The Monastery of Newtown Trim.

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commenced a descent which proved almost miraculously successful. The birth-place of the Duke was, up to a very late period, supposed to have been the castle of Dangan, near Trim. The registry of St. Peter's parish, Dublin, contains the subjoined entry :—“ Arthur, son of the Earl and Countess of Mornington, born the 30th of April, 1769." The town residence of the Morningtons was at that date in Upper Merrion-street. This fact alone should set the question at rest. It was as member for the borough of Trim that young Arthur first appeared as a public man. In 1817 the gentry of Meath erected th beautiful Corinthian column which adorns the fair-green in commemo. ration of his Grace's military achievements.

Besides its noble Anglo-Norman stronghold, the town possessed two other castles, one of which, Talbot Castle, was erected early in the fifteenth century by the "Scourge of France."

"So much feared abroad,

That with his name the mothers still their babies."

This was Sir John Talbot, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1415. The Talbot arms, quartered with those of Furnival, may still be seen on a stone set in the northern wall. Here it was that for some time the future hero of a hundred fights, truly a modern "scourge of France," was at school. What remains of Furnival's Castle does not require any especial notice.

Quite close to the town-a beautiful meadow only intervening—are the ruins of a once noble monastery, called Newtown Trim, founded about A.D. 1206 by Simon Rochfort, or de Rupe-forti, for Augustine Canons, and dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. This establishment, though now in a lamentable state of dilapidation, was anciently one of the grandest in Ireland. The beauty of many of its remaining details, such as capitals, vaulting shafts, sedilia, window frames, banded shafts, &c., &c., is not exceeded even in our most important cathedral churches. The effigy of an ecclesiastic, supposed to be that of the founder, remains. It is now headless, and the missing member is traditionally reported to have been composed of solid silver. In June, 1533, Lawrence White, the last prior of Newtown, surrendered the house and its possessions, and in 1536 the priory was finally suppressed, and granted by Parliament to King Henry the Eighth.

Hard by are the roofless walls of a little building which is said to have been the parish church. It is in itself no way remarkable, but should be visited. Here may be seen a very fine and curious altartomb, erected to the memory of Sir Lucas Dillon, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Elizabeth. The figure of Sir Lucas is

represented clad in the armour of the period. At the knight's left side is the quaintly costumed effigy of his dame, Jane Bath. The monument displays much heraldic sculpturing, referring to the great Meath families of Dillon, Bath, and Barnewall.

Just a little below Newtown the Boyne is crossed by an ancient bridge, near the southern end of which will be found an extraordinary group of ruined towers which, with a small chapel, are all that remains of an hospital, or priory, of St. John the Baptist, founded here in the thirteenth century. It is supposed that a portion of these ruins belonged to friars of the order of Cross-bearers, or Crouched Friars, whose chief mission was the redemption of Christian captives.

From a window in this priory a wonderful view of the ruins of Newtown and of Trim may be obtained. In the immediate fore-ground is the ancient bridge, beyond which, in the middle distance, rise the ivied walls of the Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul, the old parish church, and picturesque groups of towers of all kinds, military and ecclesiastical, while the distance is closed by "King John's Castle," the Yellow Steeple, the lesser castles of the old town, and the graceful Wellington Monument.

The tourist may return to Navan by the road or by rail, via Kilmessan station. He should not leave this portion of the country without seeing Kells, and, if time and his engagements admit, Oldcastle. There is direct communication by rail between Navan and both these places. Kells is a thriving little town, situate about three quarters of a mile from the River Blackwater. Close to it is the magnificent demesne of the Marquis of Headford, which has been described as having in its general appearance a degree of magnificence arising from its extent, unity of design, the richness of the verdure, the long and gently inclined plains, into which the surface is naturally disposed, and the arrangement and preservation of the plantations." The lover of Nature cannot fail to be struck with the beauty and variety of the scenes here presented, and in the monuments of olden time, which crowd the town, the artist and the antiquary will revel. The more prominent of these are the magnificent sculptured crosses, of which several remain in a nearly perfect state of preservation. These are of a class almost peculiar to Ireland, and are covered with a profusion of Celtic ornamentation which, it is not too much to say, few modern designers could equal.

It is only of late years that this kind of artistic work has begun to attract the attention it so truly deserves. Here is a particularly good example of the round tower, and a church, or oratory, or dwellinghouse, which there is reason to believe is as old as the time of St.

St. Columb and Kells.

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Columba the apostle of the Picts, and founder of the great establishment of Iona, on the coast of Scotland, where so many kings of Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and of the Isles lie buried.

St. Columb's House occurs at a little distance from the cemetery. It is a small oblong building, presenting the earliest example of cylindrical vaulting to be found in the kingdom. This relic of a very remote period is usually classed with St. Kevin's Kitchen, Glendalough, St. Flannan's House at Killaloe, and one or two other structures of the earlier Christian age in Ireland. Whether we regard it as a habitation

of the eminent ecclesiastic whose name it bears, or as a church to which purpose this, in common with similar buildings, was certainly through many ages applied, it is a ruin of no common interest. The window which lighted its very curious croft is here figured. The hook of stone projecting from the wall is supposed to have been used by the Saint for the purpose of hanging his satchel of sacred books upon.

