Ireland as It Is Part 37

No. 57.--BAREFOOTED AND DILATORY.

"The Ballyshannon foundered on the coast of Cariboo, And down in fathoms many went the captain and his crew. Down went the owners, greedy men whom hope of gain allured. O, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured."

And thereby hangs a tale.

Professor Crawford, of Trinity College, Dublin, says that when walking down Regent Street, London, with William Allingham, then editor of _Fraser's Magazine_, and a native of this Donegal town, the pair met Charles d.i.c.kens, who advanced with beaming countenance, and taking both Allingham's hands in his own, said in a hearty voice:

"Well done, Ballyshannon!"

This was in allusion to a recent article written by the _Fraser_ editor, who among his intimate friends and brother litterateurs was playfully named after his birthplace. W.S. Gilbert was especially fond of the sonorous appellation, and in the above-quoted Bab Ballad, his gem of gems, named the s.h.i.+p Ballyshannon in remembrance of Allingham.

The Ballyshannon folks are "going to" erect a memorial to Allingham, of whose poems they have often heard. They are "going to" advertise their town, and make its beauties known to the world--some day. They are "going to" charter a steam dredger, and so improve the harbour, which is dangerous. They are "going to" utilise the enormous water-power of the River Erne, which runs to waste from Lough Erne to the sea. They are "going to" run a few tweed and blanket factories when they see their way quite clearly. They are "going to" start a fishery fleet and a number of fish-curing sheds, to give employment to the poor folks of the district. They need almost everything that man _can_ need, and they have especial facilities for supplying needs, but as yet they have lacked time and opportunity. The town is only a thousand years old, and its inhabitants have not yet had time to look about them. A number of English anglers stroll about with long salmon rods, or float their little barks on the broad bosom of the Erne, the population looking dreamily on from the long bridge over the river, which, like the Shannon at Athlone, flows through the heart of the town. n.o.body seems to be doing anything, except a few old beggar woman squalid and frowsy as the mendicant hordes of Tuam, Tipperary, Limerick, and Galway. The beggars are pertinacious enough for anything, but theirs is the only enterprise the stranger sees.

Compared with that of Donegal the salmon-fis.h.i.+ng seems expensive. The landlord of the Arran Hotel in that town offers the Eske at half-a-crown a day, but in Ballyshannon you must pay four pounds a week and give up all the take except two. Salmon are scarce all over Ireland this year. Three English fishers on the Erne shared the universal bad luck, for in three days they had only captured one five-pounder. The unusual drought has made the water low. The weather of the past five months has been finer and dryer than any season for sixty years. Ballyshannon looks dirty and dingy in any weather. It lacks the smartness, the cleanliness, the width of thoroughfare, which mark the heretic towns. It lacks the factories, the large shops, the s.h.i.+pping which would infallibly be to the fore if its inhabitants were mainly of Teuton origin. On the other hand, the Ballyshannon folks are religious. They go to ma.s.s regularly, and confess themselves at frequent intervals. The confessional box is their only place to spend a happy day, and the act of confession, with the following penance, their pleasantest mode of pa.s.sing away the time. They are mostly Home Rulers, and are deferring special effort to better themselves until the Irish Parliament does away with the necessity. That blessed inst.i.tution once fairly settled at College Green will spare them the pains of enterprise, and will show how large industries can be created and sustained without capital, without business knowledge, without technical skill, and for the sole purpose of affording the s.h.i.+ftless population of Ballyshannon regular wages at the week's end. The gentlemen who lean over the quaint bridge, with its twelve arches and sharply-pointed b.u.t.tresses, are merely waiting for the factories, which are to spring from the earth fully-equipped at a wave of the enchanter's hand, to be a blessing to the whole world while fulfilling their chief mission of finding employment for the people of Ireland.

Meantime the Ballyshannoners are bitterly wroth with England because she has not hurried up with the desired factories long ages ago. They smoke thick twist and expectorate into the river, talking moodily of the selfish Saxon, who instead of looking after them looks after himself, and praising Tim Healy, whose spare cash is invested in a factory in Scotland. Tim knows his countrymen; but, although his cleverness is by them much admired, they do not know how really clever he is. If they could realise the fact that Tim declines to invest in Ireland they might admire him still more. The great drawback to Irish enterprise lies in the fact that Irishmen who have brains enough to make money have brains enough to invest it out of Ireland. They will not trust Irishmen, nor will they rely on Irish industry. Ballyshannon is waiting for the impersonal Somebody or the shadowy Something that is to come forward and put everything right. Galway is so waiting, Limerick is so waiting, Cork is so waiting, Westport, Newport, Donegal are so waiting. It never occurs to them to do something for themselves. When the suggestion is made they become irate, and excitedly ask, What could we do? How are we to begin? Where are we to find the money? Who is to take the first step? They fail to see that the settlement towns have long since answered these queries, and that the capacity to do so marks the difference in the breeds. These hopeless, helpless, Keltic Irishmen are unfit for self-government.

