IT has been suggested before now that the domain of Achill Island, off the coast of Mayo, that wonderland of natural unspoiled grandeur, be preserved as a sort of national park.
Its primitive beauties are impressively great without rising to splendour or magnificence.
Said Sir Harry Johnston, in writing to theLondon Times:
“Is it impossible that individuals and the State together should intervene before it is too late and save Achill Island as a national park, as a paradise in which the last aspects of the indigenous British fauna may be exhibited? This might be done without disturbing the indigenous population, who could still carry on their fishing industry and theamount of agriculture necessary to their subsistence, without interfering unduly with the wild birds and beasts of the island. There would be, of course, an absolute interdict against ‘sportsmen’ and gunners; it would no longer be permissible to shoot the seals that haunt the caves and rocks around Achill, while the deer, wild goats, foxes, eagles, ravens, swans, gulls, choughs, and other wild birds and beasts would be similarly protected. People would then visit Achill Island at all seasons of the year (the climate is remarkably mild in winter) for the pleasure and interest afforded by the contemplation of its wild fauna. We should, in short, have an object-lesson of what Ireland and most other parts of the British Isles were like under prehistoric conditions.”
From this it will be inferred that there is every encouragement for such a procedure, did the powers but take their rightful initiative.
Whether such an event, if it come to pass, would make for a greater admiration of this lone and sea-girt bit ofterra firma, it remains for others than the writer of this book to
ACHILL ISLANDACHILL ISLAND
prognosticate. Certainly, under any aspect except that of the erection of multitudinous “resort hotels” and “furnished bungalows,” Achill Island is a wonderful resort for those in need of soothing influences; and, for its natural and unspoiled charms alone, should be kept quite as it now is.
Achill is a veritable unknown wonderland. Not that it is actually unexplored, that it is vast, or that it is inaccessible. It is none of these; but few foreigners, or “aliens,” as the Irish prefer to think of strangers, have ever visited this little-known corner of Ireland, or even know where it is. Achill Island is the largest island on the Irish coast, in shape not unlike an irregular triangle, and contains an area of fifty-five square miles. To the north is the deeply indented Black Sod Bay, with its myriad smaller bays, while to the south is Clew Bay, populated with numerous tiny islets, and the high-held head of Croagh Patrick. Off to the northwest are the “Enchanted Isles,” the legendary homes of saints and recluses, among them Inishglora, Inishkeenah, and Inishkea.
On one of these it is fondly believed by thenatives that Ossian resided. Tradition has preserved the record thus:
“Ossine MacFoin, seated on the banks of the Shannon, adoring the Author of Nature in the contemplation of his works, was suddenly hurried away to Tirna-n’oge (the country of youth, or island of immortals), which he describes with all the vivacity that fancy, aided by the sight of so lovely a country as Ireland, could assist the bard with. He remained here for some days he thought, and, on his return, was greatly surprised to find no vestige of his house or of his acquaintance. In vain did he seek after his father Fion, and his Fonne Eirion; in vain sounds the buabhal, or well-known military clarion, to collect those intrepid warriors. Long since had these heroes been cut off in battle; long had his father ceased to live! Instead of a gallant race of mortals which he had left behind, he found a puny and degenerate people, scarce speaking the same language. In a word, it appeared that, instead of two days, he had remained near two centuries in this mansion of the blessed.” (O’Halloran.)
Achill itself contains scarcely a tree worthythe dignity of the name; but heath, gorse, juniper, and coarse grasses abound.
Sleivemore has a height of 2,204 feet and Croghan 2,192. Both rise abruptly from the sea, after the manner of the castellated peaks in the fairy books, which, with their component castles, mostly do not exist out of books.
Kildavnet Castle on Achill Sound was one of the numerous retreats of Grace O’Malley. Its square keep still stands. The arm of the sea on which it was built was so deep that vessels rode at low water under the very walls of the castle. “Here,” tradition states, “the skull of Grace O’Malley was formerly preserved, and valued as a precious relic. One night, however,—so the legend goes,—the bones of the famous sea-queen were stolen from their resting-place, and conveyed, with those of thousands of her descendants, into Scotland, to be ground into fertilizer. The theft was of course perpetrated in secret, and in the night-time. If the crew had been seized by the peasantry, with their singular cargo, not a man of them would have lived to tell the tale, for the Irish regard with peculiar horror any desecration of the graveyard.”
According to a recent census, the population of Achill and Achill-beg, the baby islet off the southern limb of its parent, has decreased nearly ten per cent. in the space of ten years; from which fact it may be inferred that the popularity of this salubrious spot—for it ranks high among the world’s great natural sanatoria—is not increasing with the rapidity that might be expected.
The two villages of the larger island, Keel and Dooagh, seem populous enough, as is also the Protestant community of Dugort. The island, in general, is exceedingly unproductive, though the sea yields a wonderful harvest to the fisher folk.
There is but a narrow margin between the well-being and distress of the inhabitants, but signs are not wanting that whatever, in exceptional periods, may have been their condition, at present they are relatively better off than many of their compatriots in the west of Ireland. Considerable numbers annually migrate to the north of England and the south of Scotland for the harvest, just as, with the same motive, the “East-Enders” of London throng to the hop-fields of Kent, and the willingand industrious Bretons cross the Channel, in the autumn, to the hay-fields of England’s “home counties.”
Off the western Irish coast, from Connemara and Mayo, there are yet to be found remote islands with an exceedingly primitive civilization. Achill owes much of its interest to the fact that it exhibits a similar state of things, in many points little altered by contact with the mainland. The people, the cabins they inhabit, and their manner of life show very little change, in spite of the introduction of a good many articles of manufacture which a generation or two ago were quite unheard of. One thing which cannot fail to be noticed will be the queer little “public houses.” The tenement itself, however aboriginal, is sure to contain an assortment of strong drinks as varied as the average West End bar. The quality may be dubious, but there will be no question as to the strength and specific gravity of the spirit, particularly theeau-de-vie, or the “mountain dew.”
