THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
| Number 16. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1840. | Volume I. |
THE CASTLE AND LAKE OF INCHIQUIN, COUNTY OF CLARE.
Connemara itself, now so celebrated for its lakes and mountains,was not less unknown a few years since than the greaterportion of the county of Clare. Without roads, or houses ofentertainment for travellers, its magnificent coast and otherscenery were necessarily unvisited by the pleasure tourists,and but little appreciated even by their inhabitants themselves.But Clare can no longer be said to be an unvisited district:the recent formation of roads has opened to observation manyfeatures of interest previously inaccessible to the traveller,and its singular coast scenery—the most sublimely magnificentin the British islands, if not in Europe—has at least beenmade known to the public by topographical and scientificexplorers—it has become an attractive locality to artists andpleasure tourists, and will doubtless be visited by increasingnumbers of such persons in each successive year.
There is however as yet in this county too great a deficiencyin the number of respectable houses of entertainment suited tothe habits of pleasure tourists; for though the wealthier andmore educated classes in the British empire are becomingdaily a more travelling and picturesque-hunting genus, theywill not be content to live on fine scenery, but must have foodfor the body as well as for the mind; and truly they must beenthusiastic lovers of the picturesque, who, to gratify theirtaste, will subject themselves to the vicissitudes of such an uncertainclimate as ours, without the certainty of such consolingcomforts as are afforded in a clean and comfortable inn.
Yet we do not despair of seeing this want soon supplied.Wherever there is a demand for a commodity it will not belong wanting; and the people of Clare are too sagacious notto perceive, however slowly, the practical wisdom of holdingout every inducement of this kind to those who might be disposedto visit them and spend their money among them.The first step necessary, however, to produce such results inany little frequented district, is to make its objects of interestknown to the public by the pencil and the pen—the rest willfollow in due course; and our best efforts, such as they are,shall not be unexerted towards effecting such an importantgood as well for Clare as for many other as yet little knownlocalities of our country.
Clare is indeed on many accounts deserving of greater attention[Pg 122]than it has hitherto received. It is a county rich inattractions for the geologist and naturalist, and interesting inthe highest degree to the lovers of the picturesque. With asurface singularly broken and diversified, full of mountains,hills, lakes, and rivers, dotted all over with every class of ancientremains, its scenery is peculiarly Irish, and though of asomewhat melancholy aspect, it is never wanting in a poeticand historic interest. Such a district is not indeed exactlysuited to the tastes of the common scenery-hunter, for it possessesbut little of that woody and artificially adorned scenerywhich he requires, and can alone enjoy; and hence it has usuallybeen described by tourists and topographers with a coldnesswhich shows how little its peculiarities had impressed theirfeelings, and how incompetent they were to communicate toot