MR. URBAN,

48, Summer Hill, Dublin. I HAVE long laboured to invite attention to the districts more especially of the west of Ireland, the reclamation of its wastes, the development of its resources, the employment of its pauper population; and I sought to demonstrate how rapidly social order, general comfort, and national wealth would ensue therefrom. In your Magazine for July 1847 I especially directed my observations to the county of Galway, and besought, but in vain, the most influential of its noblemen and gentry, who were identified with it by tenure and title in long succession of inheritance, to aid in those important objects. Recent vicissitudes have pressed the inquiry more irresistibly on the mind of every honest thinker; its rentless proprietors, its famished peasantry, its deserted homesteads, have awfully appealed for prompt and effective renovation. In that article I etched off the boundaries of this interesting maritime county, the districts within its ambit, the changes in its occupants that time had influenced, and the gradual introduction and establishment of its septs. I alluded to the municipal fortress of Galway, interposed, in the heart of the county, between the native proprietors and the English settlers; to the field of Aghrim, where the fortunes of the rival dynasties of this empire were in 1691 decided-the Waterloo of Ireland. Connemara was there spoken of only as 66 an expanse of unexplored wonders." Its statistics and history were necessarily postponed. That most picturesque, yet long least visited, that most reclaimable, yet least reclaimed,—that widest in expanse, but thinnest in population, the palatinate, as it may be styled, of Connemara, is the exclusive subject of the present communication.

The territory of Iar-Connaught, i.e. Western Connaught, the generic name in which Connemara is included, out of the million and a half of acres which this county contains, incloses within itself upwards of five hundred thouGENT. MAG. VOL. XXXII.

sand,―a proportion in which it exceeds eighteen of our Irish counties,-fronting the Atlantic Ocean at West, partially opening into Mayo at north, and cut off from the rest of Galway by a noble natural boundary of lake, and river, and bay. Lough Mask, the north-west link of this frontier chain, extends nine miles in length by four in breadth, receiving various tributary waters from Connemara, and pouring into it sundry off-sheets or fiords of some extent. Its height at low water over the sea is, in summer 64 feet, in winter 72. An isthmus of two miles of high ground separates this lake from the next water boundary, Lough Corrib, while under this isthmus the river of Cong frequently plunges itself out of sight, carrying off with it, through a series of caverns and natural tunnels, the overflow of the former. This interesting aqueduct rises, as it may be supposed, with eddies and springs of mighty water-power, close to the historic locality of Cong, and there pours itself into Lough Corrib. This latter fine and partly navigable sheet covers upwards of 43,000 acres, fed by numerous large rivers and mountain streams, embraces upwards of 1,600 acres of islands, and rises in its summer height over the sea at low water 28 feet, and 31 in winter. Narrowing at the ferry of Knock, it again expands until within about two miles of the town of Galway, the southernmost terminus of this line of demarcation, whence it discharges its redundant waters in a heavy volume, and with prodigious rapidity, through the liberties and town, and into the bay, of Galway.

By many has the neglect been deplored that so long consigned the advantages of Lough Corrib with its adjunct and vicinity to utter oblivion. It was not however overlooked in theory at home. In the early part of the eighteenth century it was one of the practical projects of those who were employed to survey the navigable rivers of Ireland, to open a communication between Killalla and Galway by the Moy, Lough Mask and 3 P

Lough Corrib. Since the Union the undertaking was, in regard to the southern and Galway section of this navigation, frequently recommended to the consideration of the Imperial Legislature, as especially in the Report of the Select Committee of 1835 on these lakes, and that of the Board of Works of 1845, published in the Parliamentary Papers.

Galway, at which the eastern boundary of far-Connaught terminates and where its southern commences, has been characterised by Heylin the historian, in the seventeenth century, as then the third city of the kingdom of Ireland for extent and beauty. Its commercial importance in the same era is testified by many other writers, and a letter of the Privy Council concerning it in 1657 says; "We may be bold to say that for the situation thereof, vicinage and commerce it hath, no port or town in the three nations (London excepted) was more considerable;" and possibly the period is not far distant, when, under the auspices of wealthy, influential, considerate, and liberal management, with the concurrent advantage of the shortest attainable railway intercourse with the English metropolis-your city of the world, this little town may yet again be invested with commercial and national pre-eminence. From this port, thus advantageously circumstanced, the magnificent bay, which derives its name hence, and is the largest of the estuaries of Ireland, washes, throughout its course to the Atlantic, the southern coast of IarConnaught, receiving the waters of many noted salmon rivers, and casting itself into the land in sundry beautiful bays, reported to Parliament as "easy of access, with good shelter and water fit for great ships." The western coast, opening to the Atlantic, presents yet more favourable sites for harbours, as Kilkerran, Birterbury, Roundstone, Ardbear (Clifden), Ballinakill, and Killery Bays. The latter runs into the country for ten miles, and forms the division thus far between the counties of Galway and Mayo, by the mountains of both of which it is overhung; the remainder of that northern boundary is traced by a land-line from Killery to Lough Mask. Of the fisheries off this coast and in these bays it

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has been said, in the same language of reproachful regret, no part of the sea that embraces Ireland abounds with a greater variety of all kinds of fish than that round Connemara, yet few have been so imperfectly cultivated."