They require the india-rubber tube and the feeding-bottle. They want to be spoon-fed and patted on the back when they choke. To instance the Scots settlements is to madden them. These thriving communities are a standing reproach, and cannot be explained away. Saxon Strabane flourishes, while Keltic Donegal declines, the latter having all the advantages of the former with the addition of a harbour and good fis.h.i.+ng grounds. "Look at the condition of the country," say the Home Rulers. "Behold the poverty of the peasantry," they continually do cry. The visible nakedness of the land is their chief and most effective argument. The Unionist answer is conclusive, and of itself should be enough to demolish the Nationalists. See the Protestant communities of Ireland,--all, without exception, advancing in prosperity. They have no advantages which are denied to the Nationalists. On the contrary, they live in the comparatively bleak and unfertile North, which by their unceasing industry they have developed to its fullest extent. They have tilled the ground until it resembles a garden, they have deepened the rivers, built harbours, created industries, been in every way successful. And all under precisely the same laws, the same government. The richest spots of Ireland, if inhabited by Keltic Irish, are steeped in poverty. The poorest spots, if inhabited by men of Saxon blood, become fat and well-liking. The fate of men lies mostly in themselves. This comes out forcibly in Ireland. Race, breed, heredity, call it what you will, in Ireland thrusts its influence on you, whether you will or no.

Neighbouring towns, neighbouring farms, neighbouring cottages, present a series of striking contrasts, ever in favour of the Saxon, ever against the Kelt. The latter has not yet discovered that the secret word, the open sesame of the difficulty, the charm which only can give permanent comfort, is--Work. Nor has his race the spirit of mechanical invention or industrial enterprise, without which College Green Parliaments may sit in vain. The pure-blooded Kelt is easily discouraged, and no man sooner knows when he is beaten. More than this, he always expects to be beaten, so that he is beaten before he begins. As a talker he is unequalled, and in this long-eared age, when the glibbest gabbler is reckoned the greatest man, his agitators have floated to the front. The Ballyshannon people can talk with the volubility of a Hebrew cheap Jack, but their jaw-power, like their water-power, mostly runs to waste. They have the silly suspicion and the childish credulity of the Donegal rural districts. A fluent politician said, "Why are all the Protestants Unionists? Perfectly simple, that. Because they are all well off. There you are. And being well off, they want no change. That's their selfishness. Now we, who are not Protestants (thank G.o.d), are for the most part poor. Our living is precarious. We don't know where to look, nor what to do, to improve our worldly position. We think it likely that an Irish Parliament would do something for us. In what way? Why, in the direction of public works and in the building of factories. Also in the protection of Irish industries. Where would the money come from?

Why, from England, to be sure. And if England wouldn't lend it, plenty of other nations would; America, for instance. We shall have heaps of money. Mr. Gladstone has said it, and he is famous as a financier.

There you have the reason why we want Home Rule, while the Protestants don't. They are well enough off already.

"_Why_ are they well off, you ask? Also easy to answer. They have been the spoiled children of fortune. They have been petted and pampered by England for more than two hundred years. And although you will not of course admit it, yet we know, everybody here knows, that they have been secretly subsidised by every Tory Government. If they pay their rents, where do they get the money? From the Tory party. And Tory landlords give the best farms to Protestants, who having the pick of the land, ought to be well off. Wherever you go you will find the Protestants living on good land."

I submitted that authentic records show that Ulster was formerly the most sterile, barren, unpromising part of Ireland, and that the change was entirely due to the two centuries of unremitting labour which the Scots settlers and their descendants had bestowed on the land; but, waiving this point, I asked him why the Unionist, that is, the Protestant, party were so much better educated, and why the heretics were so much cleaner. He had stated that the Black-mouths were subsidised by the Tory Party. Did the British Government also supply them with soap?

