Rutter in his history of Irish spas, who received his information of Castleconnell spa from his contemporary Dr. O'Halloran. It has been observed that there are few cities in Europe more delightfully situated than Limerick. In the midst of a country teeming with agricultural and mineral riches, and surrounded by one of the most abundant salmon fisheries in the world,' with all the advantages of navigation, etc., it requires only the hand of industry and enterprise, to constitute it all that it was intended by Providence it should be. Seen from the towers of St. Mary's cathedral, it presents a view that cannot be surpassed for picturesque beauty and antiquarian interest. North and south, east and west, the country about it, bounded in the distance by ranges of lofty mountains, is fertile to a proverb, constituting a portion of the "golden vein". The broad Shannon winds its course above the city, and expands into an estuary below on its way to the Atlantic Ocean, after traversing 240 miles from its source in Leitrim, where, flowing out of Lough Allenimbedded in lofty hills abounding in iron and coal-it washes the county of Roscommon, expands into the great Lough Ree, twenty miles long and four broad; going on by the counties of Tipperary and Galway to Portumna, in a more confined channel for thirty-seven miles; then through Lough Derg to Killaloe, and thence by the Doonas, with a fall of ninetyseven feet to Limerick-the scenes of ancient battles, and of more modern sieges: the old castles, the bridges the quaint streets of the Englishtown, with their fading and falling Dutch gables-the Irishtown, with its historic places-the handsome and regular streets of the new town, with its churches, public buildings, shops, private residences, etc.-these objects all group together into a panorama on which the eye loves to dwell, suggesting the thought that a city so well circumstanced, must eventually rise superior to any combination of adverse circumstances by which it may be encumbered, and that as it has been "the fairest city of Munster", so it will not only preserve its reputation in that respect, but become the busy seat of manufacturing and commercial enterprise-the home of prosperity-as it has always been the pride of Irishmen in whatever part of the world they may dwell. The Shannon is well described in a beautiful sonnet by Sir Aubrey de Vere: "River of billows! to whose mighty heart The tide wave rushes to the Atlantic sea- River of old poetic founts! that start From their old mountain cradles, wild and free, Nursed with the fawns, lulled by the woodlark's glee, And cushats' hymeneal song apart! River of chieftains whose baronial halls, Like veteran warders, watch each wave worn steep, Carrick's stern rock, the Geraldine's grey keep- My lips with Limerick's wrongs-with Aughrim's woes ?" About two miles south from Limerick, at a place called Newcastle, is a very fine race ground, with a permanent stand, where the sporting events celebrated in a well-known ballad are generally held. These races have latterly attracted a great deal of attention even in England. About a 1 An inquiry was held by the commissioners of Fisheries in March, 1865, into the legality of the great Lax weir, which ended in an unanimous judgment on the part of the Commissioners in favour of the weir. mile farther on, and in nearly the same direction, but nearer the Shannon, are situated the picturesque ruins of Castle Troy, once the seat of the K'Eogh family, of whom Mahony K'Eogh forfeited in the time of Cromwell, for his loyalty to the Stuarts. Dr. John K'Eogh, D.D., author of several learned works, and father of the author of the Botanologia Universalis Hibernica, the Zoonomia Hibernica, etc., was a member of this family. Further on in the same direction, is Mount Shannon, the beautiful demesne and residence of the late Earl of Clare, remarkable for its fine classical library, on which John, second Earl of Clare, expended a large sum of money. Near Mount Shannon are Rich Hill, the handsome residence of William Howley, Esq., D.L., Woodsdown, where Field Marshal Lord Gough was born, which is now in the occupation of W. G. Gubbins, Esq., J.P., and which is divided from Annacotty Mills, etc., by the river Mulcair. A few miles east of Mount Shannon is Glaenstal Castle, the magnificent residence of Sir William Hartigan Barrington, Bart., and Clonshavoy, the tasteful residence of Caleb Powell, Esq., ex-M.P. for the county Limerick. In the vicinity of Limerick there are several attractive localities which merit attention, and to which excursions can be made by rail or boat, or by road, at a comparatively small cost, some of which may be noticed in a subsequent portion of this work. The picturesque village of Kilkee, romantically situated upon the Clare coast, is the favourite bathing-place of the citizens of Limerick, who generally repair thither in considerable numbers when the season arrives. There are many other places within a few miles distance, which will well repay a visit, from the beauty of their scenery and their antiquarian and historical interest. Such are Carrig-o'-Gunnell, Adare, Castleconnell, Bunratty, Killaloe, Lough Gur, etc. For those, indeed, who are fond of exploring Druidic, military, and ecclesiastical antiquities, there is no county in Ireland which supplies more ample materials than Limerick, which possesses likewise numerous attractions for the lovers of sporting. The last act of parliament passed in reference to Limerick, is that which empowers the Corporation to make an embankment at Corkanree, and to add to the city a certain portion of Corkanree which had been in the county. This act passed the committee of the House of Lords on Thursday, the 4th of May, and received the royal assent soon afterwards. Thus the citizens will be soon provided with a healthful and much-needed park and promenade.' CHAPTER LIV. EARLY ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF LIMERICK.DESCRIPTION AND ANNALS -ST. MUNCHIN, OR MANCHENUS. -ST. MUNCHIN'S CHURCH. KING WE Come now to that portion of our history which brings us back to events of remote ecclesiastical antiquity, being that period at and before St. Patrick's visit, on which so much discussion has arisen. The chronicles From this park the quays and shipping will be seen to advantage. Two other fine views may be obtained from the Corbally Road outside, and the Military Road inside the city. The Crescent with the O'Connell monument, Pery Square with the Rice monument, the Redemp of some of our religious houses, especially their interior history, are necessarily meagre. Most of the records which the ravages of the barbarous Dane had spared, perished at the time of the Norman invasion, of the dissolution of monasteries under Henry VIII., and subsequently in the Cromwellian and even Williamite wars. But it is certain that a knowledge of Grecian and Roman literature and art, including a superior style of architecture, was known in Ireland long before the invasion, and that the Gospel was diffused abroad, and the blessings of education were known at home anterior to that disastrous event. Limerick appears to have been one of the first places in Ireland to attract the attention of the early Christian missionaries, the antiquity of its religious foundations ascending so high as the beginning of the sixth century, if not still higher.' About the year 549, the holy Comin founded the churches and towers of Inniscalthra, on the Shannon. After the bloody battle of Cuildrheinne, which was fought between Dermod and Cuorrane Mac Aodla, in which the latter was aided by St. Columba, whose asylum he sought, which was invaded by Diurmuid-the victory being attributed more to the prayers of the saint than to the valour of the soldiery-Dermod had scarcely recruited the loss of the battle, when he commenced a war against the gallant Guare, King of Connaught. It is believed that he refused to pay the provincial tax, crowning Dermod as a monarch, who marched his army along the Shannon, probably to a little above Killaloe. The mediation of the holy Comin proved fruitless, as all remonstrances were rejected by Guare, who was foretold by the saint that his troops would be routed. The monarch's horse and foot plunged into the Shannon, forcibly gained the opposite bank, routed the enemy, who fled precipitately, yet rallied the following day. Guare, dreading to make his country a scene of war, surrendered himself to the monarch. Before St. Columba established his celebrated monastic institution in the Scotch Island of Iona, an institution which remained undisturbed for two hundred years, an abbey had been founded at Mungret, the ancient Mongairit, about two miles south-west of Limerick, by St. Nessan surnamed the Leper, who was confirmed by St. Patrick himself in the abbacy, and who died in 551, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, but according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise, in 561. Mungret is even at this day a ruin of considerable size, and exhibits many tokens of high antiquity. The doors and windows of the church have either horizontal stone lintels, or that sort of round arch-head which denoted the Romanesque, less correctly, we think, called Norman architectural period which preceded the introduction of the pointed style. The detached building on the road side bears marks of fire on its square lintel stones; and the roof, which, judging from the shape of the gables, torist Church and Convent, the Convent and Orphanage of Mount St. Vincent, St. Michael's Protestant Church, built A.D., 1843-4-5, the Model Schools, the Turkish Baths with their minarets and other oriental features, etc., are all visible from the Military Road. De hac regione (says O'Flaherty) et Corcoiche plebe fuit S. Molua divo Bernardo (S. Bernard in vita Malachia, S. Luanus), Luanus clarus, S. Comgalli discipulus, cujus monasterium celebre Cluanfertense in Reginali agro, et Lagisia ad radicem montis Smoil, qui mons Bladma dictur-(Ogygia, p. iii. p. 381.) The festival of this saint is celebrated on the 25th July, and as a coincidence with his surname we may mention that near the eastern borders of the parish, opposite Ballinacurra, are the ruins of an ancient hermitage, which was afterwards said to have been an hospital for lepers. must have been built somewhat in the style of Columbkill's House at Kells, St. Molua's at Killaloe, and St. Kevin's at Glendalough, was like these venerable structures, probably covered with large slate-like stones, several of which have been turned up in the field immediately adjacent to the building. The well known legend of the "wise women of Mungret", monks who disguised themselves in female attire, and who frightened away by their extraordinary learning certain professors from Lismore, who had come to test it, is familiar to every person in the vicinage. It is illustrative too of the admiration always felt for martial prowess by the Irish, that those soldier monks, the Knights Templars, who occupied the old Castle of Mungret, are still spoken of with great reverence in the neighbourhood, not only for their piety but their warlike spirit. If tradition can be relied on, they occasionally did garrison duty at Carrig-o-gunnell, and were well disposed, if not actually bound by engagement, to render military service when called on.' The traditions about the abbey itself are not numerous. That Mungret was a famous religious house, formed by St. Patrick, that its students and monks were most numerous after it became a great college as well as a monastery, that there were of one name alone, one hundred and forty of the inmates called "John Loftus", and that the monastery and college were burned by the Danes, and afterwards by Cromwell's forces, or probably