CHAPTER X

OUR REST ON THE ANTRIM COAST

Whenwe came down to the noon lunch at the hotel, we met Miss O’Neill and a fine-looking, elderly gentleman and lady, whom she at once introduced as her parents.

Mr. O’Neill was very cordial, and invited us to sit at their table. In some way I managed to monopolize both Mr. and Mrs. O’Neill, leaving Mike out in the cold with Miss O’Neill. However, I don’t think he minded it in the least, as both he and the fair Irish girl seemed to get on good terms at once. I was surprised at Mike. I had never known him before to take an interest in any girl. He always had avoided the young ladies as long as I had known him. I think it must have been the Irish atmosphere.

After lunch Mr. O’Neill and I went for a walk over the Causeway. Mrs. O’Neill took an afternoon nap, and so Mike and Miss Edith were left alone together again.

One reason why Mike capitulated so easily to the charms of this fair Irish maiden was that she had been an ardent student of aeronautics, and was even ambitious to fly herself.

During the afternoon Mr. O’Neill showed me the wonders of the Giant’s Causeway. It is no wonder thatthis unique phenomenon in geology is so far-famed. A stream of lava, 2600 feet wide, and fifteen miles long, instead of forming the usual basaltic rock when it had cooled, formed itself into detached columns, from six to thirty feet long, and from eight to twenty-four inches in diameter. These strange columns, mostly pentagonal or hexagonal in formation, present a smooth surface in three parallel terraces along this Antrim coast and make the most remarkable natural pavement ever seen by the eyes of man. There are forty thousand of these columns, and every one of them is a perfect geometrical figure. The columns are so close together that water will not pass between them, and yet each is separate.

“With skill so like, yet so surpassing art;With such design, so just in every part,That reason ponders, doubtly if it standThe work of mortal or immortal hand.”

“With skill so like, yet so surpassing art;

With such design, so just in every part,

That reason ponders, doubtly if it stand

The work of mortal or immortal hand.”

As we walked over this marvelous piece of rock formation, Mr. O’Neill told me the legend of Finn McCool, and how he built the Causeway over to Scotland, in order to provide a way for Ben Donner to come over to Ireland to accept his challenge. Ben was the champion of Scotland, as Finn was in Ireland, and Finn was determined to see which was the better man. In the contest Finn was victorious, and as there was no further use for this strange roadway across the sea, most of it had been swept away, but a little was left on the Antrim coast, a relic of Finn’s remarkable handiwork.

HORIZONTAL PILLARS, GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.

Science attempts to explain the Causeway by saying that, when the rock was in a fluid state, crystalization set in, and produced the phenomenon. It is claimed that the Palisades of the Hudson are a somewhat similar formation. On account of the fact that rocks do not naturally crystalize, however, the Causeway still remains the puzzle of the scientist.

The scenery along the coast near the Causeway is sublime, and there is a walk along the face of the cliff, which I found almost as dangerous as aeroplaning. I found Mr. O’Neill a charming companion, and I thoroughly enjoyed his society. After we had talked of the Causeway, our conversation drifted to the subject of Ireland’s history. Naturally, this was a subject dear to his heart. He gave me a brief epitome of Irish history which was new to me. Irish history begins with St. Patrick in the fifth century of our era. St. Patrick evangelized the Irish, and, as a result of his labors, Ireland was the land of saints and scholars during the period between the sixth and tenth centuries. The Danes, who settled around the coasts of Ireland, broke up this peaceful prosperity. Schools were demolished and the students scattered. Brian Boru brought back a brief period of glory to Irish history by uniting the Irish under his able sway. He defeated the Danes in a decisive battle at Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014, but he lost his life at the close of that fatal day. Ireland was left rudderless again. The petty chiefs quarrelled amongst themselves, and in 1170 the English came over and claimed Ireland. The struggles of the Irish forpolitical freedom have been pathetic. The native Irish were often treated as the Indians were by the white men in America, but with this vital exception. In America the Indian quietly died out, and gave not trouble. In Ireland, the Irish lived, multiplied, and filled Ireland with Irishmen. The real estate deals made in Irish land by several of England’s rulers left a bad taste in the mouths of the Irish. In 1641, taking advantage of England’s Civil War, the Irish rose against the English and Scotch colonists in Ireland with terrible fury. In 1649 Cromwell reduced Ireland again to English rule, treating the natives with savage ferocity. Another rebellion arose in 1689, when JamesII.was driven from the English throne by WilliamIII.James came to Ireland and the Irish rose in his favor. WilliamIII.again conquered the Irish. Thus the history has gone on. Laws of fearful severity were enacted, and the native Irish, for almost a century, were outcasts in the land of their forefathers.

