{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42958/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42958","id":"gutenberg_42958","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42958","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Travel Writing","Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- Description and travel"],"text":"[Illustration: MUCKROSS BAY, KILLYBEGS, DONEGAL]\n\n\n\n\nULSTER\n\nDescribed by Stephen Gwynn\nPictured by Alexander Williams\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nBLACKIE AND SON LIMITED\nLONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY\n1911\n\n\n\n\nBeautiful Ireland\n\n    LEINSTER\n    ULSTER\n    MUNSTER\n    CONNAUGHT\n\n\n_Uniform with this Series_\n\nBeautiful England\n\n    OXFORD\n    THE ENGLISH LAKES\n    CANTERBURY\n    SHAKESPEARE-LAND\n    THE THAMES\n    WINDSOR CASTLE\n    CAMBRIDGE\n    NORWICH AND THE BROADS\n    THE HEART OF WESSEX\n    THE PEAK DISTRICT\n    THE CORNISH RIVIERA\n    DICKENS-LAND\n    WINCHESTER\n    THE ISLE OF WIGHT\n    CHESTER AND THE DEE\n    YORK\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n                                Page\n\nAT THE GAP OF THE NORTH            5\n\n\"THE BLACK NORTH\"                 13\n\nTHE MAIDEN CITY                   28\n\nTIRCONNELL                        37\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                        Page\n\nMuckross Bay, Killybegs, Donegal               _Frontispiece_\n\nNarrow Water Castle, Carlingford Lough                     8\n\nCave Hill, Belfast                                        14\n\nCarrickfergus Castle, Belfast Lough                       20\n\nThe Giants' Causeway                                      26\n\nFair Head, Co. Antrim                                     32\n\nLondonderry from the Waterside                            36\n\nTory Island from Falcarragh Hill, Donegal                 42\n\nMuckish and Ards from Rosapenna, Sheephaven, Donegal      46\n\nMount Errigal from the Gweedore River, Donegal            50\n\nGlenveagh, Donegal                                        54\n\nThe Entrance to Mulroy Bay, Donegal                       58\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: ULSTER]\n\nAT THE GAP OF THE NORTH\n\n\nUlster is a province much talked of and little understood--a name\nabout which controversy rages. But to those who know it and who love\nit, one thing is clear--Ulster is no less Ireland than Connaught\nitself. No better song has been written in our days than that which\ntells of an Irishman's longing in London to be back \"where the\nmountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea\"; nor indeed is the whole\nframe of mind which that song dramatises, with so pleasant a blending\nof humour and pathos, better expressed in any single way than in the\nphrase \"thinking long\"--an idiom common to all Ulster talk, whether\nin Down or Donegal. And when I who write these lines \"think long\"\nfor Ireland, it is to Ulster that my thought goes back, back to the\nhomely ways and the quaint speech of northern folk, hard yet kindly,\nwith the genial welcome readier even in their rough accent than in\nsmoothest Munster: for these things there rises in my mind the vague\naching, half-remembrance, half-desire, which we call \"thinking long\".\nIt is a far cry from Belfast, with its clang of riveters, to the vast\nloneliness of Slieve League or Dunlewy; and yet the great captain\nof industry, nurtured and proven in the keenest commerce, has upon\nhis tongue, in his features, in the whole cast of his nature, these\nvery traits which endear themselves to me in some Irish-speaking\nschoolmaster of western Donegal. Soil, climate, and common\nmemories--these are what identify and what bind. No man gets his\nliving too easily in Ulster, and need makes neighbourly. Protestant\nand Catholic have to fight the same battle with hard weather--of which\nperhaps even the summer traveller may form some judgment; they are\nrewarded by the same loveliness which makes a fine day in Ulster the\nmost enchanting upon earth; and they fend against the stress of storm\nby the same warm shelter, the same glow of the turf-piled hearth.\n\nThe Ulster of which I shall write in these few pages is the Ulster of\nfour sea-bordering counties only, Donegal, Derry, Antrim, and Down,\nsince beyond doubt these exceed the other five in attractions. Only\nlet a word be said of two great lakes. Lough Erne, which belongs\nmainly to Fermanagh, though bordering Donegal in part, is to its\nchampions the Cinderella of Irish waters, and some day it will come\ninto its inheritance of fame. Lough Neagh, with its eighty miles of\nshore, divided among five counties, has never been seen by me but in\ntranquil loveliness, one vast sheet of shimmering blue; and whether at\nAntrim, where many memories have their monuments, or at Toomebridge,\nwhere the Bann flows out majestically, has seemed well worth a day's\njourney--the more because its beauty is set among lands not fertile,\nyet prosperously tilled and inhabited by people, not rich indeed, yet\nsafely removed from the stress of poverty. Not far from it is Armagh,\na cathedral city, richer in associations than any in Ireland. If I do\nnot write of Armagh, it is because the oldest of these associations\nhas its monument also at the southern gate of Ulster, where the\ndivision of the province is best marked.\n\nCarlingford Lough, according to modern geography, marks that division,\nbut in truth the lough's southern shore, the rocky promontory of\nCooley, belongs to Ulster by all titles, though it be included in\nthe modern county of Louth. A steamer will carry you from Holyhead\nto Greenore (where is a hotel with the inevitable golf links) and\nland you nominally in Leinster. But all that mountainous headland is\ninhabited by folk who still keep the Gaelic speech alive among them,\nand whose remote forbears owned in far distant times the overlordship\nof Ireland's most famous champion, when Ulster had a pagan chivalry,\nthe Red Branch Circle, which is to Irish legend what the story\nof Arthur's knighthood is to British romance, or the tale of the\nNibelungs to Germany. Cooley (in Irish, _Cuailgne_) was the fief of\nCuchulain; and the Brown Bull of Cooley was the object of that great\nforay made by the rest of Ireland upon Ulster, which is related in the\noldest and finest of all Celtic hero tales.\n\nCuchulain's dwelling was outside Cooley, outside Ulster proper; his\nstronghold was Dundealgan, the \"Thorn Fort\" which gives its name to\nDundalk. It was an outpost guarding that pass in the hills, the gap of\nthe north, through which the railway, leaving the plains of Leinster,\nwinds into the mountainous and threatening regions of Armagh and Down.\n\n[Illustration: NARROW WATER CASTLE, CARLINGFORD LOUGH]\n\nAll the story of Cuchulain's hero-feats can be read in Lady Gregory's\nadmirable version, _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_; but Cuchulain's fort you\ncan see for yourself. It stands close to the town of Dundalk, visible\nfrom the railway, a flat-topped mount, surrounded by a trench some\nthirty feet deep, with a steep outer rampart surrounding this in its\nturn. The whole is now tree-covered. Mr. Tempest, an antiquary of\nDundalk, whose exertions have saved this monument from the spade and\nplough, thinks that he has identified, a couple of miles south of\nDundalk, the place where Cuchulain died. Cloghafarmore, the \"Big Man's\nStone\", at Ratheddy is one of the \"standing stones\" found through\nIreland, as through other Celtic countries, and tradition identifies\nit with the pillar to which Cuchulain made his way from his last\nfight. For ninety days, he and his charioteer Laeg, and his pair of\nhorses, Black Sanglain and the Grey of Macha, had harassed and held\nback the host of Ireland, destroying champion after champion, singly\nor by groups, in fights at each ford, and raining missiles upon the\nmain body with marvellous sling-throwing; but at last, encompassed and\nat bay, he had got his death-wound with his own charmed spear, which\npassed through the bodies of nine men in its last flight from his\nhand. When, flung back at him by Lugaidh, last survivor of the sons\nwhose father Cuchulain had slain, it had ripped his body open, the\nwounded warrior, holding his bowels together with one hand, staggered\nto this pillar stone, and bound himself to it by his scarf, so that\neven in death and defeat he might still stand upright. So he stood\npropped, while the Grey of Macha, loosed from its harness, defended\nhim with teeth and hoof, letting none approach, till men saw that on\nthe hero's shoulder a raven had lighted. \"It is not on that pillar\nbirds were used to settle\", said one of his foemen. Then the grey\nhorse knew that life had ebbed away, and she left the body to its\ndespoilers. But the man who struck off Cuchulain's head, and took it\nwith him, had his own head struck off by a comrade of the Red Branch\nbefore he reached the plains of Liffey.\n\nSuch is the fierce temper of that old hero-cycle; but if its heroes\nare not to be outdone in fierceness neither are they in generosity.\nHow much is legend, sheer invention, none can say: the great\nearthworks at Armagh, Cuchulain's fort at Dundealgan, and a hundred\nother things testify to a truth behind the tale. And it is fairly\nwell established that the race which had its centre at Armagh was\nnot the race which governed from Tara: the Red Branch was Pictish,\nTara was Milesian. How distinct the racial types show where they have\nsurvived tolerably pure is hardly realized, save by some such chance\nas befell me, when, at an exhibition in Limerick, I was summoned to\nlook at a strange foreign folk from the north. They were girls from\nan Irish-speaking district in Donegal--not far from Rosapenna--pretty\ngirls, too, but among the big, buxom, oval-faced, soft-bodied\nSoutherners their short profiles, their high cheek bones, and hard,\nbright colour showed as strange as if they had been from another\nquarter of the world.\n\nAll the subsequent stages in Irish history meet you about the shores\nof Carlingford--Carline-fiord; its name tells of Danish settlements.