148 NOTES OF AN 



Irish coachmen are, if any thing, more punctual and impatient, 

 and a cloak or umbrella is not admitted to be possession of a 

 place ; on booking which, along with the receipt, you are 

 furnished with a printed set of salutary advices and rules of 

 behaviour, conceived in the usual quaint style. Just out of 

 Dublin you meet the various mails corning in. 'J he road is 

 pretty and diversified, and ornamented with numerous seats 

 and villas. In about six miles you reach Lucan, with its com- 

 manding and picturesque church, its spas, a:id commodious Spa- 

 house. This is the grand resort of the pleasure-seeking, 

 holiday-making folk, in Spring and Summer, to eat straw- 

 berries, drink the waters, and enjoy the scenery. The LiHey 

 accompanies the road thus far, which it crosses at a village a 

 little beyond, in a fine broad rapid. 



The celebrated Maynooth is the first stage on this road. It 

 consists principally of one long dull street. The College is a 

 low unimposing building, without any architectural pretension, 

 but apparently very extensive. It is frowningly overhung by 

 the massive grey ruin of an old abbey or cathedral, by far the 

 most striking object. We pass Kill-cock, Blackwater-Bridge, 

 Clonard-Bridge, Tyrel's-Pass, and Kilbeggan ; accompanied 

 the greater part of the way, on one side or the other, by the 

 grand canal, which forms a direct communication, by means of 

 the Shannon, between Dublin and Limerick, and on which 

 boats of tolerable speed regularly ply. It would afford an in- 

 teresting mode of reaching the latter city, for the traveller who 

 had time at command. 



At Kilbeggan we had the first specimen of an Irish market- 

 day, a sight too novel and curious to be passed by unrecorded. 

 The street was literally filled with a phalanx of women, or 

 rather of women's caps, — for that the wearers were beneath 

 was a matter to be inferred, rather than actually ascertained by 

 observation, — until the living mass opened to make way for the 

 coach, and immediately closed again behind it. The scene was 

 full of humour, and the effect to an English eye was droll and 

 graphic in the extreme. The next town. Moat, is one of 

 considerable size, with a good wide street, and some respect- 

 able residences. 



A little out of Moat, turn the rise of tlie road, and — all hail 

 to the glorious Shannon ! Not romantic in this part of its 

 course, — not wild with rock, and rich with wooded bank, — but 