Of the charms of Dugort, the “Settlement,” and Dugort proper, the poet-laureate, in thepages of “Maga,” has written eulogistically. He says:
“A more perfect place of holiday resort it would not be possible to imagine. There are fine yellow sands, where children may make dykes, fortresses, and mountains of moderate height.... There is fishing, either in smooth or rolling water, for those who love the indolent rocking or the rough rise and fall of the sea; precipitous and fretted cliffs, carved with the likeness of some time-eaten Gothic fane by the architectonic ocean; rides, drives, and walks amid the finest scenery of the kingdom. ‘I think she prefers Brighton,’ said a stranger to me of his companion; and, if one prefers Brighton, one knows where to go. But if nature, now majestically serene, now fierce and passionate, be more to you than bicyclettes and German bands, you can nowhere be better than at Achill.”
The Settlement, or modern Dugort, is a group of cabins above the shore, which owed its creation to the Rev. Edward Nangle, a clergyman of the Established Church. In 1831 he visited Achill, and was so impressed with what he deemed the “spiritual destitution”
CATHEDRAL CAVES, ACHILL.CATHEDRAL CAVES, ACHILL.
of the islanders that he organized a mission. Some seventy acres of land having been bought, two or three cottages were erected in 1833, and in the following year Mr. Nangle settled at what is now the bright little village of modern Dugort. Whatever opinion may be held as to the value or wisdom of his undertaking, Catholic and Protestant alike, now that the dust of the battle has settled, will agree that Mr. Nangle had in him the stuff that heroes are made of. His immediate oversight was withdrawn about 1852, though for the rest of his life he took an active share in promoting the continuance of his work. He died in 1883, in his eighty-fourth year, but long before that time the “mission” had ceased to be a cause of dispute, and now Dugort is merely a small Protestant preserve in a Catholic district.
Just south of Achill, in Clew Bay, is Clare Island, which has been likened to the pirate islands of the transformation scenes of the theatre. Certainly the description is a good one, as it is a spot typically suitable in shape and outline for hidden treasures, shipwrecks, and blood-letting galore. Its outline is boldand jagged, and it sits ensconced in a basin of blue water, which, in the twilight, is lit up by the western sun in a manner like nothing else so much as that of the theatre.
It was perhaps merely an odd fancy—though a likely enough one—that is responsible for thesimile; but it is pertinent to remark that this tiny emerald, set in a sea of sapphire, was really one of the many haunts of Grace O’Malley, the famous chieftainess and warring amazon of the sixteenth century. Here she actually did live, hoarded her arms and munitions, concealed her treasures, and imprisoned her captives, hence it is with reason that the description lives to-day. One commends the perspicacity of Grace O’Malley, or Grania Uaile, as she is sometimes called, in having selected such a beautiful spot for her stronghold, sheltered on one side by the purple hills of Connemara, and on the other guarded by the open sea.
Next to the headlands of Kerry, Connemara is the westernmost part of Ireland. Its identity is now lost in that of County Galway, but it is still known to travellers as “wild Connemara.” Not that it is entirely unpeopled, or
IN CONNEMARA.IN CONNEMARA.
that there is any special hardship involved in traversing its area; the hotels are more numerous than ever, and it is an open question if the accommodation offered at Recess, Clifden, Westport, and many other of the purely tourist points is not the equal of any in Ireland. They have not the electric light in many instances, and often not water “laid on,” but the genuine traveller will not care for this if he can but be sure of his bed and board. To feel sure of the former, however, it will be necessary for him to bespeak it in advance if he travels here in the season.
In Connemara there is no great wealth of historical or archæological memorials. In fact, there is a scarcity of both, and one has to take his fill of the wild, natural beauties of the rock-bound coast scenery, the bracing atmosphere, and the wholly unspoiled charm of the place, which, in spite of the advent of the great hotels before mentioned, has not yet become travel-worn.
Lough Carib, which is possessed (at Oughterard) of a fine ruined castle, just north of Galway, is the largest of the score of purple, deep-looking lakes with which the westernpart of the county is dotted. The scenery of lake and sea, of bracken-clad hills and plains, and of great sombre, gloomy mountains makes up an ensemble of surpassing beauty. The centres of population are few, far between, and of minute dimensions.
The railway line from Galway ends at Clifden, a town so unimportant and quiet that, in itself, it does not warrant remark. It was founded in the reign of George IV., and this early foundation consisted of but a single house, though it is the gateway to the wonderful coast scenery of the region to the northward, not actually in Connemara, but what is known as “Joyce’s Country.”
Of all the landlocked bays of this region, none equals Killary Harbour, which is simply the elongated estuary of the tiny river Eriff.
The hamlet of Leenane is the metropolis of these parts, and is so very small and unimportant that it would hardly be remarked, except for the fact that no other of even the same rank lies within a radius of twenty miles. The situation of Leenane is charming, at the head of Great Killary. Around about are hills of mountainous pretentions, and before its
KYLEMORE CASTLE.KYLEMORE CASTLE.
doors is afiord, as ample and as calm as many, of more fame, to be found in Norway. Seaward, the great hills come down to the water’s edge and almost join hands across the narrow mouth of the estuary, forming a sheltered and landlocked haven of so great a depth as to allow anchorage for even a great battle-ship.
Between Galway and Clifden is Recess, a point of vantage from which to visit much that is characteristic of the scenery of Connemara. Firstly, the region is of interest to the fisherman; secondly, the geologist; and, thirdly, to all lovers of nature, which, judging from the recent popularity of “nature books,” is perhaps much the largest class.
The chief topographical feature, which forms the background to Recess, is the mountain range of the “Twelve Bens,” a glorious group of dark-mantled mountains with stony peaks and flinty-quartz hearts.