\nThe old castle in Carlingford town was erected by de Courcy at King\nJohn's bidding; the monastery was Norman built too, by Richard de\nBurgo, Earl of Ulster, but the Norman rule in Ulster was closely\nlimited to a few strongholds on the coast. The Narrow Water Castle,\nwhich Mr. Williams has drawn against its background of the steep\nrichly wooded slopes which make the chief beauty of this beautiful\nlough, is on the site of a thirteenth-century fortress, but that was\ndestroyed in the Great War of 1641, and this building dates from\nCharles II's reign. At Warrenpoint a tall obelisk records the name of\nRoss of Bladensburg, one of the many brilliant officers whom Ireland\ngave to Wellington's armies--with how many thousands of the unnamed\npeasants to fill the ranks that they led! All those wooded hills\nbehind Rostrevor, the little watering-place that nestles snug among\nthem, looking south to the sun and the hills of Cooley, speak of\ncomfortable days and territorial dominion. Behind those same wooded\nhills lies the southernmost point of industrial Ulster, Newry town,\nwith its whirring looms.\n\nThese are some of the stepping-stones to guide one through Irish\nhistory; yet how many more might be added! Where the road and rail\nstrike north from Dundalk, as they rise to that pass which is the\nfamous Gap, you reach Faughart, scene of the battle where Edward Bruce\nended his disastrous adventure of conquest in Ireland. And on the\nplain below, William and Schomberg had their camp and mustered their\narmy before it set out to march upon the Boyne.\n\nMemories of war--Pict and Connachtman contending for Cuchulain's head;\nthe Dane plundering and trading; the Norman building his strongholds;\nthe Scot heading Ireland's endeavour to shake off the Norman yoke;\nthat other convulsion in 1641, and then new castles built; the\nDutchman landing, and his triumphant march; and from the subdued\nIreland, thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers, gentle and simple,\nissuing forth to uphold the English name. Yes, but other memories are\nthere too. Some maintain that here Patrick landed on his mission. But\nat all events at Faughart, in the fifth century, Brigid was born, the\n\"Mary of the Gael\", \"mother of all the saints of Ireland\". Her work\nwas done in Leinster, but surely her birthplace here on the threshold\nof Ulster should not be overlooked.\n\n\n\n\n\"THE BLACK NORTH\"\n\n\nI shall assume that from Dundalk and its neighbouring beauty, that\nnarrow lough winding among the hills, you go straight to Belfast,\nwith the glorious range of Mourne Mountains on your right hand to\nmake the journey attractive. At \"Portadown upon the Bann\", where the\nPope has a bad name, you are not far from the focus of the industrial\nnorth--at all events of the great linen industry. From the train you\nwill see fields white as snow with bleaching webs; and it is said\nthat one cause of this trade's localization is a special suitability\nof climate, like that which makes Lancashire head of the world for\ncotton-spinning. Belgium can beat Ireland in producing flax--can get\n50 per cent more for the same weight of finished fibre--but in the\nspinning and weaving Ulster is unapproachable. Unhappily, as in all\ntextile trades, the individual withers and the machine grows more\nand more: hand-loom damask weavers, who can still make a product\nmarvellous for craftsmanship, find their occupation gone--the machine\nruns them too close.\n\nWhat the linen trade has been worth to Ulster can never be counted.\nIt was the one industry which England's jealousy spared, and even\n(after long refusal) grudgingly fostered, in those very decades when\nher manufacturers were urging Parliament to stamp out and destroy the\nwoollen trade. Its existence preserved in this corner of the country\nthat industrial habit which means not only an inherited skill but the\ntransmitted aptitude for factory work, with its regular hours and\nmechanical routine, so unlike the conditions of labour on the land, in\nwhich all the rest of Ireland has found--since 1800--its only resource.\n\nEven agriculture has been helped by the proximity of towns where\nall, down to the labouring classes, have money to buy with. The\ndistrict which centres about Portadown is to-day foremost of all\nIreland for the culture of fruit and flowers, though neither climate\nnor soil specially favours it. One beauty that Ulster has far more\ngenerally than any other province is the flower-bordered cottage. They\ngrow orange lilies in fine profusion, but they grow other and less\nemblematic blossoms as well.\n\n[Illustration: CAVE HILL, BELFAST]\n\nBelfast--when you reach it--is not calculated to charm the eye. It has\nthe features of any English manufacturing town so far as its buildings\nare concerned, and the finest structures it can show (without\ndisparaging its handsome Town Hall) are the vast fabrics which rise\nin the dockyards, such ships as have never been built in the world\nbefore--marvels of symmetry and strength. To see them in the building\nup is to watch, perhaps, the most impressive exhibition of human\nskill and energy. Ireland, for all its defective development, can\nboast of heading the world in certain enterprises: Guinness's brewery,\nHarland and Wolff's engineering works, and Barbour's great net and\nrope factory at Lisburn are, each in its kind, the biggest and best in\nEurope, or out of it.\n\nOnce you get down to the water in Belfast, beauty is abundant, and\nfor my part I like best the view from the docks. But Mr. Williams has\nchosen a distant indication of the town under the bold headland, at\nwhose foot it lies so well. This aspect of Cave Hill does not show\nits strange feature--the vast Napoleonic profile flung up against\nan eastern sky. Time was when Belfast must have been curiously\ndivided about that portent; for in the Revolution period northern\nIreland was fiercely republican. It was on Cave Hill that Wolfe Tone,\nmost formidable of all Irish rebels, with a group of young Ulster\ndemocrats, founded the Society of United Irishmen.\n\nBelfast does not dwell much on these memories to-day, nor indeed on\nany memories; her interest is in the prosperous present, the growing\nfuture. And although it has its absurdities, notably in the claim to\nbe more populous than Dublin (a result achieved by omitting Rathmines\nand Pembroke, townships separately governed, but as much part of\nDublin as Kensington and Chelsea are of London), the strong pride\nof Belfast is amply justified. It is not its proximity to Scotch\ncoalfields nor its moist climate (dear to spinners) which really makes\nits fortune, it is the hard-bitten, restless, courageous spirit of its\npeople.\n\nLike Dublin, it has close access to places of great natural\ncharm. Just beyond Cave Hill, on the north shore of the lough, is\nCarrickfergus Castle, whose grim strength Mr. Williams has excellently\nsuggested. It was built within six years of the Norman invasion, by\nde Courcy, first grantee of Ulster; and here, as at Carlingford, the\ninvaders managed to retain their grip. The Bruces wrested it, after a\nfierce siege, from de Lacy, who then held it, Robert Bruce aiding his\nbrother; but on Edward Brace's defeat it fell back to the English. In\nthe ultimate conquest of Ireland it marked a great moment, for here\nWilliam of Orange landed, and pious care has recorded the flagstone on\nwhich he first set his foot.\n\nAt Carrickfergus you are already well advanced on the prettiest road\nin all Ireland--that which skirts the northern shore of Belfast\nLough, then, crossing the neck of Island Magee peninsula, carries\nyou past Larne's inland water, and from Larne follows the cliffy\nshoreline up to where Fair Head marks the northern limit of Antrim's\neastward-looking coast. Then, cutting in behind the Head, it emerges\non the pleasant town of Ballycastle, sheltered in its bay, and so\nfollows the coast again past the castles of Dunseverick and Dunluce,\nfamous ruins, and past the Giant's Causeway, that still more famous\npiece of an older and more majestic architecture. Portrush ends\nyour journey if you be a golfer; but dearer to me than the links at\nPortrush are the sandhills beyond Portstewart and the long strand at\nthe entrance to Lough Foyle--ten miles of a stretch, but the Bann's\noutflow divides it. No other beach that I have known is rich in such\na variety of shells; on no other sandhills do the little delicate\nsandflowers, ladies'-slipper, thyme, ladies'-bedstraw, and the rest,\ngrow so charmingly.\n\nNow, in all that long coastline what to write about? First, perhaps,\nits geography. A line of high hills, or low mountains, runs north from\nBelfast, and beyond Larne they approach close to the sea. Westward\nof them is prosperous industrial country, draining into Lough Neagh\nor the Bann--a country of thriving towns, Ballymena and Ballymoney,\nwith many factories. But east of this is the marginal land, running\nsteeply down with short watercourses to the sea, and this is the\ncountry of the Glens of Antrim; lordship of the MacDonnells, who were\nalso Lords of the Isles. The sea here--_Sruth na Maoile_, the Stream\nof the Moyle, is a link rather than a barrier; you could row across\nwith no great danger in a skin-covered boat; and at this point the\nGael of Alba and the Gael of Eire have been always one race. The\nIrish that I heard spoken by old men whom a Feis of the Glens had\ngathered together in Glen Ariff was few removes in sound and even in\nidiom from the Highland speech; and all tradition, whether Ossianic,\nin the stories of Finn and his companions, or that older cycle of the\nRed Branch, brings the Scotch islands and west coast into full touch\nwith Irish legend. It was to the Isle of Skye that Cuchulain went for\nhis training, to be taught by a woman warrior--whose name that island\nkeeps as the Coolin Hills preserve his name; it was from the Scottish\nshore that Cuchulain's son by the daughter of this warrior-queen came\nover to contend with the Red Branch heroes, refusing his name in\norder--so the deserted witch designed it--that his father, the one man\nable to master him, might unknowingly slay his own son. I took down\nfrom the lips of an Ulster peasant, not able to read or write, and\nperhaps with ten generations behind him of folk who never used the\npen, the carefully guarded text of a poem framed not later (from its\nlanguage) than the fifteenth century, which told the tragedy of that\nslaying. There is a touch in that ballad fine as any I know, when the\ndying lad says to his vanquisher:\n\n     \"Cuchulain, beloved father,\n     How is it you did not know me\n     When I flung my spear so sluggishly\n     Against your bristling blade?