At this point my friend's explanations became unintelligible, but his general drift seemed to indicate that the people were too downtrodden, too much oppressed, were groaning too painfully under the cruel British yoke, to have the spirit to look after the duties of the toilet. In other words, the Irish people will wash themselves when they get Home Rule. At the next election Mr. Gladstone will doubtless bring forward this aspect of the case as a sop to the soap-making interest.

Another Ballyshannoner was of a diametrically opposite opinion. "We are poor because we have no notion of making money by modern methods.

We have always lived on the land, selling our superfluity to pay the rent, and now that our arrangements are disturbed, we don't know which way to turn. The blame rests with America, whose compet.i.tion has so lowered the price of produce that the farmer's superfluity, that is, what he does not consume himself, will no longer suffice to pay the rent. That is a general statement only. Landlords are generally reasonable, and meet their tenants fairly enough when the tenants are well-disposed and honest. The tenant-farmers of Ireland have no more to complain of than the tenant-farmers of England--much less in fact--but they have an army of agitators, an ignorant English press, and the G.O.M. on their side. That makes all the difference. We have occasional cases of unfair landlordism, but they are so rare as to be the talk of a county or two.

"A Mrs. Hazlitt holds, with her farm, about twenty or thirty acres of slobland reclaimed from the Atlantic. Slobland is land reclaimed from the sea. This piece is on Donegal Bay. It was protected by a great d.y.k.e after the Dutch style. But the Atlantic is sometimes angry, and then he becomes unmanageable. He was ill-tempered one night (being troubled with wind), and he just washed down the d.y.k.e and inundated the reclaimed meadows, upon, which I have seen the most beautiful crops. The landlord, the Reverend James Hamilton, a Protestant rector, insists on rent being paid for this washed-away land. He does not rebuild the d.y.k.e, and the land lies waste--the widow paying rent for acres of useless salt marsh. That is pointed to by all the malcontents in Donegal as a specimen of landlordism, and Protestant landlordism, and more especially reverend Protestant landlordism. n.o.body but a parson would exact the rent. These isolated examples are cited to bring discredit on Protestant landlords in general.

"This town is asleep, and it will not awake till the last Judgment. In 1885 we had a manufacturer from Belfast looking about for the best place for a big cloth mill on the river. The town was in a ferment of excitement, and everybody began to wonder what he would do with his additional income. The shop-keepers expected that their customers would have twice the money to spend in future, and the working folks began to be c.o.c.ky with their employers, saying that they would get much better wages at the great factory. Then Mr. Gladstone brought out his '86 bill, and the Belfast man drew in his horns. He told me that he would not risk a farthing in any speculative venture while the threat of Home Rule was held over us. He was quite right. The Ballyshannon men were relieved from the trouble of deciding how they would spend their surplus money, and they ranged themselves on the bridge or at their usual corners, where you may now see them, propping up the old houses with their lazy backs, and discussing the wrongs of Ireland. What they would do without their supposed, wrongs n.o.body knows. In English hands this would be a money-making place. We have enormous advantages of situation, and the water power is almost unequalled in Ireland. Yet from here to Belleek, a distance of four miles, there is nothing whatever being done with it.

"The backwardness of the Irish and their poverty are, in my opinion, due to their inferiority as a race of men. Wherever there is a factory, you will find all the foremen Protestants--that is, Saxons.

And Irishmen expect it. They will not work under Irish foremen, if they can help it. The Catholic labourer will work for the Protestant farmer, for choice, every time. The Catholic housekeeper goes to the Protestant shop, by preference. Where their own personal and earthly interests are concerned, the Papist population always prefer the guidance of the cursed heretic. And yet they express for the Black-mouths the greatest contempt and aversion, and would willingly put them out of the country to-morrow. That is because they wish to possess our goods. They vote for Home Rule in the belief that they are paving the way for a dismissal of Protestants, and the division of their property. They do not know the name of the man who represents them, the t.i.tle of the Parliamentary division for which he sits, or even, in many cases, the name of the county in which they themselves reside. To talk reason to such people would be absurd. Trained from their infancy to regard England as an enemy, they would not listen to anyone speaking on her behalf. They declare that they are barefoot because England wears their shoes, that they are starving that England may be over-fed. The how, the why, the wherefore are not within their ken, but they are sure of the facts. They had them from Father d.i.c.k, Tom, or Harry, and the holy man would not tell a lie. Stupid people over the Channel, listening to this iterated complaint, are acting as though it were true. Gladstone took it up, and his followers followed.