One may tramp Connemara for weeks, and not know all its beauty-spots, or he may scamper around it by coach and rail in two days, and depart thinking he has seen it all; but in either case, his memory, if it be a good one, will sooner or later call him to task forhis presumption. For this reason, it is manifestly presumptuous to attempt to give its proper rank to its great wealth of natural attractions among the various collections which Ireland possesses.
The scenery about Recess is a picturesque combination of lake and river and mountain; but, to the southward, there are wild and rugged bits of coast and red bracken-covered hills, which look to-day exactly as they did in times primeval.
Lough Glendalough, which lies immediately before Recess, is but the foreground of a lovely picture which it will take many days to dissect and fully appreciate.
There has ever been a dispute as to whether the glory of the “Twelve Bens” really belonged to Recess or Leenane. It certainly matters little, since they are a wonderfully impressive background viewed from either point.
It must be a well-booted and strong-limbed pedestrian who will essay the task of ascending these famous mountains. Benbaun is the monarch of the Bens, and is 2,395 feet in height. Not a very great altitude as Continental
KILLARY HARBOUR.KILLARY HARBOUR.
mountains go, but withal a very respectable eminence to climb.
North of Achill is Black Sod Bay, whose memory comes down to us through Kipling’s reminiscence in “A Fleet in Being.” More anciently, it was one of the harbours where a part of the ill-fated Armada was supposed to have gone ashore. There are no great centres of population here in the bleak northwest of County Mayo, and there are no architectural remains of note; but there is local colour, and much of it, for one who would study the poor Irish peasant on his native heath.
Until one rounds the headland of Benwee, and passes the “Stags of Broadhaven,”—a head of deep-water pinnacles of rock whose jagged outlines have been likened to a stag’s antlers,—and reaches Killala Bay, there is naught of twentieth-century civilization to remind one he is not living in other days, or certainly in other lands and among other associations than those which city folk have come to consider necessaries.
Killala Bay is flanked on the west by Downpatrick Head, which rises two thousand feet sheer above the sea-level. It is one of Ireland’strue wonders, but attracts few visitors save migratory sea-fowl.
Killala itself, one learns from the “Life of St. Patrick,” is a place of great age. The holy man himself—
“Came to a pleasant place where the river Muadas (Moy) empties itself into the ocean; and on the south banks of said river he built a noble church called Kill Aladh, of which he made one of his disciples, Muredach, the first bishop.”
The present cathedral was entirely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and has no architectural importance. Close by, on a knoll, about which the village is built, is a round tower, eighty-four feet high and fifty-one feet in circumference.
“At Kilcummin, on the west side of Killala Bay, a body of French troops, under General Humbert, landed, August 22, 1798, with the object of supporting the United Irishmen. They at once took Killala and Ballina, and at Castlebar the government levies were in such haste to retire without fighting as to give rise to the nickname, ‘Castlebar Races.’”
Ballina, at the head of Killala Bay, is the“tourist resort” of the region. It is pleasant and delightful in all of its aspects, and in its neighbourhood are some very interesting architectural remains. There are, as is often the case, a Roman Catholic and a Protestant cathedral in the town, and an Augustinian monastery, a ruin of a fifteenth-century structure, also many attractive vistas and spots most worthy of the brush and pencil of the artist.
These attractions pall in the mind of the local spreader of publicity, who extols only the size and varieties of fish which may be taken in the river Moy and other near-by waters.
From Ballina one reaches Sligo in five and a half hours by means of that still prevalent institution, the genuine Irish “low-backed car.”
Somewhere in the county of Sligo is the “Valley of the Black Pig,” which is possessed of a legend which recounts how, for generations, the Irish peasantry have comforted themselves in adversity by the memory of a great battle fought here in this valley.
W. B. Yeats tells how, a few years ago, inthe barony of Lisadell in Sligo, a peasant would fall to the ground in a trance as it were, and rave out a description of the bloody battle which once took place.
This shows, at least, that tradition and legend alike die hard in the minds of the people, and when Mr. Yeats tells us that men have told him that they have seen the girths instantaneously rot and fall from horses; and that few, if any, who enter the Black Valley ever come out alive, we realize fully how close we are, even in these times, to the age of superstition in Ireland.
Mr. Yeats furthermore eulogized the incident in verse.
“The dew drops slowly; the dreams gather; unknown spearsSuddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes;And then the clash of fallen horsemen, and the criesOf unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.We, who are labouring by the cromlech on the shore,The gray cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you,Master of the still stars, and of the flaming door.”
“The dew drops slowly; the dreams gather; unknown spearsSuddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes;And then the clash of fallen horsemen, and the criesOf unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.We, who are labouring by the cromlech on the shore,The gray cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you,Master of the still stars, and of the flaming door.”
“The dew drops slowly; the dreams gather; unknown spearsSuddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes;And then the clash of fallen horsemen, and the criesOf unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.We, who are labouring by the cromlech on the shore,The gray cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you,Master of the still stars, and of the flaming door.”
Sligo itself, with its ten thousand souls and its important and matter-of-fact seafaring trades, is a centre for journeying afoot or awheel amid many charming scenes of lough and lake and sea and shore.
Southward is Carrick on Shannon, the gateway to the Shannon’s lakes and rivers; northward is the Bay of Donegal, backed by its famous rugged “Highlands;” and, eastward, is Lough Erne, which, with its upper and lower lakes and the river Erne trickling minutely southward, is quite the rival of the long-drawn-out Shannon, or would be if the tide of popular fancy ever turned that way. Enniskillen is the metropolis of Lough Erne. Locally it is known as the Island City by reason of its being apparently surrounded by the all-enfolding waters of the upper and lower lakes. Its fame lies principally in its entrancing situation, and the memory of its various regiments of Enniskillen Dragoons who have fought and won gloriously in many of England’s “little wars,” and big ones, too, for that matter. The colours borne by the two Enniskillen regiments at Waterloo are still preserved in the parish church.
