IRELAND RE-VISITED.
I was a boy of about 12 when I first re-visited Ireland; and, as the
steamer entered Carlingford Lough, which to my mind almost equals
Killarney's beauty--but that, perhaps, is a Northman's prejudice--with
the noble range of the Mourne mountains on the one side and the
Carlingford Hills on the other, it seemed to my young imagination like a
glimpse of fairy land.
Carlingford reminded me of what my old masters, the Christian Brothers,
used to teach us, that those places ending in "ford" had at one time
been Norse settlements. There is not the slightest trace, I should say,
of people of Norse descent along this coast now, unless we accept the
theory that would regard as such the descendants of the Norman De
Courcy's followers, who can be recognised by their names, and are still
to be found, side by side, and intermingling with those of the original
Celtic children of the soil in the barony of Lecale. It is astonishing,
by the way, how you still find in Ireland, after centuries of successive
confiscations, the old names in their old tribal lands, mingled in
places, as in Lecale, with the Norman names; the two races being now
thoroughly amalgamated--as distinguished from the case of King James's
Planters in Ulster, who, to this day are, as a rule, as distinct from
the population amongst whom they live--whether of pure Celtic strain or
with a Norman admixture--as when first they came.
There was an idea in our family that I had a vocation for the
priesthood, and I was being sent to my uncle, Father Michael O'Loughlin,
parish priest of Dromgoolan, County Down, who placed me in charge of Mr.
Johnson, a somewhat noted classical teacher in the neighbouring little
town of Castlewellan.
I have seen but little of Ireland, but during the few months I was here
on this occasion I made the best use of my time. I could have had no
better guide and preceptor than "Priest Mick," as my mother used to call
my uncle. I imagine that the term "Priest," which, in the North of
Ireland, was formerly so much used as a prefix to the name of the
Catholic clergyman, must have arisen amongst those not of his own flock,
and was probably not intended to have exactly a respectful meaning.
Father Michael sometimes came to see his relatives in Liverpool, who
were very numerous. He called them the "Tribe of Brian" (his father's
name) and he made a point of visiting them all, down to the very latest
arrival--indeed, I think he was the only one who knew the whole of the
ramifications of "the Tribe."
He used to say that his father--the aforesaid Brian--had one of the
largest noses in the country. There was only another man, he said, who
could approach him in that respect. If the two men met in a very narrow
"loanan "--what they call a "boreen" in other parts of Ireland--the
other man, who was a bit of a wag, would put his hand to his nose, and
make a motion of putting it aside, as if there was not sufficient room
for two such organs, and call out with a kind of snuffle: "Pass, Brian!"
The late Mgr. O'Laverty, in his "History of the Dioceses of Down and
Connor," says: "From a government official survey in 1766 there were
fifteen families in Castlewellan, of whom two only (Hagans and
O'Donnells) were Catholics." Up to that date there must have been,
during this century, a considerable clearance of the Catholic population
from the best land of this district, for I should say--judging from King
James's Army List and other authorities--that the Magennises (who, with
the MacCartans, were the chief territorial families of the old race in
Down) still held land in the neighbourhood up to the end of the
seventeenth century. As still further showing this, it will be found
that "Eiver Magennis of Castlewellan" was one of the members for the
County Down in what Thomas Davis truly describes as "The Patriot
Parliament" of 1689.
The learned historian of Down and Connor gives an interesting account of
the only Norman colony of any extent in the province of Ulster. I have
already spoken of this. Notwithstanding the very small Norman
admixture, in the main the Catholics of the North are the most
pure-blooded Celts in Ireland. And even in the case of Lecale, the
original Celtic population intermingled with the descendants of the
Norman settlers, who, like the older native population have ever
remained true to the old faith. The preponderance of the Celtic element
in the Catholics of Ulster must be overwhelming. What is called
"Protestant Ulster" is practically a foreign importation, which the
native population never absorbed, as they did the earlier invaders.
Speaking of the Rev. Cornelius (or, as he was oftener called, Corney)
Denvir, a relative of ours, who afterwards became Bishop of Down and
Connor, Father O'Laverty says: "The Denvirs are a Norman race, brought
to Lecale by De Courcy. The late bishop observed the name in several of
the towns in Normandy."
