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miles in length and four in breadth; and thence proceeds as a broad and rapid river, passing by Athlone; then narrowing again until it reaches Shannon harbor; then widening into far-famed Lough Derg, eighteen miles long and four broad; then progressing until it arrives at Killaloe, where it ceases to be navigable until it waters. Limerick city; from whence it flows in a broad and majestic volume to the ocean for about sixty miles; running a distance of upward of 200 miles from its source to its mouth—between Loop Head and Kerry Head (the space between them being about eight miles), watering ten counties in its progress, and affording facilities for commerce and internal intercourse such as are unparalleled in any other portion of the United Kingdom.
"The spacious Shenan spreading like a sea," thus answers to the description of Spenser; for a long space its course is so gentle that ancient writers supposed its name to have been derived from "Seen-awn," the slow river; and for many miles, between O'Brien's Bridge and Limerick, it rolls so rapidly along as almost to be characterized as a series of cataracts. At the falls of Killaloe, it descends twenty-one feet in a mile; and above one hundred feet from Killaloe to Limerick. … Its banks too are, nearly all along its course, of surpassing beauty; as it nears Limerick, the adjacent hills are crowned with villas; and upon its sides are the ruins of many ancient castles. Castle Connell, a village about six miles from the city, is perhaps unrivaled in the kingdom for natural graces; and immediately below it are the Falls of Doonas where the river rushes over huge mountain-rocks, affording a passage which the more daring only will make; for the current—narrowed to a boat's breadth—rushes along with such frightful rapidity, that the deviation of a few inches would be inevitable destruction.
The immediate environs of Limerick are not picturesque; the city lies in a spacious plain, the greater portion of which is scarcely above the level of the water: at short distances, however, there are some of the most interesting ruins in the kingdom, in the midst of scenery of surpassing loveliness. Of these, the tourist should first visit Carrig-o-gunnel, next Adare, and then Castle Connell, the most beautiful of many beautiful places upon the banks of the noble Shannon.
1 From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."
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