SNIPPET: The county of Offaly (King's) is best known for its stretches of bogland and for its wild Slieve Blooms, which, rare for Irish mountains, are not close to the sea. It is also the site of 'St. Kieran's City' at Clonmacnois, on the banks of the Shannon, where the impressive remains of a large and significant monastic settlement, dating from 545 AD, describe a time when it was a centre of Celtic learning, literature and art, an era when most of the rest of Europe was being engulfed by the barbarian invasion. Another of Offaly's sources of repute rests in the demesne of the Birr Castle, home of the PARSONS family, earls of Rosse for 14 generations. Here in its Gothic-style housing lies the tube of what was, from the 1840s until 1917, the greatest telescope in the world, the 'Leviathan of Birr' which was constructed by Lord Oxmantown (later the 3rd Earl of Rosse) in 1845. An enthusiastic and observant traveller to Ireland, Englishman Richard LOVETT, wrote in 1888 -- "Many interesting tombstones exist at Clonmacnois, and many interesting objects of antiquity have been found there. Among these the museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin possesses a crozier which once belonged to the bishops of Clonmacnois, and which is a very fine specimen of this kind of Irish art. .... The situation is very lovely, the view of the Shannon very fine, the ride or the row from Athlone enjoyable, and even the most superficial inspection of the towers and arches and ruined churches can hardly fail to enrich the visitor with new and deep impressions of the vigorous religious life of Ireland eight hundred or a thousand years ago. Leaving Clonmacnois and following the course of the great river, Shannon-bridge and Banaghel are passed, and finally we reach Portumna. Here a swivel bridge, 766 feet long, has replaced an earlier wooden structure built by Lemuel CO! X, the architect of the still extant Waterford Bridge. There is nothing of special interest in Portumna, but the district around has become notorious in recent years on account of its agrarian troubles. Into these, however, it is not our function to enter. A few miles to the east of Portumna is Birr or Parsonstown, the residence of the late Earl Rosse, whose achievements in connection with the telescope are well known. Birr Castle is a fine pile of buildings, some portions of which are very ancient. About 1610 it came into the possession of the present family by a grant on the part of James I. to Sir Lawrence PARSONS. The great telescopes were built by the father of the present earl some fifty years ago. They are three in number, and are all reflectors; one 18 inches in diameter, one 3 feet in diameter, and the Great Telescope, six feet in diameter and 60 feet long, the largest astronomical instrument in the world. It was first erected in 1842, and although some impr! ovements have been made in the mounting, these are not very important. The concave mirrors are metal in all three, that of the Leviathan weighing nearly four tons. By the aid of these splendid instruments the late and the present earls have added greatly to our knowledge of the nebulae and of some branches of astronomical physics..."