MUNSTER. 433 



is a place of some industry, and amongst other articles supplies " Limerick 

 gloves." It has also some pretensions to be considered a seat of learnino- 

 and art, for it possesses a Queen's College, a museum, a public library, and 

 a number of learned societies. As the river Lee only admits vessels of 600 

 tons, the principal harbour of the town has been established lower down the 

 estuary. Descending the river in one of the steamers which ply on it, we 

 successively pass groups of houses, ship-yards, warehouses, and watering-places 

 before we reach Qiieensfown, or the Cove. Nearly all the larger steamers and 

 sailing vessels do not go beyond Queenstown, for Cork is a harbour of refuge and 

 equipment rather than a trading port. More than half its foreign trade is carried 

 on with America. Strong forts defend the entrance to the harbour. On Spike 

 Island, in its centre, is a convict prison. Passage West, Blackrock, and Monkstoicn, 

 on the western side of the harbour, are delightful watering-places. Cloyne, near 

 its eastern shore, has the ruins of a cathedral and a round tower. Midleton, on 

 the Owennacurra, which enters the north-eastern corner of the ba}', is a small 

 market town with a distillery. 



Amongst the villages in the neighbourhood of Cork, Blarney is certainly 

 most widely known, for in the grounds of its castle there lies a stone, kissing 

 which the humble worshipper is at once endowed with the persuasive eloquence 

 which forms so characteristic a feature of the people of Cork, but not with the 

 gift of unblushingly deviating from the truth, of which the people of Moncrabeau 

 make a boast. Macroom is the only noteworthy place in the valley of the Ujjper 

 Lee. 



llowjhal, at the mouth of the Blackwater, here crossed by a wooden bridge 

 1,787 feet in length, is important for its fisheries. It was in its neighbourhood 

 that Sir "Walter Raleigh planted the first potato — in the opinion of many, the 

 most fatal gift which the Old World ever received from the New. About 300,000 

 tons of seaweed are annually gathered on the beach of Youghal Harbour, to be 

 used as manure. On the Upper Blackwater are the towns of Fennoij and Malloic, 

 the former noted for its coach-building factory, the latter a cheerful market town : 

 both are beautifully situated. BuUemnt, a decayed town, with the ruins of an 

 abbey, and Boneraile, with marble quarries near it, are seated on the small river 

 Awbeg, which joins the Blackwater below Mallow. Kilcoleman Castle, where 

 Spenser wrote his " Faëry Queen," stands near the latter. Kanturk and MiUstreet 

 (Drishane Castle is near it), in the Upper Blackwater valley, and Mitchelstown and 

 Charleville, on the northern boundary of the county, are small market towns. 



The county of Waterford extends along the sea from the Blackwater to 

 Waterford Harbour, and is bounded inland by the Suir. Near its western 

 boundary rise the Knockmealdown Mountains, which throw off spurs, filling nearly 

 the whole of the county. 



Waterford, the great port of Eastern Munster, stands on both banks of the Suir, 



spanned by a bridge of thirty-nine arches. According to Thackeray, many of the 



inhabitants still deserve what a poet, who accompanied Richard II. to Ireland said of 



them four centuries ago : *' Watreforde, où moult vilaine et orde y sont la gente." 



138 



