THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
| Number 16. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1840. | Volume I. |
THE CASTLE AND LAKE OF INCHIQUIN, COUNTY OF CLARE.
Connemara itself, now so celebrated for its lakes and mountains, was not less unknown a few years since than the greater portion of the county of Clare. Without roads, or houses of entertainment for travellers, its magnificent coast and other scenery were necessarily unvisited by the pleasure tourists, and but little appreciated even by their inhabitants themselves. But Clare can no longer be said to be an unvisited district: the recent formation of roads has opened to observation many features of interest previously inaccessible to the traveller, and its singular coast scenery—the most sublimely magnificent in the British islands, if not in Europe—has at least been made known to the public by topographical and scientific explorers—it has become an attractive locality to artists and pleasure tourists, and will doubtless be visited by increasing numbers of such persons in each successive year.
There is however as yet in this county too great a deficiency in the number of respectable houses of entertainment suited to the habits of pleasure tourists; for though the wealthier and more educated classes in the British empire are becoming daily a more travelling and picturesque-hunting genus, they will not be content to live on fine scenery, but must have food for the body as well as for the mind; and truly they must be enthusiastic lovers of the picturesque, who, to gratify their taste, will subject themselves to the vicissitudes of such an uncertain climate as ours, without the certainty of such consoling comforts as are afforded in a clean and comfortable inn.
Yet we do not despair of seeing this want soon supplied. Wherever there is a demand for a commodity it will not be long wanting; and the people of Clare are too sagacious not to perceive, however slowly, the practical wisdom of holding out every inducement of this kind to those who might be disposed to visit them and spend their money among them. The first step necessary, however, to produce such results in any little frequented district, is to make its objects of interest known to the public by the pencil and the pen—the rest will follow in due course; and our best efforts, such as they are, shall not be unexerted towards effecting such an important good as well for Clare as for many other as yet little known localities of our country.
Clare is indeed on many accounts deserving of greater attention than it has hitherto received. It is a county rich in attractions for the geologist and naturalist, and interesting in the highest degree to the lovers of the picturesque. With a surface singularly broken and diversified, full of mountains, hills, lakes, and rivers, dotted all over with every class of ancient remains, its scenery is peculiarly Irish, and though of a somewhat melancholy aspect, it is never wanting in a poetic and historic interest. Such a district is not indeed exactly suited to the tastes of the common scenery-hunter, for it possesses but little of that woody and artificially adorned scenery which he requires, and can alone enjoy; and hence it has usually been described by tourists and topographers with a coldness which shows how little its peculiarities had impressed their feelings, and how incompetent they were to communicate to others a just estimate of its character. Let us take as an example the notice given by the writers of Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary, of one of the Clare beauties of which the natives are most proud—the caverns called the To-meens or To-mines, near Kiltanan:—
“At Kiltanan is a succession of limestone caverns, through which a rivulet takes its course: these are much visited in summer; many petrified shells are found in the limestone, some of which are nearly perfect, and—very curious!”