“The Falls of Erne,” at Ballyshannon, where the river joins its estuary with its rapid, tumbling torrent falling over a thirty-foot wall of rock, indicate in no unmistakable manner the volume of water which flows from source to sea. At Ballyshannon, which has more than a local renown among disciples of Izaak Walton, is the famous “salmon leap” which, at certain seasons, provides a display of the wonderful acrobatic ability of this gamy fish. But a short three miles from Ballyshannon is Belleek, with its famous china factories which produce a peculiarly lustrous egg-shell ware much admired for its simplicity and crudeness of form, but very transparent and light. Here, too, are another series of rapids,
as great in their way as those farther down-stream. Sir Joseph Paxton called them “the most picturesque in the world,” but one should judge for himself. They are marvellously effective, however, for the river falls nearly 150 feet in three miles or less.
Sligo itself, in spite of its commercial importance, is not greatly appealing in its interest, if one excepts its old abbey, now a ruin, but once an exceedingly ambitious Dominican establishment. Founded in 1252, it was destroyed by a fire in 1414, though immediately rebuilt. Its Gothic is of that superlative quality known best in the superb monkish erections of the Continent of Europe. There are various monuments yet to be seen therein of local and historical interest, but the chief attraction is what remains of the beautiful cloister, fairly perfect as to preservation, and surrounding three sides of a rectangle. There are forty-six arches, each about four feet and a half in height, all elaborately carved, and quite different one from another.