I only met Bishop Denvir once, when my father--who was his second
cousin--took me to see him at the Grecian Hotel, Liverpool, when he was
on his way either to or from Rome. I once, when a small boy, incurred my
father's displeasure by criticising adversely (from what I had read in
the "Nation") Dr. Denvir's support of what was called the "Bequest
Bill." There were some strictures in the "Nation" on the favour shown to
this Bill by three of the Irish Hierarchy, Archbishops Crolly and
Murray, and Bishop Denvir. The last was a man of great learning. An
edition of the Bible was published under his auspices by Sims and
McIntyre, of Belfast.
During my stay in Ireland, I lived in the house of my uncle, Owen (or
Oiney, as he was commonly called) Bannon, in the townland of
Ballymagenaghy, where my mother was born.
No boy could have had a better object lesson in the part of Irish
history embracing the Plantation of Ulster than Ballymagenaghy. It is
eminently typical of the kind of rocky and barren land to which the
children of the soil were driven--land which would hardly bear
cultivation. I need scarcely say that the people were "Papishes" to a
man.
There was a hill behind my Uncle Oiney's house called Carraig
(pronounced "Corrig"), in English "rock," and the name might well apply
to most of the townland, in which the chief productions seemed to be
stones and rocks. Carraig was a kind of shoulder of what I heard the
people calling "My lord's mountain." This was part of Lord Annesley's
domain, and separated from Carraig and several small farms by a wall,
which ran down to a sheet of water at the foot--Castlewellan Lough. I,
as a student of the "Nation," was not at all satisfied that an Irish
mountain should be called by such a name, which spoke volumes for the
state of serfdom into which the people had fallen. I was not long in
finding the real name--Sliab na Slat (mountain of Rods).
I often looked with admiration at the view from its highest point.
Underneath, the side of the mountain was clothed with trees down to the
edge of the lough, which mirrored the wooded eminences of exquisite
beauty surrounding it. Looking eastward you could see Dundrum Bay and
the white sails of the fishing boats.(They used to sing a mournful
lament around the turf fires of Ballymagenaghy of "The loss of the
Mourne Fishermen" in a great storm off this coast). Further off you
might see an occasional large sailing vessel or steamer, and, further
still, in the dim distance, you could just discern the Isle of Man.
Southward the eye took in the noble range of the Mourne mountains,
running from east to west, from where, at Newcastle, the Irish sea comes
to kiss the foot of the lofty Slieve Donard, towering in majesty over
all his fellows--rugged sentinels of the hills and vales of Down.
Lying, as if nestling under the Mourne range, was a small, well-wooded
hill, part of the domain of Lord Roden, who held high rank among the
Orange ascendancy faction, and, as will be seen later, may be said to
have held the lives and liberties of his Catholic fellow-countrymen in
this district in his hands.
In Ballymagenaghy I was oftener called by my mother's name than my
father's. In those days, as often as not, when a girl got married she
was still called by her friends by her maiden name. So, on the first
Sunday after my arrival, when I was taken over to Leitrim chapel, where
I served my uncle's Mass, I found myself referred to as "Peggy
Loughlin's wee boy." It did not seem at all strange to me, for I
scarcely ever heard her called by any other name. Indeed, some forty
years afterwards--when I was organising for the Irish National
League--I met a County Down man in Cumberland. He was, as I soon found,
from "our own place," as they affectionately call it. He was trying to
trace out what family I belonged to. At last he had it--"Oh" he said,
"You would be a son of Margaret O'Loughlin?" I hesitated for moment,
when Edward McConvey, the local organiser--a County Down man, too--who
had introduced us, laughed heartily as he said: "Here's a quare man;
doesn't know his own mother's name!" In fact, I had so seldom heard my
mother called anything else but "Peggy" that the proper name sounded
strange for the moment. Indeed, it had evidently taken our friend some
time to remember the name of "Margaret," which he, no doubt, thought the
more polite one to use in speaking of my mother.
Her family did not generally use the prefix "O" in her younger days. It
was only after her two brothers, Bernard and Michael, became priests,
and always called and signed themselves "O'Loughlin," that the prefix
was resumed. This is a common experience in other Irish families.
Many of the small holdings in Ballymagenaghy would not support in
anything approaching to comfort the large families with which the sturdy
and industrious people were blessed. This was certainly the case with
the Bannons, but they were not entirely dependent on the land they
tilled, as several of the family were employed in weaving in a portion
of the house, the looms being their own. I have often admired the
beautiful damask table-cloths produced in the homes of these
"mountainy" people, the webs, when finished, being taken to Banbridge,
to the warehouses of the manufacturers, and the yarn and the patterns
for the next lot being brought back on the return journey.
I believe that these cottage industries no longer exist, and that the
beautiful fabrics, for which our northern province is famous, are now
produced by steam power in Banbridge and other Ulster towns.
As the young men and boys of the Bannons worked at their looms, and the
women and girls at their spinning and "flowering," when not wanted to
help on the land, the father, Oiney, would occasionally go over to
England as a travelling packman, and so increase the family store. I
have known in late years other Ulstermen doing this--amongst others my
old friend Bernard MacAnulty, of whom I shall have more to say later.
I had often, at my home in Liverpool, heard of Irish hospitality. Here
in Ballymagenaghy I had many practical illustrations of this in the way
they treated the "poor man" or "poor woman" as they called them--they
never called them beggars--who came to their doors. Indeed, it seemed
to me that these had no occasion to _ask_ for help, for more than once I
have seen a "poor woman" coming in with her bed upon her back, putting
it down in the warmest corner behind the chimney breast, and making
herself at home as a matter of course, without going through the
formality of asking for a night's lodging.
Of the enormous number of harvestmen who passed every year through
Liverpool, except from the County Donegal, there were not so many from
the northern province. The majority were from Connaught. They generally
landed at the Clarence Dock, Liverpool, a wiry, hardy-looking lot, with
frieze coats, corduroy breeches, clean white shirts with high collars,
and blackthorn sticks. I have seen them filling the breadth of Prescot
Street, as they left the town, marching up like an army on foot to the
various parts of England they were bound for. This was before special
cheap trains were run for harvestmen.
At night, in my Irish mountain home, after I had prepared my Latin
lessons for the following day, and my uncle, aunt, and cousins had left
off work, I joined with great enjoyment in the family group around the
turf fire, and listened with rapt attention to songs and stories; my
favourite among the latter being the adventures of Barney Henvey among
the fairies in the old rath, or "forth," as they called it, of
Ballymagenaghy.
I may say that, up to this moment, I have a certain liking for such
stories--of course _as_ fairy stories. But, being a boy of enquiring
mind, I wanted to get at the whole theory of the existence of these
beings, and, accordingly, this is what I gathered as to the origin,
present existence, and future state of the "good people," as they called
them. In "The Irish Fairy Legends," a number of my "Penny Irish
Library," I find I have dealt with the subject. As the passage gives the
explanation I got at my uncle Oiney's more correctly than I can trust
to my memory to give it now, after a lapse of some sixty years, I may be
excused for giving the following extract:--
The belief is that, in the great rebellion of Lucifer, of the
spirits who fell from heaven, some, not so guilty as those who
"went further and fared worse," fell upon our earth, and into the
air and water that surround it. These are the _Fairies_, who have
their various dispositions, like mortals, and like them, at the day
of judgment, will be rewarded or punished according to their
deserts.
In the "Fairy Legends" I have also given the story of "Barney Henvey"
mentioned above. There is something like it in the "Ingoldsby Legends,"
and, no doubt, in the fairy mythologies of other nations, but my story
is of Irish origin. Heaven only knows through how many ages it has been
handed down to us. It is one of the fairy stories my mother and
grandmother used to tell us as long ago as I can remember. I have a
little grandson who, when smaller, used sometimes to insist when put to
bed after he had said his "lying-down prayers," upon hearing "Barney
Henvey" before he went to sleep; and so it will, no doubt, go on, and
such stories may be told in ages to come, not only in Ireland--"A Nation
once again"--but in every settlement of the Clan-na-Gael throughout the
world.
Friends and neighbours would come to my uncle Oiney's from beside
Castlewellan Lough, and over from Dolly's Brae and Ballymagrehan, who,
after the day's work, enjoyed going "a cailey." I hope my Gaelic League
friends will forgive me if I don't give the correct sound of this word,
but that is my remembrance of how they pronounced it some sixty years
ago in the County Down.