The superficial area of western Connaught is classified in Nimmo's able report as comprising, in acres of the old Irish measure, 25,000 arable, 120,000 bog, 200,000 mountain and upland-pasture, and 5,000 limestone rock, while there are within its ambit twenty-five lakes, which extend in a westerly direction from Oughterard to Ballinahinch, and there are numerous small picturesque lakes scattered over various parts adjoining Roundstone. Nearly all these lakes have beds of limestone on their banks, and the coast in almost every bay affords extensive beds of calcareous sand. On the erection of Galway into a county in 1585, during the government of Sir Henry Sydney, Iar-Connaught was divided for civil purposes into three baronies, Ross, Moycullen, and Ballinahinch: the first is popularly designated, from its chief sept of occupants, "Joyces' country," and presents an elevated tract with flattopped hills of from 1,300 to 2,000 feet in height, interspersed with valleys. The only entire parish of this barony bears its name, and comprises 59,651 statute acres, separating the aforesaid great lakes Corrib and Mask. About two-fifths of this parish are described as rough pasture, all of which by judicious treatment could be reclaimed and rendered available for agricultural purposes; one-fifth is bog, another fifth waste, and the remainder, with the exception of about 500 acres of wood, is good arable land, if more economically and profitably husbanded. The second barony, Moycullen, territorially known as the aucient inheritance of the O'Flahertie sept, contains 220,223 acres, of which 26,409 are covered with water: its soil on the sea-coast and on the beautiful shore of Lough Corrib is good, but at the centre is rocky and mountainous. The third barony, Ballinahinch, is also extremely mountainous, and inclined to black bog, but with gravelly sand lying at no greater depth than from one to three feet below the

surface. It contains 191,432 acres, and, though at the time of Sir Henry Sydney's vice-royalty known by the name of Balli-na-inch, in regard to the numerous islands that stud its coast, was yet in old times exclusively the Conna-mara proper; a denomination yet more strikingly characteristic and descriptive, signifying as it does "the bays of the sea." On a well-marked map this whole tract will appear raised with mountains, dotted with lakes, and black with bogs; but Barrow, in his "Tour of Ireland," gives powerful testimony to its reclaimable quali

ties.

"Connemara,” he says, “including Joyces' country, is capable of being converted into one of the most fertile and productive districts of Ireland; and, by means of the multitude of lakes, an easy water communication might be made from every part of the district with Lough Corrib, and from thence to Galway; at the same time, by thus uniting the chain of lakes into one navigable canal, the whole of the great valley and its recesses could be drained." But the water-power of the numerous lakes and rivers of this country is yet unemployed and unprofitable, and the fine mountains, too, that are filled with mineral productions of lead and copper, quarries of black and white and green marble and slate, are comparatively unworked.

The population of these three baronies was in 1821 calculated as 46,000, the census of 1841 increases this total to 72,568, of which last aggregate 10,663 are reported as engaged in agriculture, 1677 in manufactures, 4106 alone able to read and write, 2124 to read only, and the remainder unable to read or write. Since that census was taken famine and disease have made sad havoc in this population; and now, however popular clamour may reproach them, an impoverished, dispirited proprietary cannot give employment to the industrious or wages to the labourer. What a practical and eloquent appeal is recorded in a Report of 1826-7 on the Irish Fisheries, since adopted verbatim in Nimmo's Report of 1837 on the Coast Survey. "The district of Connemara," it says, "appears not undeservedly to be considered as amongst the most uncultivated parts of Ireland. On a general view it seems a continued tract of bog and

mountain, the arable land not a tenth or even a twentieth of the whole surface; the entire population is about fifty thousand, of which Connemara proper has about twenty thousand, chiefly resident on the coast, those of the interior not exceeding three or four hundred families, and mostly on the bridle-roads which have been recently made through the district. . Although its general improvement would seem an undertaking of the most arduous description, it is not without facilities, which upon a candid consideration make it a subject more worthy of attention than many other of the waste lands of the kingdom. The climate is mild, snow being little known during the winter; the cattle are never housed, the mountains on the north and the general variety of surface affording considerable shelter; the summers however are wet, and it is exposed to heavy westerly winds. Though it be mountainous it is by no means an upland country like Wicklow; at least three-fourths of Connamara proper is lower than one hundred feet over the sea. Great part of Moycullen barony rises from the shore of Galway bay in a gently sloping plain to about 300 feet, at the upper edge of which there are some hills of about 700 feet, and beyond them a low limestone country extends to the edge of Lough Corrib, and but little elevated above its level; but Joyces' country, on the other hand, is an elevated tract, with flattopped hills, interspersed with deep and narrow valleys. The country is very destitute of wood, a few scrubby patches only being scattered through it; it possesses, however, an extensive stock of timber, for in almost every dry knoll or cliff the oak, beech, and hasel, appear shooting in abundance, and require only a little care to rise into forests; several bloomeries, which were erected about a century ago, consumed much of the timber, and copsing was afterwards neglected. The sheltered vales, navigations, and abundant water-power would form great advantages in the cultivation of timber." The report then proceeds to show the facilities for reclaiming, in the contiguity of limestone, the abundance of shell and coral sand on the coast, the dry banks of calcareous sand, and the inexhaustible supplies of red sea