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amount of commerce and employment. The Waterford estuary, * fruit- 

 ful and full of branches by reason of many waters/ is the most valuable 

 fishery in Ireland, because, though supplied from a less area than the 

 Shannon, its productiveness is not similarly injured by a solid weir at 

 the entrance. 



The lakes and rivers of Ulster appear to have always abounded in 

 fish in a more remarkable degree than those of other parts of Ireland, 

 probably owing to the greater humidity of its climate, adverted to by 

 Spenser, and also to their northerly situation. 



The produce of the two Banns, the Foyle, and Blackwater, doubtless 

 greatly assisted the last Irish prince of Ulster to make successful head 

 against the English power for so many years. Not only his ' fastnesses 

 and places of strength' lay in the wooded glens between these rivers, 

 and under the mountains of Tyrone, but the provision their waters 

 afforded enabled him to winter his native forces and Scottish auxilia- 

 ries in the islands of Lough Neagh. 



Who has not heard while Erin yet 



Strove 'gainst the Saxon's iron bit 



Who has not heard how brave O'Neil 



In English blood embrued his steel, 



Against St. George's cross blazed high 



The banners of his tanistry, 



To fiery Essex gave the foil, 



And reigned a prince in Ulster's soil ? 



But chief arose his victor pride, 



When that brave marshal fought and died, 



And Avon-Duff to ocean bore 



His billows, red with Saxon gore. 



THE SHANNON. This beautiful and majestic river, characterized by 

 Spenser as ' the spacious Shenan spreading like a sea,' is not only * the 

 principallest of all in Ireland,' according to the quaint old naturalist, 

 Dr. Boate, but ' the king of island rivers/ Its waters are broad and 

 navigable at a distance of upwards of two hundred miles from their 

 debouchement into the Atlantic. The rivers of Great Britain can be 

 traced only as inconsiderable brooks at such a distance from their 

 mouths. 



Taking its rise among th hills of Leitrim, it pursues its course 

 through ten different counties, proceeding in an ample current, or 

 spreading into wide lakes. The vast watery district it embraces, the 

 upper waters flowing in from an area calculated at four thousand five 

 hundred square miles its numerous tributary streams and extensive 

 inland lakes together with its great tidal estuary of sixty miles in 

 length, into which several large rivers flow, must be considered in 

 its piscatory relation as the monster reservoir of Ireland. 



The spawning grounds furnished by such an extent of country are 

 necessarily very numerous, and capable of producing much value. 

 Many deep and spacious loughs afford refuge for the parent fish before 

 and after depositing their spawn, as well as for the tiny brood. Such 

 retreats are very advantageous to the fish; their absence in other 

 districts is detrimental to the increase of salmon, particularly in dry 

 seasons, when the waters become low in smaller rivers which are not 

 supplied with lakes or deep pools. 



When the great extent of the Shannon and of the rivers connected 