No doubt it was all that most of them could do. Result,--tumult, disturbance, confusion worse confounded. Home Rule means that the country will be deluged with blood, that civilisation will receive a shock which will send back the island for a century. The causes of Ireland's poverty are laziness and lack of enterprise, the latter accentuated by everlasting disturbance. Before the Nationalists we had the Fenians, the Whiteboys, the Ribbon-men, the United Irishmen, the Defenders, the goodness-knows-what, running back in continuous line up to the dawn of history. No wonder we are poor. Cannot Gladstonians read the records? If they did so, and if they were acquainted with the character of the Irish when in their native land, they would agree with my cook, herself a Kelt of Kelts, who says that Irishmen are leather, good leather, but fit only for the sole, and not for the uppers.

"I used to regard Mr. Gladstone as an honest man. Now I think otherwise. As for the ruck that follow him--well, if they were intelligent when honest, or honest when intelligent, n.o.body could understand their deviation from the path of reason and rect.i.tude. But the rogues will of course do anything they think will suit them best, no matter what befalls their country; and as for the rest, why of course no reasonable man would blame people for not thinking, when Providence has not provided them with the requisite machinery."

Ballyshannon, August 5th.

No. 58.--THE TRUTH ABOUT BUNDORAN.

There is no railway between Donegal and Ballyshannon, fifteen miles away. The largest town in the county is not connected with the princ.i.p.al port. But you can steam from Ballyshannon to Bundoran, the favourite watering-place of Donegal, quaint and romantic, with a deep bay and gra.s.sy cliffs. The bathing-grounds have a smooth floor of limestone, and the Atlantic rolls in majestically, sending aloft columns of white spray as its waters strike the outlying islands of rock, each with a green crown of vegetation. The bare-headed and bare-legged natives walk side by side with the fas.h.i.+onably-dressed citizens of Dublin, Belfast, and Londonderry. The poorest folks are tolerably clean, and, unlike the Southerners, occasionally wash their feet. The town is small, but there is plenty of good accommodation for holiday makers. Bundoran is Catholic and intolerant. Although depending on their Protestant countrymen for nine-tenths of their livelihood, the people of Bundoran object to Protestantism, and the intensity of their antipathy to the Black-mouths has impelled them to quarrel with their bread-and-b.u.t.ter. Of late the question of tolerance has been much discussed. Sapient persons whose a.s.sumption is equal to their ignorance of the subject, affect to despise the fears of the scattered Protestant population whose alarm is based on the experience of a lifetime. English Home Rulers who wish to create effect unblus.h.i.+ngly affirm that the Protestants are the only intolerants, and that the Papists are as distinguished for affectionate toleration as for industry and honesty. In direct opposition to daily experience and the evidence of history, they a.s.sert that the Papists are the persecuted party, and that they only practise their religion with fear and trembling. Notwithstanding the well-known doctrine of the Roman Church, which preserves heaven exclusively for those within its own pale, these eccentric politicians aver that under a Roman Catholic Parliament, elected by the clergy alone, the isolated Protestants of Catholic Ireland, known in the Papist vernacular as Black-faces, Black-mouths, Heretics, Soupers, and Jumpers, would be treated with perfect consideration, would enjoy the fullest freedom, the most indulgent toleration, would, in short, be placed in a position of equality with the predestined inhabitants of Paradise, or, to quote Catechism, the inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. The persons most nearly concerned know better. The shrewd farmers of Ulster, like the Puritan brethren of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, are entirely devoid of faith in the promised Papist toleration. Protestant equality under a Home Rule Parliament! You might as well tell them to plant potatoes and expect therefrom a crop of oats. Men do not gather grapes off thorns nor figs off thistles.

The Bundoran Protestants have evidence to offer. The date is recent.

Not two hundred years ago, but in the year of grace eighteen-hundred-and-ninety-three. Seeing that the little seaside resort was full of holiday-makers from the Protestant counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone, two young Protestant clergymen determined to hold Gospel services in a tent which was pitched in a field the property of Mr. James A. Hamilton, J.P. For about a week beforehand handbills announcing the services for July 21 had been distributed in the town and suburbs, but no controversial topic was mentioned, nor was it intended that the services should be other than strictly evangelical.

