Books: The Letters of Norah on her Tour Through Ireland

M >> Margaret Dixon McDougall >> The Letters of Norah on her Tour Through Ireland

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As we drove home through the mountains I noticed that Mukish wrapped
herself in the misty folds of her veil. Soon after the storm rolled down
the mountain sides and chased us home.

XII.

GOOD-BYE TO RAMELTON--ON LOUGH SWILLY--A RUINED LANDLORD--FARM STOCK VS.
WAGES--A GOOD LANDLORD--A REMINDER OF CANADA--MOVILLE--PORT-A-DORUS
ROCKS--ON GOOD TERMS WITH THE LANDLORD.

Left Ramelton at seven o'clock Monday morning, April 4th, the hoar-
frost lying white on the deck of the little steamer. The cabin was black
with smoke that would not consent to go in the way it should go, so one
had to be content with the chill morning, the hoar frost and the deck.

We steamed up past the town of Rathmullen with the two deserted forts
grinning at one another.

Two women of the small farming class were, like myself, sitting close to
the machinery to get warm. They were gravely discussing the value of a
wonderful goose owned by one of them. I do not think the owner of a fast
horse could go into greater raptures or more minute description of his
good points than these two ladies did about the goose. One declared that
she had been offered eight shillings ($2) for the goose and had refused
it. This is one proof of the high figure at which all animals, birds and
beasts, common to a farm are held. Although this goose was exceptionally
valuable, yet a goose is worth five shillings or $1.25.

A laborer's wages is two shillings, without food, so it would take him
two and a half days' work to earn a goose, a day's work to earn a hen or
a duck, fifteen days' work to earn a suckling pig, nearly four months to
buy the cheapest cow; always considering that he has food to support him
while so earning. I have heard poor men blamed for not raising stock.
When the price of stock is considered, and that a small field for
grazing purposes is rented at L8, I confess I wonder that any poor man
has a cow. If he has, butter is now thirty cents per pound in this
locality, and a cow is therefore very valuable.

Before I leave bonnie Ramelton behind altogether, I must say that it has
been in the past fortunate in a landlord. Old Sir Annesly Stewart, lord
of this fair domain at one time, invariably advised his tenants who
purposed to build houses, to secure titles first, saying, "Do not trust
to me, I am an old man and will soon pass away: who knows what manner of
man may succeed me? I will give a free farm grant, equivalent to
guarantee deed, I am told, to anyone wanting to build." So the owners of
houses in Ramelton pay ground rent, while at Milford, Kilmacrennan and
Creaslach the strong hand has seized the tenants' houses without
compensation. It is said that the present owner of old Sir Annesly's
estate, who is not a lineal descendant, however, feels as Bunyan
describes the two giants to feel, who can grin and gnash their teeth,
but can do no more.

All this and more I hear, as the sun comes up and the frost disappears,
and we sail over bright waters. One might enjoy sailing over Lough
Swilly, the whole of a long summer day. Everything pleasant comes to an
end, and we land at Fahan, and while waiting for the train my attention
is drawn to the fair island of Inch, with its fields running up the
mountain side, and the damp black rocks through which the railway has
cut its way at Fahan. The train comes along, and we go whirling on past
Inch, Burnfoot Bridge, and into Derry. A Presbyterian doctor of divinity
is in our compartment, and some well-to-do farmers' wives, and again and
yet again the talk is of the land and the landlords. Instance after
instance of oppression and wrong is gone over.

But Derry reached, I must say good-bye to some agreeable travelling
companions, and take the mail car to Moville for a tour round
Innishowen; Innishowen, celebrated for its poteen; Innishowen, sung
about in song, told about in story.

"God bless the dark mountains of brave Donegal,
God bless royal Aielich, the pride of them all--
She sitteth for ever a queen on her throne,
And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen.
A race that no traitor or tyrant has known
Inhabits the valleys of green Innishowen."

From Derry to Moville is, as usual, lovely--lovely with a loveliness of
its own. Fine old trees, singly, in groups, in thick plantations;
beautiful fields; level clipped hedges; flowers springing everywhere,
under the hedges, in little front gardens, up the banks. The land is
dreadfully overrun with gentry's residences fair enough to the eye, some
of them very beautiful, but one gets to wonder, if the land is so poor
that it is spueing out its inhabitants, what supports all these?

