the Liffey, and the sea, and was preëminent above all other edifices as having been the residence of Irish kings for upwards of a thousand years.
A contributor to the “Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,” writing in 1830, has described Tara as it appeared to him on a recent visit:
“Only when one finds himself at the base of the venerable mount does it present an attitude of much interest. At the left are the gloomy remains of the church of Screen and the once noble mansion and demesne of Lord Tara, back of which are the remains of several old stone edifices and of a particularly narrow bridge which still spans a weedy rivulet. Passing through the villages and by the church, one identifies some large rocks as having exercised the strength or yielded to the sword of Fin MacComhal (Fingal). Here one finds himself on the summit of Tara; and if he goes there with none of that wild enthusiasm which requires towers and battlements and draw-bridges and bower-windows, and donjon-keeps, to gratify it, he will feel most awfully the unalterable royalty of the prospect it commands.