PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ON THE GENERAL IMPROVEMENT OF THE Navigation of the Shannon, BETWEEN LIMERICK AND THE ATLANTIC; AND MORE PARTICULARLY OF THAT PART OF IT NAMED BY PILOTS, THE NARROWS. WITH SOME REMARKS INTENDED TO CREATE A DOUBT OF THE FAIRNESS OF NOT KEEPING FAITH WITH THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLICS, AFTER THEY HAD BEEN LURED INTO A SURRENDER OF LIMERICK, By a Treaty. BY THOMAS STEELE, Esq. ONE OF THE PROTESTANT MEMBERS OF THE IRISH CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION; The Greeks a kind of Eastern Irish Papists. LORD BYRON. Childe Harold. Notes. 2-27-57 99-56296 ΤΟ THOMAS TELFORD, Esq. PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, F.R.S.L. &E. SIR, Ennis, County Clare, Dec, 1827. On the evening when I took my seat of In the progress of your Work, Sir, for drawing the two Countries by so many hours nearer to each other than they were before, you have not only formed one of the most magnificent Roads in the world over the mountains of Wales, but you have suspended in the mid-way air-not over a river, but over a portion of the mighty deep itself a Monument to your Genius, harmonizing with the objects around, beneath, and on high; for, like the ridge of the Cambrian mountains, the ocean-tide, and the firmament of Heaven, the Bridge over the billows of the Menai, is sublime. INTRODUCTION, WITH respect to the form in which I have written the Remarks in the Second Part, I wish to say a few words. One still and solemn evening last autumn, a little after sunset, I was in a boat on the Upper Shannon, returning to Limerick. I had passed that branch of it called the Abbey River, and was observing a part of the Island, the ancient Bridge, the towers of the Castle, dark almost to blackness, by the incessant smoke of several forges which are under them-the gloomy trees in St. Munchin's Church-yard, hanging over the water, the Gothic turrets of St. Mary's Cathedral, and the City itself -combining in such a manner, by the progress of the boat, as to form what Artists call, technically, a picture. My mind being a good deal occupied at the time with the subject of the Navigation of the Shannon, I called to memory, while I was gazing on the prospect before me, the story of the loss of the Rose of Chester, by striking on one of the |