Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/97

 try to give you a very short account of my tour in Ireland. We left London on the 15th June and making a short stay in Berkshire, crossed the Irish Channel and reached Dublin on the 21st June. Dublin is a fine town with a University and a beautiful park, but the Liffy on which it stands is exceedingly filthy. Not far from Dublin is Kingstown on the sea-shore,—a favourite haunt of Dublin cockneys, and like other sea-side towns a seat of courtship and love. And manifold are the charms of sea-side towns. The old and invalid come here to recruit their health, the student and the working people to have some relaxation and enjoy a holiday, and the young people of both sexes fly to these places from the reserve and rigid rules of busy towns to pay their offerings to the shrine of Love, or in plain English, to court and be courted.

From Dublin we went to visit some other places in the county of Wicklow. The "Vale of Avoca" is a beautiful valley between high ranges of hills through which the Avoca makes its way over a bed of pebbles for miles and miles together. The place where two tributaries meet and form the Avoca, is called the "meeting of the waters"