188 A YEAR OF LIBERTY ; OR, 



my life. At present I am labouring under a severe attack, and oh, 

 hoio I long to be there ! 



Galway is a world in itself wild, picturesque, and exquisitely 

 beautiful. Forty years since large portions of the country were as 

 inaccessible as when the De Burghos ruled. Without roads, without 

 inns, it was as little known to Britain as Borneo is at the present 

 day. Prior to 1813 the only roads west of Galway were a narrow 

 coast line to Costillo Bay, and a central road by Oughterard to 

 Ballinahinch. These ran over rocks and bogs in so unskilful a 

 manner as to be scarcely passable for any sort of carriage, and 

 the only other means of communication through the district were 

 narrow bridle paths, difficult for horsemen in the summer, and quite 

 impracticable in the winter. On the coast in particular, beyond the 

 Costillo, there was nothing better than a footpath. By the improve- 

 ments, begun in 1822, a complete line is now carried round the 

 district. A coast road has been formed which touches the heads of 

 all the chief inlets from Costillo to the Killeries, where it joins an 

 inland line through the heart of the Joyce's Country to the head of 

 Lough Corrib, and thence across the central plain of Jar Connaught 

 to the southern coast of Costillo Bay. This in a measure opened the 

 country, and attracted so much attention to Connemara that, in all 

 probability, it will at no distant date become the scene of mercantile 

 and agricultural speculations. 



Such was the impassable state of the coast about thirty-six years ago, 

 for the road commenced in 1822, could hardly have been finished 

 under eight years and now the beautiful district from Spiddel to 

 the Killeries forms for the traveller the choicest part of his Irish 

 tour. As his car rolls along he sees a boundless expanse of ocean 

 harbours that for number and security no similar extent of shore 

 in the world can show glorious mountains, countless lakes, and 

 seagirt islands, even yet as primitive as any Sinbad of the nineteenth 

 century is likely to discover in the North or South Pacific. Olifden 

 is comparatively a new town, having been called into existence by 

 the energy of the proprietor, Mr. D'Arcy, in 1821 ; and Eoundstone, 

 the port from which the beautiful green marble of Ballinahinch is 