\"\n\nThat was the only sign he could give. Knowing himself, knowing his\nantagonist, yet sworn not to reveal the secret, he could only make\na cast so half-hearted that surely Cuchulain might pause to wonder\nwhether it was indeed an enemy who threw the spear.\n\nThese legends linking the coasts together suggest the charm of that\neastern shore; not the magic of infinite distance, not the Atlantic's\nillimitable blue, but a continual tempting of the eye with that\nshore beyond the sea, sometimes not visible at all, often faint, an\nexquisite mirage, yet sometimes so vivid and distinct that you can\ndiscern even the whitewashed cabins on the farther side.\n\nThe mountains of the glens have no marvel of beauty. Slemish, lying\nback from the rest, is best marked, with its flat top, which is\nindeed evidently the crater of some volcano, forced up in the wild\nconvulsion that has left its other traces in the basalt of Fair Head\nand the Causeway. Marked, too, it is in history; for on its slopes\nPatrick in captivity herded his master Dichu's swine. Yet this was on\nthe landward of the hills, in the valley of the Braid, which drains\nwest into Lough Neagh, and stands outside the grouping of the glens.\nTibullia, another peak easily discerned, is distinguished by having\non its summit a formation of flints where man of the Stone Age had a\nregular factory; chipped and flaked implements, marred in the making,\ncan be found there (by the knowing) in basketfuls.\n\nBut the true distinction of these hills is that they have found their\npoet. Samuel Ferguson first in his ballad of \"Willy Gilliland\" (which\nhas its climax by the walls of Carrickfergus) celebrated the stretch\nof green \"from Slemish foot to Collon top\". But it is a later singer,\nthe poetess, \"Moira O'Neill\", who in her _Songs of the Glens of\nAntrim_, has made all their names resound: from \"Slemish and Trostan,\ndark with heather\", to \"ould Lurgethan\" where it \"rises green by the\nsea\". And not the hills only but the glens--Glenann, for which the\nemigrant \"does be thinking long\"; \"lone Glen Dun and the wild glen\nflowers\", with the little town at the outflow of its river, Cushendun,\n_Cois-an-duin_, Dun-foot. Her volume should be in the hands of every\ntraveller in the glens, unless its verses are already written in his\nmemory.\n\n[Illustration: CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE, BELFAST LOUGH]\n\nThis Antrim coast has one charm distinguishing it above the rest of\nIreland--its variety of geological formation. At the foot of Glen\nAriff, Red Bay is called after the sandstone cliffs past which the\nroad is cut, and in one place the rock makes an arch near an old\ncastle. There is a cave, too, at various times inhabited. At Fair\nHead one reaches the basalt, and this huge promontory faces the sea\nwith cliffs whose columnar formation gives that odd suggestion of\nhuman workmanship which reaches its climax at the Causeway. This black\nbasalt with the numberless fissures is a good rock for birds to build\nin, but a very bad and treacherous dependence for those who climb to\npry after their nests. Beyond the Causeway comes a line of white chalk\ncliff, such as is familiar to all in the south of England, but very\nstrange to us in Ireland; though the sea off the Antrim coast is too\ndeep to have that opaline appearance--as though milk were spilt into\nit--which the Margate tripper knows.\n\nI have never yet been able to bring myself to write about the\nCauseway, which is a geological freak very curious to look at, and\nquite worth the sixpence you have to pay for admission, since a\ncompany enclosed it some years ago. But in Ireland we expect to have\nour cliff scenery free. The guides there will tell visitors plenty of\ncomic stories about Finn MacCool. But Finn, in authentic Irish legend,\nis not a comic figure: he is the centre of the Ossianic tales.\n\nThat country north of the glens--which stop at Ballycastle, where\nGlen Shesk and Glen Tow have their meeting--is called the Route, and\nso keeps alive a memory of a period older than the Ossianic legends.\nDal Riada, or Dal Reuda, that is, the \"Portion of Reuda\", was the\nname given to a principality established by one Reuda, who about the\nsecond century broke off with a body of followers from the kingdom of\nUlster, and established rule on both sides of the narrow seas. Reuda\nwas of the Pictish race, probably; and here in the north the Picts\nheld out longest against the invading Milesians, who came (according\nto modern theories) drilled foot soldiers, to defeat the earlier\nchariot-fighting warriors. But the Milesians pushed their conquest\nhere also in about the sixth century, and Fergus, an offshoot of the\nnorthern Hy-Neill (Sons of Niall), the dominant Milesian house, made\na petty kingdom for himself on both shores; and from him the kings of\nScotland traced their descent. This prince, Fergus Mac Erc, has left\nhis name on the Irish coast, for Carrickfergus is shown as the rock\non which he came to wreck, when sent adrift by tempest in one of his\ncrossings between the two portions of his kingdom.\n\nShortly after its establishment, this kingship, or chieftainship,\nlost its Irish character and centred in Scotland. But relations were\nconstant--though by no means constantly friendly--and the Lords of the\nIsles held Rathlin Island for many centuries. However near the Irish\ncoast this island lies--only divided by some five miles from the base\nof Fair Head--the sound between it and the mainland is so dangerous,\nwith its racing tides, as to be an effectual barrier; and very often\npassage may be easier made from the Scotch coast than from the bay of\nBallycastle. At all events, the Mac Donnells owned Rathlin when Robert\nBruce needed a refuge, and the castle is still there in which the\nBruce sheltered for seven years--and in which it was that he watched\nthe spider's patience and drew the moral for his own far-off designs.\n\nThe Mac Donnells were one of three great clans who divided a disputed\nlordship in Ulster before Ulster (last of the provinces) was finally\nsubdued. The Mac Donnell lordship was the least authoritative and\n(although it traced descent to the sixth century) the latest in date.\nO'Neill and O'Donnell, the true Gaelic overlords of Ulster, sprang\nfrom two sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland\nfrom 379 to 405. Of their sons, Conall settled himself on Donegal\nBay, and Eoghan (or Owen) on the Inishowen hills. Tyrconnell--_Tir\nChonaill_--takes its name from the one son; Tyrone--_Tir\nEoghain_--from the other. About these centres power grouped itself,\neach chief having sub-chiefs or _urraghts_ under him, each with his\nown sept. It was only in the tenth century when Brian Boru was High\nKing that the hereditary surnames came to be adopted--O'Neill for the\nlord of Tyrone, O'Donnell for the princes of Tyrconnell.\n\nTheir country was remote of access, difficult of passage for troops;\ntheir people were hardy; and so it happened that in the reign of Henry\nVIII, and even of Elizabeth, when all else in Ireland had been fairly\nbrought within British sovereignty (even the O'Briens of Thomond\nsubmitting) O'Neill and O'Donnell could still hold their own. But\nmutual jealousies and border feuds weakened the Gael; the O'Neills\nwere the strongest people, yet the O'Donnells on one flank and the\nMac Donnells on the other often sought advantage by English alliance.\nShane O'Neill, perhaps the most dangerous foe that Elizabeth had to\nmeet in Ireland, of whom Sir Henry Sidney wrote that \"this man could\nburn, if he liked, up to the gates of Dublin, and go away unfought\",\nmet his crushing defeat at the hand of Irish enemies, the O'Donnells,\nwho routed him on the Swilly river near Letterkenny; and in his\ntrouble he fled to unfriends on the other side, the Mac Donnells, in\nwhose camp at Cushendun he was poniarded, and his head sold to the\nEnglish.\n\nYet after his day another O'Neill, Hugh the great Earl of Tyrone,\nlevied desperate war on the English, in close league with a successor\nof the O'Donnell who defeated Shane; and though the Mac Donnells gave\nthem no direct assistance, they also made an effort at that time to\nthrow off the invader's yoke. The history of Ireland under Elizabeth\nis largely the history of war with these three clans--and a shameful\nhistory it is, full of horrible records of treachery and cruelty.\n\nEach of the three peoples threw up remarkable leaders in the\nfinal struggles under the Tudors, and no figure of those days is\nmore notable than the MacDonnell chief, Somhairle Buidhe, \"Yellow\nCharles\", Sorley Boy, as the English wrote him: and often the State\nPapers had occasion to write his name between 1558, when he came to\nlordship of the North, and 1590, when he died (singularly enough)\na natural death in his own castle of Duneynie and was buried among\nall the Mac Donnells in the Abbey at Bonamargy near Ballycastle. Two\nsayings of his are memorable. They showed him the head of his son\nimpaled above the gate of Dublin Castle. \"My son,\" he retorted, \"has\nmany heads.\" And in truth that stock sprung up like nettles after\ncutting.--Elizabeth, in one of the phases of her diplomacy, sought to\nenlist this warrior on her side, and sent him a patent for his estates\nand chieftaincy as Lord of the Pale, engrossed on parchment. They\nbrought him the writing to his castle of Dunluce, and he hacked the\nscroll to shreds. \"With the sword I won it,\" he said; \"I will never\nkeep it with the sheepskin.\"\n\nNevertheless, time brought him counsel, and when Sir John Perrot,\nHenry VIII's bastard, came and battered Dunluce with cannon, Sorley,\nnow eighty years of age, made his submission and travelled to Dublin,\nto pay his homage to the Queen's picture, going on his knees to kiss\nthe embroidered pantoufle on the royal foot. After his death, his son\nRandal joined the rising of Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell; but when\nthat last great effort to throw off England's power was foiled by the\ndefeat at Kinsale, the Mac Donnell made submission, and Elizabeth's\nsuccessor, James, who after all had a natural kindness for the Mac\nDonnells (seeing that they were to the last Scotch rather than Irish)\naccepted his submission and endowed him with the whole territory from\nthe Cutts of Coleraine to the Curran of Larne.