by General Scravenmore, who blew up Carrig-o-gunnell in the Williamite wars, who are stated in the local traditions to have shelled it from the Shannon, on which occasion, whenever it happened, they are said to have set fire to the then thatched roof of the monastery; these are about the whole of the existing local traditions that refer to the history of this celebrated establishment. The great eastern window was some time ago quite covered with ivy externally, but some treasure-seekers removed it without doing any further mischief. Internally on the right side of the same window, which is broken into two lights by a mullion, there stood, until within the last few years, a fine specimen of a piscina, the bottom resembling the impress of a human face, which some Vandal, or dishonest antiquarian visitor, has lately destroyed if not removed. The people for miles around, were, in our memory, in the habit of applying their faces to this stone as a supposed remedy for headache. The venerable ash trees which occupied the northern side have also disappeared. And indeed even the very walls of this truly venerable house would have long ago been destroyed, had the builder of the new church been permitted to construct the new edifice on the site of the old. But the people of the neighbourhood firmly opposed it, and fortunately carried their point. The Psalter of Cashel states that the Monastery of Mungret had within its walls six churches, and, exclusively of numerous scholars, 1,500 monks, Those who think we have assigned too high an antiquity to the existing walls of Mungret, will see that Dr. Petrie thought them still older. The ruined Church in the Inis Lua, near Killaloe, does not look much older than the detached Church of Mungret. The former, however, is one of our oldest stone churches. (See Petrie's Round Towers, p. 183.) It is the belief of the peasantry near Mungret that a subterraneous passage connected the house of the Knights Templars, if not the Monastery, with the Castle of Carrig-o-gunnell. In proof of the truth of this opinion they point out a part of the road where there is a sort of hollow sound as if it closed a vault or archway. They also show the pond where the professors, disguised as women, pretended to be washing, and addressed their visitors in Greek, etc., like the story told in Rabelais. 3 Loftus's Road received its name from three brothers. of whom 500 were learned preachers, 500 psalmists, and 500 wholly employed in spiritual exercises. The ruins of the abbey, which was situated on the south side of the Shannon, consist of the walls of a church which by no means bespeak their former splendour. The west end is 47 feet long by 16 broad, with a plain narrow window. The centre or nave is 33 feet by 28; and the communication from this to the east end is by a small arch. On the north side of the nave is a small porch or entrance. The west end is 12 feet by 22, on the north side of which is a small square tower, with ruined battlements. There are no ancient tombs to be found there. To the east of this are the ruins of another church, and about 300 yards distant from it, the remains of a tower and gateway. About 150 yards north of the church is a solidly built house, which we have spoken of as bearing marks of fire. It is of considerable extent, with lofty walls and jointed gables, with a narrow circular-headed window at the east end, and entered by a square ladder doorway on the west. In the adjoining fields extensive foundations are frequently found by the plough, and are also met with at Temple Mungret, which stands about half a mile north of the Protestant church, which was originally the hospital of the Knights Templars, and afterwards the manor house of the Bishop of Limerick. The bell of Mungret-one of those ancient objects so interesting to the Christian archæologist was dug up at Loughmore, in the same parish, near the abbey of Mungret; it is described in a popular periodical,' in which it is also pictorially represented, as of a square form, as a specimen of very rude workmanship, much corroded by time, and composed of a mixed metal, hammered and riveted together. The bell of Mungret is alluded to by Keating. The early history of St. Nessan, who was a contemporary of St. Senan and Carthage, is involved in obscurity. We cannot admit, according to Lanigan, who remarks that it is strange that Ware says nothing of Mungret, the story of his having become a disciple of St. Patrick, when in Munster. He may have been at least in part a disciple of St. Ailbe, in Emly, with whom he was in the habit of conversing on theological subjects. At the time of these conversations he could not have been very young, as it may fairly be inferred he was born before the sixth century. He was then probably at that time, or before Ailbe's death, abbot of Mungret. He never rose higher in the Church than the rank of deacon, by which title he was known during his life and ever since. Yet his reputation was so great, that he has been considered as one of the Fathers of the Irish Church, and therefore it can sarcely be doubted that he was that Nessan named in the second chapter of the saints. St. Neassan or Nessan, is thus spoken of in the Martyrology of Tallaght, by Cumin of Connor, who flourished, according to Colgan, about the year 635:"Neassan, the holy deacon, loved an angelic pure mortification. There never came past his lips anything that was false or deceitful". The following are the leading events in the history of the abbey which we find in the ancient chronicles:-St. Neassan was succeeded in the abbey by St. Munchin, son of Seadna, grandson of Cas, and great grandson of Conall of the Dalgais, and nephew of Bloid, King of Dublin Penny Journal, vol. iv. p. 237. Our authorities are M'Curtin, Lanigan, Annals of the Four Masters, Colgan, Trias Thaumaturga, et Vit. Sti. Pii. Acta Sanctorum, Keating, etc. |