Until the days of James I., Enniskillen was no more than a stronghold of the Maguires, but it then gained much prominence through the eventful part it played in the domestic struggles and troubles of the latter half of the seventeenth century. Of the old castle, which has braved so many fights, only a small portion remains, and is incorporated in the modern military barracks, which, in one way, indicate the importance of Enniskillen.
“The Falls of Erne,” at Ballyshannon, where the river joins its estuary with its rapid, tumbling torrent falling over a thirty-foot wall of rock, indicate in no unmistakable manner the volume of water which flows from source to sea. At Ballyshannon, which has more than a local renown among disciples of Izaak Walton, is the famous “salmon leap” which, at certain seasons, provides a display of the wonderful acrobatic ability of this gamy fish. But a short three miles from Ballyshannon is Belleek, with its famous china factories which produce a peculiarly lustrous egg-shell ware much admired for its simplicity and crudeness of form, but very transparent and light. Here, too, are another series of rapids,
A Detail of Sligo AbbeyA Detail of Sligo Abbey
as great in their way as those farther down-stream. Sir Joseph Paxton called them “the most picturesque in the world,” but one should judge for himself. They are marvellously effective, however, for the river falls nearly 150 feet in three miles or less.
Sligo itself, in spite of its commercial importance, is not greatly appealing in its interest, if one excepts its old abbey, now a ruin, but once an exceedingly ambitious Dominican establishment. Founded in 1252, it was destroyed by a fire in 1414, though immediately rebuilt. Its Gothic is of that superlative quality known best in the superb monkish erections of the Continent of Europe. There are various monuments yet to be seen therein of local and historical interest, but the chief attraction is what remains of the beautiful cloister, fairly perfect as to preservation, and surrounding three sides of a rectangle. There are forty-six arches, each about four feet and a half in height, all elaborately carved, and quite different one from another.
By an ancient and inalienable right, the abbey grounds are still used as a Roman Catholic burial-place.
THE Bay of Donegal, and indeed the whole Donegal district, is mellowed and tempered by the everflowing Gulf Stream, which, so the scientists say, were it diverted by any terrestrial disturbance, would give to the entire British Isles the temperature and climate of Labrador. As this event is hardly likely to take place, and certainly cannot be foretold, the interest in the subject must rank with that which one takes in the announcement of the statisticians, for instance, that an express-train travelling at sixty miles an hour would take millions of years to reach Saturn, were it once headed in that direction and had the elevating and sustaining qualities of an air-ship.
Certainly, the mean temperature of thewhole south and west coast of Ireland is marvellously mild, and that of Donegal is exceptionally so.
The cliffs of Slieve League, which form a jagged, many-coloured precipice, rise at a sharp angle from the northern shore of Donegal Bay to the summit of the storm and wave-riven mountain, a rock wall 1,972 feet high. It is a grand and noble headland, as a glance at the map will show, and is one of the most lofty elevations seen from Bundoran and the southern shores of the bay; moreover it is accounted unique in all the world, by reason of its marvellous colouring.
Bundoran is a bustling, thriving place, but of the tourist orderpur sang, with golf-links, electric lights, and up-to-date hotels, and, for that reason, if for no other, is a place for the genuine lover of the road to avoid.
Donegal itself is an improvement. It is a small but attractively placed town at the head of its own bay, and, in spite of its being a coast town, it is more allied with agricultural interests than with trade by sea.
The guide-books tell one little of Donegal, and so much the better. One enjoys findingout things for oneself, and so one has practically a virgin field at Donegal unless he will delve deep into frowsy historical works, such as the “Annals” of the “Four Masters” of the old Abbey of Donegal. The retreat where they patched and pieced together this ancient record is no more, but it stood, “proud, grand, and rich” upon the site still marked by some ruinous heaps of stones.
Donegal has the usual accompaniment of a castle, but, in this case, it is a sixteenth-century descendant of a former stronghold. It is a fine Jacobean building, built up out of the remnants of its parent, and, with its tall gabled towers and turrets, is in every way a satisfactory example of a mediæval baronial residence, though differing in many essentials from those common throughout Ireland.
Killybegs, between Donegal and Slieve League, on the north shore of the bay, is one of those picturesque coast villages on a landlocked tiny bay, of which so many examples exist in the British Islands. It is no more attractive, nor any less so, than others, but it has this distinction—a lengthy sojourn there will demonstrate beyond all doubt that one
DONEGAL CASTLE.DONEGAL CASTLE.
can live far away from a great city and yet never miss its whilom attractions.
With many other places similarly situated, a run “up to town” is inevitable and necessary; here, one is apparently as completely isolated from the distractions of the great world outside as if he were marooned on a desert isle, with the advantage, however, of being able to get away at once by means of what, to all appearances, is a toy railway running to Donegal.
Carrick is another village a little further on and similarly isolated,—more so, if anything, in that the diminutive engine and its toy carriages stop, in its not rapid course, at Killybegs, and one journeys onward by “car.”
To the southward are the heights of Slieve League, Malin Beg and Teelin Head, and, if one will brave the waves to the extent of rounding these headlands by boat, he will then experience something of the feeling which inspired the following lines, which, if rather pretentious, are in no way fulsome:
“Once seen in morning sunshine, the view of the southern face of Slieve League, rising steeply from the sea, can never be forgotten;the impressiveness and matchless colouring of the rock defy description; its beauty must be seen to be believed. Its glorious colours are grouped in masses on the mountain’s face: stains of metal, green, amber, gold, yellow, white, red, and every variety of shade are observed, particularly when seen under a bright sun, contrasting in a wonderful manner with the dark blue waters beneath.”
Some one has compared these variegated cliffs to the effects to be seen, elsewhere, only in the Yellowstone Park and the canyons of Arizona or Colorado. Those who know Bierstadt or Moran’s paintings of these wonders of nature, or, better yet, the originals themselves, will appreciate the comparison.
