Belvedere Lake is a good deal larger than Loch Ouel, and its shores are better wooded, but part of them, in fact a very large part of them, is boggy. Its banks are adorned with gentlemen’s seats, and in spite of the swampy shore on one side of it, it is a very beautiful lake.
Loch Derravaragh is the most peculiarly-shaped of all the Westmeath lakes. It is shaped something like a tadpole, only that, unlike a tadpole, it is its head that is narrow, and its tail, or lower part, that is wide. It has bolder shores than any other lake in the county, some of the hills near it being almost mountains. It has hardly any islands, and its shores are wilder than any other of the Westmeath lakes. It wants the woods that do so much to adorn the swampy shores of Belvedere Lake; but comparatively bare as the shores of Loch Derravaragh are, it is a most picturesque lake, and some think it more beautiful than Loch Ouel. Both Loch Derravaragh and Loch Iron are formed by the river Inny, but it does not, as most rivers do, flow through the lakes it forms and feeds, for it flows out of them within a short distance of where it enters them, and the lakes extend in an opposite direction from where they receive their water. This is rather a strange fact in physical geography.
The next most important of the Westmeath lakes is Loch Sheelin, but as three other counties—Longford, Meath, and Cavan—border it, it cannot be strictly called a Westmeath lake. However, as it is so close to the very picturesque sheets of water which are the chief scenic attractions of the county they adorn, it has been thought best to include it when describing them. Loch Sheelin has only a few islands, but its shores, although low, are very well wooded. Seen from the hills in the vicinity of Oldcastle in Meath, it is as fair a sight as can well be imagined, with its wood-crowned, indented shores. If there are fairer lakes in Ireland than Loch Sheelin, there are few that have a more beautiful name. It is euphony itself. Its name is the original one of Moore’s sweet melody, “Come, rest in this Bosom.” It has often been said, “What’s in a name?” There is a great deal. A name so beautiful as Loch Sheelin would give a certain charm to a bog hole. It must be confessed that Celtic, of all European languages, seems to contain the most sonorous place names. Such names as Bassenthwaitewater, Ullswater, Conistonwater, Derwentwater, Thuner See, and Zuger See, sound very tame compared with Loch Lomond, Loch Erne, Loch Awe, Loch Ree, Loch Layn, and Loch Sheelin. There is, however, one continental place-name of wonderful beauty of sound, and that is Lorraine. Its German name is Lothringen, but the French, by eliding its consonants, or by what is generally called aspiration in Gaelic grammar, have turned the harsh German name into one of the most euphonious and beautiful in the world.
Loch Iron and Loch Lene, pronounced Loch Layne, are small sheets of water, but are well worth a visit, even from those who are neither fishers of fish nor of men. The country all round the Westmeath lakes is as beautiful as it is possible for any country to be in which there are neither mountains nor waterfalls. It is never flat, and never uninteresting, covered almost everlastingly with verdure, for although most of the county is hilly, it is one of the most fertile in Ireland. Its still, clear lakes, undulating surface, and rich soil, make it, even in the absence of mountains (and, unfortunately, in the absence of good hotels in its small towns and villages), one of the most picturesque of the counties of Leinster.
KELLS OF MEATH
Kells, the ancient name of which was Ceannanus, and the one by which it is still known in Irish, is one of the most ancient towns in Ireland. According to Irish annalists it was founded by an over-king called Fiacha, 1203 years B.C. If its situation and environs are of no great beauty, it is yet a place of great historic interest. It can boast of the possession of one of the finest round towers in Ireland, a very ancient cross, and a still more ancient stone-roofed church. If there are no mountains or romantic scenery round Kells, it has the advantage of being situated in the midst of the most generally fertile of Irish counties. It is on the river Blackwater, a tributary of the historic Boyne. Nothing can exceed the fertility of the land round Kells; but that does it no good, for the land is almost all in grass, the rural population sparse, and consequently, of very little outside support to the town. But Kells is no worse off than the other towns of Meath. It is, as far as soil is concerned, the richest county in Ireland, but its towns are either in a state of absolute decay, or at a standstill. There is hardly any tilled land in the county; its herds are large, and its population consequently declining. Where cattle abound, people are generally scarce.
For those who visit Kells merely to see the wondrous luxuriance of its grassy environs, the best thing they can do is to ascend the hill of Lloyd, which is close to the town, and go to the top of the tower that crowns the summit of the hill. It is over a hundred feet high, with a winding flight of stairs, and a turret on top, capable of containing a dozen people. The view from the tower is very fine, and will well repay those who see it. Almost the whole of Meath, Louth, Cavan, and parts of other counties can be seen. The tower was built more than a hundred years ago by the first Earl of Bective. It is sometimes called “Bective’s Folly,” because it serves for nothing except giving a fine view to those who ascend it. It is generally known as the tower of Lloyd.
To the antiquarian, the neighbourhood of Kells is of supreme interest. Four miles south-east of it, on the banks of the Blackwater, lies the site of what is considered, next to Tara, the most ancient spot of Irish soil—namely, the place where the games of Tailltean were, for some thousands of years, celebrated. The place is now called Telltown, an evident Anglicisation of its Irish name; but it is still called Tailltean by any old persons in its vicinity who speak Irish. If any credence can be given to Irish annals and history, the antiquity of this place is astounding. The sceptic has to admit that the mere fact of the preservation down to the present day of the name by which it was known from remote antiquity is in itself an extraordinary fact. The games or sports of Tailltean were somewhat similar to the Olympic games of Greece, except that those of Tailltean were celebrated every year. The whole of Ireland used to assist at them, and they seem to have been celebrated every year down to 1168, when they were for the last time celebrated by the unfortunate and foolish Roderick O’Connor, the last of those who were, even in name, chief kings of Ireland. In spite of internal wars, Danish invasions and plunderings, a single year does not appear to have elapsed from the time they were first established down to the twelfth century in which they were not celebrated. It would also seem that no matter what wars or troubles were distracting the country, the games of Tailltean were never omitted. They took place at the beginning of August, as has been mentioned in the article on Tara, and from them the Irish name of the month of August—Lughnasa—is derived. The name Tailltean is the genitive case of Taillte, the woman in whose memory they were established by her son, Lugh, who lived and reigned in Tara, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, which differs only slightly from that of other annalists, 1824 years B.C.! It is no matter how we may smile or shake our heads when this astounding antiquity is mentioned, the preservation of those two names, Lughnasa and Tailltean, down to the present day, drives away the smile and makes us look serious. Such collateral proofs of the existence of historic personages of such antiquity cannot be furnished by any other nation in the world, not even by Egypt or by Greece.