Mr. O’Neill was a great admirer of Daniel O’Connell. He told me that a new era began for Ireland when Daniel O’Connell, with the assistance of English statesmen, took off some of Ireland’s heaviest burdens. “I believe,” said Mr. O’Neill, with great earnestness, “that since Gladstone’s time, England has been trying to do justice to Ireland.”

He assured me that the Irish had never acknowledged that England had conquered them. He told me about an English schoolboy who was asked to write anessay on the “Conquest of Ireland,” and he began: “The Conquest of Ireland began in 1170, and is still going on.”

I was much impressed with the way O’Neill recited to me the history of his country. Sometimes tears came into his eyes. He quoted, with much feeling, a few lines from an Irish poet:

“Of old the harp of InnisfailWas turned to gladness,But, Oh! how oft it’s told a taleOf wide prevailing sadness.”

“Of old the harp of Innisfail

Was turned to gladness,

But, Oh! how oft it’s told a tale

Of wide prevailing sadness.”

He expressed high hopes that Ireland’s darkest days are past. He believes all Irishmen in Ireland today, the Protestant in the North and the Catholic in the South, should blot out the unhappy memories of the past centuries, and forget the mistakes of former times, and face the future, united in honest efforts for Ireland’s welfare.

As we walked along, while he told me all this, we suddenly came upon Mike and Edith at the Giant’s Wishing Chair. This is a place where the columns of the Causeway are arranged something like a rude chair, and it is said if you sit in this “chair,” and wish, that your wish will come true. When we came on the scene Edith was sitting in the chair, wishing. Mike was standing by her side, evidently much amused.

“What’s your wish,” Mike asked, after we had joined them.

“I wished that I might fly tomorrow,” she answered with a blush. Then, walking up to her father she said:

“Oh, Papa, can I take a ride in the aeroplane with Mr. Connor tomorrow?”

I saw Mr. Neill glance quickly at her flushed face, and then turn away with a sigh. She was his only child.

“Why, why,” he answered, “what put such a notion as that in your head? Did you, sir?” and he looked accusingly at Mike.

“No, sir,” said Edith, before Mike could speak, “Mr. Connor never said a word to me about it.”

“We’ll see tomorrow,” said her father.

“I think my wish will come true,” I heard Miss O’Neill say to Mike, as they walked ahead of us up the rough road to the hotel.

I did not hear Mike’s reply but it seemed to please her immensely.

I resumed my talk with Mr. O’Neill about Ireland. I asked him about recent land laws. I found him enthusiastic about the Wyndham Act of 1903, providing for the purchase of their farms by Irish tenants.

“It means a new Ireland inside a generation,” he earnestly exclaimed. He then went on to say that the Irish people as a whole, the native Celt, the descendants of the Scotch, English and French, were developing a distinctive modern Irish race, which would be able to hold its own in every department of life. This led him to speak of the Irish people in America, and I found he had followed the fortunes of his countrymen across the sea. He was delighted when I told him that Mike and I were Irish Yankees.

“County Antrim ought to be a sacred place to you,” he said to me, “for two of your great Presidents traced their ancestory to Antrim.” He went on to tell me that President Jackson’s father sailed from Carrickfergus, near Belfast, in 1765, going to North Carolina. He also told me that the great-great-grandfather of President McKinley emigrated from Conagher, County Antrim, in 1743. He had himself seen the old McKinley homestead. Mr. O’Neill and I were on such good terms of real friendship that very evening, that I could hardly believe it possible I had only met him that day. I believe it was the Irish atmosphere.

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