\n\nDunluce, which stands on a projecting rock, approached only by a\nnarrow footway over a very deep natural trench, has to stand a battery\nmore continuous than Perrot's cannon could bring to bear. The sea is\nunder it, for a cave pierces the rock, and wind and wave are for ever\nstraining at the old fortress. Part of it fell in 1639, and to-day\nthey say the whole ruin is menaced with collapse; and, since it stands\nin private grounds, no public authority can intervene to save it.\n\n[Illustration: THE GIANTS' CAUSEWAY]\n\nFor some heads the crossing of that wall into Dunluce has a danger;\nand a fall would be serious. But the real test of resistance to\ngiddiness can be made at the famous hanging bridge which joins the\nmainland with the island rock of Carrickarede, near Port Ballintoy.\nThe bridge consists of planks laid two abreast, and lashed to ropes;\na single rope is the only handrail. The people use it to get out to\ntheir nets and boats for the salmon fishing, which are kept out here,\nand also, since there is grass on the island, for carrying sheep\nacross on their backs. For my own part I stepped on to it readily\nenough; but when it bent down steeply under me, and inclined to swing,\nthe surprise was not pleasant. And though I forced myself to cross it\na second time, back and forward, to convince myself that there was no\nnecessity for qualms, I cannot say that the qualms wholly disappeared.\nAs for carrying a sheep over, or a bale of nets, heaven defend me! But\nI never heard that anyone, native or tourist, drunk or sober, came to\ngrief there! The drop is about eighty feet into deep water between\ncliffs.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAIDEN CITY\n\n\nAdjoining the Route, and divided from it by the River Bann, is\nCounty Derry, which was once the territory of the O'Cahans, chief\n_urraghts_ or sub-chiefs of the O'Neills. When the O'Neill was by\nadoption of the clans installed after the Irish usage at Tullaghogue\nin County Tyrone, it was the O'Cahan who performed the ceremony of\ninauguration. With these facts two memories connect themselves for\nme. The first is that when the Gaelic League was established, to save\nthe language of Ireland from oblivion and decay, amongst those who\njoined it was the Reverend Dr. Kane, a mighty orator on every Twelfth\nof July, when the anniversary of the Boyne is celebrated. \"I may be\nan Orangeman,\" he wrote, \"but I do not forget that I am an O'Cahan.\"\nMany of us who did not share his politics cherish his memory for that\nsaying. The other associated idea for me is that, once setting out\nwith other nationalist speakers, I was followed by a strong body of\npolice. Asking why, I was told they were to prevent an attack on us in\nTullaghogue, which is now a strong Orange centre!\n\nColeraine is where you join the train to get to Derry, and the rail\nskirts the shore of Lough Foyle--easternmost of the great succession\nof sea loughs which make the distinctive beauty of Donegal.\nInishowen, its western shore, is included in that county by English\ngeography, though this peninsula never formed part of Tyrconnell.\nIts lordship was always disputed between O'Neill and O'Donnell, and\nthe best evidence of its separateness is given by the ecclesiastical\nboundary, which here, as always, follows the old tribal demarcation.\nAll the rest of Donegal is comprised in the diocese of Raphoe, but\nInishowen falls under the see of Derry. One result of that was\ntraceable in the fact that _poteen_ (illicit whisky) was freely\nprocurable in Inishowen long after its manufacture had ceased in\nany other part of Donegal; for the austere decree which the present\nbishop of Raphoe--an O'Donnell and a ruler of men--proclaimed against\nthis \"smuggling\" had no effect east of the Swilly, though throughout\nTyrconnel it was heard and obeyed, to the great advantage of his\npeople, whom the old traffic (which I remember flourishing in spite\nof law and police, fines, seizures, and imprisonments) had seriously\ndemoralized.\n\nDerry and Raphoe have for a century been in the Protestant Church one\nunited see, and in the days before disestablishments, made a princely\npreferment. You can see the proof of it at Castlerock, where the line\nfrom Coleraine strikes out on the shore of Lough Foyle by the long\nMagilligan strand. Here is Downhill, the seat built in the eighteenth\ncentury by that amazing prelate Lord Augustus Adolphus Hervey, Earl of\nBristol and Bishop of Derry, who took a leading and not a very pacific\npart in organizing the volunteers and in winning Ireland's legislative\nindependence.\n\n\"He appeared always\", says Sir Jonah Barrington, \"dressed with\npeculiar care and neatness, generally entirely in purple, and he wore\ndiamond knee and shoe buckles; but what I most observed was that he\nwore white gloves with gold fringe round the wrists and large gold\ntassels hanging from them.\" A troop of horse headed by his nephew\nused to escort him everywhere and to mount guard at his door. Later,\ngrowing tired of Ireland, he migrated to Italy on the plea of ill\nhealth; and though many of his costly purchases were sent home to\nDownhill, where unhappily a fire destroyed the most valuable, he\nnever came back, but remained abroad (says the austere Lecky, himself\nborn on the shore of Lough Foyle), \"adopting the lax moral habits of\nNeapolitan society\", and in extreme old age writing letters to Emma,\nLady Hamilton, \"in a strain of most unepiscopal fervour\".\n\nThere are no such bishops nowadays, but my childhood was familiar\nwith the last of Lord Bristol's successors under the old order--the\nlate Bishop Alexander, most eloquent of divines, afterwards Primate\nof Ireland. His talents brought him to the episcopate, while still\na young man, only a year or two before disestablishment, and the\nlife-interest in his \u00a312,000 a year came to be compounded, not only\nfor his own benefit, but for that of the Church. While the financial\nnegotiation was still in progress, my father, then rector of a parish\nin Donegal, and financier-in-chief to the diocese, sent his bishop out\nfor a day's driving in charge of a young curate, and trysted to meet\nthem on Mulroy Bay. Arrived there, he saw with dismay the bishop, not\non land but afloat, being sculled by the curate through the numberless\nrocks and swirling currents of Mulroy in a battered curragh--a hundred\nthousand pounds of ecclesiastical capital divided from submersion by\na piece of tarred calico. And the famous orator, even at that period\nof his life, could not have weighed less than eighteen stone. Long\nyears after, the curate, become venerable in his turn, remembered and\nrecalled for me the rating which he received when at last he landed\nhis passenger.\n\nAnother memory from the same source may be worth recalling. Downhill\nis the house which Charles Lever describes in his novel, _The\nBramleighs of Bishop's Folly_, though the story has no historic\nconnection with the house or any of its inmates. But Lever knew this\n\"Bishop's Folly\" in the days when he was a dispensary doctor at\nPortstewart, and my father remembers well how _Harry Lorrequer_ came\nout by instalments in the _Dublin Morning Magazine_, with what delight\nhe heard them read aloud, and how sudden was the addition of interest\nwhen one day the news came in that the anonymous author was no other\nthan their own dispensary doctor--the brilliant young collegian for\nwhom a place had been suddenly created in this outlying village during\none of the visitations of cholera. After that, whenever the doctor\ncame to call, a shy boy used to creep into the drawing-room and\nensconce himself, apparently with a book, out of sight behind a sofa,\nwhere, undisturbed by apprehensions, he could be all ears for the\nrattling talk of that wonderful tale-teller.\n\nLever learnt a good deal in Portstewart from a neighbour, W. H.\nMaxwell, author of _Wild Sport of the West_, who lived in those days\nat Portrush. But it was the west and south of Ireland that always\ndrew Lever--his florid taste in incident and humour found its choice\nelsewhere than in the discreet greys and browns of Ulster character.\nAnd east of Lough Foyle he was still in the Ulster which politicians\nmean--the country of the plantations. Derry is in reality its frontier\ntown, though the Scotch strain and the Protestant element ramify out\nfrom Derry a certain distance into Donegal.\n\n[Illustration: FAIR HEAD, CO. ANTRIM]\n\nBut the frontier town, like all frontier towns in a country\nthat has been much fought over, keeps an intense, militant, and\naggressive character. Derry stands for the extreme type of Protestant\nassertion--oddly enough, for in the beginning of its history, it\nwas the monastic seat, Doire Coluimchille, \"Columba's Oakgrove\", to\nwhich that great apostle of Christianity looked back from his mission\noverseas--\"thinking long\" in Iona for--\n\n     \"Derry mine, my own oakgrove,\n     Little cell, my home, my love\".\n\nThere is no reason to doubt the authenticity of that Irish poem,\ntransmitted in ancient manuscript, which a scholar has thus\ntranslated--Columba's lyric cry towards the Ireland which he had left.\n\nYet, after all, the new is more to us than the old, and Derrymen have\ngood right to be proud of Derry walls. The famous siege was a great\nevent, the resistance was indeed heroic, though I think that popular\nfame has selected the wrong man to be the centre of hero-worship. A\ntall column which rises from the walls behind the bishop's palace\nis Walker's monument, and Walker was no soldier but an elderly,\nloquacious, and somewhat vain, preacher. If contemporary records\nare any safe guide, the true organizer and inspirer of that long\nresistance was Murray--whose fame, I am glad to say, is kept alive\nby a Murray club. Yet the man who best of all, perhaps, deserves\ncommemoration has no memorial in Derry. The siege had lasted from\nApril 18, and on June 13 the town was already starving when a fleet\nwas sighted in Lough Foyle. Kirke, who commanded it, lay outside,\nintimidated by the defences of the narrow channel. So it went on for\nsix weeks; but there was at least one Derry man with the fleet who\ncould brook the delay no longer. This was Captain Browning, of the\n_Mountjoy_, and he insisted that attempts should be made to run the\nbatteries and to break the boom, whose site is still preserved in the\nname \"Boom Hall\". The _Mountjoy_ was a merchant-man, and another, the\n_Phoenix_, of Coleraine, joined the venture, and a frigate was sent\nwith them to help in drawing the enemy's fire. The _Mountjoy_, with\nBrowning himself at the helm, headed straight for the boom under full\nsail, struck it, and with the impact the boom gave. But the shock\ncaused a rebound which flung the ship back on a mudbank, and at the\nsame moment Browning was shot down at his post. The _Phoenix_ had\nslipped already through the gap and was away with her full cargo of\nmeal. Boats were out from the forts to seize the _Mountjoy_; but she\nfired a broadside, and the recoil lifted her off the bank, and she too\nslipped through, carrying the body of her dying skipper to the wharf\nof the city which his courage and determination had rescued from\nfamine and from enforced surrender. Life stayed in him long enough to\nlet him hear the cries of welcome, to know that the goal was reached,\nthe blockade broken, and his city saved, before the rush of blood from\nhis pierced lungs finally choked him: and surely no man ever died a\nmore enviable death.