THIS is the principal seaport in the Island of Anglesea, as well as the
most important packet station for Irish communication on the western
coast. The arrival of the steam packet is the chief incident of each
day, and in auspicious weather a fourth part of the inhabitants are
frequently assembled as spectators. The situation of the town is
naturally exposed and bleak, but it has attained an appearance of
respectability, cleanliness, and something of commerce, by the formation
of an excellent asylum harbour, where vessels of any burden may take
shelter, and by the completion of the Parliamentary road, which,
commencing at Shrewsbury, passes through the Cambrian Alps, and
terminates its useful object at the pier of Holyhead. The town and its
local circumstances do not constitute an agreeable landscape, but there
are still many objects of deep interest here, which deserve a separate
and individual examination. From the summit of the mountain overhanging
the town, a prospect extensive and gratifying may be enjoyed; the highest
apex, just seven hundred feet above the sea, commands a view of the whole
Snowdonian chain of mountains, apparently rising from the plains of
Anglesea, at a distance of twenty miles; while to the west the Wicklow
mountains are seen, upon a clear day, to hang over the green waters of
the Irish sea. The ancient church is not without its attractions to the
inquiring mind; it occupies the site of a monastery founded by Saint Cybi
in the fourth century, and bore on its north wall this inscription,
“Sancte Kybi ora pro nobis.” Part of the churchyard wall is of Roman
architecture, and was pierced with small square apertures, a practice
usual with that people in all mural enclosures. The probability of the
Romans having advanced so far across the island, is increased by the
discovery of coins and other reliques of that warlike nation in the
vicinity of Holyhead. King George the Fourth sailed for Ireland from
this port in the year 1821, an event commemorated in a spirited manner by
the erection of a fine open colonnade thrown across the pier, near to the
spot where his Majesty embarked.