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diff --git a/42958-0.txt b/42958-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca6739b --- /dev/null +++ b/42958-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1464 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42958 *** + +[Illustration: MUCKROSS BAY, KILLYBEGS, DONEGAL] + + + + +ULSTER + +Described by Stephen Gwynn +Pictured by Alexander Williams + +[Illustration] + + +BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED +LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY +1911 + + + + +Beautiful Ireland + + LEINSTER + ULSTER + MUNSTER + CONNAUGHT + + +_Uniform with this Series_ + +Beautiful England + + OXFORD + THE ENGLISH LAKES + CANTERBURY + SHAKESPEARE-LAND + THE THAMES + WINDSOR CASTLE + CAMBRIDGE + NORWICH AND THE BROADS + THE HEART OF WESSEX + THE PEAK DISTRICT + THE CORNISH RIVIERA + DICKENS-LAND + WINCHESTER + THE ISLE OF WIGHT + CHESTER AND THE DEE + YORK + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + Page + +AT THE GAP OF THE NORTH 5 + +"THE BLACK NORTH" 13 + +THE MAIDEN CITY 28 + +TIRCONNELL 37 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Page + +Muckross Bay, Killybegs, Donegal _Frontispiece_ + +Narrow Water Castle, Carlingford Lough 8 + +Cave Hill, Belfast 14 + +Carrickfergus Castle, Belfast Lough 20 + +The Giants' Causeway 26 + +Fair Head, Co. Antrim 32 + +Londonderry from the Waterside 36 + +Tory Island from Falcarragh Hill, Donegal 42 + +Muckish and Ards from Rosapenna, Sheephaven, Donegal 46 + +Mount Errigal from the Gweedore River, Donegal 50 + +Glenveagh, Donegal 54 + +The Entrance to Mulroy Bay, Donegal 58 + + + + +[Illustration: ULSTER] + +AT THE GAP OF THE NORTH + + +Ulster is a province much talked of and little understood--a name +about which controversy rages. But to those who know it and who love +it, one thing is clear--Ulster is no less Ireland than Connaught +itself. No better song has been written in our days than that which +tells of an Irishman's longing in London to be back "where the +mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea"; nor indeed is the whole +frame of mind which that song dramatises, with so pleasant a blending +of humour and pathos, better expressed in any single way than in the +phrase "thinking long"--an idiom common to all Ulster talk, whether +in Down or Donegal. And when I who write these lines "think long" +for Ireland, it is to Ulster that my thought goes back, back to the +homely ways and the quaint speech of northern folk, hard yet kindly, +with the genial welcome readier even in their rough accent than in +smoothest Munster: for these things there rises in my mind the vague +aching, half-remembrance, half-desire, which we call "thinking long". +It is a far cry from Belfast, with its clang of riveters, to the vast +loneliness of Slieve League or Dunlewy; and yet the great captain +of industry, nurtured and proven in the keenest commerce, has upon +his tongue, in his features, in the whole cast of his nature, these +very traits which endear themselves to me in some Irish-speaking +schoolmaster of western Donegal. Soil, climate, and common +memories--these are what identify and what bind. No man gets his +living too easily in Ulster, and need makes neighbourly. Protestant +and Catholic have to fight the same battle with hard weather--of which +perhaps even the summer traveller may form some judgment; they are +rewarded by the same loveliness which makes a fine day in Ulster the +most enchanting upon earth; and they fend against the stress of storm +by the same warm shelter, the same glow of the turf-piled hearth. + +The Ulster of which I shall write in these few pages is the Ulster of +four sea-bordering counties only, Donegal, Derry, Antrim, and Down, +since beyond doubt these exceed the other five in attractions. Only +let a word be said of two great lakes. Lough Erne, which belongs +mainly to Fermanagh, though bordering Donegal in part, is to its +champions the Cinderella of Irish waters, and some day it will come +into its inheritance of fame. Lough Neagh, with its eighty miles of +shore, divided among five counties, has never been seen by me but in +tranquil loveliness, one vast sheet of shimmering blue; and whether at +Antrim, where many memories have their monuments, or at Toomebridge, +where the Bann flows out majestically, has seemed well worth a day's +journey--the more because its beauty is set among lands not fertile, +yet prosperously tilled and inhabited by people, not rich indeed, yet +safely removed from the stress of poverty. Not far from it is Armagh, +a cathedral city, richer in associations than any in Ireland. If I do +not write of Armagh, it is because the oldest of these associations +has its monument also at the southern gate of Ulster, where the +division of the province is best marked. + +Carlingford Lough, according to modern geography, marks that division, +but in truth the lough's southern shore, the rocky promontory of +Cooley, belongs to Ulster by all titles, though it be included in +the modern county of Louth. A steamer will carry you from Holyhead +to Greenore (where is a hotel with the inevitable golf links) and +land you nominally in Leinster. But all that mountainous headland is +inhabited by folk who still keep the Gaelic speech alive among them, +and whose remote forbears owned in far distant times the overlordship +of Ireland's most famous champion, when Ulster had a pagan chivalry, +the Red Branch Circle, which is to Irish legend what the story +of Arthur's knighthood is to British romance, or the tale of the +Nibelungs to Germany. Cooley (in Irish, _Cuailgne_) was the fief of +Cuchulain; and the Brown Bull of Cooley was the object of that great +foray made by the rest of Ireland upon Ulster, which is related in the +oldest and finest of all Celtic hero tales. + +Cuchulain's dwelling was outside Cooley, outside Ulster proper; his +stronghold was Dundealgan, the "Thorn Fort" which gives its name to +Dundalk. It was an outpost guarding that pass in the hills, the gap of +the north, through which the railway, leaving the plains of Leinster, +winds into the mountainous and threatening regions of Armagh and Down. + +[Illustration: NARROW WATER CASTLE, CARLINGFORD LOUGH] + +All the story of Cuchulain's hero-feats can be read in Lady Gregory's +admirable version, _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_; but Cuchulain's fort you +can see for yourself. It stands close to the town of Dundalk, visible +from the railway, a flat-topped mount, surrounded by a trench some +thirty feet deep, with a steep outer rampart surrounding this in its +turn. The whole is now tree-covered. Mr. Tempest, an antiquary of +Dundalk, whose exertions have saved this monument from the spade and +plough, thinks that he has identified, a couple of miles south of +Dundalk, the place where Cuchulain died. Cloghafarmore, the "Big Man's +Stone", at Ratheddy is one of the "standing stones" found through +Ireland, as through other Celtic countries, and tradition identifies +it with the pillar to which Cuchulain made his way from his last +fight. For ninety days, he and his charioteer Laeg, and his pair of +horses, Black Sanglain and the Grey of Macha, had harassed and held +back the host of Ireland, destroying champion after champion, singly +or by groups, in fights at each ford, and raining missiles upon the +main body with marvellous sling-throwing; but at last, encompassed and +at bay, he had got his death-wound with his own charmed spear, which +passed through the bodies of nine men in its last flight from his +hand. When, flung back at him by Lugaidh, last survivor of the sons +whose father Cuchulain had slain, it had ripped his body open, the +wounded warrior, holding his bowels together with one hand, staggered +to this pillar stone, and bound himself to it by his scarf, so that +even in death and defeat he might still stand upright. So he stood +propped, while the Grey of Macha, loosed from its harness, defended +him with teeth and hoof, letting none approach, till men saw that on +the hero's shoulder a raven had lighted. "It is not on that pillar +birds were used to settle", said one of his foemen. Then the grey +horse knew that life had ebbed away, and she left the body to its +despoilers. But the man who struck off Cuchulain's head, and took it +with him, had his own head struck off by a comrade of the Red Branch +before he reached the plains of Liffey. + +Such is the fierce temper of that old hero-cycle; but if its heroes +are not to be outdone in fierceness neither are they in generosity. +How much is legend, sheer invention, none can say: the great +earthworks at Armagh, Cuchulain's fort at Dundealgan, and a hundred +other things testify to a truth behind the tale. And it is fairly +well established that the race which had its centre at Armagh was +not the race which governed from Tara: the Red Branch was Pictish, +Tara was Milesian. How distinct the racial types show where they have +survived tolerably pure is hardly realized, save by some such chance +as befell me, when, at an exhibition in Limerick, I was summoned to +look at a strange foreign folk from the north. They were girls from +an Irish-speaking district in Donegal--not far from Rosapenna--pretty +girls, too, but among the big, buxom, oval-faced, soft-bodied +Southerners their short profiles, their high cheek bones, and hard, +bright colour showed as strange as if they had been from another +quarter of the world. + +All the subsequent stages in Irish history meet you about the shores +of Carlingford--Carline-fiord; its name tells of Danish settlements. +The old castle in Carlingford town was erected by de Courcy at King +John's bidding; the monastery was Norman built too, by Richard de +Burgo, Earl of Ulster, but the Norman rule in Ulster was closely +limited to a few strongholds on the coast. The Narrow Water Castle, +which Mr. Williams has drawn against its background of the steep +richly wooded slopes which make the chief beauty of this beautiful +lough, is on the site of a thirteenth-century fortress, but that was +destroyed in the Great War of 1641, and this building dates from +Charles II's reign. At Warrenpoint a tall obelisk records the name of +Ross of Bladensburg, one of the many brilliant officers whom Ireland +gave to Wellington's armies--with how many thousands of the unnamed +peasants to fill the ranks that they led! All those wooded hills +behind Rostrevor, the little watering-place that nestles snug among +them, looking south to the sun and the hills of Cooley, speak of +comfortable days and territorial dominion. Behind those same wooded +hills lies the southernmost point of industrial Ulster, Newry town, +with its whirring looms. + +These are some of the stepping-stones to guide one through Irish +history; yet how many more might be added! Where the road and rail +strike north from Dundalk, as they rise to that pass which is the +famous Gap, you reach Faughart, scene of the battle where Edward Bruce +ended his disastrous adventure of conquest in Ireland. And on the +plain below, William and Schomberg had their camp and mustered their +army before it set out to march upon the Boyne. + +Memories of war--Pict and Connachtman contending for Cuchulain's head; +the Dane plundering and trading; the Norman building his strongholds; +the Scot heading Ireland's endeavour to shake off the Norman yoke; +that other convulsion in 1641, and then new castles built; the +Dutchman landing, and his triumphant march; and from the subdued +Ireland, thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers, gentle and simple, +issuing forth to uphold the English name. Yes, but other memories are +there too. Some maintain that here Patrick landed on his mission. But +at all events at Faughart, in the fifth century, Brigid was born, the +"Mary of the Gael", "mother of all the saints of Ireland". Her work +was done in Leinster, but surely her birthplace here on the threshold +of Ulster should not be overlooked. + + + + +"THE BLACK NORTH" + + +I shall assume that from Dundalk and its neighbouring beauty, that +narrow lough winding among the hills, you go straight to Belfast, +with the glorious range of Mourne Mountains on your right hand to +make the journey attractive. At "Portadown upon the Bann", where the +Pope has a bad name, you are not far from the focus of the industrial +north--at all events of the great linen industry. From the train you +will see fields white as snow with bleaching webs; and it is said +that one cause of this trade's localization is a special suitability +of climate, like that which makes Lancashire head of the world for +cotton-spinning. Belgium can beat Ireland in producing flax--can get +50 per cent more for the same weight of finished fibre--but in the +spinning and weaving Ulster is unapproachable. Unhappily, as in all +textile trades, the individual withers and the machine grows more +and more: hand-loom damask weavers, who can still make a product +marvellous for craftsmanship, find their occupation gone--the machine +runs them too close. + +What the linen trade has been worth to Ulster can never be counted. +It was the one industry which England's jealousy spared, and even +(after long refusal) grudgingly fostered, in those very decades when +her manufacturers were urging Parliament to stamp out and destroy the +woollen trade. Its existence preserved in this corner of the country +that industrial habit which means not only an inherited skill but the +transmitted aptitude for factory work, with its regular hours and +mechanical routine, so unlike the conditions of labour on the land, in +which all the rest of Ireland has found--since 1800--its only resource. + +Even agriculture has been helped by the proximity of towns where +all, down to the labouring classes, have money to buy with. The +district which centres about Portadown is to-day foremost of all +Ireland for the culture of fruit and flowers, though neither climate +nor soil specially favours it. One beauty that Ulster has far more +generally than any other province is the flower-bordered cottage. They +grow orange lilies in fine profusion, but they grow other and less +emblematic blossoms as well. + +[Illustration: CAVE HILL, BELFAST] + +Belfast--when you reach it--is not calculated to charm the eye. It has +the features of any English manufacturing town so far as its buildings +are concerned, and the finest structures it can show (without +disparaging its handsome Town Hall) are the vast fabrics which rise +in the dockyards, such ships as have never been built in the world +before--marvels of symmetry and strength. To see them in the building +up is to watch, perhaps, the most impressive exhibition of human +skill and energy. Ireland, for all its defective development, can +boast of heading the world in certain enterprises: Guinness's brewery, +Harland and Wolff's engineering works, and Barbour's great net and +rope factory at Lisburn are, each in its kind, the biggest and best in +Europe, or out of it. + +Once you get down to the water in Belfast, beauty is abundant, and +for my part I like best the view from the docks. But Mr. Williams has +chosen a distant indication of the town under the bold headland, at +whose foot it lies so well. This aspect of Cave Hill does not show +its strange feature--the vast Napoleonic profile flung up against +an eastern sky. Time was when Belfast must have been curiously +divided about that portent; for in the Revolution period northern +Ireland was fiercely republican. It was on Cave Hill that Wolfe Tone, +most formidable of all Irish rebels, with a group of young Ulster +democrats, founded the Society of United Irishmen. + +Belfast does not dwell much on these memories to-day, nor indeed on +any memories; her interest is in the prosperous present, the growing +future. And although it has its absurdities, notably in the claim to +be more populous than Dublin (a result achieved by omitting Rathmines +and Pembroke, townships separately governed, but as much part of +Dublin as Kensington and Chelsea are of London), the strong pride +of Belfast is amply justified. It is not its proximity to Scotch +coalfields nor its moist climate (dear to spinners) which really makes +its fortune, it is the hard-bitten, restless, courageous spirit of its +people. + +Like Dublin, it has close access to places of great natural +charm. Just beyond Cave Hill, on the north shore of the lough, is +Carrickfergus Castle, whose grim strength Mr. Williams has excellently +suggested. It was built within six years of the Norman invasion, by +de Courcy, first grantee of Ulster; and here, as at Carlingford, the +invaders managed to retain their grip. The Bruces wrested it, after a +fierce siege, from de Lacy, who then held it, Robert Bruce aiding his +brother; but on Edward Brace's defeat it fell back to the English. In +the ultimate conquest of Ireland it marked a great moment, for here +William of Orange landed, and pious care has recorded the flagstone on +which he first set his foot. + +At Carrickfergus you are already well advanced on the prettiest road +in all Ireland--that which skirts the northern shore of Belfast +Lough, then, crossing the neck of Island Magee peninsula, carries +you past Larne's inland water, and from Larne follows the cliffy +shoreline up to where Fair Head marks the northern limit of Antrim's +eastward-looking coast. Then, cutting in behind the Head, it emerges +on the pleasant town of Ballycastle, sheltered in its bay, and so +follows the coast again past the castles of Dunseverick and Dunluce, +famous ruins, and past the Giant's Causeway, that still more famous +piece of an older and more majestic architecture. Portrush ends +your journey if you be a golfer; but dearer to me than the links at +Portrush are the sandhills beyond Portstewart and the long strand at +the entrance to Lough Foyle--ten miles of a stretch, but the Bann's +outflow divides it. No other beach that I have known is rich in such +a variety of shells; on no other sandhills do the little delicate +sandflowers, ladies'-slipper, thyme, ladies'-bedstraw, and the rest, +grow so charmingly. + +Now, in all that long coastline what to write about? First, perhaps, +its geography. A line of high hills, or low mountains, runs north from +Belfast, and beyond Larne they approach close to the sea. Westward +of them is prosperous industrial country, draining into Lough Neagh +or the Bann--a country of thriving towns, Ballymena and Ballymoney, +with many factories. But east of this is the marginal land, running +steeply down with short watercourses to the sea, and this is the +country of the Glens of Antrim; lordship of the MacDonnells, who were +also Lords of the Isles. The sea here--_Sruth na Maoile_, the Stream +of the Moyle, is a link rather than a barrier; you could row across +with no great danger in a skin-covered boat; and at this point the +Gael of Alba and the Gael of Eire have been always one race. The +Irish that I heard spoken by old men whom a Feis of the Glens had +gathered together in Glen Ariff was few removes in sound and even in +idiom from the Highland speech; and all tradition, whether Ossianic, +in the stories of Finn and his companions, or that older cycle of the +Red Branch, brings the Scotch islands and west coast into full touch +with Irish legend. It was to the Isle of Skye that Cuchulain went for +his training, to be taught by a woman warrior--whose name that island +keeps as the Coolin Hills preserve his name; it was from the Scottish +shore that Cuchulain's son by the daughter of this warrior-queen came +over to contend with the Red Branch heroes, refusing his name in +order--so the deserted witch designed it--that his father, the one man +able to master him, might unknowingly slay his own son. I took down +from the lips of an Ulster peasant, not able to read or write, and +perhaps with ten generations behind him of folk who never used the +pen, the carefully guarded text of a poem framed not later (from its +language) than the fifteenth century, which told the tragedy of that +slaying. There is a touch in that ballad fine as any I know, when the +dying lad says to his vanquisher: + + "Cuchulain, beloved father, + How is it you did not know me + When I flung my spear so sluggishly + Against your bristling blade?" + +That was the only sign he could give. Knowing himself, knowing his +antagonist, yet sworn not to reveal the secret, he could only make +a cast so half-hearted that surely Cuchulain might pause to wonder +whether it was indeed an enemy who threw the spear. + +These legends linking the coasts together suggest the charm of that +eastern shore; not the magic of infinite distance, not the Atlantic's +illimitable blue, but a continual tempting of the eye with that +shore beyond the sea, sometimes not visible at all, often faint, an +exquisite mirage, yet