Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland / Being a Tourist's Guide to Its Most Beautiful Scenery & an Archæologist's Manual for Its Most Interesting Ruins

by Thomas O'Neill Russell

Clew Bay has a great advantage over the greater part of the bays on the Irish coast on account of its size. Killary Bay is in no place more than a mile wide, but Clew Bay is fully seven miles wide at its narrowest part, and about sixteen miles long—that is from Clare Island to the quay at Westport. Those who desire to see this splendid bay aright should not attempt to look at it from the town of Westport, for it cannot be seen to advantage from there. Neither can it be seen to advantage except during high tide, when all its multitude of islands are clearly defined. Let them ascend the high lands east of the town of Westport for about a mile, and then look back on the scene beneath them. If the day is fine, if there is plenty of sunlight, they will have to be the least sensitive of mortals if they can gaze on such a scene unmoved. Scenes sublimer and grander, and views more extensive, can be found in other countries; but for pure beauty—a beauty that seems to laugh and rejoice at its own matchless charms—Clew Bay may challenge anything of its kind on earth.

North of the bay rises that most symmetrical of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, or the Reek, as it is frequently called. It seems to have been made to order, it is so regular and at the same time so graceful and grand in its outlines. There are few mountains of its height that look so high as Croagh Patrick. It is somewhat less than three thousand feet high, but owing to its symmetry and its steepness it looks higher and more imposing than many mountains of double its altitude. Exactly at the mouth of the bay, stretching almost straight across it, and almost completely shutting it in from the Atlantic, rises the great mass of Clare Island, making the bay a safe harbour as well as adding in a most extraordinary degree to its beauty. Clare Island is almost a mountain; its highest point cannot be less than fifteen hundred feet above the sea level, and it rises sheer from the water. It is almost as beautiful an object as Croagh Patrick itself. The hills on the north side of the bay are rather tame, but the beauty of the famous Reek is such that almost any other mountain would appear tame in comparison with it. The number of islands in Clew Bay is said to be three hundred and sixty-five—one for every day in the year. There seem not to be any exact details as to the number of these islands, but it cannot be much less than the number stated. They seem so numerous as to be uncountable. The reason that those wishing to see this wondrous bay at its best are advised to see it when the tide is full is because all the islands do not appear at low water. This is certainly a defect, but no sea loch looks so well at low water as when the tide is full. The citizens of Dublin know what a difference the tide being in or out makes in the appearance of their own magnificent bay. But in Clew Bay the difference in its appearance caused by the tide being full or low is much greater than in the bay of Dublin, for the reason that has been already stated. However much the difference the state of the tide may make in Clew Bay, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful bay, not only in Ireland, but in all those countries known as the British Isles.

Those who go to this part of the west coast in search of the sublime and beautiful should not omit to ascend Croagh Patrick, and gaze from its top on one of the grandest and most extensive views to be seen in Ireland. The mountain, seen from Westport or its environs, appears wellnigh inaccessible, but it is not so steep on its south side, and can be ascended with no great amount of difficulty. The view from Croagh Patrick is one of the most sublime that can be imagined. The whole of that wild, storm-beaten, cliff-guarded coast of Connacht, from Slyne Head in Connemara to the most northern part of Mayo, lies before one; and Clew Bay, beautiful as it is from wherever it is seen, seems fairer than ever when seen from the summit of Croagh Patrick.

Going north from Clew Bay the next most interesting and wild spot is the island of Achill, and the grandest things there are the cliffs of Minnaun and Slieve More. As we are going north, Minnaun Cliffs, which are on the southern side of Achill, must be spoken about first. They are seven hundred feet in height, and will, therefore, average higher than the cliffs of Moher in the County Clare, but they do not rise perpendicularly from the sea as those of Moher do. But their sea sides are so steep as to be quite inaccessible even to the wild goats which still haunt the cliffs of Achill. The cliffs of Minnaun are magnificent, but if they rose sheer from the sea they would form a much more grand and impressive sight.

But the cliffs of Minnaun, gigantic as they are, are only insignificant things compared with the great sea wall on the northern shores of the island, formed by Slieve More and Croghan. The whole northern shore of Achill, from Achill head in the extreme west of the island to the narrow straight that separates it from the mainland on the east, a distance of some thirteen miles, may be said to be a terrific barrier of cliffs, rising to the height of over two thousand feet at the hills Croghan and Slieve More. It is generally allowed that the north shore of Achill has the most stupendous mural cliffs that are to be seen anywhere nearer than Norway, and that even Norway has not very much cliff scenery more magnificent. There is nothing in the shape of cliffs or sea walls in these islands that can compare with the cliffs of Achill in grandeur except Slieve League in Donegal, of which mention will soon be made. A geologist has said, speaking of the cliffs of Achill, that it appeared to him as if part of the mountain which forms the western extremity of the island, and terminates in the noted cape of Achill head, had suffered dis-severance from a sunken continent by some convulsion of Nature. These gigantic cliffs can only be seen to advantage from the sea, but in the almost entire absence of passenger steam-boats on these coasts, it is very difficult for those who visit them to get a proper means of seeing them as they ought to be seen. They rise from out of one of the stormiest oceans in the world, that even in summer-time is often rough and dangerous; and very few would care to risk their lives in the cockle-shell boats, or currachs, of fishermen to see the stupendous cliffs of Achill from where they look best. In far distant Norway there are plenty of large and commodious steamboats to take tourists all round its coasts; but if they want to see some of the grandest and most beautiful scenery of their own country to its best advantage, they must trust to a fisherman’s cot.

It would take at least a week of the longest summer days to see all the wonders and grandeur of these tremendous cliffs, or rather cliff mountains, of Achill. In the interior of the island there is not anything of great interest to be seen, but it has more cliff scenery of the stupendous sort to boast of than perhaps any other island of its size in the world.

It is a “far cry” from Achill to Slieve League in Donegal—considerably over a hundred miles if the coast is followed; but between the giant sea walls of that island and Slieve League there is nothing of their kind that will in any way bear comparison with them. There is, however, much magnificent scenery on the northern coast of Connacht, and also a great many things of antiquarian interest. There is the extraordinary Druid remains of Carrowmore, only three miles from Sligo town, where there are almost, if not quite, half a hundred cromlechs to be seen on about half a dozen acres. They are of almost all sizes. Some of them are baby cromlechs, the top stones of which are not much more than a hundredweight. This place must have been a sort of Stonehenge at one time. In no other known spot of either these islands or France are so many cromlechs to be seen in so small a space, and very few seem to know anything about it. Sir Samuel Ferguson seems to have been the only person who has written anything about it. But here the same disrespect for monuments of antiquity that has been so long prevalent all over the country may be noticed. Many of the cromlechs have been torn down, and some of them have been actually made to serve as road walls and have been built over. Fully half of them have been either utterly torn down or in some way mutilated. Their generally small size has made them an easy prey for those who wanted stones to build walls or houses. These curious relics of far-back ages should not be allowed to be any further ruined.

LOCH GILL.