\n\nYet in truth it was the people who had rescued themselves. In the\nprevious month of December, before hostilities were really declared,\nKing James had been imbecile enough to withdraw the troops which held\nthe city. A fresh garrison under Lord Antrim was marching in, and was\nseen actually outside the walls. The city fathers deliberated; it was\nthirteen prentice boys of the town who armed themselves, rushed to\nthe Ferryquay gate, seized the keys, and locked it in the teeth of\nAntrim's men, when they were within sixty yards of the entrance.\n\nThis deed is commemorated annually on December 18th, when Lundy, the\nofficer who commanded in James's interest, is duly burnt in effigy--or\nused to be. Nowadays Catholic and Protestant are so evenly balanced in\nthe \"Maiden City\" that such demonstrations risk a formidable riot, and\nare accordingly kept in check.\n\nBut the embers are always hot, and crave wary walking. Once a concert\nwas being held, \"strictly non-sectarian\", and it had been decided\nto omit \"God save the King\", which in Ireland is made into a party\ntune. All went off smoothly, and the building was being emptied, when\nsuddenly war rose. The organist, a stranger, had thought it would be\nproper to play the people out with \"Auld Lang Syne\"--not knowing that\nto this tune is sung \"Derry Walls\", most aggressive of Protestant\nmelodies.\n\nDerry walls are there, broad and solid--you can drive a coach on them.\nBut, what is more important, you can there find the best entertainment\nthat I know in Ireland. A little hotel, whose doorway gives on to the\neast wall, is kept by Mrs. MacMahon, and all persons of understanding\ngo there to get the kind of meal which you may hope for in the\npleasantest north of Ireland country home: the fruits of the earth,\nthe fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, each according to his kind\n(not omitting Lough Swilly oysters), with the home-made bread, which\nis one of Ulster's greatest charms. It is not an elaborate modern\nhotel. If it were, you would not get the sort of entertainment that\nI describe; but to stay there is to get an insight, and a most happy\ninsight, into the homeliness, the hospitality, the shrewdness, and the\ngood housewifery of Ulster.\n\n[Illustration: LONDONDERRY FROM THE WATERSIDE]\n\n\n\n\nTIRCONNELL\n\n\nDonegal has become to-day the best pleasure ground in Ireland. Second\nonly to Kerry in natural beauty, and superior to it in grandeur,\nfor Kerry has no cliff scenery to compare with Slieve League and\nHorn Head, it has far more variety of resource than the southern\ncounty--or, in two words, it has golf and Kerry has not; and it has\nmuch more free fishing. It is equipped as a playground, and as a\nplayground I shall write of it--with this preface. When I was a boy,\nbetween thirty and forty years ago, there were only two passable\nhotels west of Lough Swilly, Lord George Hill's at Gweedore, and Mr.\nConnolly's at Carrick. Both of these were built for men who wanted\nto fish and shoot; and to reach them meant in literal truth a day's\njourney into the wilderness. There was no railway in the county except\nthe little line from Derry to Buncrana; and it was the regular usage\nfor strangers to bring introductions which got them hospitality from\nthe resident gentry. I remember scores of such casual visitors at the\nbig, old rectory where I was brought up.\n\nTo-day there is hardly any point in the county more than ten miles\ndistant from a rail--Irish miles of course, and hilly ones. But when\nthe train takes you from Derry to Burtonport, curving in behind Lough\nSwilly, and following all the northern coast to its extreme remotest\ncorner, you may fume, as I have often fumed, at the vagaries of that\nwonderful organization; you may think it amazing to be a matter of\nthree hours late in a journey of four hours, as has happened to me;\nstill, it is well to remember how you might have had to drive the\nsame distance on an outside car in such wind and rain as Donegal can\nfurnish.\n\nAnd of course the delays I speak of are probably not so usual as at\nthe first wild beginnings of that traffic. No longer, probably, will\nyou see the engine driver getting out to replenish his supply of fuel\nfrom a wayside turf stack; no longer will you need to scour the whole\ncountryside for a truckload of luggage casually mislaid. It is only\nfair to add that where I finally unearthed our possessions was at a\nmountain siding near two excellent salmon pools, with which I then\nbecame acquainted and where I subsequently caught fish. If the engine\ndoes break down anywhere on that run there is sure to be a little\nriver within a mile or so, and it is quite worth putting up your rod\nand going out to have a try; at least one man to my knowledge returned\ntriumphantly with a good salmon--the messenger sent to fetch him\nhaving come in handy to gaff it.\n\nBut in all seriousness tourists have got to remember that these\nlines are not there for holiday traffic. Goods and passengers travel\ntogether, and the real purpose of the whole is to give a market\nto the thousands of cottagers along that wild yet populous shore.\nWhat it means is that the coast fisherman who nets a salmon now can\nsell it for perhaps twopence a pound less than it will fetch in\nBillingsgate--tenpence, a shilling even, for summer fish. In the old\ndays there was no one to give him more than perhaps a shilling for\nhis whole fish. And in truth in the old days a Donegal peasant hardly\nconceived that he could be the legitimate possessor of a salmon.\n\nThat is the real change. In the days that I remember, the country was\nowned by the landlords, was governed by them and by their agents, with\nassistance from the Church of Ireland clergy. To-day a great part of\nthe land is owned by the people who till it; it is all governed by\nthem. And in increasing measure they own even the game, most jealously\nguarded of seigniorial rights.\n\nTake, for example, the little town of Milford. I remember it a\nmiserable line of hovels, with only two decent buildings, the\nagent's house and the always imposing police barrack. To-day it has\nan excellent hotel, and every look of prosperity. I remember when\nevery soul in it and for ten miles round was in the grip of a really\ntyrannical landlord, whose murder, when it ultimately came, was indeed\nan act of what Bacon calls \"wild justice\". Much of the improvement\nvisible here is due to the able and courageous man who succeeded the\n\"old lord\". But, good landlord or bad landlord, no man can ever again\nhold that countryside at his pleasure, cowering under the threat of\neviction. Rent is fixed by a court, and while a man pays his rent he\nis irremovable. And within a short period every man will be paying,\nnot rent, but instalments of purchase for the land which he and his\npredecessors have worked--which in nine cases out of ten they have\nreclaimed from bog and barren moor. With the ownership of the land the\ngame rights must ultimately go, and in many cases already they have\ngone. The hotel proprietor at Milford, an enterprising man, had, I\nfound, bargained with not a few tenant purchasers for the exclusive\nfishing of little lakes in their property and for the shooting over\ntheir moors and bogs. That is the attraction which he has to offer to\nvisitors, who, now that the country is opened up, come in shoals. On\nLough Fern, the big lake adjoining, it was unusual to see two boats\nfishing, three made a rarity. Now, in summer, there will be fifteen or\nsixteen out. And not only that, but boats have been put on seven or\neight of the numberless smaller lakes and bogholes which nobody ever\nfished at all, except once in a blue moon, when a curragh would be\ncarted over. Some of them breed good trout, and now these are being\nstocked with a new strain of fish. All this means the circulation\nof money in the country where poverty before was universal, where\nfamine even was not unknown. A failure of the potato crop to-day is a\ngrievous loss: thirty years ago it meant something like starvation.\n\nWhat took me to Milford the other day was significant of the new\norder. I was with a departmental committee appointed to consider how\nthe fisheries of Ireland would be affected by the substitution of\npeasant proprietary for landlord ownership; and our main purpose was\nto emphasize the value of the interests involved, the possibility\nof increasing that value, and the necessity for combination unless\nthe whole were to be destroyed. And here was no question merely of\nproviding an attraction for the summer visitor: it meant conserving a\nmainstay of livelihood for hundreds of labouring men.\n\nWhen I was a boy a regular feature in that countryside was the fish\npedlar--some old man or old woman with a donkey and two creels,\nhawking round fish that had been carted up from the coast by\nSheephaven. Along the prosperous settled shores of Lough Swilly, by\nRamelton and Letterkenny, these poor folk found a market at the end\nof a day's journey. It was a poor market and a small one. But since\nthe railroad was instituted, the fish pedlar takes a back place. Fish\ngoes straight to the great towns, and it has been worth men's while to\norganize for catching the summer run of salmon which skirt the coast\nin June and July. From Malin Head to Arranmore, and from Arranmore\ninto Donegal Bay, scores of thousands of pounds must have been earned\nin this way during the past seven or eight years by the coast-dwelling\nfolk, half-farmers, half-fishermen, working through the short nights\nin their four-oared yawls. A lucky crew will earn ten pounds a man in\ntwo months' fishing--in a country from which each year thousands go\nacross to Scotland or Lancashire for field labour and are content if\nthey bring home ten pounds for their season's toil. It is easy to see\nhow great an added source of prosperity this fishing means. Yet if\nthe fish are killed out in the breeding streams, it ends the fishing;\nand when a river is divided into a hundred interests instead of one,\nno individual has a sufficient inducement to preserve the stock of\nsalmon. A lesson in citizenship has to be learnt; public opinion\nhas to be created. Donegal is leading in the attempt to develop\nco-operative preservation of game and fish, and whoever helps that\nendeavour is doing a good turn, not only to the interests of sport,\nbut to the interests of Ireland.