The festival of St. Adamnan, eighth in descent from the great King Nial and from Conal, the ancestor of St. Columbkille, is kept with great solemnity in many churches in Ireland, of which he is titular patron, and in the whole diocese of Raphoe, in the county of Donegal, of which he was a native. The abbatial church of Raphoe was changed into a cathedral soon after, when St. Eunan was consecrated the first bishop. He originally enteredthe monastery founded by St. Columba, and became its fifth abbot. In 701 he was appointed ambassador to King Alfred of the Northern Saxons, to demand reparation for the injuries committed upon Irish subjects in Neath. It was St. Adamnan who first prevailed upon the Church authorities in Ireland to celebrate Easter at the true and appointed time.
When he died, he left among his effects a treatise on the right time of keeping Easter, which disposed his people sometime after to forsake their erroneous computation. He wrote, too, the life of St. Columbkille, and also certain canons, and a curious description of the Holy Land as that country stood in his time. This book furnished the Venerable Bede with his principal memorials.
In this work on the Holy Land, St. Adamnan mentions the tombs of St. Simeon and of St. Joseph at Jerusalem, and many relics of the passion of Christ, as well as the impression of the feet of the Saviour on Mount Olivet, covered with a church of a round figure, with a hole open on the top, over the impression of the footsteps. He also mentions grasshoppers in the deserts of the Jordan, which the commonpeople eat, boiled with oil; and a portion of the Cross in the Rotunda Church in Constantinople, which was exposed on a golden altar on the three last days of Holy Week, when the emperor, court, army, clergy, and others went to the church at different hours, to kiss that sacred wood.
Two landmarks, known to all travellers to the Clyde from America, by way of the north of Ireland, are The Bloody Foreland and Tory Island.
The guide-books tell but little concerning this wild land of promontory and cliff, and with some reason, too, for there is little or no population there, except the fisherfolk and a rather primitive race of agriculturists.
Donegal is assuredly a land of intermittent beauty, and the hill-encircled loughs and the verdant glens of Donegal Bay give way here to a stern, relentless gray stone formation, with here and there patches of green and purple which indicate nothing so much as the lonesomeness which is inevitable under such conditions. But there is an impressiveness in it all which is inexplicable, since the scenery,
LAKE OF SHADOWS, DONEGAL.LAKE OF SHADOWS, DONEGAL.
though by no means tame, is not of the grandeur of many other parts.
It is doubtful if Tory Island—which is but a mere name, even to the few who know it at all—will ever be inundated by any large flow of travel. If it was, there would doubtless be little accommodation provided for them, for the simple reason that it does not exist, though the island is possessed of a population of some hundreds of men and women and children, with schools and a church—in fact two, which are ever a point of contention and argument among their respective constituencies. It was not long since that the cleric in charge of one of these houses of God nearly starved, because he would not desert his post, and “the powers that be” on the mainland had evidently abandoned him to his fate, or had forgotten him altogether.
Between the Tory Island and Malin Head, that other beacon-light for seafarers, is the great inlet or fiord of Lough Swilly, meaning in Celtic “Lake of Shadows,” which, though quite as beautiful as Lough Foyle, its neighbour on the east, is, for some unexplained reason, quite neglected. Of Lough Foyle, atthe head of whose ample waters sits that city familiarly called Derry,—built by certain citizens of London in the reign of James I.,—Sir Walter Scott has said:
“Nothing can be more favourable than this specimen of Ireland—a beautiful variety of cultivated slopes, intermixed with banks of wood; rocks skirted with a distant ridge of healthy hills, watered by various brooks; the glens or banks being in general planted or covered with copse.”
This is not a particularly vivid statement, to be sure, but it is true and temperate, and far more likely to fit in with the views of the casual observer than the rather florid word-paintings of other parts of Ireland which have been offered by rhapsodists of all shades of opinion.
LONDONDERRY was the original site of an abbey for the canons of the Augustinian order founded by St. Columbkille in 546. There was also an abbey for Cistercian nuns founded in 1218, and a Dominican friary founded in 1274, “by request of St. Dominick,” as the chronicles put it, whatever significance that statement may have.
Derry, as it is commonly called, owes its name to the confiscation of the estates of the O’Neills in 1609, most of the lands being bestowed on various citizens of London. Derry, the ancient name, means “the place of oaks.” All this part of Ulster was once heavily forested, but it is now conspicuously bare. Nearly 160,000 acres of the county are still owned by the Irish Society, while two London liverycompanies, the Skinners’ and the Drapers’, are also owners of large holdings.
Derry is usually described as “a prettily situated town, built upon a high hill.” It is quite in keeping with the description, and is also a place of much interest, as will be found upon a close acquaintance, though it is unquestionably a curious mixture of old and new, of foundries, distilleries, and manufactories, which, at every turn, are contrasted with a celebrity and an interest quite of the past.
Londonderry was formerly fortified, contrary to the usual Irish conception of military science and architecture, which favoured the method advanced in the Spartan proverb, “The city is best environed which has walls of men instead of brick.”
There were originally four gates (afterward six) piercing the city walls, Bishops Gate, Ships Quay Gate, New Gate, and Ferry Gate.
The Cathedral of Derry is a plain Gothic structure far inferior in rank and splendour to those of its class in other lands, and dates only from the early seventeenth century. The episcopal palace occupies the site of St. Columbkille’s abbey.
DERRY.DERRY.
The chief event in Derry’s history, and one which is called to the visitor’s attention at every turning-point and stopping-place, was the siege so graphically described by Macaulay.
In brief, the event took place thus:
“A letter was sent to the Earl of Mount Alexander at Cumber in County Down on December 3, 1688, giving the information that six days later certain numbers throughout Ireland, in pursuance of an oath which they had taken, were to rise and massacre the Protestants, men, women, and children. This letter furthermore warned the earl to take particular care of himself, as a captain’s commission would be the reward of the man who would murder him.”