Before leaving Kells for good, the tourist fond of extensive views and of most primitive antiquities, and who might like to see one of the

curiosities of the country will do well to visit Donoughmore and examine its round tower and ecclesiastical remains. There are two of these towers in Meath, one at Kells, the other at Donoughmore, upon both of which we have already made a few remarks in preceding pages; that at Kells must have been seen in passing through. The circumference of the former is 66 feet at the base, and its height to the eave of the former conical cap is 100 feet. It is about a mile from Navan on the road to Slane. The ecclesiastical ruins by which it is surrounded are thus described in "Mr. and Mrs. Hall's Ireland" :

"This religious establishment, which was anciently called Donnachmor-Muighe-Echnagh-owes its origin to St. Patrick, as will appear from the following passage translated from the life of the Irish apostle. While the man of God was baptizing the people called Lusignii, at a place above where the church of Donnach-mor stands at this day, he called to his disciple, Cassanus, and committed to him the care of the church recently erected there, pre-admonishing him, and with prophetic mouth predicting that he might expect that to be the place of his resurrection; and that the church committed to his care would always remain diminutive in size and structure, but great and celebrated in honour and veneration. The event has proved this prophecy to be a true one, for St. Cassanus's relics are there to be seen in the highest veneration among the people, remarkable for great miracles, so that scarcely any of the visitors go away without recovering health or receiving other gifts of grace sought for."

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While in this neighbourhood, if time permits, the palace of the Bishops of Meath should be visited. The grounds are beautifully planted, and much care is evident in their keeping. Perhaps nowhere in the British dominions do we find loftier or more luxuriantly grown trees. One of them is a horse chesnut of very singular growth. The lower branches of the parent tree, when arrived at a certain age, became depressed and touched the soil, into which it gradually struck root; thence again sprung up a straight branch, which, in process of time, became a straight tree; and this again, following the example of its predecessor, lowered its branches, which, in like manner, fixed in the earth, and in the same way produced another tree. So that there is now actually a forest rising from a single root, and covering altogether a space of at least an acre." Near Castle Kieran, about three miles from Oldcastle, where history tells us Ciaran, or Kieran, died on the 14th of June, A.D. 770, are to be seen the ruins of an ancient church and several sculptured crosses. The ancient and stately crosses, the patriarchal tree, the rocky stream course, and the gray stones form a scene of romantic interest

The Holy Well and Holy Fishes.

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But the greatest wonder of the place is its little holy well, which is said to contain certain holy fishes (a brace of trout are certainly there), which, like those of Cong, in the County Galway, and Tubber Tullaghan in Sligo, must have been "enchanted," if we can believe current stories to the effect that they have been taken, cooked, and eaten without apparent inconvenience to themselves, as they were soon afterwards observed in their accustomed spot, lively as ever, and innocent looking as any ordinary specimen of the red-rained tribe. The well, now comparatively shallow, rises in a diminutive rough-sided limestone basin of natural formation, and evidently untouched by a tool. The water is particularly sparkling and clear, almost always; and at a time neither too bright or too sombre, a visitor peering through it may usually discover a brace of supposed "miraculous trout," which, according to tradition, have occupied their narrow prison from time immemorial. They are said never, in the memory of man, to have altered in size; and it is stated of them that their appearance is ever the same, with such slight changes of effect upon their speckled sides as might be expected under various conditions of light and shade. These, at least mysterious fishes, are considered very sacred.

Oldcastle.

Within a short distance of this little town, upon the hill or mountain of Slieve-na-Calliagh, or, at any rate, along its range, the botanist and geologist will find much to interest them. To the antiquary, to the explorer of monuments of the very remote past, the Slieve-na-Calliagh hills present a quarry almost inexhaustible. Here, indeed, within the radius of a rifle shot, are grouped together the most extraordinary prehistoric remains to be found in Ireland-perhaps in western Europe. One hill summit alone, the "Hag's Mountain," presents, in the space of a few acres, a greater number of richly carved megalithic sepulchres, surmounted by cairns and enclosed in circles of stones, than are to be found in Britain, Caledonia, and Gaul united.

Not one historical line in connexion with this great cemetery has been discovered, or at least identified with it; although a fanciful writer has attempted to prove the place to be the Tailtean of Irish history.

After having roamed, mused, or sketched amongst the lately noticed scenes of this beautiful, romantic, and archæologically interesting locality, the tourist, anxious for the North, is supposed to be making bis way, once more, towards Drogheda. If he have time to spare he should, on his return journey, devote at least three hours to a detour through King William's Glen, in order to examine the wonderful