LEIXSTER. 411 



sprang up on that side of her seaboard which presented the greatest facilities for 

 keeping up an intercourse with the commercial countries from which a double 

 channel separates her. In this feature of her political geography Ireland resembles 

 Spain, but the causes which have had the same effect in both countries are 

 different. In the Iberian peninsula the inhabitants principally crowd the sea- 

 shore because of the cold and sterility of the plateaux and mountains which fill the 

 interior of the countr}'. In Ireland it is the necessity of commercial intercourse 

 which accounts for the existence of busy seaport towns, the vast bogs of the central 

 plain, which were formerly hardly passable, contributing, no doubt, in a certain 

 measure to that result. The most flourishing seaboard is naturally that which 

 faces England, and here, right opposite to Liverpool and Holyhead, on a spot 

 marked by nature as the site for a great city, Dublin, the capital of the entire 

 island, has arisen. Belfast, in the north, occupies relatively to Scotland a similar 

 position to that of Dublin ; whilst the two towns of Wexford and Waterford, 

 opposite to the estuary of the Severn, share in the commerce with Southern 

 England. Cork, with its admirable harbour, has actually become the great 

 Atlantic emporium of the islands. As to Limerick, Gal way, Sligo, and London- 

 derr}"-, in the west and north of Ireland, they have hardly more than a local 

 importance as outlets for inland districts. 



Topography. 



Leinstek. — The province of Leinster occupies the south-eastern portion of 

 Ireland. Presenting a wide gap in its coast mountains towards England, which 

 opened a path into the great central plain, it was first to feel the heel of Norman 

 and Saxon invaders. Nearly the whole of this province is English now, not only 

 in speech, but in a large measure also in blood. But the Irish tongue still lingers 

 in the range of uplands which extends to the westward from the Mourne 

 Mountains, and into which the natives of the soil were driven when the invaders 

 appropriated and divided their lands. Another Irish- speaking district lies to the 

 south-west, towards Waterford.* 



The metropolitan county of Dublin occupies a narrow strip along the Irish 

 Sea, which extends westward into the plains of Meath, but comprises on the south 

 a portion of the Wicklow Mountains. Mount Kippure, on the southern border, 

 rises to a height of 2,473 feet. The centre of the county is traversed by the 

 Liffey, which discharges itself into Dublin Bay. The land is fairly cultivated. 



Dublin, or Ballagh-ath-Eliath-PiiibhIuinne, has not always been the capital of 

 Ireland. There was a time when the kings were crowned on the Hill of Tara, or 

 Teamhair — that is, the " Great House " — 25 miles to the westward, and antiquarians 

 have there discovered the remains of a monument, from which was, perhaps, 

 taken that Stone of Fate [Saxum Fatale) which, after having long been kept in the 

 abbey of Scone, has found a last resting-place in AYestminster Abbey. When the 

 * In 1851 52,868 persons in Leinster spoke Irish; in 1871 only 14,388. 