\n\n[Illustration: TORY ISLAND FROM FALCARRAGH HILL, DONEGAL]\n\nGolf, which for the present is even a greater attraction than\nsport, does not extend into the wilder parts of the country; though,\nindeed, twenty years ago Port Salon and Rosapenna, where the most\nfamous links are, were outlandish enough: it is golf that has brought\nthem well into the pale of civilization--over-civilization, some of us\ngrumble, when we see smart frocks among the sandhills by Downings Bay.\nYet anyone who goes to Rosapenna, and has curiosity enough to enquire,\ncan learn the whole history of a great industry's development within\na score of years--for Downings is the centre of a most prosperous\nherring fishery, and the girls and boys from that outlying region are\nfetched at high wages to do skilled work in curing herring wherever\nherring are being caught, as far south as Dublin Bay, and very likely\nbeyond.\n\nAnd if I had any choice of all the fine places in Ireland to spend\na holiday in, I would choose the one which makes the centre of Mr.\nWilliams's sketch from Rosapenna--the low headland of Ards, jutting\ninto Sheephaven, with wood of oak, and fir, and beech, and ash, so\nexquisitely blended, spread for a covering over ground so beautifully\ndiversified; with little bays and creeks of blue water over the\ncleanest and tawniest sand running up into the heart of wooded or\nheathery slopes. Nowhere else is the scent of the brine so clean and\nstrong across the other pungencies of heath, and bog-myrtle, of oak,\nand of bracken; nowhere else that I know does a perfect day give such\nfulfilment of desire.\n\nRosapenna shore and the village of Carrigart are too much dominated\nby the hotel and by foreign ways for my liking; but on the opposite\nshore, where Portnablah gives a harbour (not safe, alas!) to the boats\nof my friends, is the place of all my affections. This rocky little\ntownland is set thick with whitewashed cottages, and here it has been\nan old custom for Irish folk from Derry and Letterkenny to come to\nthe salt water and find homely quarters. The \"bathers\", as they are\ncalled, have of late years grown to be a multitude: if you want rooms\nin a farmhouse there you must bespeak them far in advance, and no\nwonder. If my ghost haunts any place it will be there, where the white\nroad to Dunfanaghy (white, for this is a limestone tract), leaving the\nwall of Ards demesne, rises to a crest with a few houses (filled with\nbathers) on the right; and on your left is Sessiagh Lake, prosperously\nstocked with trout, and watched over by an old herring fisher, still\nable to pull a stout oar when the strong gale catches that high-lying\nwater, but for the most part happy to drift contentedly and spin yarns\nabout the men and the things and the fish that he has known. Quick\nwith his tongue, too, in a leisurely way. \"I suppose people very\nseldom die here,\" said a stranger, commenting on the healthiness of\nthe situation. \"Never more nor once,\" said old Tom.\n\nBeyond the houses and the limekiln and the glimpse of Sessiagh's\ndelusive waters (Heaven knows how many blank days I fished there!)\nis a line of grassy hillocks--the mass of Horn Head blocks the view\nbeyond them to the west, but full north, suddenly, held in the curve\nbetween two of these little summits, you catch sight of the Atlantic\nblue. Blue, it may be, or purple, or greyish green, or black almost,\nwith white spray flying; but there it is, held as if in a cup--the\nvery quintessence of the saltness, the strength, and the freedom of\nthe sea. When the herring are in, you shall see it dotted over with\nsmacks and yawls, and here and there a curragh crawling slowly on the\nwater like some black insect; or at night all a-twinkle with lights,\ntill you rub your eyes and wonder if a town has not suddenly sprung\ninto being. And all about, the steep shores of the bay are patched\nand striped with careful tillage, crops, well-tended, nestling in for\nshelter under every rocky hummock; and nestled, too, into the folds of\nthe ground, are the white-fronted houses, with stone pegs across their\neaves for cording to lash the roof secure against their terrible gales.\n\nIt is worth while being there in bad weather, to watch the run of\nsea on those cliffs; sometimes, in a sinister calm, rolling in\nmountain-high, tearing itself to whiteness on the long black spines of\nrock; and then, after this forerunner, comes the storm itself. It is\nthen, when you see the smacks running in for shelter, or when, after a\nnight of this, you see them put out to pick up costly nets that have\nbeen cut adrift to save men's lives, and that still must be recovered\neven at grave peril--it is then you will realize how these people take\na grip of their country and cling to the foothold for which all life\nis a struggle.\n\nYet life goes merrily there. In the winter through some parishes there\nwill be dancing almost every night in one cottage or another, and the\ncrowd is thick on the floor and about the big turf fire.\n\n[Illustration: MUCKISH AND ARDS FROM ROSAPENNA, SHEEPHAVEN, DONEGAL]\n\nThese people are for the most part pure Irish, and west of Dunfanaghy\nall are Irish speakers. Under Irish rule it was the territory of the\nM'Swineys, chief urraghts of the O'Donnell, and Doe Castle, at the\noutfall of the Lackagh, was the fortress of the chief of the name.\nOwen Roe O'Neill made his landing here, Cromwell's most formidable\nopponent in Ireland--removed at last either by sickness or poison.\nHere Red Hugh O'Donnell was fostered by Owen M'Swiney of the Battle\nAxes before the treacherous kidnapping at Rathmullen. There were three\nM'Swiney clans--M'Swiney Doe, M'Swiney Banaght in the west of the\ncounty, and M'Swiney Fanad in the peninsula that divides Mulroy\nfrom Swilly. Each had its own war tune, and a schoolmaster friend of\nmine--himself a Sweeny--who collected native airs, had got two of the\nthree, but not the third; until at last he heard of an old bedridden\nman in Fanad who might have it. He rode the twenty miles from his home\nat Gartan, with fiddle on his back, and found the old peasant wavering\non the brink of death, yet still able to frame feebly the whistle or\nlilt, which my friend picked up on the strings of the fiddle bit by\nbit, till gradually he had it all, and, there and then, by the dying\nman's bedside, set the cabin ringing with the oldtime war march of his\nclan.\n\nAnother M'Sweeny that I have known was Turlough, the famous piper of\nGweedore, whose repute has travelled far overseas. Aristocrat he is to\nthe finger tips--saddened indeed because those fine finger tips have\nbeen coarsened by spade labour. \"Look,\" he said to me; \"can there be\nany music in these hands?\" He told me his own generations, connecting\nhim back with the hereditary bards of the M'Swineys, and I said that\nhe must know the history of the county better than most. \"No,\" he\nanswered; \"I was never curious of these things, except just as they\nconcerned myself and my own people.\"\n\nMr. Williams's picture shows Errigal where it rises by Gweedore over\nDunlewy Lake--one of the grandest among Ireland's mountains. But the\nmost striking view of it is east of Gweedore, where the little river\nflows out by Gortahork; and here is a thing of much interest, the\nCloghaneely College, where folk go to study Ulster Irish amongst those\nwho have it for their native speech. Still farther east is Falcarragh,\nand the view which Mr. Williams has given adds less than due emphasis\nto the astonishing castellated outline of Tory where it rises out of a\ntremendous depth of water. I never landed there, though I often talked\nwith the Tory fishers, including one who had made his fortune at the\ngoldfields and come back to the place of his birth among the rocks\nand the fish heads. There is one sheltered spot, one growing bush,\nand one only, on Tory. There, of course, Irish is the language, and\nthey maintain the practice of verse, chiefly for purposes of satire;\nquarrels are revenged in rhyme. I talked to a red-bearded mountainy\nman near Gortahork about this, but he said it was a peevish thing to\ndo; he would rather have a skelp at a man. In truth there is an old\nfeud between Tory and the shore, and fierce battles have been waged.\nI do not know why so few people stop at Falcarragh: there is a good\nlittle hotel, the views are beautiful, there are three little rivers,\nall holding salmon, and, at the point where the longest of them flows\nout across the long range of sand beach west of Horn Head, there is\na view of Tory and of Horn Head that passes all I know. Running water\nacross sand, clean sand dunes and grey bent, pure illimitable sea and\nhigh cliffs, sunsmitten or in shadow--there is landscape reduced to\nthe simplest terms of a broad elemental beauty.\n\nAlso at Falcarragh there must be the makings of a links equal to any\nin Ireland. The line of dunes runs for several miles along the sea,\nending in one of the strangest natural features I know, the huge\nmountain of clean sand which centuries of westerly gales have piled up\nagainst the rocky mass of Horn Head. That famous head is in truth an\nisland, the counterpart of Tory on its seaward face, yet in the gap\nbetween it and Dunfanaghy such a deposit of sand has accumulated that\nonly a small causeway has been needed to give access from the mainland\nto the tiny farms and the one demesne.\n\nIf in Donegal you want to buy Donegal homespun, Falcarragh is a good\nmarket for the product, since some weaving is done about there with\nan eye to local wear; and what the Donegal man means to wear, the\nDonegal housewife \"tramps\" in soapsuds and water till the web thickens\ninto a fabric fit to turn weather. On the western shore, by Carrick\nand Ardara, where is now the headquarters of this industry, cloth is\nproduced solely for export, and the English ladies and gentlemen for\nwhom it is designed seek softness and fineness rather than solidity.