The wide Lough Foyle is in sight of the road most of the way, and a sea-
bound steamer carries me away in thought to Canada. The air is nipping
enough to choke sentiment in the bud. It is bitter cold, and I have the
windward side of the car, and shiver at the nodding daffodils in
blooming clumps at every cottage as we pass along. There are some waste
unreclaimed fields, and the tide is out as we drive along, so that long
stretches of bare blue mud, spotted with eruptions of sea weed, fit well
with the cold wind that is enjoying a cutting sweep at us. Then we come
again to trim gardens and ivy garnished walls. The road follows the
curves of the Lough, and we watch the black steamers ploughing along,
and the brown-sailed little boats scudding before the breeze.

The Lough is on one side, and a remarkable, high steep ridge on the
other, yellow with budded whins, green with creeping ivy, and up on the
utmost ridge a row of plumed pines. When I noticed their tufted tops
standing out against the sky, I felt like saying, "Hurrah! hurrah for
Canada!" the pines did look so Canadian looking. I soon was recalled to
realize that I was in my own green Erin, and certainly it is with a cold
breath she welcomes her child back again.

We knew we were nearing Moville: we saw it on a distant point stretching
out into the Lough. I forgot to mention that the land began to be full
of castles as we drove along the road. We passed Red Castle and White
Castle and when we reached Moville, Green Castle was before us a few
miles further down. Further down I wished to go, for a very distant
relative was expecting me there--Mr. Samuel Sloan, formerly of the Royal
Artillery, who had charge of Green Castle Fort for years; but now has
retired, and lives on his own property. I like people to claim kindred
with me; I like a hearty welcome, the _Cead mille faille ghud_,
that takes you out of hotel life and makes you feel at home. I was so
welcomed by my distant kinsman and his excellent wife that I felt very
reluctant to turn out again to hotel life.

Next day after my arrival we got a car and made an excursion down along
the coast to Port-a-dorus. I thought I had seen rocks before, but these
rocks are a new variety to me. They occur so suddenly that they are a
continual surprise. Along the coast, out in the water, they push up
their backs in isolated heaps like immense hippopotami lying in the
water, or petrified sharks with only a tall serrated back fin visible.
There would occur a strip of bare brown sand, and outside of that row
upon row of sharp, thin, jagged rocks like the jaw teeth of pre-Adamite
monsters. In other places they were piled on one another in such a
sudden way, grass growing in the crevices, ivy creeping over them, the
likeness of broken towers and ruined battlements, that one could hardly
believe but that they were piled there by some giant race.

When we had driven as far as the car could go we left car and driver,
and scrambled over the rocks like goats. Rocks frowned above us, between
us and the sky, rocks all round in black confusion. As we climbed from
slippery rock to slippery rock, over long leathery coils of thick sea
weed, like serpents, on, on through the _Dorus_ to the open sea,
noticing the dark passages, the gloomy caves, the recesses among the
cliffs, the narrow passes, where one could turn to bay and keep off
many, it was natural to think of rebels skulking here, with a price on
their heads, after the '98, or of lawless people stilling illicit
_poteen_ to hide it from the gaugers. Sheltered by the rocks of
Port-a-dorus, I could enjoy the sea air flavored with essence of sea
weed. We watched for a while the waves playing about the rocks and
washing through the door in innocent gambols. This sportfulness did not
impose upon me nor the rocks either, for the marks of the Atlantic in a
rage were graven on their brows in baldness and in wrinkles.

Along the road as we drove back I noticed the white cottages of coast
guardsmen who have married the maidens of the hills. They were there in
their patches of ground, delving with the spade, scattering sea weed
manure, the landlords here allowing them to gather all the sea weed that
drifts to their shores. Decent looking men these, in their blue uniforms
and thoughtful sea-beaten faces, with hardy little children around them,
playing or helping. The rocks rise among the fields with the same
startling abruptness as they do along the shore, looking still more like
ruins of old castles. Round these rocks and among them, in every nook
and cranny where there is a spadeful of earth, is delved carefully by
these mountain husbandmen.

As I looked at the rocks and crags, and the workers among them, I could
hardly help thinking they dearly earned all that grew upon them,
although there would be no half-yearly rent hanging over them. In one
little clearing some children were scattering manure. One, a sturdy
little maiden, but a mere baby of about seven years of age, had a fork
cut down to suit her size, and was handling it with infantile vigor,
laying about her with great vim. It was such a comical sight that we
stopped the car to watch her. As soon as she saw she was watched, she
dropped the fork and scampered off to hide. A pretty little child, hardy
and healthy and nimble as a goat.

