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| VIEW IN CASTLE-CONNELL, CO. LIMERICK. -The picture is a view of one of the principal throughfares in the pretty town of Castle-Connell, situated in one of the most fertile sections in county Limerick. The wreck of O'Brien's Castle, mentioned in another sketch, is still to be seen, and many a fearful popular legend centres in it. One is to the effect that a Prince of Thormond, ages ago, visited the O'Brien who owned the castle, and, after receiving his hospitality treacherously seized upon him and put out his eyes-a punishment usually inflicted in those barbaric times on heirs apparent to thrones or principalities, because their blindness, in that warlike age, when every king, prince and chief was expected to fight, declared the victims from succession. Thomond, in addition to blinding his host and kinsman, caused him to be murdered by some soldiers who accompanied him. Another tradition is to the effect that the ruins of the castle will fall on the wisest of men, if he should happen to pass by it; and it is related, with glee, that a landlord in the neighborhood, not noted for wisdom, thought himself so sagacious that he always went by the place on horseback and at full gallop. There is a fine salmon fishery in the vicinity, on the river Shannon, and this attracts many foreign, as well as native, tourists to the town. Among the former, for years, was George Peabody, the American philanthropist, who also, it is said, gave a wide berth to the old castle. |
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