sometimes so vivid and distinct that you can +discern even the whitewashed cabins on the farther side. + +The mountains of the glens have no marvel of beauty. Slemish, lying +back from the rest, is best marked, with its flat top, which is +indeed evidently the crater of some volcano, forced up in the wild +convulsion that has left its other traces in the basalt of Fair Head +and the Causeway. Marked, too, it is in history; for on its slopes +Patrick in captivity herded his master Dichu's swine. Yet this was on +the landward of the hills, in the valley of the Braid, which drains +west into Lough Neagh, and stands outside the grouping of the glens. +Tibullia, another peak easily discerned, is distinguished by having +on its summit a formation of flints where man of the Stone Age had a +regular factory; chipped and flaked implements, marred in the making, +can be found there (by the knowing) in basketfuls. + +But the true distinction of these hills is that they have found their +poet. Samuel Ferguson first in his ballad of "Willy Gilliland" (which +has its climax by the walls of Carrickfergus) celebrated the stretch +of green "from Slemish foot to Collon top". But it is a later singer, +the poetess, "Moira O'Neill", who in her _Songs of the Glens of +Antrim_, has made all their names resound: from "Slemish and Trostan, +dark with heather", to "ould Lurgethan" where it "rises green by the +sea". And not the hills only but the glens--Glenann, for which the +emigrant "does be thinking long"; "lone Glen Dun and the wild glen +flowers", with the little town at the outflow of its river, Cushendun, +_Cois-an-duin_, Dun-foot. Her volume should be in the hands of every +traveller in the glens, unless its verses are already written in his +memory. + +[Illustration: CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE, BELFAST LOUGH] + +This Antrim coast has one charm distinguishing it above the rest of +Ireland--its variety of geological formation. At the foot of Glen +Ariff, Red Bay is called after the sandstone cliffs past which the +road is cut, and in one place the rock makes an arch near an old +castle. There is a cave, too, at various times inhabited. At Fair +Head one reaches the basalt, and this huge promontory faces the sea +with cliffs whose columnar formation gives that odd suggestion of +human workmanship which reaches its climax at the Causeway. This black +basalt with the numberless fissures is a good rock for birds to build +in, but a very bad and treacherous dependence for those who climb to +pry after their nests. Beyond the Causeway comes a line of white chalk +cliff, such as is familiar to all in the south of England, but very +strange to us in Ireland; though the sea off the Antrim coast is too +deep to have that opaline appearance--as though milk were spilt into +it--which the Margate tripper knows. + +I have never yet been able to bring myself to write about the +Causeway, which is a geological freak very curious to look at, and +quite worth the sixpence you have to pay for admission, since a +company enclosed it some years ago. But in Ireland we expect to have +our cliff scenery free. The guides there will tell visitors plenty of +comic stories about Finn MacCool. But Finn, in authentic Irish legend, +is not a comic figure: he is the centre of the Ossianic tales. + +That country north of the glens--which stop at Ballycastle, where +Glen Shesk and Glen Tow have their meeting--is called the Route, and +so keeps alive a memory of a period older than the Ossianic legends. +Dal Riada, or Dal Reuda, that is, the "Portion of Reuda", was the +name given to a principality established by one Reuda, who about the +second century broke off with a body of followers from the kingdom of +Ulster, and established rule on both sides of the narrow seas. Reuda +was of the Pictish race, probably; and here in the north the Picts +held out longest against the invading Milesians, who came (according +to modern theories) drilled foot soldiers, to defeat the earlier +chariot-fighting warriors. But the Milesians pushed their conquest +here also in about the sixth century, and Fergus, an offshoot of the +northern Hy-Neill (Sons of Niall), the dominant Milesian house, made +a petty kingdom for himself on both shores; and from him the kings of +Scotland traced their descent. This prince, Fergus Mac Erc, has left +his name on the Irish coast, for Carrickfergus is shown as the rock +on which he came to wreck, when sent adrift by tempest in one of his +crossings between the two portions of his kingdom. + +Shortly after its establishment, this kingship, or chieftainship, +lost its Irish character and centred in Scotland. But relations were +constant--though by no means constantly friendly--and the Lords of the +Isles held Rathlin Island for many centuries. However near the Irish +coast this island lies--only divided by some five miles from the base +of Fair Head--the sound between it and the mainland is so dangerous, +with its racing tides, as to be an effectual barrier; and very often +passage may be easier made from the Scotch coast than from the bay of +Ballycastle. At all events, the Mac Donnells owned Rathlin when Robert +Bruce needed a refuge, and the castle is still there in which the +Bruce sheltered for seven years--and in which it was that he watched +the spider's patience and drew the moral for his own far-off designs. + +The Mac Donnells were one of three great clans who divided a disputed +lordship in Ulster before Ulster (last of the provinces) was finally +subdued. The Mac Donnell lordship was the least authoritative and +(although it traced descent to the sixth century) the latest in date. +O'Neill and O'Donnell, the true Gaelic overlords of Ulster, sprang +from two sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland +from 379 to 405. Of their sons, Conall settled himself on Donegal +Bay, and Eoghan (or Owen) on the Inishowen hills. Tyrconnell--_Tir +Chonaill_--takes its name from the one son; Tyrone--_Tir +Eoghain_--from the other. About these centres power grouped itself, +each chief having sub-chiefs or _urraghts_ under him, each with his +own sept. It was only in the tenth century when Brian Boru was High +King that the hereditary surnames came to be adopted--O'Neill for the +lord of Tyrone, O'Donnell for the princes of Tyrconnell. + +Their country was remote of access, difficult of passage for troops; +their people were hardy; and so it happened that in the reign of Henry +VIII, and even of Elizabeth, when all else in Ireland had been fairly +brought within British sovereignty (even the O'Briens of Thomond +submitting) O'Neill and O'Donnell could still hold their own. But +mutual jealousies and border feuds weakened the Gael; the O'Neills +were the strongest people, yet the O'Donnells on one flank and the +Mac Donnells on the other often sought advantage by English alliance. +Shane O'Neill, perhaps the most dangerous foe that Elizabeth had to +meet in Ireland, of whom Sir Henry Sidney wrote that "this man could +burn, if he liked, up to the gates of Dublin, and go away unfought", +met his crushing defeat at the hand of Irish enemies, the O'Donnells, +who routed him on the Swilly river near Letterkenny; and in his +trouble he fled to unfriends on the other side, the Mac Donnells, in +whose camp at Cushendun he was poniarded, and his head sold to the +English. + +Yet after his day another O'Neill, Hugh the great Earl of Tyrone, +levied desperate war on the English, in close league with a successor +of the O'Donnell who defeated Shane; and though the Mac Donnells gave +them no direct assistance, they also made an effort at that time to +throw off the invader's yoke. The history of Ireland under Elizabeth +is largely the history of war with these three clans--and a shameful +history it is, full of horrible records of treachery and cruelty. + +Each of the three peoples threw up remarkable leaders in the +final struggles under the Tudors, and no figure of those days is +more notable than the MacDonnell chief, Somhairle Buidhe, "Yellow +Charles", Sorley Boy, as the English wrote him: and often the State +Papers had occasion to write his name between 1558, when he came to +lordship of the North, and 1590, when he died (singularly enough) +a natural death in his own castle of Duneynie and was buried among +all the Mac Donnells in the Abbey at Bonamargy near Ballycastle. Two +sayings of his are memorable. They showed him the head of his son +impaled above the gate of Dublin Castle. "My son," he retorted, "has +many heads." And in truth that stock sprung up like nettles after +cutting.--Elizabeth, in one of the phases of her diplomacy, sought to +enlist this warrior on her side, and sent him a patent for his estates +and chieftaincy as Lord of the Pale, engrossed on parchment. They +brought him the writing to his castle of Dunluce, and he hacked the +scroll to shreds. "With the sword I won it," he said; "I will never +keep it with the sheepskin." + +Nevertheless, time brought him counsel, and when Sir John Perrot, +Henry VIII's bastard, came and battered Dunluce with cannon, Sorley, +now eighty years of age, made his submission and travelled to Dublin, +to pay his homage to the Queen's picture, going on his knees to kiss +the embroidered pantoufle on the royal foot. After his death, his son +Randal joined the rising of Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell; but when +that last great effort to throw off England's power was foiled by the +defeat at Kinsale, the Mac Donnell made submission, and Elizabeth's +successor, James, who after all had a natural kindness for the Mac +Donnells (seeing that they were to the last Scotch rather than Irish) +accepted his submission and endowed him with the whole territory from +the Cutts of Coleraine to the Curran of Larne. + +Dunluce, which stands on a projecting rock, approached only by a +narrow footway over a very deep natural trench, has to stand a battery +more continuous than Perrot's cannon could bring to bear. The sea is +under it, for a cave pierces the rock, and wind and wave are for ever +straining at the old fortress. Part of it fell in 1639, and to-day +they say the whole ruin is menaced with collapse; and, since it stands +in private grounds, no public authority can intervene to save it. + +[Illustration: THE GIANTS' CAUSEWAY] + +For some heads the crossing of that wall into Dunluce has a danger; +and a fall would be serious. But the real test of resistance