THE COUNTRY TOWNS 295 



Our next stopping-place was Nenagh, a big, form- 

 less town, dependent entirely upon the agriculture of 

 the country around, and some of our party acquainted 

 of old with Nenagh were not slow to remark evidences 

 of increasing prosperity in the town. The most 

 notable feature, perhaps, was the number of agricultural 

 implements, especially reapers and binders, on view in 

 the street ; evidently there was an improving market 

 for farming tackle, and the shops themselves showed 

 here and there a fresh coat of paint or a regilded sign, 

 as though trade was producing a few shillings to spare 

 and a little encouragement to enterprise. Our route 

 now lay due south to Cork, but we had to wind 

 considerably to turn the ranges of Old Red Sandstone 

 hills which break up through the limestone floor in the 

 south of Ireland. From Nenagh to Thurles the road 

 lies between the Keeper and the Devil's Bit Hills, a 

 country of small farms with perhaps one-third of the 

 land in tillage ; thence the road traverses the limestone 

 plain again to Cashel. Approaching Cashel the 

 the farming improved, the corn crops were very fair, 

 and we saw more barley than oats, more roots than 

 potatoes. Cashel is one of the holy places of Ireland, 

 with its exquisite ecclesiastical ruins set high on a 

 great crag of limestone in the midst of the town, but 

 the town itself is depressing in the extreme houses in 

 every stage of unoccupation and ruin, and a general 

 air of decayed greatness and present squalor over all. 

 Thence to Cahir, the proportion of tillage declined, and 

 the farms were mostly in grass and stocked with milch 

 cows ; the soils are thin and the limestone near, but 

 the bogs are no longer in evidence ; indeed, from 

 Nenagh southwards we saw little or no bog. At 

 Cahir, a bright little town, we entered the broad green 

 valley between the Galtee and the Knockmeledown 



