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the traveller pursues his route in Ireland—along the coast line which borders the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, over the inland plains of the central region, or yet through the mountains and valleys which lie between that central plain and the sea—there is one ever-present object in the landscape, whose presence after a time ceases to attract attention through the simple fact of its perpetual recurrence.

It is the ruin.

Ruins of great monastic edifices and abbeys—some set on lonely islands in silvery lakes, some standing amid meadows where winding river-reaches reflect their roofless outlines. Ruins of Plantagenet castles crowning some rock, which itself seems of material scarce less durable than the remnant of battlement above it. Ruins of hermit’s cell, of wayside chapel, of weed-grown cloister, of city rampart, of sea-beaten fortalice, of broken bridge and battered gable—everywhere they rise in view, the silent witnesses to 3