighter in colour, much thinner,
and very brittle. They are not numerous, nor are they
much used as food.
The Brosna and the Inny are the only rivers of any
importance in the county: the former rises near Lough
Hoyle; the latter at Loughcrew, in the county of Meath.
Numerous rivulets, flowing through every part, discharge
themselves either into one of the lakes, or of the larger
rivers. The more remarkable of the lesser rivers are the
Mongagh, the Glore, the Gaine, and the Rathconrath.
The Shannon forms the western boundary from Lough
Ree to a point some miles south of Athlone. The Royal
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Canal enters the county from tbat of Meath, two miles
north of Kinnegad, and after crossing the Inny by an
aqueduct, enters the county of Longford near Tinellick.
A branch of the Grand Canal enters from the King’s
county near Rahue, and proceeds to Kilbeggan, The
roads are numerous through every part; those of mo-
dern construction are well laid out and maintained;
the older are ill laid out and constructed, but these
defects are in progress of being remedied.
Many vestiges of very remote antiquity may be traced
in the neighbourhood of Ballintubber, and others of a
similar description are observable in Moycashel. Of
the numerous monastic institutions scattered through
the county, those of Clonfad, Kilconiry, Drumcree,
Forgney, Killuken, Leckin, Lynn, and Rathugh still
remain, either wholly or in part, as places of wor-
ship either of Protestants or Roman Catholics. The
ruins of those of Farranemanagh, Fore, Kilbeggan, Kil-
mocahill, and Multifarnham are still in existence: those
of Tristernagh and of the houses of the Franciscans,
Dominicans, and Augustinians of Mullingar are utterly
destroyed; Athlone had a house of Conventual Fran-
ciscans: the existence of several others is now ascer-
tained only by the names of the places in which they
flourished.
The ruins of ancient castles, several of which were
erected by Hugh de Lacy, are numerous: the remains
of Kilbixy castle, his chief residence, though now obliter-
ated, were extensive in the year 1680. Those of Ardnor-
cher, or Horseleap, another of de Lacy’s castles, and the
place where he met with a violent death from the hands
of one of his own dependents, are still visible. Rathwire,
Sonnagh, and Killare were also built by de Lacy: the
second of these stands on the verge of a small but beau-
tiful lake; the third afterwards fell into the hands of the
Mac Geoghegans, the mansion of which family was at
Castle Geoghegan, and some remains of it are still visi-
ble. Other remarkable castles were Delvin, the seat of
the Nugents; Leney, belonging to the Gaynors; Empor,
to the Daltons; Killaniny and Ardnagrath, to the Dil-
lons; Bracca, near Ardnorcher, to the Handys, who
have a modern mansion in its neighbourhood; and Clare
Castle, or Mullaghcloe, the head-quarters of Generals de
Ginkell and Douglas when preparing for the siege of
Ballymore. Several castles of the Mac Geoghegans
were in the neighbourhood of Kilbeggan. The modern
mansions of the nobility and gentry are noticed under
the heads of their respective parishes.
The peasants are a healthy robust race. The wo-
men retain their maiden name after marriage; they
perform the out-door work, bring the turf home in
carts, and share in the labours of the field. The
English language is everywhere spoken, except by some
of the old people, and that only in ordinary conversa-
tion among themselves. The habitations are poor; the
roofs without ceilings, formed of a few couples, and
supported by two or three props, over which the boughs
of trees not stripped of their leaves are laid crossways,
and these are covered with turf and thatched with straw.
A hole in the roof gives vent to the smoke; and the
bare ground constitutes the floor and hearth. The
house-leek is encouraged to grow on the thatch, from
a notion that it is a preservative against fire: the pea-
sants make their horses swim in some of the lakes on
Garlick Sunday, the second Sunday in August, to pre-