Of course on this coast there are tall, white light houses, two of them
keeping guard over the rocks. Here and there are coast guard stations,
white and barrack-like, only holding blue jackets instead of red or
green.

The tenants along here praised their landlords. One of them, the Marquis
of Donegal, was spoken of as a merciful lord all through the hard years.
He had forgiven them rent which they could not pay, and lowered the rent
when they did pay, returning them some of the money, and the poor people
spoke of him with warm gratitude.

I notice that the people here have a good many sheep. They are not so
very wretched as the mountaineers I saw in northern Donegal. Poor they
must be, to dig out a living from among these rocks and keep up a lord
besides, but their lord has had a more human heart toward them than
other lords over whose lands I have been.

XIII.

GREEN CASTLE--A LOOK INTO THE FORT--THE OLD AND THE NEW--MARS IN
WAITING--A KIND WORD FOR THE LANDLORDS--IN TIME FOR AN EVICTION--FEMALE
LAND LEAGUERS--THE "STUPID" IRISH--THE POLICE.

Went on an exploring expedition to the ruins of Green Castle. One
authority told me it had been the castle of the chief of the clan
Doherty, once ruling lord here in the clannish times. Another equally
good authority told me it was built by De Burgo in the sixteenth century
to hold the natives in awe. Whoever built it, the pride of its strength
and the dread of its power have passed away forever. It is a very
extensive ruin and covers a large tract of ground. It looks as if three
solid, high, square buildings were set, not very regularly, end to end,
the outer wall of one built in a semi-circle, and towers raised at every
corner and every irregularity of the wall. Of course the roof was on the
floor, turrets and towers have lost part of their height and stand, rent
and ragged, tottering to their fall.

A good deal is said about the Norman style of arch and the Saxon style
of arch found in old buildings. I am convinced that the arches of Green
Castle, and its architecture generally, had been formed on the pattern
of the rocks at Port-a-dorus and the other heaps along the coast. The
same massiveness, the same wedge-like stones piled together to form
arches prevail in both.

Seaward the castle sits on a steep rock, like the rock on which Quebec
sits for height, but cleaner scarped, and more inaccessible I should
think. To stand on the shore and look up, the castle seems perched on a
dizzy height, its ruined battlements and broken towers rising up into
the sky. The pretty green ivy forms a kindly hap and a garment of
beauty, both for rock and ruin. Long live the ivy green.

There is a clean, smooth new fort standing beside the ruined old castle
like a prosperous, solid, closely-shaven, modern gentleman beside
dilapidated nobility. Its fat, broad tower looks strong enough and solid
enough and grim enough for anything. Inside of the fort everything is
clean, regular and orderly, as becomes a place under the care of British
soldiers. The house, or quarters I suppose they should be called, are
clean and bright, whitewashed (I almost said pipe-clayed), to the
highest point of perfection. There are fortifications above
fortifications here, and plenty of cannon pointed at an imaginary foe.
There are cannon balls in scientific heaps waiting to be despatched on
errands of destruction. Long may they wait.

I saw the outside of the magazine, cased over with so many feet--oh, a
great number--of solid masonry, padded over that with a great many feet
of earth, containing a fabulous amount of powder--tons and tons of it.
Saw also the slippers which the worshippers of Mars put upon their
martial feet when they enter into his temple--slippers without a
suspicion of shod, hob nail or sparable, with which the heels of the
worshippers of Ceres in this country are armed. If any one of these
intruded on this domain sacred to Mars, he would in his indignation gift
them with the feathered heels of Mercury and send them off with an
abrupt message for the stars.

Had a great desire to go up to the top of the great tower and see what
could be seen from it. I was informed, delicately, that in these
disturbed times it was not thought best to admit strangers. The lonely
martello tower on the opposite sands was pointed out to me, sitting
mistress of desolations in the shadow of the rocks of MacGilligan. I was
informed of the money's worth of pile work, thousands upon thousands of
pounds sterling, on which this ugly and useless tower is sitting. As I
walked around the outside of the fort landward and seaward, I think it
quite possible to take it. I make this spiteful remark because I did not
get into the tower.