The information reached Derry too late to secure the safety of the city. The terrified Protestants were filled with doubt as to what measures of precaution should be taken. Two companies of the Irish appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, and the officers were ferried over to make proposals for entering the town, which was nearly betrayed into their hands by the treachery of the deputy mayor, who was inclined to favour King James II.Impatient for the return of their officers, the soldiers crossed the river, and came to within three hundred yards of the Ferry Gate.
“The young men of the city observing this,” says Gordon’s “History of Ireland,” “about eight or nine of them, whose names deserve to be preserved in letters of gold,viz., Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Steward, Robert Morrison, Alexander Coningham, Samuel Hunt, with James Spike, John Coningham, William Cairns, Samuel Harvey, and some others who soon joined them, ran to the main-guard, seized the keys, after a slight opposition, came to the Ferry Gate, drew up the bridge, and locked the gate just as Lord Antrim’s soldiers had advanced within sixty yards of it.”
The siege lasted one hundred and five days, during which time the townspeople were reduced to the direst extremities. “Reduced,” writes the historian, “to the extremity of distress, and endeavouring to support the remains of life by such miserable food as the flesh of dogs and vermin, even tallow and hides, nor able to find more than two days’ provisions ofsuch substances, the garrison was still assured by the harangues of Walker, in a prophetic spirit, that God would relieve them; and men reduced almost to shadows made desperate sallies, but were unable to pursue their advantage.” The besiegers had thrown a boom across the river to prevent all navigation, and Kirk, the Orange admiral, had already been deterred by it from attempting the relief of the town. At length two provision ships and a frigate drew near to the city. One ship “dashed with giant strength against the barrier, and grounded, though subsequently floated out into deep water.”
Nearly twenty-five hundred citizens died of famine or at the hands of the enemy during the siege.
Near Londonderry is the Grianan of Aillach, upon which are the remains of what is thought to have been an ancient royal residence which, in splendour and importance, must have ranked high among the ancient palaces of the Irish kings.
By some, however, it has been asserted that this remarkable work, of which, to be sure, only fragmentary ruins remain, was a formertemple dedicated to the worship of the sun. At any rate, it was evidently a splendid and imposing structure.
Its present appearance is that of a truncated cairn of extraordinary dimensions, which, on closer inspection, proves to be a building constructed with every attention to masonic regularity, both in design and workmanship. A circular wall, of considerable thickness, encloses an area of eighty-two feet in diameter. Judging from the numbers of stones which have fallen off on every side, so as to form, in fact, a sloping glacis of ten or twelve feet broad all around it, this wall must have been of considerable height, probably from ten to twelve feet; but its thickness varies, that portion of it extending from north to south, and embracing the western half of the circle, being but ten or eleven feet, whereas, in the corresponding, or eastern half, the thickness increases to sixteen or seventeen, particularly at the entrance.
One of the inevitable illustrations of the old-time school geographies of our youth was a representation of the “Giant’s Causeway,” with its queer, hassocklike, basaltic stones,built in fantastic forms, like the structures children themselves are wont to erect from their building-blocks.
Next in order come the books of pictorial travel and “table books” of the “wonders of the world,” where the same picture appears again; and, finally, the astute proprietors of ardent spirit which is distilled at Bushmills,—an ancient town of perhaps a thousand inhabitants, between Portrush, Coleraine, and the basalt-bound coast of Northern Ireland,—have covered walls and fences with quite the most pleasing and alluring of all the pictorial representations of this unique rocky formation.
By these various means, the aspect of “The Giant’s Causeway” has become familiar to all. So, too, most people are familiar with the chief characteristics; for which reason it is useless to repeat them in detail here.
It was in the last years of the seventeenth century that this wonderland of nature first attracted the attention of the inquisitive, and from that time on its peculiarities have drawn many thousands of visitors of all ranks, from the mere pleasure and sensation loving touristof convention to the profound scientist and antiquarian.
The five and six-sided basalt rocks are piled perpendicularly one upon the other, in contrast to most rocky formations, which lie on their sides, and the varying heights of the columns form those significantly named groups known as the “Organ and Pipes,” “Samson’s Ribs,” and the three “Causeways,” the chief of which gives its name to the group.
By those who have delved into the subject, armed with a profound geological knowledge, plummet and line, and rule and level, we are informed that “There is only one triangular pillar throughout the whole extent of the three Causeways. It stands near the east side of the Grand Causeway. There are but three pillars of nine sides; one of them situated in the Honeycomb, and the others not far from the triangular pillar just noticed. The total number having four and eight sides bears but a small proportion to the entire mass of pillars, of which it may be safely computed that ninety-nine out of one hundred have either five, six, or seven sides.”
For a further description, which shall be
THE HONEYCOMB, GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.THE HONEYCOMB, GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.
brief and to the point, we have the remarks of Köhl, the antiquarian who devoted so much of his energy to a study of Ireland’s peculiar and rare beauties.
He says: “With all the explanations that can be offered with respect to the origin of this phenomena, so much is left unexplained that they answer very little purpose. On a close investigation of these wonderful formations, so many questions arise that one scarcely ventures to utter them. With inquiries of this nature, perhaps not the least gain is the knowledge of how much lies beyond the limits of our inquiries, and how many things that lie so plainly before our eyes, which we can see and handle, may yet be wrapped in unfathomable mystery. We see in the Giant’s Causeway the most certain and obvious effects produced by the operation of active and powerful forces which entirely escape our scrutiny. We walk over the heads of some forty thousand columns (for this number has been counted by some curious and leisurely persons), all beautifully cut and polished, formed of such neat pieces, so exactly fitted to each other, and so cleverly supported, that we might fancy wehad before us the work of ingenious human artificers; and yet what we behold is the result of the immutable laws of nature, acting without any apparent object, and by a process which must remain a mystery for ever to our understanding. Even the simplest inquiries it is often impossible to answer; such, for instance, as how far these colonnades run out beneath the sea, and how far into the land, which throws over them a veil as impenetrable as that of the ocean.”
