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WESTPORT
The pleasantest part of the town is the Mall, planted with trees on either side of a small stream, and it is here the hotel is, which, by the way, needs a coffee room unconnected with the commercial room and a better smoking room to make it really comfortable.
Adjoining the town, and entered by gates from the Mall, is the Demesne of the Marquess of Sligo. The road runs through it to Westport Quay, and passes close to the mansion, left, an uninteresting square block at the head of a small inlet from the Bay. The grounds are silvan but not specially beautiful. When nearly clear of the trees, take the road on the left, which leads to Westport Quay (abt. 2m. from the Mall), as remarkable an instance of blighted enterprise as is to be found even in Ireland. Huge tenantless warehouses and scarcely used quays line the shore, “dismal mausoleums as vast as pyramids-places where the dead trade of Westport lies buried”
Clew bay, Co. Mayo
Further on, the road skirts the head of several little inlets from Clew Bay. There are a good many little villas, &c, and the place attracts a certain number of summer visitors. An extension of the railway runs to the Quay, but is scarcely used except for merchandise.
Ascent of Croagh Patrick, 2510 ft.; abt 2 hrs., from Murrisk Abbey, which is 6m. from Westport along the road through Westport way, just described.
Murrisk Abbey Co. Mayo (Crough_ Patrick in_background)
Murrisk Abbey, on the right, between the road and the bay, was an Austin Friary founded by the O’Malleys, early in the 14th century. Its principal feature is a good, 5-light, Decorated, East-Window.
You attack the ridge at once. Cross it at the E. foot of the cone, and on the far side take a winding path up to the summit. The view is both wide and beautiful. Immediately below is the islet-dotted expanse of Clew Bay, with Westport among the trees at its head. Nephin is clearly seen to the N.E., and to the N.W. is Achill with Slievemore, and left of that Croaghan. At the mouth of Clew Bay is Clare Island. To the S.E. are Mweelrea (2685 ft.) and Benbury (2610 ft.), and to the left many summits almost as high.
The S. face of the cone is precipitous, and it was there St. Patrick rung his bell and flung it from him, only to have it returned to him by invisible hands, whilst at each sound of the toads and adders fled from the Island of the Saints. His bed in the rock, where he slept, is still pointed out, and his day (Mch. 17) is still, we believe, observed as a “pattern” on the summit, though the devotees are not as numerous as once they were.
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