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| ASKEATON, CO. LIMERICK. -The above historic town situated on the lovely river Deel, near the point where it falls into the Shannon, and is about sixteen miles westward from the city of Limerick. There is some dispute as to the Gaelic form and interpertation of the name. The Halls call it As-cead-tinne, more properly Eas-cead-tinne-"the Cascade of the Hundred Fires," from the falls of the Deel near the town, where, it is supposed, the Druidic Fire-worshipers had their heathen rites. Dr. Joyce has found the place alluded to as Eas-Gepatine, meaning the Cataract of Gephtine-"some old pagan chief." The ruins on the right of the picture are those of the Castle of the Earl of Desmond, which was blown up by his soldiers in 1574, in order that it might not fall into the hands of the English army, under Sir George Carew. The banquet hall is still preserved, and proves by its extent that Desmond, in the zenith of his power, fed there "five hundred men a day." The ruins shown in the left foreground, near the river, are those of the Franciscan abbey, described in a former number. Askeaton was formerly a walled town of considerable strength, and has honorably won its battle-scars. In the eleventh year of the reign of James I, it was incorporated as a town. During the Cromwellian wars it was alternately occupied by the Parliamentary and Confederate armies. The two sections of the place are connected by a solid bridge of five arches across the Deel, which, by the way, affords good sport for anglers. |
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