There are to be found in this group a great number of caves; some of a unique character, and many more like most other caves, presenting no striking peculiarity. Portcoon Cave is noted for its echo, and Dunkerry Cave for the fact that it can only be entered from the sea.
There is a “Giant’s Well,” of course, which legend tells was but one of the many domestic arrangements which nature had provided for the former Gargantuan inhabitants of these parts, but the chief of all the attractions is the Causeway itself, which is divided into three tongues, the Little, the Middle, and the Grand Causeways.
“The Giant’s Organ,” with its pipes, suggested by the basaltic erections of various heights, possesses perhaps the greatest sentimental interest. The guide-books tell one that he should imagine some gigantic personage seated as if before a keyboard, and ringing out wild melodies in quick succession. It will take an exceedingly vivid imagination to call up this inspiration, and one had much better accept the tale as set forth in the ancient legend, and not attempt to revivify the scene in these advanced days, when the electric-tram from Bushmills is depositing its hundreds daily at the very foot of the Causeway.
There are traditions without end which attempt to account for this wonderful natural production of the Causeway itself, but one shall suffice here. If the reader wants more he can get them without number and without end if he will but listen to the voluble guides of the neighbourhood. The Giant Fin M’Coul was the champion of Ireland, and felt very much aggrieved at the insolent boasting of a certain Caledonian giant, who offered to beat all who came before him, and even dared to tell Fin that if it weren’t for the wetting ofhimself, he would swim over and give him a drubbing. Fin at last applied to the king, who, not daring, perhaps, to question the doings of such a weighty man, gave him leave to construct a causeway right to Scotland, on which the Scot walked over and fought the Irishman. Fin turned out victor, and with an amount of generosity quite becoming his Hibernian descent, kindly allowed his former rival to marry and settle in Ireland, which the Scot was not loath to do, seeing that at that time living in Scotland was none of the best, and everybody knows that Ireland was always the richest country in the world. Since the death of the giants, the Causeway, being no longer wanted, has sunk under the sea, only leaving a portion of itself visible here, a little at the island of Rathlin, and the portals of the grand gate on Staffa off the Scottish coast.
This certainly seems an acceptably plausible legend, so far as legends can meet those conditions. It is certainly a picturesque one, and the great gateway of the island of Staffa has much if not all the attributes of its brother across the sea.
As a whole, the Causeways and their attributesare indeed suggestive—as has been said before by some discerning person—of a scene from Dante’s Inferno. More particularly they might be likened to a drawing of Gustave Doré’s, illustrating that immortal poem, as we have mostly drawn our conception of what that land was like from his work, rather than from Dante’s descriptions.
At all events, it is a huge nightmare of scenic effect, although a pleasant one.
Between Portrush, really the seaport of Coleraine, and the Giant’s Causeway is Dunluce Castle, “the most picturesque ruin ever beheld,” said an enthusiastic Irishman. As the Scot will tell you the same of Melrose, the statement may well be left in doubt.
At any rate, Dunluce, like Dunseverick, the ancient seat of the O’Cahans or O’Kanes, has been in part hewn out of the coast-line rocks, and possesses a precipitous and jagged barrier which might well be expected to forbid any attack by sea. It is, moreover, entirely separated from the mainland, though at low water connected therewith by a miniature causeway in much the same manner as was originallythe famous abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy.
Among the ruins is a small vaulted chamber in which, it is believed by a great many folk around about, a banshee resides. The reason assigned for this belief is that the floor is always perfectly clean. It is difficult to follow this line of reasoning; more probably the true solution of the problem is that the wind, having free access to and egress from the apartment, carries dust and dirt before it. Another chamber in the northeast side has fearful attractions for the venturesome. The rock which formerly supported this room has fallen away, and, like a dovecot, it is suspended in the air only by its attachment to the main building.
The erection of Dunluce Castle has been assigned to De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and the castle was in the hands of the English in the fifteenth century. In 1580, or thereabouts, Colonel M’Donald, the founder of the family of MacDonnells of Antrim, came to Ireland to assist Tyrconnel against the O’Neill, a powerful chieftain, and was hospitably entertained by M’Quillan, the Lord of Dunluce,whom he assisted in subduing his savage neighbours. Being successful in their enterprise, M’Donald returned to Dunluce, and was pressed to winter in the castle, having his men quartered on the vassals of M’Quillan. M’Donald, however, took advantage of his position as a guest, says history, and privately married the daughter of his host. Upon this marriage the MacDonnells afterward rested their claim to M’Quillan’s territory. A conspiracy among the Irish to murder the Scottish chief and his followers was discovered by his wife, and they made their escape, but returned afterward and came to possess a considerable portion of the county of Antrim. The affairs of the M’Quillans and their successors, the MacDonnells, have left endless traditions, but the descendants of the former are now no more known as “kings and lords,” having fallen to the condition of “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” says a local historian. The Scottish family became lords of Antrim and Dunluce.
In the autumn of 1814 a visit was paid to the ruins of Dunluce by Sir Walter Scott, who observed a great resemblance in it to DunottarCastle in Kincardineshire. A detailed description of the ruins is given in his diary.
Just off the Giant’s Causeway is Rathlin Island, between which and the Mull of Cantyre on the Scottish coast all the Clyde-bound ships feel their way and the traveller by sea knows that he is well in toward the Firth of Clyde. Rathlin Island may naturally enough be presumed to be of the same strata of rocky formation of which the Causeway is built, practically a link which once may have bound Ireland and Scotland.