to +giddiness can be made at the famous hanging bridge which joins the +mainland with the island rock of Carrickarede, near Port Ballintoy. +The bridge consists of planks laid two abreast, and lashed to ropes; +a single rope is the only handrail. The people use it to get out to +their nets and boats for the salmon fishing, which are kept out here, +and also, since there is grass on the island, for carrying sheep +across on their backs. For my own part I stepped on to it readily +enough; but when it bent down steeply under me, and inclined to swing, +the surprise was not pleasant. And though I forced myself to cross it +a second time, back and forward, to convince myself that there was no +necessity for qualms, I cannot say that the qualms wholly disappeared. +As for carrying a sheep over, or a bale of nets, heaven defend me! But +I never heard that anyone, native or tourist, drunk or sober, came to +grief there! The drop is about eighty feet into deep water between +cliffs. + + + + +THE MAIDEN CITY + + +Adjoining the Route, and divided from it by the River Bann, is +County Derry, which was once the territory of the O'Cahans, chief +_urraghts_ or sub-chiefs of the O'Neills. When the O'Neill was by +adoption of the clans installed after the Irish usage at Tullaghogue +in County Tyrone, it was the O'Cahan who performed the ceremony of +inauguration. With these facts two memories connect themselves for +me. The first is that when the Gaelic League was established, to save +the language of Ireland from oblivion and decay, amongst those who +joined it was the Reverend Dr. Kane, a mighty orator on every Twelfth +of July, when the anniversary of the Boyne is celebrated. "I may be +an Orangeman," he wrote, "but I do not forget that I am an O'Cahan." +Many of us who did not share his politics cherish his memory for that +saying. The other associated idea for me is that, once setting out +with other nationalist speakers, I was followed by a strong body of +police. Asking why, I was told they were to prevent an attack on us in +Tullaghogue, which is now a strong Orange centre! + +Coleraine is where you join the train to get to Derry, and the rail +skirts the shore of Lough Foyle--easternmost of the great succession +of sea loughs which make the distinctive beauty of Donegal. +Inishowen, its western shore, is included in that county by English +geography, though this peninsula never formed part of Tyrconnell. +Its lordship was always disputed between O'Neill and O'Donnell, and +the best evidence of its separateness is given by the ecclesiastical +boundary, which here, as always, follows the old tribal demarcation. +All the rest of Donegal is comprised in the diocese of Raphoe, but +Inishowen falls under the see of Derry. One result of that was +traceable in the fact that _poteen_ (illicit whisky) was freely +procurable in Inishowen long after its manufacture had ceased in +any other part of Donegal; for the austere decree which the present +bishop of Raphoe--an O'Donnell and a ruler of men--proclaimed against +this "smuggling" had no effect east of the Swilly, though throughout +Tyrconnel it was heard and obeyed, to the great advantage of his +people, whom the old traffic (which I remember flourishing in spite +of law and police, fines, seizures, and imprisonments) had seriously +demoralized. + +Derry and Raphoe have for a century been in the Protestant Church one +united see, and in the days before disestablishments, made a princely +preferment. You can see the proof of it at Castlerock, where the line +from Coleraine strikes out on the shore of Lough Foyle by the long +Magilligan strand. Here is Downhill, the seat built in the eighteenth +century by that amazing prelate Lord Augustus Adolphus Hervey, Earl of +Bristol and Bishop of Derry, who took a leading and not a very pacific +part in organizing the volunteers and in winning Ireland's legislative +independence. + +"He appeared always", says Sir Jonah Barrington, "dressed with +peculiar care and neatness, generally entirely in purple, and he wore +diamond knee and shoe buckles; but what I most observed was that he +wore white gloves with gold fringe round the wrists and large gold +tassels hanging from them." A troop of horse headed by his nephew +used to escort him everywhere and to mount guard at his door. Later, +growing tired of Ireland, he migrated to Italy on the plea of ill +health; and though many of his costly purchases were sent home to +Downhill, where unhappily a fire destroyed the most valuable, he +never came back, but remained abroad (says the austere Lecky, himself +born on the shore of Lough Foyle), "adopting the lax moral habits of +Neapolitan society", and in extreme old age writing letters to Emma, +Lady Hamilton, "in a strain of most unepiscopal fervour". + +There are no such bishops nowadays, but my childhood was familiar +with the last of Lord Bristol's successors under the old order--the +late Bishop Alexander, most eloquent of divines, afterwards Primate +of Ireland. His talents brought him to the episcopate, while still +a young man, only a year or two before disestablishment, and the +life-interest in his £12,000 a year came to be compounded, not only +for his own benefit, but for that of the Church. While the financial +negotiation was still in progress, my father, then rector of a parish +in Donegal, and financier-in-chief to the diocese, sent his bishop out +for a day's driving in charge of a young curate, and trysted to meet +them on Mulroy Bay. Arrived there, he saw with dismay the bishop, not +on land but afloat, being sculled by the curate through the numberless +rocks and swirling currents of Mulroy in a battered curragh--a hundred +thousand pounds of ecclesiastical capital divided from submersion by +a piece of tarred calico. And the famous orator, even at that period +of his life, could not have weighed less than eighteen stone. Long +years after, the curate, become venerable in his turn, remembered and +recalled for me the rating which he received when at last he landed +his passenger. + +Another memory from the same source may be worth recalling. Downhill +is the house which Charles Lever describes in his novel, _The +Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly_, though the story has no historic +connection with the house or any of its inmates. But Lever knew this +"Bishop's Folly" in the days when he was a dispensary doctor at +Portstewart, and my father remembers well how _Harry Lorrequer_ came +out by instalments in the _Dublin Morning Magazine_, with what delight +he heard them read aloud, and how sudden was the addition of interest +when one day the news came in that the anonymous author was no other +than their own dispensary doctor--the brilliant young collegian for +whom a place had been suddenly created in this outlying village during +one of the visitations of cholera. After that, whenever the doctor +came to call, a shy boy used to creep into the drawing-room and +ensconce himself, apparently with a book, out of sight behind a sofa, +where, undisturbed by apprehensions, he could be all ears for the +rattling talk of that wonderful tale-teller. + +Lever learnt a good deal in Portstewart from a neighbour, W. H. +Maxwell, author of _Wild Sport of the West_, who lived in those days +at Portrush. But it was the west and south of Ireland that always +drew Lever--his florid taste in incident and humour found its choice +elsewhere than in the discreet greys and browns of Ulster character. +And east of Lough Foyle he was still in the Ulster which politicians +mean--the country of the plantations. Derry is in reality its frontier +town, though the Scotch strain and the Protestant element ramify out +from Derry a certain distance into Donegal. + +[Illustration: FAIR HEAD, CO. ANTRIM] + +But the frontier town, like all frontier towns in a country +that has been much fought over, keeps an intense, militant, and +aggressive character. Derry stands for the extreme type of Protestant +assertion--oddly enough, for in the beginning of its history, it +was the monastic seat, Doire Coluimchille, "Columba's Oakgrove", to +which that great apostle of Christianity looked back from his mission +overseas--"thinking long" in Iona for-- + + "Derry mine, my own oakgrove, + Little cell, my home, my love". + +There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of that Irish poem, +transmitted in ancient manuscript, which a scholar has thus +translated--Columba's lyric cry towards the Ireland which he had left. + +Yet, after all, the new is more to us than the old, and Derrymen have +good right to be proud of Derry walls. The famous siege was a great +event, the resistance was indeed heroic, though I think that popular +fame has selected the wrong man to be the centre of hero-worship. A +tall column which rises from the walls behind the bishop's palace +is Walker's monument, and Walker was no soldier but an elderly, +loquacious, and somewhat vain, preacher. If contemporary records +are any safe guide, the true organizer and inspirer of that long +resistance was Murray--whose fame, I am glad to say, is kept alive +by a Murray club. Yet the man who best of all, perhaps, deserves +commemoration has no memorial in Derry. The siege had lasted from +April 18, and on June 13 the town was already starving when a fleet +was sighted in Lough Foyle. Kirke, who commanded it, lay outside, +intimidated by the defences of the narrow channel. So it went on for +six weeks; but there was at least one Derry man with the fleet who +could brook the delay no longer. This was Captain Browning, of the +_Mountjoy_, and he insisted that attempts should be made to run the +batteries and to break the boom, whose site is still preserved in the +name "Boom Hall". The _Mountjoy_ was a merchant-man, and another, the +_Phoenix_, of Coleraine, joined the venture, and a frigate was sent +with them to help in drawing the enemy's fire. The _Mountjoy_, with +Browning himself at the helm, headed straight for the boom under full +sail, struck it, and with the impact the boom gave. But the shock +caused a rebound which flung the ship back on a mudbank, and at the +same moment Browning was shot down at his post. The _Phoenix_ had +slipped already through the gap and was away with her full cargo of +meal. Boats were out from the forts to seize the _Mountjoy_; but she +fired a broadside, and the recoil lifted her off the bank, and she too +slipped through, carrying the body