Of the ANCIENT DISTRICT NA FEARTA; and of thePRESENT DEMESNE of HIS GRACE the LORD PRIMATE.

We are unable to ascertain the situation of the district Na Fearta, in which St. Patrick lived, whilst he was occupied in building the city of Armagh. If, as we had conjectured, it was connected with the lands which now surround the old abbey, in the primate's demesne a more eligible spot could scarcely have been chosen for the residence of the Irish apostle We are sorry that the capabilities which this district and the adjacent lands present to the eye of taste, were not used to advantage by Primate Robinson, in forming his demesne. In the flat meadow grounds that lie at a short distance from the rear of his grace's palace, was formerly an extensive sheet of water called Parkmore or Parkmore Lough. The lake was fed by small streams from Ballyharradan, Kearney's hill, and other high grounds to the southward, and was considerably extended by an embankment with a sluice, made by Mr. Thomas Ogle, across the small current that issued from it, in order to turn the water into a deep mill. race, cut straight from the lake to his marble mill, where the gardener's house now stands. This race ran under the site of the columns that now form the beautiful front of the chapel. At the time Primate Robinson came first to Armagh, Parkmore Lake, skirted Knox's or the Obelisk Hill, and extended a considerable way up the valley, towards the south, forming a fine irregular sheet of water, supposed to have been a mile in circumference, and frequented by water fowl of many kinds, particularly in the winter season: but when his grace had fixed on the site of the palace, he was advised to remove Mr. Ogle's embankment and drain the lake, lest its exhalations should prove injurious to the air of his demesne. By this Vandalic advice, which unfortunately was implicitly followed, one of the most striking beauties of the place was totally destroyed and turned into dank, splashy bog meadows, infinitely more injurious to the salubrity of the atmosphere, than a limpid lake, constantly kept in motion by numerous, springs and streamlets running into it, could possibly have been. When Mr. Ogle's hedge rows, ditches and buildings were cleared off and levelled, the capability of a tasteful improvement in these grounds must have appeared obvious and striking, to every person who could at all appreciate the beauties of a picturesque home landscape, immediately fronting the palace. A level and winding valley, here narrowed by approaching swells, and there spreading to a considerable breadth, with a perpetual stream running through its centre, at once pointed out the facility with which it might have been formed into a beautiful winding sheet of water, terminated by an embankment near and parallel to the boundary plantation of the demesne, next Scotch-street gardens and Mr. Sloan's field, now Dobbin-street gardens. This embankment would have answered two purposes. It would have raised the level of the stream; and, if a part or its front had been formed of stone, it might have been painted so as to resemble a bridge, like the mock arches formerly visible at Mr. Brownlow's lake in Lurgan demesne. This would have given the sheet of water the appearance of a spacious winding river. On a gentle rise, near this sheet of water, might have appeared, to great advantage. The old abbey a highly interesting object with all its ivied emblems of antiquity, ornamented by the few old trees which then grew around it, and undefiled by the sacrilegious touch of modern improvement. As a contrast to this object. a small white fishery hut, with some tasteful planting, on the opposite side of the water, and the mock bridge appearing beyond them, overshadowed by the plantation next to Scotch. street gardens; with groups of sheep and cows grazing around, might have formed a charming home view from the front of the palace. In the rear, Parkmore Lake, extending far up the valley and terminated by another mock bridge, with a white cottage and some judicious planting on the side opposite to the Obelisk Hill, might have appeared still more extensively beautiful, as being more distant and on a much larger scale. Still, however, these sheets of water might have been made to appear both from the front and rear of the palace, as large natural river flowing into the grounds, through the mock bridge near Ballyharradan, and flowing out of them, through the mock bridge next the town. These ideal improvements were all perfectly practicable, and would certainly have made the primate's demesne highly picturesque and beautiful. It was humorously observed, at that time that the gentleman who had been employed, to lay out his graces lands, had been bit by some mad mason, and seized at once, not only with a building mania, but with an inveterate Hydrophobia, the symptoms of which appeared in his invincible antipathy to water, hence in the rear of the palace, he drained Parkmore lake. and for that pleasing object, substituted a reedy meadow; and directly in front of his lordship's windows, he almost surrounded the old abbey, a most venerable ruin, with sheds, farmhouses, and a garden wall. Primate Robinsons successors have endeavoured to hide from view this singular and uncouth mixture of heterogeneous matters, this grotesque, checker. Work of antique and modern objects, by a screen of forest trees, and have, in some measure, succeeded in concealing, or at least in softening down its deformity.

This old abbey was used as a cemetery by the inhabitants of a large tract of country till the days or Primate Robinson.