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| POULAPHUCA, CO. WICKLOW. -The name of this fall, rendered form Gaelic into English, means the Fairy's Pool, and is applied to a picturesque cascade, situated in the county Wicklow, where the river Liffey burstes its shining way through a gorge of rocks near the village of Blessington. As it is within easy reach of Dublin by rail, the cascade is a favorite resort of the people of Dublin in the pleasant summer time. The handsome parapeted and turreted bridge which spans the chasm is after the design of Nimmo, and was intended to interfere as little as possible with the striking natural features of the place. In this the architect has creditably succeeded, although "old timers" lament that the improvement has done away to a great extent with the native picturesqueness of the charming falls. No person, looking at the tiny stream that rushes under the artistic arch, could believe that the Anna Liffey swells to the proportions of a stately river when it reaches the confines of Dublin. On a small scale, Poulaphuca recalls the Dalles of Oregon, where the mighty Columbia, pent up in a tremendous, steep-walled canon, forces its way, like an angry giant, to the ocean. While the Falls are the chief feature of the immediate landscape they do not, by any means, exhaust all that is beautiful in river, hill and dale in the vicinity of Blessington. |
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