of her dying skipper to the wharf +of the city which his courage and determination had rescued from +famine and from enforced surrender. Life stayed in him long enough to +let him hear the cries of welcome, to know that the goal was reached, +the blockade broken, and his city saved, before the rush of blood from +his pierced lungs finally choked him: and surely no man ever died a +more enviable death. + +Yet in truth it was the people who had rescued themselves. In the +previous month of December, before hostilities were really declared, +King James had been imbecile enough to withdraw the troops which held +the city. A fresh garrison under Lord Antrim was marching in, and was +seen actually outside the walls. The city fathers deliberated; it was +thirteen prentice boys of the town who armed themselves, rushed to +the Ferryquay gate, seized the keys, and locked it in the teeth of +Antrim's men, when they were within sixty yards of the entrance. + +This deed is commemorated annually on December 18th, when Lundy, the +officer who commanded in James's interest, is duly burnt in effigy--or +used to be. Nowadays Catholic and Protestant are so evenly balanced in +the "Maiden City" that such demonstrations risk a formidable riot, and +are accordingly kept in check. + +But the embers are always hot, and crave wary walking. Once a concert +was being held, "strictly non-sectarian", and it had been decided +to omit "God save the King", which in Ireland is made into a party +tune. All went off smoothly, and the building was being emptied, when +suddenly war rose. The organist, a stranger, had thought it would be +proper to play the people out with "Auld Lang Syne"--not knowing that +to this tune is sung "Derry Walls", most aggressive of Protestant +melodies. + +Derry walls are there, broad and solid--you can drive a coach on them. +But, what is more important, you can there find the best entertainment +that I know in Ireland. A little hotel, whose doorway gives on to the +east wall, is kept by Mrs. MacMahon, and all persons of understanding +go there to get the kind of meal which you may hope for in the +pleasantest north of Ireland country home: the fruits of the earth, +the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, each according to his kind +(not omitting Lough Swilly oysters), with the home-made bread, which +is one of Ulster's greatest charms. It is not an elaborate modern +hotel. If it were, you would not get the sort of entertainment that +I describe; but to stay there is to get an insight, and a most happy +insight, into the homeliness, the hospitality, the shrewdness, and the +good housewifery of Ulster. + +[Illustration: LONDONDERRY FROM THE WATERSIDE] + + + + +TIRCONNELL + + +Donegal has become to-day the best pleasure ground in Ireland. Second +only to Kerry in natural beauty, and superior to it in grandeur, +for Kerry has no cliff scenery to compare with Slieve League and +Horn Head, it has far more variety of resource than the southern +county--or, in two words, it has golf and Kerry has not; and it has +much more free fishing. It is equipped as a playground, and as a +playground I shall write of it--with this preface. When I was a boy, +between thirty and forty years ago, there were only two passable +hotels west of Lough Swilly, Lord George Hill's at Gweedore, and Mr. +Connolly's at Carrick. Both of these were built for men who wanted +to fish and shoot; and to reach them meant in literal truth a day's +journey into the wilderness. There was no railway in the county except +the little line from Derry to Buncrana; and it was the regular usage +for strangers to bring introductions which got them hospitality from +the resident gentry. I remember scores of such casual visitors at the +big, old rectory where I was brought up. + +To-day there is hardly any point in the county more than ten miles +distant from a rail--Irish miles of course, and hilly ones. But when +the train takes you from Derry to Burtonport, curving in behind Lough +Swilly, and following all the northern coast to its extreme remotest +corner, you may fume, as I have often fumed, at the vagaries of that +wonderful organization; you may think it amazing to be a matter of +three hours late in a journey of four hours, as has happened to me; +still, it is well to remember how you might have had to drive the +same distance on an outside car in such wind and rain as Donegal can +furnish. + +And of course the delays I speak of are probably not so usual as at +the first wild beginnings of that traffic. No longer, probably, will +you see the engine driver getting out to replenish his supply of fuel +from a wayside turf stack; no longer will you need to scour the whole +countryside for a truckload of luggage casually mislaid. It is only +fair to add that where I finally unearthed our possessions was at a +mountain siding near two excellent salmon pools, with which I then +became acquainted and where I subsequently caught fish. If the engine +does break down anywhere on that run there is sure to be a little +river within a mile or so, and it is quite worth putting up your rod +and going out to have a try; at least one man to my knowledge returned +triumphantly with a good salmon--the messenger sent to fetch him +having come in handy to gaff it. + +But in all seriousness tourists have got to remember that these +lines are not there for holiday traffic. Goods and passengers travel +together, and the real purpose of the whole is to give a market +to the thousands of cottagers along that wild yet populous shore. +What it means is that the coast fisherman who nets a salmon now can +sell it for perhaps twopence a pound less than it will fetch in +Billingsgate--tenpence, a shilling even, for summer fish. In the old +days there was no one to give him more than perhaps a shilling for +his whole fish. And in truth in the old days a Donegal peasant hardly +conceived that he could be the legitimate possessor of a salmon. + +That is the real change. In the days that I remember, the country was +owned by the landlords, was governed by them and by their agents, with +assistance from the Church of Ireland clergy. To-day a great part of +the land is owned by the people who till it; it is all governed by +them. And in increasing measure they own even the game, most jealously +guarded of seigniorial rights. + +Take, for example, the little town of Milford. I remember it a +miserable line of hovels, with only two decent buildings, the +agent's house and the always imposing police barrack. To-day it has +an excellent hotel, and every look of prosperity. I remember when +every soul in it and for ten miles round was in the grip of a really +tyrannical landlord, whose murder, when it ultimately came, was indeed +an act of what Bacon calls "wild justice". Much of the improvement +visible here is due to the able and courageous man who succeeded the +"old lord". But, good landlord or bad landlord, no man can ever again +hold that countryside at his pleasure, cowering under the threat of +eviction. Rent is fixed by a court, and while a man pays his rent he +is irremovable. And within a short period every man will be paying, +not rent, but instalments of purchase for the land which he and his +predecessors have worked--which in nine cases out of ten they have +reclaimed from bog and barren moor. With the ownership of the land the +game rights must ultimately go, and in many cases already they have +gone. The hotel proprietor at Milford, an enterprising man, had, I +found, bargained with not a few tenant purchasers for the exclusive +fishing of little lakes in their property and for the shooting over +their moors and bogs. That is the attraction which he has to offer to +visitors, who, now that the country is opened up, come in shoals. On +Lough Fern, the big lake adjoining, it was unusual to see two boats +fishing, three made a rarity. Now, in summer, there will be fifteen or +sixteen out. And not only that, but boats have been put on seven or +eight of the numberless smaller lakes and bogholes which nobody ever +fished at all, except once in a blue moon, when a curragh would be +carted over. Some of them breed good trout, and now these are being +stocked with a new strain of fish. All this means the circulation +of money in the country where poverty before was universal, where +famine even was not unknown. A failure of the potato crop to-day is a +grievous loss: thirty years ago it meant something like starvation. + +What took me to Milford the other day was significant of the new +order. I was with a departmental committee appointed to consider how +the fisheries of Ireland would be affected by the substitution of +peasant proprietary for landlord ownership; and our main purpose was +to emphasize the value of the interests involved, the possibility +of increasing that value, and the necessity for combination unless +the whole were to be destroyed. And here was no question merely of +providing an attraction for the summer visitor: it meant conserving a +mainstay of livelihood for hundreds of labouring men. + +When I was a boy a regular feature in that countryside was the fish +pedlar--some old man or old woman with a donkey and two creels, +hawking round fish that had been carted up from the coast by +Sheephaven. Along the prosperous settled shores of Lough Swilly, by +Ramelton and Letterkenny, these poor folk found a market at the end +of a day's journey. It was a poor market and a small one. But since +the railroad was instituted, the fish pedlar takes a back place. Fish +goes straight to the great towns, and it has been worth men's while to +organize for catching the summer run of salmon which skirt the coast +in June and July. From Malin Head to Arranmore, and from Arranmore +into Donegal Bay, scores of thousands of pounds must have been earned +in this way during the past seven or eight years by the coast-dwelling +folk, half-farmers, half-fishermen, working through the short nights +in their four-oared yawls. A lucky crew will earn ten pounds a man in +two months' fishing--in a country from which each year thousands go +across to Scotland or Lancashire for field labour and are content if +they bring home ten pounds for their season's toil. It is easy to see +how great an added source of prosperity this fishing means. Yet if +the fish are killed out in the breeding streams, it ends the fishing; +and when a river is divided into a hundred interests instead of one, +no