in most of the country towns, for instance.
Who is to support them? Absenteeism grows
worse and worse, and railways enable the agent
or other traveller to "move on" without
indenting on the resources of the local capital for
more than a mutton-chop. In one little (once
fashionable) watering-place on the coast of
Clare, Lahinch, where there is a really capital
hotel, I wonder how its owner can have the
heart to keep up anything, so utterly is the
place deserted, except by "the peasantry,'
who have an immense love of sea-bathing, but
who do not put up at the Victoria during their
visit.

Lahinch, by the way, is just the place where
a man who wants to economise should take his
family for a month or two. It is far more
accessible than Brittany, that paradise of economists.
You get to Limerick. I being a Wessex
man, and rather a good sailor, went across
from Bristol direct to Waterford; but you
may, if you please, go from Milford—a much
smoother passage (I am told) than that by Holyhead.
I fancy the Great Western will give you
return tickets to Limerick. Thence it is an
hour and a half by rail to Ennis, the capital of
Clare, with its huge jail full of memories of the
Terry-Alt days, and its column surmounted by
a statue of "the Liberator," whose election for
Clare settled off-hand the question of Catholic
emancipation. At Ennis, a "two-horse car"
meets the train, perhaps the pleasantest kind of
vehicle ever invented for dry weather; and, as
to weather, either I have been singularly lucky
during a long series of years, or the Irish
climate is shamefully maligned. I believe the
fact is, people don't go to Ireland at the right
time.

The Irish seasons are a little later than ours;
and so the wet which we get in July comes
on there in our usually dry August. Anyhow,
this year I hear a great deal about rain
in all parts of England, while over here those
interested in potatoes are crying out for a wet
day to swell the roots. Well. Your two-horse
car drives you through a pretty country, past
Ennistymon, an old seat of the O'Briens, where
there are portraits of Sarsfield, the defender of
Limerick, and lots more worthies of that and
earlier dates, and where there is a river on whose
stone flags you may see groups of girls who
have had a dip in the sea, taking a fresh-water
bath "to keep their skins in good order." At
last you get to Lahinch, at the head of a fine
bay with a castle on either point, and a lively
little fishing village, Liscannor, on one side,
and such a rush of water in from the Atlantic,
that although the sea has a double rampart of
very big shingle to break against it is constantly
knocking down the parapet which bounds the
esplanade. Who builds it up again I cannot
understand; Irishmen are not given to do such
things for themselves; most likely it is the
government. Possibly some one has the
repairing of it for a permanent job, just as they
told me a contractor gets fifteen pounds a year for
keeping the sand from getting over the road
just outside the place. For below the shingle
there is plenty of sand at Lahinch. I'm not
turfy, but I should think the beach would do
admirably for a race-course at low tide. I don't
claim originality for this idea. The idle donkey-boys
(fancy their being left idle, when they can
be hired, donkeys and all, for twopence and
threepence an hour!) were putting it into practice;
and I was sorry there was not here such a
cavalcade as one meets of an afternoon along the
Brighton Steyne: I am sure the horses would
have liked Lahinch sands much the better of the
two.

But I talked of economising. What do you
think of a place where meat is sixpence a pound,
where for threepence you can get fish enough
for four people's Friday dinner, where eggs are
sevenpence a dozen, and other things in proportion?
Room rent, too, is very moderate
compared with Welsh or English prices. One
Cornelius O'Brien, who owns two "lodges" facing
the sea, asks seven pounds for his best month,
and six pounds for June; or, if you don't
want so much accommodation and cannot stay
so long, he will give you three rooms for fifteen
shillings a week. At that rate, if you have
been used to Bangor or Weymouth, you will
pretty soon save your travelling expenses by
coming to Lahinch. To attract you yet, more,
I will say that the coast to the south is exceedingly
fine—Mal Bay it was called by the
unfortunate crews of the Armada, who found
evil enough there, as Spanish Point, where
several of their ships went ashore, can testify.
North of Lahinch, too, are the cliffs of Moher,
rising five hundred and eighty-seven feet above
the sea level, and stretching along unbroken for
several miles. Their peculiarity, which adds
much to their grandeur, is that they are not
masked by any débris at the base. Either the
mica-slate wears away differently from most
other rocks, or the swell of the Atlantic is
powerful enough to carry to a distance the
fragments which it washes off.

Yet I have not much hope of getting you to
Lahinch. I do, however, expect to be able to
persuade you to try at least a short run to
Connemara. I have just been making a dash over the
old ground again; and, by detailing my route, I
shall show what may be done in a single day
in the way of sight-seeing in West Galway. From
Lahinch I went to Lisdoonvarna, a "spa" not
mentioned in any map or guide-book that I can
find, and yet, just now, the most popular place
in Ireland among the Munster people. I heard
of it all the way off at Clonmel, and was told
that patients came there even from America,
much to the advantage (said my informant) of
"poor Ireland" (as he called her), for whose
good he himself could not be persuaded to wear
a home-made coat or to use good Dublin
instead of third-rate Sheffield cutlery. I did not
find any but natives there. I had to dine with
a lot of these at Lisdoonvarna. Three priests
gave me a share of their car. They preferred
the cheaper of the two hotels, so I went with
them. I am not ambitious of sitting down to