On the opposite shores of the lough at the inland end of the range that
rose above and behind the martello tower where it slopes down, I saw the
rocky figure of a woman, gigantic, solemn, sitting with her hands on her
knees looking southward. Looking for what--for the slowly approaching
time of peace, plenty and prosperity, of tardy justice and kindly
appreciation? The cost of tower and fort would give Innishowen a peasant
proprietary, loyal, grateful and loving, that would bulwark the lough
with their breasts. Burns is true--a patriotic, virtuous populace forms
the best "wall of fire around our much-loved isle."

It is not easy to get up and leave Green Castle, and the friends there
who made me feel so pleasantly at home; but hearing of evictions that
were to take place away in the interior of Innishowen, I bid a reluctant
good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Sloan at Green Castle, and hiring a special car
set off in the direction of Carndonagh. The road lies between mountains.
The valley through which the road threads its way is varied enough; in
parts bog of the wildest, and barren-looking fields sloping up to as
barren, rocky mountains in their tattered covering of heather, black in
its wintry aspect as yet--mountain behind mountain looking over one
another's shoulders ever so many deep with knitted brows, wrinkled into
deep gullies. One of these mountains (Sliabh Sneach, snow mountain)
deserves its name; snowy is its cap, and snow lingers in the scarred
recesses running down its shoulders. We passed fair, carefully cultured
farms and farm houses, spotlessly white under the shade of trees. Other
farms meeting these ran up far on the mountain side. The white houses,
with which the mountain sides are plentifully dotted over, show very
plainly, and are rather bare-looking and unsheltered among the dark
heather. There are more dwellings on the same space in Innishowen among
the hills than in the parts of the Donegal mountains where I have been.
The people seem better off and more contented. Many of them have a kind
word for their landlords.

In no part of Innishowen that I saw is the same wretchedness and misery
apparent as I saw in "northern Donegal." There is, there must be a less
crushing set of office rules. As an instance of this, the car driver
informed me that the high, utterly heath-clad mountains were allowed to
the people for pasturage, with very little if anything to pay. This
accounts for the number of sheep I saw trotting about with lambs at
their feet, twins being the rule and even triplets far from uncommon. My
informant told me that lambs in early autumn were worth from thirty-five
shillings to two pounds when fit to kill. I thought this a fabulous
price, but it was confirmed to me by a cattle dealer on the train from
Derry to Limavady. If a small farmer had many lambs to sell, he would
have material help in making up the rent. My driver had three acres of
land; he told me if he owned it out and out, after he got it paid for,
he could lived comfortably. He had two horses and a car, and let out his
car for hire. I considered that if he got much call for his car he might
do that--a special car for four or five miles costing $1.25, and if the
driver is a hired man he often depends on his chance, so there must be
25 cents for him also.

It is very necessary, if one wants to see anything of the country to get
off regular routes at regular times, so posting becomes a necessity.

Suddenly we became aware of a great crowd assembled at a group of small
houses a little off the public road, and turned our horse's head in that
direction. There were a great many cars--well there might be, for there
were seventy police on the ground, under the command of a police officer
named McLeod. There was an immense crowd of people, who were entirely
unarmed, not even a shillelagh among them; but if knitted brows and
flashing eyes mean anything, there were men there capable, if any
incident set pent-up rage free, to imitate the men of Harlech, who, with
plaided breasts, encountered mail clad men. A large proportion of the
crowd were women and girls, for there is a flourishing branch of the
Ladies' Land League here.

The tenants to be evicted were, some of them, tenants of the Rev.
William Crawford. I was told by what seemed good authority that the
tenants did not owe much rent, but were pressed just now to punish them
for joining the Land League. It was believed that the tenants were able
to pay, but there was a strike against what they believed exorbitant
rent. The evictions were to demonstrate the landlord's power to compel
them to pay. There was a great crowd.

The policemen were formed in fours, and the crowd howled and hooted as
they proceeded to the first house, McCallion's. The policemen took up a
position convenient to the house, and a few were stationed at the door.
The under sheriff was on the spot.

The little cottage was neat and tidy, white-washed of course. I was not
inside; I did not like to go; those who were said it was very clean and
neat. A room with a few ornaments, a table and some chairs, and a
kitchen with its dresser and table, and a few chairs and stools. The
rent was L14 6s. The tenant stated that he objected to pay the rent on
account of it being too high. The family were sad-looking, but were very
quiet. A paper was presented to him to sign, acknowledging himself a
tenant at will, and promising to give up the holding on demand; on
signing the paper, he got a respite of six months.

The crowd then went to the house of James McCauley, when the same form
was gone through and the same respite granted.

