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| ENNISTYMON, COUNTY CLARE.-The old town pictured in the above sketch is one of the principal places in the historic county Clare, and is situated on a branch of the West Clare Railway, near the head of Lisconnor Bay-one of the most romantic spots on the western coast of Ireland. The cascade shown in the picture is formed by a branch of the Cullenagh river, which flows by the town. Although Ennistymon can boast of only twelve hundred inhabitants, it is by no means the least prosperous place of its size in Munster. It has a good internal trade, and the country around it is reasonably productive. As in other sections of the country, the hand of the evictor has been actively against the people, and the ruins of hundreds of once happy homes testify to the thoroughness of the depopulating system of Irish landlordism. Ennistymon was prominent, as a municipality, in the great fight for Catholic Emancipation, under O'Connell's leadership, and, in 1829, materially aided in electing the great agitator to the British Parliament-the first Irish Catholic who obtained a seat in that body. The name of Ennistymon is derived from the Gaelic Inis-Diomain, translated "Diaman's river meadow." |
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