Robert Bruce, in 1306, during the wars between him and Baliol, fled to this island with three hundred men, returning to Scotland in the spring of the following year. A ruined castle, said to be inhabited by Bruce, and still bearing his name, is situated on a high, almost perpendicular piece of land, and from it may be obtained a view of the Scottish coast. Many of the inhabitants, who number above a thousand, speak only the ancient Irish language.
All the world knows Carrick-a-Rede and its famous rope-bridge. It has even been pictured in the school geographies along with such wonders of the world as Niagara Falls and the
CARRICK-A-REDE.CARRICK-A-REDE.
Pyramids of Egypt. It is a precipitous island-rock, a hundred feet or more high, which is linked to the mainland by an airy swinging bridge of ropes and “slats,” sixty feet long. There are no sights on the tiny island itself, and the bridge is only meant for the accommodation of fisher and shepherd folk, who, according to the guide-books, run across it heavily laden with baskets or carcasses, and in a manner amazing to the ordinary beholder. In practice, or at least so far as the casual traveller is concerned, they do this only as a sort of side-show before an appreciative audience who may have paid the price of admission. Nevertheless, it is a more or less frightful crossing, and one which seems to fascinate all who view it; so much so that the desire to emulate the venturesome native rises high in the stranger’s breast. There is no hand-rail to the bridge, only a rope that swings clear away from the slight foothold if it is heavily grasped; and each step makes the whole fabric quiver like a jelly from end to end. Still, by stepping quickly and lightly, and keeping the eyes fixed on the opposite rock, the pass can be made; and if the venturesome travellermisses his footing, and takes a header of a hundred feet, “he will not be drowned,” says the enterprising writer of a certain railway-guide; “the fall generally kills him outright.” The return journey is the worst, the bridge sloping downward toward the mainland. The local fisher-people, however, are quite accustomed to getting out boats in order to release some unlucky voyager from imprisonment on the rock, when discretion has suddenly over-powered valour at the commencement of the return trip; but again it is a question of price. It will be gathered from the above that the writer’s advice, concerning the crossing of the rope-bridge, is paraphrased in one word, “Don’t.”
JOURNEYING from the Giant’s Causeway to Belfast and Dublin, through the north-eastern counties of Antrim and Down, one comes upon a region little known to the casual traveller, who is usually smitten at once with the charms of Killarney and the South, and who neglects this more conveniently and comfortably traversed region.
Truth to tell, the large centres of population of Dublin and Belfast, and sundry visitors from the “Midlands” of England, have appropriated it as their own playground, and, “in the season,” are found here in large numbers.
This need be no detraction from the charms of the region, which, if not historically and picturesquely possessed of the same qualities as the middle and south of Ireland, at least hasthe advantage of being an unworn road to the majority of travellers.
Drogheda, on the estuary of the river Boyne, is the first happy hunting-ground for the student of history and architecture, after he leaves the immediate environs of Dublin itself.
Drogheda is at once ancient and modern. Its shops and factories, its shipping and its tramways, are evidences of that modernity which is ever obtrusive in an old-world shrine of history.
Drogheda, according to one authority, was formerly called Tredagh, and originally Imbbar Colpa. “It is so very ancient that it is supposed to have been founded by Heremon, one of the sons of Milesius, who, having arrived from Spain with Heber and his other brothers at Imbbar Sceine (Bantry Bay), was subsequently separated from Heber by a storm, and, while Heber regained the Kerry coast, Heremon, after innumerable hardships, put into Drogheda, where he effected a landing, but with the loss of his brothers and Colpa, the swordsman, who perished in the bay, and from which circumstance the town derived its name.” Thus writes Anthony Marmion, inhis “History of the Maritime Ports of Ireland.” “There can be no doubt,” he continues, “that an eastern colony of Mithraic, or sun-worshippers, had been early established in the neighbourhood of Drogheda.” Coming, however, to less remote and fabulous happenings, Drogheda, whose Irish name was Droiceheadatha, the Bridge of the Ford, was taken by Turgesius the Dane in 911, and made a stronghold for raids into the surrounding country. Its importance was also recognized by the Anglo-Normans, who built a bridge across the Boyne at this point. The most celebrated military event in the town’s history was its siege and capture by Cromwell in 1649.
The walls and gates, so unusual in Ireland, were formerly a line of defence a mile and a half or more in circumference, and, from the very substantial remains of the St. Laurence Gate and the West or Butler Gate, it may be inferred that they were a wonderfully effective defence, sharing with the walls of Derry the glory of being the most elaborate works of their kind in Ireland.
The most curious architectural embellishment of Drogheda is the famous Magdalensteeple—all that remains of the Dominican Abbey founded in 1224 by the Archbishop of Armagh, whose remains lie buried in the ruins.
Here, in 1395, Richard II. of England held court, and within the building four Irish princes did homage to the king, and were knighted by him. Cromwell’s cannon razed the building until only the grim, gaunt tower or steeple was left. A sepulchral cairn of stone, known as the Mill Mount, appears to have been the ancient citadel of Drogheda. A mythical hero of the prechristian era, “Ghoban the Smith,” is supposed to have been buried here.
North of the Boyne estuary is Dundalk Bay, in itself a beautifully disposed body of water which, if not possessed of the ruggedness of the fiords of Western Ireland, is in every way an attractive setting for Dundalk itself, which is mostly a town of one long vertebrate street along which short spines radiate for a brief distance and lose themselves in the background of hills or in the strand of the sea.
Edward Bruce, the brother of the Scottish Robert, stormed Dundalk after Bannockburn, and lived here, after taking the town, for twoyears. He died in the engagement fought near Dundalk with the English army, in 1318.
In 1649 Monk held the town for the king against Cromwell.
At the head of Carlingford Lough is Newry, pleasantly situated in a valley overlooked by the Carlingford Mountains. It is one of the most ancient towns in the island, being famed even in Irish bardic literature. It was also the seat of a monastery, where St. Patrick himself, it is said, planted a yew-tree, referred to in no complimentary strain in Swift’s satiric couplet: