There is only one part of the Irish west coast where harbours for large craft are scarce, and that is the Donegal coast. It is said that there is no safe harbour between Killybegs and Loch Swilly, a distance of nearly a hundred miles. This is unfortunate; but stormy as the north-west coast is, there are always many days in summer when steamers could go from harbour to harbour in a calm sea. DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS Some may think, especially natives of Ireland, that writing about Dublin and its environs is mere waste of time, ink, and paper, seeing that there is so much known about them already. It should, however, be remembered that this book is intended for people who are not Irish, as well as for the Irish themselves. But even the Irish, and above all, the natives of Dublin, want to be told something that may be new to some of them about a city which so many of them seem neither to love nor admire as they should. There is, unfortunately, a certain class of people in Dublin who, although many of them were born there, think that it is one of the most backward and unpleasant places in Europe. They do not admire the beauty of its environs, and will not acknowledge willingly that it has been improved so much as it has been during the last twenty-five years. It has been improved and beautified in spite of them. Those citizens of Dublin who take no pride in it should go abroad and see as many cities as the author of this book has seen, and they would come back with more just ideas about Dublin. If there is any other city in Europe as large as Dublin, with environs more beautiful, where life is more enjoyable, and where life and property are more secure, it would be interesting to know where that city is. Dublin is a great deal too good for a good many who live in it. The history of Dublin may be said to commence with the Danish invasions of Ireland. It is rarely mentioned in Irish annals before the time when the Danes took it, and first settled in it in the year 836, according to the Four Masters. It probably existed as a small city long before the Danes got possession of it, and there is reason to believe that it was a place of some maritime trade at a remote period. It is stated on legendary more than on historic authority, that when Conn of the Hundred Battles and Eoghan Mór divided the island between them in the third century, the Liffey was, for a certain part of its length, the boundary between their dominions; and that the fact of more ships landing on the north side of the river than on the south side gave offence to Eoghan, who owned the southern shore of the Liffey, and caused a war between the two potentates. It is, however, hardly probable that Dublin was a place of much importance before its occupation by the Scandinavians in the first half of the ninth century. [Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET (O'CONNELL STREET).]