individual has a sufficient inducement to preserve the stock of +salmon. A lesson in citizenship has to be learnt; public opinion +has to be created. Donegal is leading in the attempt to develop +co-operative preservation of game and fish, and whoever helps that +endeavour is doing a good turn, not only to the interests of sport, +but to the interests of Ireland. + +[Illustration: TORY ISLAND FROM FALCARRAGH HILL, DONEGAL] + +Golf, which for the present is even a greater attraction than +sport, does not extend into the wilder parts of the country; though, +indeed, twenty years ago Port Salon and Rosapenna, where the most +famous links are, were outlandish enough: it is golf that has brought +them well into the pale of civilization--over-civilization, some of us +grumble, when we see smart frocks among the sandhills by Downings Bay. +Yet anyone who goes to Rosapenna, and has curiosity enough to enquire, +can learn the whole history of a great industry's development within +a score of years--for Downings is the centre of a most prosperous +herring fishery, and the girls and boys from that outlying region are +fetched at high wages to do skilled work in curing herring wherever +herring are being caught, as far south as Dublin Bay, and very likely +beyond. + +And if I had any choice of all the fine places in Ireland to spend +a holiday in, I would choose the one which makes the centre of Mr. +Williams's sketch from Rosapenna--the low headland of Ards, jutting +into Sheephaven, with wood of oak, and fir, and beech, and ash, so +exquisitely blended, spread for a covering over ground so beautifully +diversified; with little bays and creeks of blue water over the +cleanest and tawniest sand running up into the heart of wooded or +heathery slopes. Nowhere else is the scent of the brine so clean and +strong across the other pungencies of heath, and bog-myrtle, of oak, +and of bracken; nowhere else that I know does a perfect day give such +fulfilment of desire. + +Rosapenna shore and the village of Carrigart are too much dominated +by the hotel and by foreign ways for my liking; but on the opposite +shore, where Portnablah gives a harbour (not safe, alas!) to the boats +of my friends, is the place of all my affections. This rocky little +townland is set thick with whitewashed cottages, and here it has been +an old custom for Irish folk from Derry and Letterkenny to come to +the salt water and find homely quarters. The "bathers", as they are +called, have of late years grown to be a multitude: if you want rooms +in a farmhouse there you must bespeak them far in advance, and no +wonder. If my ghost haunts any place it will be there, where the white +road to Dunfanaghy (white, for this is a limestone tract), leaving the +wall of Ards demesne, rises to a crest with a few houses (filled with +bathers) on the right; and on your left is Sessiagh Lake, prosperously +stocked with trout, and watched over by an old herring fisher, still +able to pull a stout oar when the strong gale catches that high-lying +water, but for the most part happy to drift contentedly and spin yarns +about the men and the things and the fish that he has known. Quick +with his tongue, too, in a leisurely way. "I suppose people very +seldom die here," said a stranger, commenting on the healthiness of +the situation. "Never more nor once," said old Tom. + +Beyond the houses and the limekiln and the glimpse of Sessiagh's +delusive waters (Heaven knows how many blank days I fished there!) +is a line of grassy hillocks--the mass of Horn Head blocks the view +beyond them to the west, but full north, suddenly, held in the curve +between two of these little summits, you catch sight of the Atlantic +blue. Blue, it may be, or purple, or greyish green, or black almost, +with white spray flying; but there it is, held as if in a cup--the +very quintessence of the saltness, the strength, and the freedom of +the sea. When the herring are in, you shall see it dotted over with +smacks and yawls, and here and there a curragh crawling slowly on the +water like some black insect; or at night all a-twinkle with lights, +till you rub your eyes and wonder if a town has not suddenly sprung +into being. And all about, the steep shores of the bay are patched +and striped with careful tillage, crops, well-tended, nestling in for +shelter under every rocky hummock; and nestled, too, into the folds of +the ground, are the white-fronted houses, with stone pegs across their +eaves for cording to lash the roof secure against their terrible gales. + +It is worth while being there in bad weather, to watch the run of +sea on those cliffs; sometimes, in a sinister calm, rolling in +mountain-high, tearing itself to whiteness on the long black spines of +rock; and then, after this forerunner, comes the storm itself. It is +then, when you see the smacks running in for shelter, or when, after a +night of this, you see them put out to pick up costly nets that have +been cut adrift to save men's lives, and that still must be recovered +even at grave peril--it is then you will realize how these people take +a grip of their country and cling to the foothold for which all life +is a struggle. + +Yet life goes merrily there. In the winter through some parishes there +will be dancing almost every night in one cottage or another, and the +crowd is thick on the floor and about the big turf fire. + +[Illustration: MUCKISH AND ARDS FROM ROSAPENNA, SHEEPHAVEN, DONEGAL] + +These people are for the most part pure Irish, and west of Dunfanaghy +all are Irish speakers. Under Irish rule it was the territory of the +M'Swineys, chief urraghts of the O'Donnell, and Doe Castle, at the +outfall of the Lackagh, was the fortress of the chief of the name. +Owen Roe O'Neill made his landing here, Cromwell's most formidable +opponent in Ireland--removed at last either by sickness or poison. +Here Red Hugh O'Donnell was fostered by Owen M'Swiney of the Battle +Axes before the treacherous kidnapping at Rathmullen. There were three +M'Swiney clans--M'Swiney Doe, M'Swiney Banaght in the west of the +county, and M'Swiney Fanad in the peninsula that divides Mulroy +from Swilly. Each had its own war tune, and a schoolmaster friend of +mine--himself a Sweeny--who collected native airs, had got two of the +three, but not the third; until at last he heard of an old bedridden +man in Fanad who might have it. He rode the twenty miles from his home +at Gartan, with fiddle on his back, and found the old peasant wavering +on the brink of death, yet still able to frame feebly the whistle or +lilt, which my friend picked up on the strings of the fiddle bit by +bit, till gradually he had it all, and, there and then, by the dying +man's bedside, set the cabin ringing with the oldtime war march of his +clan. + +Another M'Sweeny that I have known was Turlough, the famous piper of +Gweedore, whose repute has travelled far overseas. Aristocrat he is to +the finger tips--saddened indeed because those fine finger tips have +been coarsened by spade labour. "Look," he said to me; "can there be +any music in these hands?" He told me his own generations, connecting +him back with the hereditary bards of the M'Swineys, and I said that +he must know the history of the county better than most. "No," he +answered; "I was never curious of these things, except just as they +concerned myself and my own people." + +Mr. Williams's picture shows Errigal where it rises by Gweedore over +Dunlewy Lake--one of the grandest among Ireland's mountains. But the +most striking view of it is east of Gweedore, where the little river +flows out by Gortahork; and here is a thing of much interest, the +Cloghaneely College, where folk go to study Ulster Irish amongst those +who have it for their native speech. Still farther east is Falcarragh, +and the view which Mr. Williams has given adds less than due emphasis +to the astonishing castellated outline of Tory where it rises out of a +tremendous depth of water. I never landed there, though I often talked +with the Tory fishers, including one who had made his fortune at the +goldfields and come back to the place of his birth among the rocks +and the fish heads. There is one sheltered spot, one growing bush, +and one only, on Tory. There, of course, Irish is the language, and +they maintain the practice of verse, chiefly for purposes of satire; +quarrels are revenged in rhyme. I talked to a red-bearded mountainy +man near Gortahork about this, but he said it was a peevish thing to +do; he would rather have a skelp at a man. In truth there is an old +feud between Tory and the shore, and fierce battles have been waged. +I do not know why so few people stop at Falcarragh: there is a good +little hotel, the views are beautiful, there are three little rivers, +all holding salmon, and, at the point where the longest of them flows +out across the long range of sand beach west of Horn Head, there is +a view of Tory and of Horn Head that passes all I know. Running water +across sand, clean sand dunes and grey bent, pure illimitable sea and +high cliffs, sunsmitten or in shadow--there is landscape reduced to +the simplest terms of a broad elemental beauty. + +Also at Falcarragh there must be the makings of a links equal to any +in Ireland. The line of dunes runs for several miles along the sea, +ending in one of the strangest natural features I know, the huge +mountain of clean sand which centuries of westerly gales have piled up +against the rocky mass of Horn Head. That famous head is in truth an +island, the counterpart of Tory on its seaward face, yet in the gap +between it and Dunfanaghy such a deposit of sand has accumulated that +only a small causeway has been needed to give access from the mainland +to the tiny farms and the one demesne. + +If in Donegal you want to buy Donegal homespun, Falcarragh is a good +market for the product, since some weaving is done about there with +an eye to local wear; and what the Donegal man means to wear, the +Donegal housewife "tramps" in soapsuds and water till the web thickens +into a fabric fit to turn weather. On the western shore, by Carrick +and Ardara, where is now the headquarters of this industry, cloth is +produced solely for export, and the English ladies and gentlemen for +whom it is designed seek softness and fineness rather than solidity. +Indeed the countryfolk themselves treat this merchandise with frank +scorn: they fancy something far less flimsy for their own use, and in +old