There Is A Fine Railway
Bridge Here, Lofty Enough For Schooners To Sail Under.
The land on both
sides of the river is like a garden, and is devoted to pleasure grounds
in the usual proportion.
I was wishful to see the very spot on the banks
of the Boyne where James and William fought for a kingdom long ago. As I
looked at the fair country checked off into large fields by green
hedges, at the waving trees of enclosed pleasure-grounds, I recalled
King William's words about Ireland, "This land is worth fighting for,"
and I thought he was right.
The Boyne is but a small river, no wider than the Muskrat at Pembroke,
but deep enough to carry schooners a little way up. There is a canal
beside it, and it was full of barges carrying coal and other things.
Near to Drogheda town, in the suburbs, is a bridge over the Boyne. I
crossed it looking for the locality of the battle. Meeting a clerical-
looking gentleman, I enquired if he could point out to me where the
battle of the Boyne was fought. This gentleman, who was a Franciscan
friar, directed me to keep along the road by the river bank, when I
would come to another bridge and the monument beside it. "It stands
there a disgrace to Drogheda and a disgrace to all Ireland," he said. He
showed me the new Franciscan church, a very grand cut stone building.
There is also a Dominican church, and an Augustinian, besides two
others, and there was the foundation stone of still another to the
memory of that Oliver Plunket, Catholic archbishop and primate of
Ireland, put to death in the time of Titus Oates.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 390 of 404
Words from 103360 to 103648
of 107283