The next house was John Carruthers'. Here the crowd were very much
excited, the women screeched, the men howled, and the poor constabulary
came in for unlimited hooting.

The next place was the joint residence of Owen and Denis Quigley, joint
tenants of a little patch. The cottage is in a gulley on the mountain
side, about a mile of crooks and turns from John Carruthers' house. The
crowd was very large that was gathered round the door. As the police
came up how they did howl! How they did shout, "Down with Harvey (the
agent), and the Land League for ever." Some of the women declared
themselves willing to die for their country.

Another man was evicted, a tenant of Mr. Hector McNeil. The rent here
was L22 3s and the valuation L18 10s. Like the rest he said he could not
pay it because it was too high.

At the next place a young lady Land Leaguer delivered a speech--Mary
McConigle, a rather pretty young girl. Her speech was a good deal of
fiery invective, withering sarcasm and chaff for the police, who winced
under it, poor fellows, and would have preferred something they could
defend themselves from--bayonets, for instance--to the forked lightning
that shot from the tongue and eyes of this female agitator. Whatever
would be the opinion of critics about it, Mary McConigle voiced the
sentiments of the people and was cheered by the men and kissed by the
women. There were a good many speeches made at different times.

Father Bradley, a tall, sallow young priest with a German jaw, square
and strong and firm, spoke very well, swaying his hearers like oats
before the wind. He praised them, he sympathized with them, he
encouraged them, putting golden hopes for the future just a little way
ahead of them, but through it all ran a thread of good advice to them to
be self-restrained and law-abiding. I think I rather admired Father
Bradley and his speech. I had a little conversation with him afterward.
He said the lands were really rented too high, too high to leave for the
cultivator of the soil anything but bare subsistence in the best of
years; and when bad years followed one another, or in cases of sickness
coming to the head of the family, want sat down with them at once.

Mr. Cox, the representative of the Land League, was also there, and made
a speech. He and some gentlemen of the press arrived in a car with
tandem horses. Such grandeur impressed upon the people the belief that
they were connected with law and landlords, so, in enquiring the way,
they found the people very simple and ignorant. When they came where
roads met they were at a loss to know how to proceed, and a countryman
whom they interrogated was both lame and stupid; when he knew, however,
who Mr. Cox was, he recovered the use of his limbs and brightened up in
his intellect in a truly miraculous manner. There were other speeches
during the forenoon of the evictions from Father O'Kane, the gentle
little priest of Moville, Mr. McClinchy, the Poor Law Guardian, and
others.

The greatest success of the day as to speech-making was, after all, the
speech of Mary McConigle, to judge of its present effect--no one else
was kissed. The gist of most of the speeches which I heard, or heard of,
was, advising to hope, to firmness, to stand shoulder to shoulder, and a
counsel to be law-abiding, wrapped up in a little discreet blarney.

As we drove away in the direction of Carndonagh we passed on the way a
wing of the Ladies' Land League, marching home in procession two and
two. A goodly number of bareheaded sonsie lasses, wrapped in the
inevitable shawl; rather good-looking, healthy and rosy-cheeked were
they, with their hair snooded back, and gathered into braids sleek and
shining. Brown is the prevailing color of hair among the Irish girls in
the four counties I have partly passed through. These Land League
maidens reminded me of other processions of ladies which I have seen
marching in the temperance cause. They were half shame-faced, half
laughing, clinging to one another as if gathering their courage from
numbers.

Carndonagh, which we reached at last, is another clean, excessively
whitewashed little town, straggling up a side hill, with any amount of
mountains looming up in the near distance.

A little after we arrived the Carndonagh contingent of the police on
duty at the evictions came driving in, horses and men both having a
wilted look. The drivers came in for some abuse as they took their
horses out of the cars on the street. One old man could not at all
express what he felt, though he tried hard to do so, and screeched
himself hoarse in the attempt.

The police, as they alighted down off the cars, made for their barracks--
a tall white house standing sentry at a corner. As one entered, a
little child toddled out to meet him with outstretched arms. He stopped
to kiss and pet the child, looking fatherly and human. I am sure the
little kiss was sweet and welcome after the howls and hoots of the crowd
and the sarcastic eloquence of Miss McConigle. I pity the police; they
are under orders which they have to obey. I have never heard that they
have delighted in doing their odious duty harshly, and the bitter
contempt of the people is, I am sure, hard to bear.

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