days, when nothing but homespun was worn, it used to be sent to a +tacking mill and battered till the cloth had the thickness of felt. +But the tacking mill at Bunlin, whose big wooden mallets rising and +falling used to interest us children, is a ruin now; and the homespun +of to-day, with its multitude of pleasant colours, is very different +from the massive greys or heavy indigo-dyed frieze which used to come +from that mill. + +The industry has been a godsend to that country, and one wet day in +the little village of Carrick was redeemed to me by the chance of +seeing all these folk, men and women, come marching over the hills +with the baled cloth on their backs, and then watching the bargaining +that proceeded among the various buyers. I bought, too, but I believe +the merchants will not allow the people to sell to tourists any more. + +[Illustration: MOUNT ERRIGAL FROM THE GWEEDORE RIVER, DONEGAL] + +I have not written yet of that western shore which stretches southward +from Dungloe (much haunted by sea-trout fishers) to Glenties, Ardara, +Carrick, and Killybegs. The most beautiful place that I know on it +is at the mouth of the Gweebarra River where it flows out due west +between a line of sandhills which shine dazzling white in the sun +against the immensity of blue. No place is less known; but you can +reach it easily from Portnoo, where is a hotel. And off Portnoo is an +island where on certain days in summer a pilgrimage takes place, at +spring tides, for it is essential to walk barefoot to the island. The +ceremonies performed with certain stones are Christianized in form, +but evidently had an origin long before Christianity. Glenties, some +eight or ten miles farther south, is at a point where several glens +converge (_na Gleantai_, the Glens) in the valley of the Ownea River, +famous for its salmon fishing, which is now vested in purchasing +tenants who have attempted to introduce co-operative preservation. +If the experiment succeeds it will mean better preservation than has +ever been known before; if it fail, I fear that one great source of +the salmon supply will be wiped out, with loss to sport, and with loss +much graver to all the labouring fishers who live by that industry. +But, as things stand, the man who wants good fishing is more likely to +get it cheap at Glenties or Ardara than any other place known to me. +In both towns there is a decent hotel. Ardara stands near the outfall +of the Ownea but actually on a smaller river, the Owentogher, which +is not only very picturesque, but a good stream for salmon and sea +trout, if only it could be preserved. And one of the most pleasant +bits of fishing I ever had was on a tiny stream, the Brocky, which +comes down a mile farther on and was fishable before the tearing flood +had subsided in the bigger rivers. + +Glenties and Ardara are places where you go for sport, though the +beauty of mountain and river is all about you. But for scenery Carrick +and Killybegs are your destination. Killybegs is the terminus of that +light railway which runs from Donegal town along the north shore +of Donegal bay, past the Marquis of Cunningham's wooded demesne at +first, but gradually getting into wilder country, till at last it +reaches this trim little town on its magnificent harbour. Warships use +that harbour, and there is nowadays a good fishing fleet operating +from it for the herring and mackerel; but of other commerce it knows +little. Yet for the lover of boating and bathing it would be hard to +discover a more attractive spot. There, too, you can see the parent +factory of the Donegal carpet trade; and pretty it is to see the big +looms, with a row of six or seven little girls bareheaded (and often +barefooted) in front of each, with nimble fingers knotting on the +tufts of richly coloured wool, or driving them down into their place +in the solid fabric, while the pattern grows slowly before you on +the wide warp. It is odd that so rare a merchandise should come out +of these impoverished regions, for no costlier carpets are made; but +labour is cheap, and willing, and skilful, and nowhere else is factory +work done under more wholesome or happy conditions. All the big room +seemed to be a-ripple and a-play with the young faces and the swift, +graceful movements of these children, for most of them are no more +than children; and small though the wage they earn, it is a big thing +in that countryside, where the old-age pensioner with five shillings +a week seemed at first to himself or herself rich beyond imagination. +There is another of the factories at Kilcar, halfway to Carrick, built +in a sheltered nook almost by the sea; and another in the wild tract +between Gweedore and Falcarragh. + +To the west of Killybegs begins that wonderful line of cliff +stretching away past Carrick and Glen Columbkille, and girdling all +the projecting headland till it runs back to Loughros Bay, near +Ardara. For wildness and for majesty this region has no equal, except +in Achill; and it has what Achill lacks, the charm of rivers. Mr. +Williams's pictures illustrate well the coastline, which even when +it is low runs out with huge flag stones and giant boulders into +the deep--fit buttress against such waves as roll in there even on +a day of calm. Everything is big there; distances are long, and a +mile never seems to get you far in any direction. It is a country to +walk, the finest of all the countries known to me; but I would gladly +supplement my walking with a bicycle, travelling one of the roads as +far as it will carry me and then leaving it simply by the ditch at +the roadside, among the osmunda fern which grows everywhere free as +the heather. It commits you to return that way; but what you leave +by the roadside is as safe as if Argus watched it--unless, indeed, +some mountainy heifer should pass that way and eat it: they will +chew anything from a fishing rod to a suit of clothes. I have seen +embarrassed bathers pursuing an active cow, who carried essential +garments in her mouth, still masticating them even while she pranced +in her clumsy gallop.--Carrick is the centre for this country and +Slieve League the great excursion; it is a fine walk down by the +little port of Teelin and then up the track which winds along the +cliff edge of the mountain--perhaps the finest view of all is when you +are halfway, with seven or eight hundred feet of sheer cliff below you +and the steep face towering up another thousand above. At the somewhat +overrated hazard of the One Man's Pass you would fall, I dare say, +sixteen hundred feet before you reached the water; but from the top a +pebble may be dropped two thousand feet plumb into the sea. + +[Illustration: GLENVEAGH, DONEGAL] + +Horn Head is only seven or eight hundred feet; yet because the cliff +face there is undercut, and the Horns themselves project so oddly, +it always seemed to me a dizzier place than the greater cliff. The +really marvellous thing at Slieve League is that view across Donegal +Bay to the mountains of Sligo, Benbulbin of magic fame, and along the +wild Mayo coast that stretches out and out to the west till the long +promontory is finished off by island rocks, the Stags of Broadhaven. + +Yet, since I scorn to deceive, what endears Carrick to me is not its +cliff scenery, but its little rivers and its people. I know the rivers +are too small: you cannot seriously hope to kill salmon there except +in a raging flood, and then your flood runs off in a couple of hours: +I hooked four fish there inside the first hour after breakfast, killed +two of them, and never touched another all day. But for sheer beauty; +for infinite variety in the shape and colour of flowing water (the +most beautiful thing to me on God's earth); for pools where the eddy +swirls past clean rock with glossy ferns in every crevice; for banks +where the scent of bog-myrtle is all about as you brush through the +heather; for anything that can entice the eye of an angler, I never +saw the equal of that main stream. The little Owen Buidhe, too, in its +boggy glen, has attractions of its own, deeper pools and seductive +corners; but it is the Glen River, flowing down from Meenaneary, that +haunts my vision when in London I crave for the things that I desired +in boyhood, and love more in middle age. + +And of all the human beings whom I have known among the peasant folk +of Ireland, none had ever quite the charm of old Charlie Carr, the +gillie who fished with me at Carrick. By an odd chance, he was no +sportsman. He would want you to be pleased, and to catch fish, if +so you fancied it; but I remember how my vanity was hurt when, on a +difficult day, I had hooked and landed a fine sea trout, the first +that anyone had seen for a long time. "Them O'Hagans was great people +too", he said as he shook the fish out of the net, calmly pursuing his +discourse about the ancient days and the generations of old, and the +lore of those few books which he had, and studied with passion. He +was no true shanachie; what of Irish legend and song his memory kept +had no real value. He was a lover of knowledge, not for vanity, not +for the sense of power, but simply because it added to the richness +of life--one of God's gifts that he welcomed as the sunshine. If +ever I met a happy nature, a soul without spot, it was this Irish +peasant; if ever I have seen letters full of grace and simplicity +they were those that reached me once in a rare while from that lonely +glen, asking, never for himself, but perhaps that I would give a +prize to some school children, or the like, and always full of an +affection that knew no difference between man and man. I can see now +the wonderful blue eyes in that kind face, a handsome peasant face +with its fringe of grey close-cropped whisker. If I remember a word +of complaint from him, it was when he saw his neighbour go by on a +car--a man no soberer, no more industrious, no better educated than +himself, yet one who had had the instinct for buying and selling, for +putting penny to penny and pound to pound. The neighbour was a good +man too, in his way; kindly and friendly, prompt to do a service, yet +not to be reckoned amongst those elect upon earth whom everyone using +discernment will have recognized on his way through life, of whom not +a few that I have known have been Donegal peasants. But none had quite +the grace, the simplicity, and the distinction of this old dreamer and +student who carries