The tent was erected solely to accommodate the great influx of visitors, after the manner so familiar in England. Here was a test of Papal toleration. The tent was on private ground, and if Papists did not like it they could easily keep away, making a wry face and spitting out the abomination as they pa.s.sed, after their liberal custom. This, however, was not enough. No sooner had the handbills been issued, than a most scurrilous placard appeared, calculated to inflame the pa.s.sions of the ignorant, and to make them act after their kind. The Gospellers were accused of an attempt to poach on the Papal preserves, and it was mockingly stated that they had at last come to Christianise the benighted Papists. The effect of this placard was soon evident. It became known that the Roman Catholics of the district had determined that they would allow no Gospel services in Bundoran. The police authorities, who know all about Papist "tolerance," increased the small village force to twenty-five men, but, as the result proved, these were absolutely useless. A mob of more than a thousand pious ruffians gathered early in the evening, and attacked in a brutal and merciless manner every person they suspected of being on the way to the meeting.

The two Evangelists went to the tent under the escort of the twenty-five policemen, but before they could commence the service the apostles of toleration made a desperate rush on the congregation, most of whom were struck with bludgeons and stones, knocked down, kicked, and otherwise maltreated. The constabulary with great determination, but with much difficulty, protected the two young clergymen, upon whom a most venomous attack was made. The Protestants defended themselves with umbrellas, walking-sticks, and the like, but being strongly charged these proved of little avail against the wild onslaught of the party of toleration. Well may the local paper say that "a regular panic pervades the resident and visiting Protestant families."

Mr. Morley, replying to a question in the House, said the reports were exaggerated. The hapless Irish Secretary, unable to meet this and similar charges with denial, always relies on the plea of "exaggeration." The statement given above is derived from eye-witnesses of both creeds, and from an official source. One word as to the plea of exaggeration.

When I had investigated the fifteen moonlighting atrocities of four weeks in County Limerick, the County Inspector, who had just returned from a conference with Mr. Morley, said to me:--

"Everything is ve-ry quiet. We're going on very nicely now." But the _Gazette_ gave particulars of the shooting in the legs of the four members of the Quirke family, and Mr. Morley was obliged to admit the fifteen outrages which const.i.tuted County Inspector Moriarty's idea of "quiet." Subordinates will say there is peace when there is no peace, if the master requires it. The Bundoran outrage is not susceptible of exaggeration. Call another witness.

The _Sligo Independent_, which being published on the spot can speak with authority, says that "the intolerant and bigoted Roman Catholics of Bundoran and surrounding districts look upon Protestantism as a kind of leprosy which ought at all hazards to be stamped out," and further states that "even the ladies did not escape their fanatical hatred and fury. Several people were severely injured, and a clergyman who was coming to the meeting with his Bible in his hand, was thrown down and badly beaten, the Book being torn from him and destroyed.

What may Protestants expect should the Home Rule Bill ever become law, when such disgraceful outbursts of religious bigotry are quite common under the existing _regime_? The natural conclusion is that all such Gospel meetings would be put down with a strong hand, and Protestant religious liberty trampled under foot by their unscrupulous Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. And yet Loyalists are told to trust in them and all will be well!" Thus the Sligo journal; and its editor may perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, be pardoned for suggesting that "it were better for Loyalists not to put themselves in the power of men who have proved themselves unfit even to a.s.sociate with civilised beings. Bundoran will feel the evil effects of these insane attacks upon defenceless people next season when tourists and pleasure-seekers will avoid this seat of stupid bigotry, and visit some other summer resort where they will at least be allowed to wors.h.i.+p their Maker according to their own desires." Exactly. Many visitors left at once, and will never return. During my six hours' stay I heard complaints of the falling-off of business. If the place be empty next summer the people will attribute the loss to the British Government, and especially to the machinations of the Tory party. An old fisherman said the fish had left the bay. I a.s.sured him they would return under a Dublin Parliament. He refused to be comforted, because they were not.

