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| SHANNON BRIDGE, KINGS CO. AND ROSCOMMON. -This bridge, of sixteen arches and a swivel, which allows the passage of boats up and down stream, crosses the big river some miles north of Shannon Harbor. The town to which it gives name is not a place of much importance in these day, although, formerly, it was fairly prosperous. Both "the Bridge" and "the Harbor" figure occasionally in the works of Lever and other Irish writers of fiction. The Bridge connects Kings County with Roscommon, while Shannon Harbor is in the county Galway. Dealing with the latter, in "Jack Hinton," Charles Lever writes of the Grand Canal, the Fly Boats, the "hotel" kept by the inimitable Corney Delaney, and also of that worthy's mother, who begs of "Jack" not to hurt "the child"-Corney being then an interestng infant of sixty summers. Well, neither Bridge nor Harbor has much improved since the days of Hinton. The latter is still somewhat of a business centre, and marks the main connection, by water, of Leinster with the ancient "Kingdom of Connaught." In ancient times, faction fights-barbarities done away with by the advance of civilization-occurred on the Bridge, where the warriors of the two provinces used to cross shellelaghs, "just to determine who were the better men" in a rough and ready tournament. In times still more ancient, hostile armies frequently encountered each other, with bloody results, at this important crossing. |
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