KILLALOE, a town of county Clare, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, at the lower extremity of Lough Derg on the river Shannon, at the foot of the Slieve Bernagh mountains. Pop. (1901), 885. It is connected, so as to form one town, with Ballina (county Tipperary) by a bridge of 13 arches. Ballina is the terminus of a branch of the Great Southern and Western railway, 15 m. N.E. of Limerick. Slate is quarried in the vicinity, and there were formerly woollen manufactures. The cathedral of St Flannan occupies the site of a church founded by St Dalua in the 6th century. The present building is mainly of the 12th century, a good cruciform example of the period, preserving, however, a magnificent Romanesque doorway. It was probably completed by Donall O’Brien, king of Munster, but part of the fabric dates from a century before his time. In the churchyard is an ancient oratory said to date from the period of St Dalua. Near Killaloe stood Brian Boru’s palace of Kincora, celebrated in verse by Moore; for this was the capital of the kings of Munster. Killaloe is frequented by anglers for the Shannon salmon-fishing and for trout-fishing in Lough Derg. Killaloe gives name to Protestant and Roman Catholic dioceses.
KILLARNEY, a market town of county Kerry, Ireland, in
the east parliamentary division, on a branch line of the Great
Southern & Western railway, 18514 m. S.W. from Dublin. Pop.
of urban district (1901), 5656. On account of the beautiful
scenery in the neighbourhood the town is much frequented by
tourists. The principal buildings are the Roman Catholic
cathedral and bishop’s palace of the diocese of Kerry, designed
by A. W. Pugin, a large Protestant church and several hotels.
Adjoining the town is the mansion of the earl of Kenmare.
There is a school of arts and crafts, where carving and inlaying
are prosecuted. The only manufacture of importance now
carried on at Killarney is that of fancy articles from arbutus
wood; but it owed its origin to iron-smelting works, for which
abundant fuel was obtained from the neighbouring forests.
The lakes of Killarney, about 112 m. from the town, lie in a basin between several lofty mountain groups, some of which rise abruptly from the water’s edge, and all clothed with trees and shrubbery almost to their summits. The lower lake, or Lough Leane (area 5001 acres), is studded with finely wooded islands, on the largest of which, Ross Island, are the ruins of Ross Castle, an old fortress of the O’Donoghues; and on another island, the “sweet Innisfallen” of Moore, are the picturesque ruins of an abbey founded by St Finian the leper at the close of the 6th century. Between the lower lake and the middle or Torc lake (680 acres in extent) stands Muckross Abbey, built by Franciscans about 1440. With the upper lake (430 acres), thickly studded with islands, and close shut in by mountains, the lower and middle lakes are connected by the Long Range, a winding and finely wooded channel, 212 m. in length, and commanding magnificent views of the mountains. Midway in its course is a famous echo caused by the Eagle’s Nest, a lofty pyramidal rock.
Besides the lakes of Killarney themselves, the immediate neighbourhood includes many features of natural beauty and of historic interest. Among the first are Macgillicuddy’s Reeks and the Torc and Purple Mountains, the famous pass known as the Gap of Dunloe, Mount Mangerton, with a curious depression (the Devil’s Punchbowl) near its summit, the waterfalls of Torc and Derrycunihy, and Lough Guitane, above Lough Leane. Notable ruins and remains, besides Muckross and Innisfallen, include Aghadoe, with its ruined church of the 12th century (formerly a cathedral) and remains of a round tower; and the Ogham Cave of Dunloe, a souterrain containing inscribed stones. The waters of the neighbourhood provide trout and salmon, and the flora is of high interest to the botanist. Innumerable legends centre round the traditional hero O’Donoghue.
KILLDEER, a common American plover, so called in imitation
of its whistling cry, the Charadrius vociferus of Linnaeus, and
the Aegialitis vocifera of modern ornithologists. About the
size of a snipe, it is mostly sooty-brown above, but showing a
bright buff on the tail coverts, and in flight a white bar on the
wings; beneath it is pure white except two pectoral bands
of deep black. It is one of the finest as well as the largest of
the group commonly known as ringed plovers or ring dotterels,[1]
forming the genus Aegialitis of Boie. Mostly wintering in the
south or only on the sea-shore of the more northern states, in
spring it spreads widely over the interior, breeding on the
newly ploughed lands or on open grass-fields. The nest is
made in a slight hollow, and is often surrounded with small
pebbles and fragments of shells. Here the hen lays her pear-shaped,
stone-coloured eggs, four in number, and always
arranged with their pointed ends touching each other, as is
the custom of most Limicoline birds. The parents exhibit the
greatest anxiety for their offspring on the approach of an intruder.
It is the best-known bird of its family in the United
States, where it is less abundant in the north-east than farther
south or west. In Canada it does not range farther northward
than 56° N.; it is not known in Greenland, and hardly in
Labrador, though it is a passenger in Newfoundland every
spring and autumn.[2] In winter it finds its way to Bermuda
and to some of the Antilles, but it is not recorded from any
of the islands to the windward of Porto Rico. In the other
direction, however, it travels down the Isthmus of Panama
and the west coast of South America to Peru. The killdeer
has several other congeners in America, among which may be
noticed Ae. semipalmata, curiously resembling the ordinary
ringed plover of the Old World, Ae. hiaticula, except that it
has its toes connected by a web at the base; and Ae. nivosa,
a bird inhabiting the western parts of both the American
continents, which in the opinion of some authors is only a
local form of the widely spread Ae. alexandrina or cantiana,
best known as Kentish plover, from its discovery near Sandwich
towards the end of the 18th century, though it is far more
abundant in many other parts of the Old World. The common
ringed plover, Ae. hiaticula, has many of the habits of the
killdeer, but is much less often found away from the sea-shore,
though a few colonies may be found in dry warrens in
certain parts of England many miles from the coast, and in
Lapland at a still greater distance. In such localities it
paves its nest with small stones (whence it is locally known as
“Stone hatch”), a habit almost unaccountable unless regarded
as an inherited instinct from shingle-haunting ancestors.
(A. N.)
KILLIECRANKIE, a pass of Perthshire, Scotland, 334 m. N.N.W. of Pitlochry by the Highland railway. Beginning close to Killiecrankie station it extends southwards to the bridge of Garry for nearly 112 m. through the narrow, extremely beautiful, densely wooded glen in the channel of which flows the Garry. A road constructed by General Wade in 1732 runs up the pass, and between this and the river is the railway, built in 1863. The battle of the 27th of July 1689, between some 3000 Jacobites under Viscount Dundee and the royal force, about 4000 strong, led by General Hugh Mackay, though named from the ravine, was not actually fought in the pass. When Mackay emerged from the gorge he found the Highlanders already in battle array on the high ground on the right bank of the Girnaig, a tributary of the Garry, within half a mile of where the railway station now is. Before he had time to form on the more open table-land, the clansmen charged impetuously with their claymores and swept his troops back into the pass and the Garry. Mackay lost nearly half his force, the Jacobites about 900, including their leader. Urrard House adjoins the spot where Viscount Dundee received his death-wound.
KILLIGREW, SIR HENRY (d. 1603), English diplomatist, belonged to an old Cornish family and became member of parliament for Launceston in 1553. Having lived abroad
- ↑ The word dotterel seems properly applicable to a single species only, the Charadrius morinellus of Linnaeus, which, from some of its osteological characters, may be fitly regarded as the type of a distinct genus, Eudromias. Whether any other species agree with it in the peculiarity alluded to is at present uncertain.
- ↑ A single example is said to have been shot near Christchurch, in Hampshire, England, in April 1857 (Ibis, 1862, p. 276).