There is no railway from Bundoran to Sligo, that is, no direct railway. The great lines mostly run from east to west, but the west lacks connecting links. Look at the map of Ireland. Cast your eye on the west coast. If you would go by rail from Westport to Sligo, you must first go east to Mullingar. If you would go by rail from Sligo to Bundoran, you must first go east to Enniskillen. If from Bundoran to Donegal, less than twenty miles, you must again go to Enniskillen, thence to Strabane, where you arrive after the best part of a day's journey, ten miles further away than when you started, thence to Stranorlar, changing there to the narrow-gauge railway for your final trip. Travelling on the west coast is tedious and expensive, whether you go round by rail or drive direct. Many of the most attractive tourist districts are almost inaccessible. To open them up is to enrich the neighbourhood. Few Englishmen know what the Balfour railways really mean. The following statement gives particulars respecting the Light Railways authorised by the Salisbury Government, and constructed either wholly or in part by the nation. These railways introduce tourists to those parts of Ireland which are best worth visiting, and the economy of time, money, and muscular tissue effected by them would be hard to overestimate. But this is not all, nor was this their primary purpose. They gave and still give employment to the people of the district, and besides bringing the money of the tourists into the country, enable the natives to send their produce out of it, to place it on the market, to turn it into gold. There is no railway from Dugort, in Achil, to any market. Fish caught in Blacksod Bay are therefore worth nothing except as food for the fisherman's family. Large crabs were offered to me for one halfpenny each. Does this fact impress the usefulness of Balfour's railways? Here they are complete:--

Length in Balfour's Name. miles. contribution.

Donegal and Killybegs 17-3/4 115,000 Stranorlar and Glenties 24-1/2 116,000

On this line you run for twelve miles from Stranorlar without seeing a single cottage. There are none within sight on either side.

Downpatrick and Ardgla.s.s 7-1/4 30,000 Galway and Clifden 50 264,000

This will run in connection with the splendid system of the Midland and Western Railway, opening up the grand scenery of Connemara, which to the average Britisher is like a new world. No end of fis.h.i.+ng here among virgin shoals of trout and salmon, and nearly always for nothing. It was along the first sixteen miles of this line, still unopened, that I ran on the engine to Oughterard.

Westport to Mulranney 18-1/4 131,400 To which is added the Achil Island extension 8-1/4 65,000

This will enable travellers to steam from Dublin to Achil Island via Midland and Western, instead of the ten hours on an open car, which on their arrival at Westport now awaits visitors to Dugort. It was on this line that I had the startling adventures on a fiery untamed bogey engine, lent to the _Gazette_ by Mr. Robert Worthington, of Dublin.

But I must condense.

Claremorris and Collooney 47 150,000 Ballina and Killala 6-1/2 44,000 Bantry extension 2 15,000 Baltimore extension 8 56,700 West Kerry and Valentia 27 85,000 Headford and Kenmare 20 50,000 Milltown, Malbay, Kilkee, and Kilrush 26 2% on 120,000 Tuam and Claremorris 17 2 " 97,000 Ballinrobe and Claremorris 12 2 " 71,664

Besides these, similar lines have been constructed, and are now working between Tralee, Dingle, and Castlegregory; Skibbereen and Skull; Ballinscarty, Timoleague, and Courtmacsherry. The Cork and Muskerry Railway, which runs through the groves of Blarney, owes its completion and success to Mr. Balfour's administration.

Driving from Bray to the Dargle, my jarvey pointed to the ruins of a light railway undertaken without the aid of the British intellect.

"'Tis a nice mess they made iv it, the quarrelin' pack o' consated eejits! They must run a chape little thing to the Dargle, about two miles away, along the roadside, just as Balfour showed them the way.

What have they done? Desthroyed the road. Lost all the money they could raise. Got the maker to take back the rails (for they bought thim afore they wanted thim), an' the only thing they now have in the shape of shareholders' property is a lawsuit wid the Wicklow folks about desthroyin' the road. Faix, an iligant dividend is that same.

An' them's the chaps that's to rule the counthry. That's the sort of thim, I mane. Many's the time I seen the Irish mimbers. Sorra a thing can they do, barrin' dhrink an' talk. I wouldn't thrust one of thim to rub down a horse, nor wid a bottle of poteen. Divil a one of thim but would dhrink as much whiskey as would wash down a car, an' if they could run as fast as they can talk, begorra, ye might hunt hares wid thim. Rule the counthry, would ye. Whe-w-w-w!" He whistled with a "dying fall," like the strain in _Twelfth Night_.

I drove from Bundoran to Sligo, the sea on the right, the Benbulben mountains on the left, singularly shaped but splendid. The round towers and ancient Irish crosses, the lakes and rivers of Sligo, are full of interest and beauty. The Abbey ruins are exceptionally fine.

The town is fairly well built, but it is easy to realise that once more it is Connaught. During a turn round Bridge Street, a country cart heaves alongside, steered by a stalwart man in hodden gray. He notes the stranger, and politely says,

"Can I be of any use? I see you are a visitor."

We fell into conversation. Presently I said, "Everything will be well when you get Home Rule."