\nIndeed the countryfolk themselves treat this merchandise with frank\nscorn: they fancy something far less flimsy for their own use, and in\nold days, when nothing but homespun was worn, it used to be sent to a\ntacking mill and battered till the cloth had the thickness of felt.\nBut the tacking mill at Bunlin, whose big wooden mallets rising and\nfalling used to interest us children, is a ruin now; and the homespun\nof to-day, with its multitude of pleasant colours, is very different\nfrom the massive greys or heavy indigo-dyed frieze which used to come\nfrom that mill.\n\nThe industry has been a godsend to that country, and one wet day in\nthe little village of Carrick was redeemed to me by the chance of\nseeing all these folk, men and women, come marching over the hills\nwith the baled cloth on their backs, and then watching the bargaining\nthat proceeded among the various buyers. I bought, too, but I believe\nthe merchants will not allow the people to sell to tourists any more.\n\n[Illustration: MOUNT ERRIGAL FROM THE GWEEDORE RIVER, DONEGAL]\n\nI have not written yet of that western shore which stretches southward\nfrom Dungloe (much haunted by sea-trout fishers) to Glenties, Ardara,\nCarrick, and Killybegs. The most beautiful place that I know on it\nis at the mouth of the Gweebarra River where it flows out due west\nbetween a line of sandhills which shine dazzling white in the sun\nagainst the immensity of blue. No place is less known; but you can\nreach it easily from Portnoo, where is a hotel. And off Portnoo is an\nisland where on certain days in summer a pilgrimage takes place, at\nspring tides, for it is essential to walk barefoot to the island. The\nceremonies performed with certain stones are Christianized in form,\nbut evidently had an origin long before Christianity. Glenties, some\neight or ten miles farther south, is at a point where several glens\nconverge (_na Gleantai_, the Glens) in the valley of the Ownea River,\nfamous for its salmon fishing, which is now vested in purchasing\ntenants who have attempted to introduce co-operative preservation.\nIf the experiment succeeds it will mean better preservation than has\never been known before; if it fail, I fear that one great source of\nthe salmon supply will be wiped out, with loss to sport, and with loss\nmuch graver to all the labouring fishers who live by that industry.\nBut, as things stand, the man who wants good fishing is more likely to\nget it cheap at Glenties or Ardara than any other place known to me.\nIn both towns there is a decent hotel. Ardara stands near the outfall\nof the Ownea but actually on a smaller river, the Owentogher, which\nis not only very picturesque, but a good stream for salmon and sea\ntrout, if only it could be preserved. And one of the most pleasant\nbits of fishing I ever had was on a tiny stream, the Brocky, which\ncomes down a mile farther on and was fishable before the tearing flood\nhad subsided in the bigger rivers.\n\nGlenties and Ardara are places where you go for sport, though the\nbeauty of mountain and river is all about you. But for scenery Carrick\nand Killybegs are your destination. Killybegs is the terminus of that\nlight railway which runs from Donegal town along the north shore\nof Donegal bay, past the Marquis of Cunningham's wooded demesne at\nfirst, but gradually getting into wilder country, till at last it\nreaches this trim little town on its magnificent harbour. Warships use\nthat harbour, and there is nowadays a good fishing fleet operating\nfrom it for the herring and mackerel; but of other commerce it knows\nlittle. Yet for the lover of boating and bathing it would be hard to\ndiscover a more attractive spot. There, too, you can see the parent\nfactory of the Donegal carpet trade; and pretty it is to see the big\nlooms, with a row of six or seven little girls bareheaded (and often\nbarefooted) in front of each, with nimble fingers knotting on the\ntufts of richly coloured wool, or driving them down into their place\nin the solid fabric, while the pattern grows slowly before you on\nthe wide warp. It is odd that so rare a merchandise should come out\nof these impoverished regions, for no costlier carpets are made; but\nlabour is cheap, and willing, and skilful, and nowhere else is factory\nwork done under more wholesome or happy conditions. All the big room\nseemed to be a-ripple and a-play with the young faces and the swift,\ngraceful movements of these children, for most of them are no more\nthan children; and small though the wage they earn, it is a big thing\nin that countryside, where the old-age pensioner with five shillings\na week seemed at first to himself or herself rich beyond imagination.\nThere is another of the factories at Kilcar, halfway to Carrick, built\nin a sheltered nook almost by the sea; and another in the wild tract\nbetween Gweedore and Falcarragh.\n\nTo the west of Killybegs begins that wonderful line of cliff\nstretching away past Carrick and Glen Columbkille, and girdling all\nthe projecting headland till it runs back to Loughros Bay, near\nArdara. For wildness and for majesty this region has no equal, except\nin Achill; and it has what Achill lacks, the charm of rivers. Mr.\nWilliams's pictures illustrate well the coastline, which even when\nit is low runs out with huge flag stones and giant boulders into\nthe deep--fit buttress against such waves as roll in there even on\na day of calm. Everything is big there; distances are long, and a\nmile never seems to get you far in any direction. It is a country to\nwalk, the finest of all the countries known to me; but I would gladly\nsupplement my walking with a bicycle, travelling one of the roads as\nfar as it will carry me and then leaving it simply by the ditch at\nthe roadside, among the osmunda fern which grows everywhere free as\nthe heather. It commits you to return that way; but what you leave\nby the roadside is as safe as if Argus watched it--unless, indeed,\nsome mountainy heifer should pass that way and eat it: they will\nchew anything from a fishing rod to a suit of clothes. I have seen\nembarrassed bathers pursuing an active cow, who carried essential\ngarments in her mouth, still masticating them even while she pranced\nin her clumsy gallop.--Carrick is the centre for this country and\nSlieve League the great excursion; it is a fine walk down by the\nlittle port of Teelin and then up the track which winds along the\ncliff edge of the mountain--perhaps the finest view of all is when you\nare halfway, with seven or eight hundred feet of sheer cliff below you\nand the steep face towering up another thousand above. At the somewhat\noverrated hazard of the One Man's Pass you would fall, I dare say,\nsixteen hundred feet before you reached the water; but from the top a\npebble may be dropped two thousand feet plumb into the sea.\n\n[Illustration: GLENVEAGH, DONEGAL]\n\nHorn Head is only seven or eight hundred feet; yet because the cliff\nface there is undercut, and the Horns themselves project so oddly,\nit always seemed to me a dizzier place than the greater cliff. The\nreally marvellous thing at Slieve League is that view across Donegal\nBay to the mountains of Sligo, Benbulbin of magic fame, and along the\nwild Mayo coast that stretches out and out to the west till the long\npromontory is finished off by island rocks, the Stags of Broadhaven.\n\nYet, since I scorn to deceive, what endears Carrick to me is not its\ncliff scenery, but its little rivers and its people. I know the rivers\nare too small: you cannot seriously hope to kill salmon there except\nin a raging flood, and then your flood runs off in a couple of hours:\nI hooked four fish there inside the first hour after breakfast, killed\ntwo of them, and never touched another all day. But for sheer beauty;\nfor infinite variety in the shape and colour of flowing water (the\nmost beautiful thing to me on God's earth); for pools where the eddy\nswirls past clean rock with glossy ferns in every crevice; for banks\nwhere the scent of bog-myrtle is all about as you brush through the\nheather; for anything that can entice the eye of an angler, I never\nsaw the equal of that main stream. The little Owen Buidhe, too, in its\nboggy glen, has attractions of its own, deeper pools and seductive\ncorners; but it is the Glen River, flowing down from Meenaneary, that\nhaunts my vision when in London I crave for the things that I desired\nin boyhood, and love more in middle age.\n\nAnd of all the human beings whom I have known among the peasant folk\nof Ireland, none had ever quite the charm of old Charlie Carr, the\ngillie who fished with me at Carrick. By an odd chance, he was no\nsportsman. He would want you to be pleased, and to catch fish, if\nso you fancied it; but I remember how my vanity was hurt when, on a\ndifficult day, I had hooked and landed a fine sea trout, the first\nthat anyone had seen for a long time. \"Them O'Hagans was great people\ntoo\", he said as he shook the fish out of the net, calmly pursuing his\ndiscourse about the ancient days and the generations of old, and the\nlore of those few books which he had, and studied with passion. He\nwas no true shanachie; what of Irish legend and song his memory kept\nhad no real value. He was a lover of knowledge, not for vanity, not\nfor the sense of power, but simply because it added to the richness\nof life--one of God's gifts that he welcomed as the sunshine. If\never I met a happy nature, a soul without spot, it was this Irish\npeasant; if ever I have seen letters full of grace and simplicity\nthey were those that reached me once in a rare while from that lonely\nglen, asking, never for himself, but perhaps that I would give a\nprize to some school children, or the like, and always full of an\naffection that knew no difference between man and man. I can see now\nthe wonderful blue eyes in that kind face, a handsome peasant face\nwith its fringe of grey close-cropped whisker. If I remember a word\nof complaint from him, it was when he saw his neighbour go by on a\ncar--a man no soberer, no more industrious, no better educated than\nhimself, yet one who had had the instinct for buying and selling, for\nputting penny to penny and pound to pound. The neighbour was a good\nman too, in his way; kindly and friendly, prompt to do a service, yet\nnot to be reckoned amongst those elect upon earth whom everyone using\ndiscernment will have recognized on his way through life, of whom not\na few that I have known have been Donegal peasants. But none had quite\nthe grace, the simplicity, and the distinction of this old dreamer and\nstudent who carries net and basket by the Glen River without repute\namong men.