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6 LEINSTER a selection must be made and indicated at once. First, then, the county of Dublin itself, infringing a little on Kildare. Secondly, the Wicklow Mountains and their glens. Thirdly, that rich valley of the Boyne, which was the heart of the ancient kingdom of Meath. But, before details are dealt with, some general idea of the topography must be given. Suppose you are on deck when the mail boat from Holyhead has been two hours out, or a little more (I write here for strangers), you will see Dublin Bay open before you. To your right, making the northernmost horn of the curve, is the rocky, almost mountainous, peninsula of Howth, and ten miles north of it you see its shape repeated in the Island of Lambay. Except for that, to the north and to the west, coast and land are all one wide level, far as your eye can reach—unless by some chance the air be so rarefied that you discern, fifty miles northward, the purple range of Carlingford Hills (still in Leinster), and beyond them, delicate and aerial blue, the long profile of the Mourne Mountains, where Ulster begins. But to the south of the city (where it lies in the bight of the bay, spilling itself northward along the shore to Clontarf of famous memory, and southward to Kingstown and beyond) mountains rise, a dense huddle of rounded, shouldering heights, stretching away far as you can see. Near Dublin they almost touch the
LEINSTER 7 shore: one rocky spur comes down to Dalkey Island, which was the deep-water landing place before Kings- town harbour was built: it rises into the peaked fan- tastic summit of Killiney Hill. Beyond it the coast curves in a little, giving a bay and valley in which lies Bray, our Irish equivalent for Brighton. The Bray river marks the limits of County Dublin; and beyond Bray again is the high, serrated ridge of Bray Head, fronting the water in a cliff. Landward from it rises, peak by peak, that exquisite chain of heights which from Little Sugarloaf to Great Sugarloaf runs back to connect here once more the main body of mountains with the sea. Mr. Williams in his picture has shown Bray Head and the lesser Sugarloaf in a glow of light which turns their heather covering to a golden pink; and from his vantage on the slope of Killiney, he has been able to catch the shape of Wicklow Head beyond and between the nearest summits of this chain. South of that, you, from your steamer, can distin- guish how the margin of land between mountain and coast line widens progressively. Wicklow Head shoots far out into the sea; and beyond it you can trace the long, low coast of Wexford projecting farther and farther from the hills. Wicklow, in truth, is a ridge of mountains, with small apanages of low- land on each side; Wexford, a level space east of the
Page 1: LEINSTER Pictured by Alexander'Will
Page 7 and 8: LEINSTER Described by Stephen Gwynn
Page 9: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Bay of Dublin
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Page 20 and 21: 12 LEINSTER to stop it between you
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Page 34 and 35: 22 LEINSTER marvellous illumination
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Page 60: 42 LEINSTER more rusticity. At Rath
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44 LEINSTER many a hill in Donegal
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46 LEINSTER upper lake, and that he
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48 LEINSTER All that great congerie
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50 LEINSTER cor, to see where Swift
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52 LEINSTER captivity captive. He t
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54 LEINSTER has reached the Rhine,
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56 LEINSTER escaped and reached the
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58 LEINSTER before yet the Normans
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6o LEINSTER cruelties. Historic rec
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62 LEINSTER Slaney. Each of them ha
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64 LEINSTER it is to be hoped that
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