Round about the County of Limerick. By James Dowd. (G.
M`Kern and Son, Limerick.)—Those who accompany Mr. Dowd in his tour " round about the County of Limerick " will find much to interest them. He starts from Kilmallock, a place that rose into importance in Elizabethan times, with the picturesque ruin of its Dominican Abbey ; Knocklong, Adair, Glin a Glynn— the seat of the famous Knights—the Ardagh Cup, Castle Connell, and the Burke family are among the subjects of which he treats. Not the least interesting item in his description is the mention of the " Palatines," German immigrants who sought shelter in England when the French laid waste the Palatinate of the Rhine in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Lord Southwell and other Irish proprietors settled most of them on properties in Limerick, and though many emigrated to America in the course of the eighteenth century, numerous traces of them remain. They "have lost all traces of their native tongue," writes Mr. Dowd, " owing, it is said, to the custom of the early arrivals having had their Bibles buried with them." Mr. Dowd gives a list of Representatives of Limerick County. The most dis- tinguished, or shall we say notorious, of them was Smith O'Brien, who was first elected in 1835, and sat for fourteen years, till he was convicted of high treason in 1848.
Previous page
