The industrial resources of Ireland / By Robert Kane.

  • Kane, Robert, 1809-1890.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The industrial resources of Ireland / By Robert Kane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fourteen inches in thickness have been found, this coal district need not be considered as of any value. We arrive now at the last of the coal fields of this country, the Connaught district. It is one worthy of attention from its peculiar geographical position, and from the circumstances connected with the attempts made to establish the manufacture of iron within its bounds. Those attempts, part of the history of the too notorious Arigna Company, shall be treated of here- after. The localities of the coal only need occupy us now. The Shannon, the largest river in the British Islands, rises in the centre of the Connaught coal field, and falls into the Atlantic Ocean: dividing the counties of Clare and Kerry, and cutting through the centre of the Munster coal formation. Expanding in its inland course into a chain of extensive lakes, it intersects, through a line of 247 miles, some of the richest lands in Ireland, washing the banks of ten of the thirty-two counties of which our island is made up. It has its origin in the recesses of the Leitrim hills, where it springs almost with its full power from a vast gulf, the depth of which has not been yet ascertained, and almost immediately expanding forms Lough Allen, of which the area is 8900 acres. The picture of this district, as 1 saw it some two years since, has never left my mind. The dark brown hills, heather clad, rose abruptly from the water, excepting towards the south, where they were separated from the lake by level spaces of marshy bog. The patches of cultivation, small and rare, far from relieving the aspect of the scene, served but to render its dreariness more oppressive. ‘The lake, smooth as a mirror, reflected the bril- liant sky of midsummer. No wave disturbed it: the noise and bustle of active industry were far away. The melan- choly solitude of my walk was only broken by the approach of some wretched men, who had heard of the phenomenon of a stranger’s presence in their wilds, and pressed around, asking whether I was about to do anything for the country, to give employment. Alas! it was not in my power. As I walked on, there lay around niy path masses of iron ore, equally rich with the best employed in England. JI knew that in those hills, whose desolate aspect weighed upon my mind, there were