SNIPPET: Englishman Richard LOVETT kept notes of his journey throughout the Emerald Isle in 1888, and these were published that same year by 'The Religious Tract Society.' Vowing to "keep an open mind," LOVETT demonstrated a deep interest in Ireland and genuine respect for its people. In fact, he stated that if the English spent more time getting acquainted with Ireland they would rethink their position on the Irish. Lovett stated, "A steamer ran regularly to the Arran Islands, these are three rocky island lying off the mouth of Galway Bay, abounding in ruins of the most remarkable kind, and inhabited by a simple and kindly race of peasant fisherman. On these islands, at places like Barna, in Galway Bay, and in fact almost universally along the western coast, the traveller meets and can readily test the seaworthy qualities of the curragh, the representative of the ancient coracle. These boats, made of tarred canvas stretched over a light frame, frail as they seem, can live in very rough weather, and are managed with very great skill by the boatmen. Their chief defect is that they make much leeway when there is a strong breeze. But any one who wishes to make a voyage along this coast in much the same fashion as the Christian missionaries in the fifth and sixth centuries, can do so by employing the modern curragh. After exhausting in a more or less rapid fashion the sights of Galway and the neighbourhood, most travellers push on into the wilds of Connemara. Loughs (lakes) Corrib and Mask, together with the village of Cong, lie at the beginning of the route. During the summer a steamer sails daily from Galway to Cong, traversing Lough Corrib, which is not only one of the largest but also one of the loveliest in Ireland. It covers an area of no less than 44,000 acres. it is studded with islets, the most important being Inchagoill, or the "the island of the devout foreigner,' which contains an ancient graveyard and the ruins of two very old Irish churches. The more ancient of the two is known as Teampull Phaidrig, or St. Patrick's Church, and has claims by no means despicable to be considered as belonging to the age of the great Irish missionary. There is, moreover, upon Inchagoill a stone monument bearing the inscription, "the stone of Lugnaedon, son of Limeneuh," who is generally held ! to have been the sister of St. Patrick. Experts have decided that on paleographical grounds the inscription cannot be referred to a later date than the beginning of the sixth century. The second church, Teampull-na-Neave, "the church of the Saint,' is several centuries younger than St. Patrick's, and presents to the student of church architecture a very fine example of the decorated, circular-arched, cluster-pillared doorway. On the isthmus connecting Loughs Corrib and Mask stands the village of Cong, the name being derived from the Irish word "Cunga," which mean "a neck." About the year 1010 Cong was the seat of a bishopric, and there are still extant the ruins of a very fine abbey dating from the twelfth century. It belonged to the wealthy order of St. Augustine. During the last fifty or sixty years the remains have suffered severely from the depredations of those who considered and used it as a handy quarry. It was famous in early days for wealth and ecclesiastical treasures; of the latter the famous Cross of Cong, is a good example. This is a famous relic, dating from the Middle Ages, enshrining and illustrating, the traditions and habits and life of the early Irish church. This cross was constructed, as one of the five inscriptions upon it states, for the following purpose: 'In this cross is preserved the cross on which the Founder of the World suffered.' In other words, it is a reliquary (a! receptacle for sacred objects) and at one time was believed to contain a piece of the cross upon which Jesus Christ suffered 'the just for the unjust,' in order 'that He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad' It was made by order of Turlough O'Connor, father of the last king who ruled Ireland prior to the Norman invasion, about the year 1123, and placed in the Church of Tuam, during the Archbishopric of Muiredach O'Duffy, who died in 1150. This is clearly shown by the inscriptions still decipherable upon it. It was transferred to Cong either by O'Duffy, who died there, or by order of King Turlough O'Connor, who founded and endowed that abbey. At that time of the Reformation it was concealed in an oaken chest, and early in the present century a parish priest, the Rev. Mr. Prendergast, found chest and relic in a cottage. From his successor, Professor MacCullagh bought it, and presented it to the Museum (Dublin). The shaft is thirty inc! hes high, the arms eighteen and three-quarter inches broad, and it is one and three-quarter inches thick. It is of oak, covered with plates of copper. On the central plate of the front at the junction of the cross is a large crystal, through which what was supposed to be the true cross could be seen. Eighteen jewels were placed at regular intervals, and of these thirteen still remain. Two out of the four beads which originally surrounded the central boss of the four beads remain. The lower part of the shaft is the head of a grotesque animal, beneath which is the richly decorated ball containing the socket into which the pole was inserted by which the reliquary was borne aloft on processional occasions. The Annals of the Four Masters record that in "A.D. 1150, Muireadhach Ua Dubhthaigh, Archbishop of Connaught, chief senior of all Ireland in wisdom, chastity, in the bestowal of jewels and food, died at Cong in the 75th year of his age.' This man's name is inscribed upon the p! rocessional Cross of Cong.".. (The village of Cong) -- "Roderick O'Connor, who is often described as "the last King of Ireland,' died here in 1198. The popular view, that he was also interred in Cong Abbey, is incorrect, he having been buried at Clonmacnois. But here he spent the last fifteen years of his life. 'Standing between the river and the abbey, the picture naturally rises before us of the ancient monarch, broken down by the calamities which his family was suffering from, a foreign invasion, which he was no longer able to resist, but still more so by the opposition and ingratitude of his own children and relatives - passing up the river with his retinue, landing here in 1183, and received by the Lord Abbot and his cannons and friars, and then taking leave of his faithful adherents at the water's edge, being conducted in procession to the abbey, which, it is said, his munificence had endowed. There as a recluse, untrammelled by the weight of state affairs, and possibly unaffected by the quarrels o! f his chieftains and kinsfolk, the Last Monarch of Ireland, abdicating his authority because the country no longer supported him, died, a sad but fitting and prophetic emblem of the land over which he had ruled.' Not far from Cong is the plain of Moytura, where one of those famous battles - half-historic, half-mythic, lasting three days, took place in the dawn of Irish history between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaan. Those who wish to get some accurate notion of what really took place on that occasion cannot do better than consult Sir W. Wilde's "Lough Corrib," where they will find the history of the great struggle minutely traced. Lough Mask is about nine miles long and four wide, in a very beautiful part of the country, abounding in traces of ruined castles and churches. The river connecting the two lakes runs partly underground, and we are able to give an engraving of one part of this subterranean channel where it is easily accessible and widens out into what is known as the 'Pigeon Hole.' The lively Celtic imagination, which has produced all over Ireland such a rich crop of fairy lore and local legends, has enriched the stream with a brace of holy white trout, which it would be impious in the extreme to catch."