The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

LEINSTER. 411
sprang wp on that side of licr seaboard which presented the greatest facilities for
keeping up an intercoursS with the commercial countries from which a double
channel sej^arates her. In this feature of her political geography Ireland resembles
Spain, but the causes which have had the same effect in both countries are
different. In the Iberian peninsula the inhabitants principally crowd the sea-
shore because of the cold and sterility of the plateaux and mountains which fill the
interior of the country. In Ireland it is the necessitj^ of commercial intercourse
which accounts for the existence of bus}' seaf)ort towns, the vast bogs of the central
plain, which were formerly hardly passable, contributing, no doubt, in a certain
measure to that result. The most flourishing seaboard is naturally that which
faces England, and here, right opposite to Liverpool and Holyhead, on a spot
marked by nature as the site for a great city, Dublin, the capital of the entire
island, has arisen. Belfast, in the north, occupies relatively to Scotland a similar
position to that of Dublin ; whilst the two towns of Wexford and "Waterford,
opposite to the estuary of the Severn, share in the commerce with Southern
England. Cork, with its admirable harbour, has actually become the great
Atlantic emporium of the islands. As to Limerick, Galwaj-, Sligo, and London-
derry, in the west and north of Ireland, they have hardly more than a local
importance as outlets for inland districts.
Topography.
Leinster.—The province of Leinster occupies the south-eastern portion of
Ireland. Presenting a wide gap in its coast mountains towards England, which
opened a path into the great central plain, it was first to feel the heel of Norman
and Saxon invaders. Nearly the whole of this province is English now, not only
in speech, but in a large measure also in blood. But the Irish tongue still lingers
in the range of uplands which extends to the westward from the Mourne
Mountains, and into which the natives of the soil were driven when the invaders
appropriated and divided their lands. Another Irish-speaking district lies to the
south-west, towards Waterford.*
The metropolitan count)' of Dublin occupies a narrow strip along the Irish
Sea, which extends westward into the plains of Meath, but comprises on the south
a portion of the Wicklow Mountains. Mount Kippure, on the southern border,
rises to a height of 2,473 feet. The centre of the county is traversed by the
Liffey, which discharges itself into Dublin Bay. The land is fairly cultivated.
Dublin, or Ballagh-ath-Eliath-Puibhluinne, has not always been the capital of
Ireland. There was a time when the kings were crowned on the Hill of Tara, or
Teamhair—that is, the " Great House "—25 miles to the westward, and antiquarians
have there discovered the remains of a monument, from which was, perhaps,
taken that Stone of Fate (Saxiou Fatalc) which, after having long been kept in the
abbey of Scone, has found a last resting-place in Westminster Abbey. When the
* In 1851 52,868 persons in Leinster spoke Irish; in 1871 only 14,388.