net and basket by the Glen River without repute +among men. + +For all my love of Carrick I could hardly conceive of living there. +It is too bare, too vast. And though there is no frost, though every +second bush you see in summer is crimson fuchsia full of blossoms, yet +winter must be of a terrible loneliness. But the Donegal that I was +brought up in--Donegal of more inhabited and habitable shores by Lough +Swilly and Sheephaven and Mulroy--does seem to me a place not for +summer visitants only. However, this book concerns itself with summer, +and nowhere is summer more delightful. Of course it rains often, and +sometimes hard. "Did it rain ony wi' ye?" "It didna tak time to rain; +it just cam doun buckets," is a fragment of descriptive dialogue. But +take the country as I saw it in mid-July, when London was stewing +on a griddle of asphalt and flags, and when English country was all +one monotonous deadened green with heavy haze dimming the blueness. +Out at Bunlin, beyond Milford, all was green too; I looked from the +steep road across a glen breast-deep in bracken, with the curve of +Cratlagh wood beyond, and nearer me trim fields of green oats and +turnips. There was beauty of line there in Mulroy with its score of +scattered islands, in the hills, not very high, but very mountainous, +bold, and jagged, falling from the peak of Lough Salt to the glen, and +to the Mulroy water, crest by crest, sharp to the last little rocky +hillock. There was beauty of colour too, for the green of the bracken +was broken by silvery grey stone, with glint of mica in it, showing +up through the fern, and crowned or set about with purple cushions +of heath, here and there a foxglove adding another and a brighter +purple. There was wonderful beauty of detail in the wooding nestled +into the hills--wild growth, scrub oak, light, feathery ash and +birch, with the gleam of silvery stems, Scotch fir and larch--planted +trees, yet falling naturally into forestation which had none of the +heaviness, the citizen look of elm and sycamore. All was light, hardy +and strong--not a wilderness, but a cared-for country where the eye +wandered over a fair expanse of varied beauty, lying there in full +summer without summer's drowsiness or blowsiness. Lightness, airiness, +was the note of it all--light air, breath of bog-myrtle across the +salt of the sea; and even the decent homely people, lacking the graces +of Cork and Kerry, had yet in their motion and in their eye just the +dash of wildness which marks the Celtic strain. + +[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO MULROY BAY, DONEGAL] + +Next day was Donegal all over--fresh breeze, clouds driving swiftly, +and then bright sun, lighting up a lovely blueness. We were out on +small lakes up among the hills, two of us who fancied ourselves not +a little as fishermen, and got no encouragement for that faith; but +after all what could be pleasanter, airier, or more resting and more +bracing at once? and how good one's lunch is on the stones by a reedy +shore! I had to go back to London, and the car took me to Rathmullen +on the Swilly shore; and when the little steamer put out from the pier +it seemed to me that of these lovely loughs this is after all the +most beautiful. All was grey and green in the westering light; the +hills on the Inishowen shore opposite showed softer than the crags by +Mulroy. They were green now, with the olive green of young heather; in +another month they would be glowing purple. The lough as we crossed it +was a great round lake throwing arms west and south-west to Ramelton +and Letterkenny, beyond which all was bathed in a sunny haze. As we +ran farther out, the western mountains of Inishowen came in sight, +then suddenly beyond Dunree the sea gap opened, letting the eye out +to limitless ocean; and soon the sheer crag of the Binn of Fanad was +disclosed flanking that portal on the west. Looking back to the shore +we left, the Devil's Backbone writhed sinister and jagged along the +crest of the Knockalla range behind Rathmullen; and away to the west +in the sun haze, accustomed eyes could make out the faint shapes of +Errigal and Dooish. + +History was all about us, evident in actual landmarks. On the hills +which divide the lough from Derry stood out boldly the ring of stone, +the great circular fort, which was the Grianan of Aileach, chief +seat of the northern Hy Niall, whose kinsfolk reigned in Tara. Here +Patrick preached about 450 A.D., baptized Eoghan, founder of +the great Tyrone clan, the O'Neills. Here, in a later age, came an +O'Brien of Thomond, one of Brian Boru's earliest successors, to avenge +a raid of these Northerners on Clare, and the stones of Aileach were +carried away to be built into the cathedral at Limerick. Over at +Rathmullen is the beach from which the boy Hugh O'Donnell was rowed +out to see the English ship which lay at anchor, offering hospitality +with black treachery behind; for the crew cut their cables while the +young chief and his company were below seeing the vessel's stores, and +sailed off with the prisoner so dishonourably made, to the Castle of +Dublin, where Hugh lay for years immured, captured but not submissive; +attempting escape after escape with unfailing heart till at last he +got loose, and after bare deliverance from death in the snow-covered +hills was free to exact a reckoning for the wrongs he had suffered. + +On a low hill beyond Inch Island rises the square town of Birt, which +has memories of another chief, Cahir O'Dogherty, lord of Inishowen. +Cahir was fostered by the M'Devitts of Birt, and when Red Hugh claimed +lordship over Inishowen, the M'Devitts sought English protection +for their foster-brother and got it. The O'Dogherty became the +Englishmen's ally and helped to pronounce forfeiture on O'Donnell and +O'Neill after the two great earls took their flight in 1607--setting +out from this same ill-omened port of Rathmullen. But a new governor +of Derry arrived, quarrelled with Cahir O'Dogherty and struck him. +The blow was dearly paid for. Cahir went back to Birt, called out +the M'Devitts, and sacked and burnt Derry. But the Irish power had +been broken beyond retrieving when the earls fled, and O'Dogherty was +soon a mere outlaw on his keeping. They ran him to earth finally by +Doon Well, near Kilmacrenan, where he was shot dead in the encounter. +Doon Well is famous to-day, but I doubt if many there remember Cahir +O'Dogherty's fate, or even that on the Rock of Doon took place the +installation of each O'Donnell prince. What is remembered is the +sanctity of the holy well, whose water still draws thousands of +pilgrims and still works miracles of healing. + +History more modern is in view at Lough Swilly, for here the English +fleet brought in their prizes after the action with Bonaparte in 1798, +and brought more than they knew, for they had captured Theobald Wolfe +Tone, the most dangerous enemy to England that Ireland had in those +or perhaps any other days. To-day there is a strong guard on Lough +Swilly. Dunree--_Dun Riogh_--means the King's Fort and the king has +his fort there, of the most modern type, commanding the entrance to +this great haven, with an armament very unlike that of the martello +towers which are dotted about, marking another of England's recurring +scares--the scare of the "French colonels" under the lesser Napoleon. + +All these things came into my mind as I sat on the beach by Fahan and +watched the colour fade out and new colour take its place--masses +of dark green where there had been shimmers of grey and blue. Other +memories came there too--less historical: it was there that somewhere +in the 'seventies I had my first sight of a real railway train. +I carry away from Lough Swilly my earliest as well as my latest +impression of pleasant, beautiful Ulster, enhanced by a grateful +thought of the dinner which Mrs. MacMahon provided for one about to +take a long night journey. And whoever leaves the north of Ireland +with such impressions on his mind will have no cause to quarrel with +the close of his holiday. + +Yet it is not well to depart leaving unexplored the mountainous +peninsula of Inishowen which separates Lough Swilly from Lough Foyle. +This great ridge of land is dominated by the graceful shape of Slieve +Snacht ("Snow Mountain"), a model of what mountains should be: bold +and peaked, yet with swelling curves that balance on either flank, +it fills the centre of a distance more impressively than far loftier +hills. + +Inishowen was owned by the O'Doghertys, a clan who, tossed between +Tyrone and Tirconnell, had at least great staying power, for the +saying is--you cannot beat a bush in Inishowen without "rising" an +O'Dogherty. Their castles remain, and at Green Castle, on Lough +Foyle, is the work of greater men, Norman-planned, Richard de Burgo's +fortress. Many traces, too, of a far older period are to be seen. +At Carrowmore, not far from Culdaff, is a "souterrain" with five +chambers--a great mansion, in short, for these burrowers. Rivers and +lakes, too, are there with fair fishing, though I believe that a +certain old professor in Derry has skimmed the cream of it all in his +learned leisure, any time this fifty years. But the Castle River at +Buncrana is a fine salmon stream still, and the links there constitute +an attraction for very capable golfers--though not equal to those at +Port Salon on the opposite shore. In a word, if you cannot get to the +west of Lough Swilly you may be very well content with the east of it; +and though much of infinite beauty and interest lies beyond, when you +have seen and known Lough Swilly and its shores, and the people who +live on them--that mixed race, Scot and Irish, lowland and highland, +Protestant and Catholic, all neighbourly together--why, at least you +will have had a very fair chance to know and love, not the Ulster that +people rant about or rail at, but Ulster as it really is. + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + +_At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_ + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + + +The Table of Contents has been added for convenience. + +Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks. + +Page 34: Replaced the oe ligature with oe in the two instances of +"Phoenix." + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulster, by Stephen Lucius Gwynn + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42958 *** |