The Climate of Ireland

The moistness of the Irish climate is one of the peculiarities by which it is distinguished from that of England, yet the medium fall of rain in Ireland is less on the average than in most parts of the sister island. But the great characteristic difference between the two countries lies in the colour of the scenery; for whether it be owing to the moisture of the atmosphere, or a soil resting upon a substratum of limestone, or to both causes conjointly, certain it is, that the Irish landscape presents a clearness, a brilliancy, a dewy serenity and a vivid freshness essentially its own, and which has suggested the appropriately beautiful name of "The Emerald Isle," bestowed with so much poetic truth upon this verdant land. The changeableness of the skies of Ireland is indeed amply compensated by the variety of effect imparted to the landscape. "I wish," says the writer of the delightful Letters from the Irish Highlands, "I wish you were here in Connemara, to enjoy, in rapid succession, and in all its wild magnificence, the whirlwind, the tempest, the ocean's swell, and, as Burns beautifully expresses it,

To-day there have been fine bright intervals, and, while returning from a hasty ride, I have been greatly delighted with the appearance of a rainbow, gradually advancing before the lowering clouds, sweeping with majestic stride across the troubled ocean; then, as it gained the beach, and seemed almost within my grasp, vanishing among the storm of which it had been the lovely but treacherous forerunner. It is, I suppose, a consequence of our situation, and the close connexion between the sea and the mountain, that the rainbows here are so frequent, and so peculiarly beautiful. Of an amazing breadth, and with colours vivid beyond description, I knew not whether most to admire this aerial phenomenon when suspended in the western sky, one end of the bow sinks behind the island of Boffin, while at the distance of several leagues, the other rests upon the misty hills of Innis Turc; or when, at a later hour of the day, it has appeared stretched across the ample sides of Muilrea, penetrating far into the deep blue waters that flow at its base. With feelings of grateful recollection, too, we may hail the repeated visits of this heavenly messenger, occasionally as often as five or six times in the course of the same day, in a country exposed to such astonishing, and at times almost incessant, floods of rain."