Killiney Hill and Bay, County Dublin
The stranger, on ascending KILLINEY HILL from Kingstown, finds that he has crossed the neck of a promontory, and looking either backward or forward has a noble view of the sea. Beneath him lies the silvery shore of KILLINEY BAY, bending its graceful crescent-line until it terminates in the noble promontory of Bray Head; landward, his eye rests upon the quiet intervening vale, with the mountains, pile upon pile, above it, and the greater and lesser Sugar-loaf lifting their blue pinnacles over all. When he has satiated his eyes with this glorious prospect, he has but to turn round, and a scene of inexpressible richness, variety, and grandeur meets his eye. Looking over Kingstown Harbour, he beholds, to use the language of an enthusiastic tourist, "the most splendid bay in Europe, spreading for miles its vast and lake-like level, adorned with all imaginable objects that can animate and diversify; the towns and shining outlets, the piers, docks, batteries, and beacons, the sails of every form—the darkening curve of steam—the cloud-like canopy of Dublin and Howth,
'Like a leviathan afloat on the wave.
shutting in the bay at a distance of a dozen miles."
One of the most striking features in the view from Killiney Hill, is Dalkey Island, which lies off the promontory. It is divided from the mainland by Dalkey Sound, a channel where ships may safely ride at anchor in eight fathoms water, sheltered by the island from the north-east wind, to which every other part of Dublin Bay lies exposed.
END OF CHAPTER VI.