\n\nFor all my love of Carrick I could hardly conceive of living there.\nIt is too bare, too vast. And though there is no frost, though every\nsecond bush you see in summer is crimson fuchsia full of blossoms, yet\nwinter must be of a terrible loneliness. But the Donegal that I was\nbrought up in--Donegal of more inhabited and habitable shores by Lough\nSwilly and Sheephaven and Mulroy--does seem to me a place not for\nsummer visitants only. However, this book concerns itself with summer,\nand nowhere is summer more delightful. Of course it rains often, and\nsometimes hard. \"Did it rain ony wi' ye?\" \"It didna tak time to rain;\nit just cam doun buckets,\" is a fragment of descriptive dialogue. But\ntake the country as I saw it in mid-July, when London was stewing\non a griddle of asphalt and flags, and when English country was all\none monotonous deadened green with heavy haze dimming the blueness.\nOut at Bunlin, beyond Milford, all was green too; I looked from the\nsteep road across a glen breast-deep in bracken, with the curve of\nCratlagh wood beyond, and nearer me trim fields of green oats and\nturnips. There was beauty of line there in Mulroy with its score of\nscattered islands, in the hills, not very high, but very mountainous,\nbold, and jagged, falling from the peak of Lough Salt to the glen, and\nto the Mulroy water, crest by crest, sharp to the last little rocky\nhillock. There was beauty of colour too, for the green of the bracken\nwas broken by silvery grey stone, with glint of mica in it, showing\nup through the fern, and crowned or set about with purple cushions\nof heath, here and there a foxglove adding another and a brighter\npurple. There was wonderful beauty of detail in the wooding nestled\ninto the hills--wild growth, scrub oak, light, feathery ash and\nbirch, with the gleam of silvery stems, Scotch fir and larch--planted\ntrees, yet falling naturally into forestation which had none of the\nheaviness, the citizen look of elm and sycamore. All was light, hardy\nand strong--not a wilderness, but a cared-for country where the eye\nwandered over a fair expanse of varied beauty, lying there in full\nsummer without summer's drowsiness or blowsiness. Lightness, airiness,\nwas the note of it all--light air, breath of bog-myrtle across the\nsalt of the sea; and even the decent homely people, lacking the graces\nof Cork and Kerry, had yet in their motion and in their eye just the\ndash of wildness which marks the Celtic strain.\n\n[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO MULROY BAY, DONEGAL]\n\nNext day was Donegal all over--fresh breeze, clouds driving swiftly,\nand then bright sun, lighting up a lovely blueness. We were out on\nsmall lakes up among the hills, two of us who fancied ourselves not\na little as fishermen, and got no encouragement for that faith; but\nafter all what could be pleasanter, airier, or more resting and more\nbracing at once? and how good one's lunch is on the stones by a reedy\nshore! I had to go back to London, and the car took me to Rathmullen\non the Swilly shore; and when the little steamer put out from the pier\nit seemed to me that of these lovely loughs this is after all the\nmost beautiful. All was grey and green in the westering light; the\nhills on the Inishowen shore opposite showed softer than the crags by\nMulroy. They were green now, with the olive green of young heather; in\nanother month they would be glowing purple. The lough as we crossed it\nwas a great round lake throwing arms west and south-west to Ramelton\nand Letterkenny, beyond which all was bathed in a sunny haze. As we\nran farther out, the western mountains of Inishowen came in sight,\nthen suddenly beyond Dunree the sea gap opened, letting the eye out\nto limitless ocean; and soon the sheer crag of the Binn of Fanad was\ndisclosed flanking that portal on the west. Looking back to the shore\nwe left, the Devil's Backbone writhed sinister and jagged along the\ncrest of the Knockalla range behind Rathmullen; and away to the west\nin the sun haze, accustomed eyes could make out the faint shapes of\nErrigal and Dooish.\n\nHistory was all about us, evident in actual landmarks. On the hills\nwhich divide the lough from Derry stood out boldly the ring of stone,\nthe great circular fort, which was the Grianan of Aileach, chief\nseat of the northern Hy Niall, whose kinsfolk reigned in Tara. Here\nPatrick preached about 450 A.D., baptized Eoghan, founder of\nthe great Tyrone clan, the O'Neills. Here, in a later age, came an\nO'Brien of Thomond, one of Brian Boru's earliest successors, to avenge\na raid of these Northerners on Clare, and the stones of Aileach were\ncarried away to be built into the cathedral at Limerick. Over at\nRathmullen is the beach from which the boy Hugh O'Donnell was rowed\nout to see the English ship which lay at anchor, offering hospitality\nwith black treachery behind; for the crew cut their cables while the\nyoung chief and his company were below seeing the vessel's stores, and\nsailed off with the prisoner so dishonourably made, to the Castle of\nDublin, where Hugh lay for years immured, captured but not submissive;\nattempting escape after escape with unfailing heart till at last he\ngot loose, and after bare deliverance from death in the snow-covered\nhills was free to exact a reckoning for the wrongs he had suffered.\n\nOn a low hill beyond Inch Island rises the square town of Birt, which\nhas memories of another chief, Cahir O'Dogherty, lord of Inishowen.\nCahir was fostered by the M'Devitts of Birt, and when Red Hugh claimed\nlordship over Inishowen, the M'Devitts sought English protection\nfor their foster-brother and got it. The O'Dogherty became the\nEnglishmen's ally and helped to pronounce forfeiture on O'Donnell and\nO'Neill after the two great earls took their flight in 1607--setting\nout from this same ill-omened port of Rathmullen. But a new governor\nof Derry arrived, quarrelled with Cahir O'Dogherty and struck him.\nThe blow was dearly paid for. Cahir went back to Birt, called out\nthe M'Devitts, and sacked and burnt Derry. But the Irish power had\nbeen broken beyond retrieving when the earls fled, and O'Dogherty was\nsoon a mere outlaw on his keeping. They ran him to earth finally by\nDoon Well, near Kilmacrenan, where he was shot dead in the encounter.\nDoon Well is famous to-day, but I doubt if many there remember Cahir\nO'Dogherty's fate, or even that on the Rock of Doon took place the\ninstallation of each O'Donnell prince. What is remembered is the\nsanctity of the holy well, whose water still draws thousands of\npilgrims and still works miracles of healing.\n\nHistory more modern is in view at Lough Swilly, for here the English\nfleet brought in their prizes after the action with Bonaparte in 1798,\nand brought more than they knew, for they had captured Theobald Wolfe\nTone, the most dangerous enemy to England that Ireland had in those\nor perhaps any other days. To-day there is a strong guard on Lough\nSwilly. Dunree--_Dun Riogh_--means the King's Fort and the king has\nhis fort there, of the most modern type, commanding the entrance to\nthis great haven, with an armament very unlike that of the martello\ntowers which are dotted about, marking another of England's recurring\nscares--the scare of the \"French colonels\" under the lesser Napoleon.\n\nAll these things came into my mind as I sat on the beach by Fahan and\nwatched the colour fade out and new colour take its place--masses\nof dark green where there had been shimmers of grey and blue. Other\nmemories came there too--less historical: it was there that somewhere\nin the 'seventies I had my first sight of a real railway train.\nI carry away from Lough Swilly my earliest as well as my latest\nimpression of pleasant, beautiful Ulster, enhanced by a grateful\nthought of the dinner which Mrs. MacMahon provided for one about to\ntake a long night journey. And whoever leaves the north of Ireland\nwith such impressions on his mind will have no cause to quarrel with\nthe close of his holiday.\n\nYet it is not well to depart leaving unexplored the mountainous\npeninsula of Inishowen which separates Lough Swilly from Lough Foyle.\nThis great ridge of land is dominated by the graceful shape of Slieve\nSnacht (\"Snow Mountain\"), a model of what mountains should be: bold\nand peaked, yet with swelling curves that balance on either flank,\nit fills the centre of a distance more impressively than far loftier\nhills.\n\nInishowen was owned by the O'Doghertys, a clan who, tossed between\nTyrone and Tirconnell, had at least great staying power, for the\nsaying is--you cannot beat a bush in Inishowen without \"rising\" an\nO'Dogherty. Their castles remain, and at Green Castle, on Lough\nFoyle, is the work of greater men, Norman-planned, Richard de Burgo's\nfortress. Many traces, too, of a far older period are to be seen.\nAt Carrowmore, not far from Culdaff, is a \"souterrain\" with five\nchambers--a great mansion, in short, for these burrowers. Rivers and\nlakes, too, are there with fair fishing, though I believe that a\ncertain old professor in Derry has skimmed the cream of it all in his\nlearned leisure, any time this fifty years. But the Castle River at\nBuncrana is a fine salmon stream still, and the links there constitute\nan attraction for very capable golfers--though not equal to those at\nPort Salon on the opposite shore. In a word, if you cannot get to the\nwest of Lough Swilly you may be very well content with the east of it;\nand though much of infinite beauty and interest lies beyond, when you\nhave seen and known Lough Swilly and its shores, and the people who\nlive on them--that mixed race, Scot and Irish, lowland and highland,\nProtestant and Catholic, all neighbourly together--why, at least you\nwill have had a very fair chance to know and love, not the Ulster that\npeople rant about or rail at, but Ulster as it really is.\n\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN\n\n_At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\n\nThe Table of Contents has been added for convenience.\n\nIllustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks.\n\nPage 34: Replaced the oe ligature with oe in the two instances of\n\"Phoenix.\"","title":"Ulster","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":14308}