1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avoca, Vale of

AVOCA, or Ovoca, VALE OF, a mountain glen of county Wicklow, Ireland, in the south-eastern part of the county, formed by the junction of the small rivers Avonmore and Avonbeg, which, rising in the central highlands of the county, form with their united waters the Ovoca river, flowing south and south-east to the Irish Sea at Arklow. The vale would doubtless rank only as one among the many beautiful glens of the district, but that it has obtained a lasting celebrity through one of the Irish Melodies of the poet Thomas Moore, in which its praises are sung. It is through this song that the form “Avoca” is most familiar, although the name is locally spelt “Ovoca.” The glen is narrow and densely wooded. Its beauty is somewhat marred by the presence of lead and copper mines, and by the main line of the Dublin & South Eastern railway, on which Ovoca station, midway in the vale, is 423/4 m. south of Dublin. Of the two “meetings of the waters” (the upper, of the Avonmore and Avonbeg, and the lower, of the Aughrim with the Ovoca) the upper, near the fine seat of Castle Howard, is that which inspired the poet. At Avondale, above the upper “meeting,” by the Avonmore, Charles Stewart Parnell was born.