Journeying along the great road from Galway to Oughterard, and at the distance of about two miles from the latter, the attention of the traveller will most probably be attracted by a beautiful little river, over which, on a natural bridge of limestone rock, the road passes; and looking to the right, towards the wide expanse of the waters of Lough Corrib, he will perceive the grey tower or keep of an extensive castle, once the chief seat or fortress of the O'Flaherties, the hereditary lords of West Connaught, or Connemara. This castle is called the Castle of Aughnanure, or, properly, _Achaidh-na-n-Jubhar_, Acha-na-n-ure, or the field of the yews--an appellation derived from the number of ancient trees of that description which grew around it, but of which only a single tree now survives. This vestige is, however, the most ancient and interesting ruin of the locality. Its antiquity must be great indeed--more than a thousand years; and, growing as it does out of a huge ledge of limestone rock, and throwing its withered and nearly leafless branches in fantastic forms across the little river which divides it from the castle, the picturesqueness of its situation is such as the painter must look at with feelings of admiration and delight. It has also its historical legend to give it additional interest; and unfortunately this legend, though quite in harmony with the lone and melancholy features of the scene, is but too characteristic of the unhappy social and political state of Ireland at the period to which it relates--the most unfortunate period, as it may be emphatically called, of Ireland's history--that of the civil wars in the middle of the seventeenth century. The principle, however, which we propose to ourselves in the conducting of our publication, will not permit us to give this legend a place in its pages; it may be learned on the spot; and we have only alluded to it here, in order to state that it is to the religious veneration kept alive by this tradition that the yew tree of Aughnanure owes its preservation from the fate which has overtaken all its original companions.