Sometimes at our little gatherings, the "wee boy from England," as the
neighbours called me, would be asked to read from the "Nation" a speech
of the Liberator--the title his countrymen gave O'Connell after Catholic
emancipation. I was always delighted with this; entering as fully and
enthusiastically into the spirit of what I read as any of the company.
As often as not, in Ballymagenaghy there would be sung, to the
accompaniment of fiddle, flute or clarionet, one of those stirring songs
which, week after week, appeared about this time in the "Nation" from
the pens of Thomas Davis, and the brilliant young men in O'Connell's
movement known as the "Young Irelanders "--songs "racy of the soil,"
like the "Nation" itself, which stirred the hearts of the Irish race
like the blast of a trumpet, songs which are still sung by Irish
Nationalists the world over.
On the Sundays, the Bannons and their next neighbours, the Finegans,
MacCartans, and MacKays, with their fiddles, flutes, and clarionets,
supplied the chief part of the instrumental music of the choir--for
there was no organ--at the little mountain chapel at Leitrim, where my
uncle, Father Michael, officiated. The happy remembrances of those
Sundays of my boyhood are always brought back to me whenever I read
T.D. Sullivan's "Dear Old Ireland," which is equally characteristic of
this corner of the "black North" as of the raciest part of Munster--more
especially where he sings:--
And happy and bright are the groups that pass
From their peaceful homes for miles,
O'er fields, and roads, and hills to Mass,
When Sunday morning smiles;
And deep the zeal their true hearts feel
When low they kneel and pray!
Oh, dear old Ireland!
Blest old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurrah!
But nothing excited my boyish enthusiasm more than the stories of the
Insurrection of 1798. I was too young to understand much of what my
grandmother used to tell us about these times before she died. My mother
was born in 1799, and was the youngest daughter of her family, but her
eldest sister, my Aunt Mary, wife of Oiny Bannon, was 12 or 14 years old
at the time of the Rising, and could describe more vividly what she saw
connected with it than I can now recall incidents in the Repeal and
Young Ireland Movements.
Listening to her, I could almost fancy I could see my grandfather, Brian
O'Loughlin, leaving his home with the other Ballymagenaghy men, with
their pikes and such guns as they could muster, to join the United Irish
forces previous to the battles of Saintfield and Ballinahinch. At the
time of my visit to my mother's birthplace, my grandfather's house was
in the occupation of the family of his youngest son, Edward, and, as a
pilgrim visiting a sacred spot, I have stood on its floor, as I
afterwards did on the field of Ballinahinch itself.
My Aunt Mary used to speak of an incident which I have never read of in
any account of the battle, but I am inclined to believe there was some
foundation for what she used to tell us. In one part of the engagement
it seemed as if the bravery of the insurgents would have been crowned
with a victory as decisive as they had gained at Saintfield, when, by
some untoward circumstance, the fortunes of the day turned, and, in the
end, the United Men were defeated. Perhaps what my Aunt Mary told me may
be some explanation of the turn in the tide of battle. She used to say
that when it looked as if the United Men were carrying all before them,
a portion of their forces called out for a "Presbyterian ('Prispatairan'
she used to call it) Government," that this caused some hesitation among
the Catholics, that after this the battle went against them, and that
the day ended in disaster.
The story seems somewhat improbable, as it might be asked how, in the
excitement of a battle, men of one religion could be distinguished from
those of another? But this will not seem so unlikely if the
circumstances arising out of the Ulster Plantation of King James I. be
remembered. As a consequence of this you will find townlands and
parishes and whole districts, where the soil is poorest, where the
people are almost exclusively Catholic, and others where the
non-Catholic population are in an overwhelming majority. In the United
forces the men of each locality would have been drilled and trained
together, and, in the same way would, no doubt, act together on the
field of battle, so that, without any actual arrangement for that
purpose, the Catholic or the Presbyterian would, most likely, find
himself among his own co-religionists.
It is wonderful how the memories of '98 were handed down from one
generation to another, not only in Ireland, but wherever our people have
made their homes.
This has been brought home to me in the most forcible possible manner by
a circumstance which has come to my knowledge only a few months
since--so to speak--after a lapse of over a hundred years.
This is that General James William Denver--after whom, for his
distinguished career, the capital of the State of Colorado was called
Denver City--had for his grandfather Patrick Denvir, who did a man's
share in the insurrection of '98, and, for his connection with it, had
to fly from his native Down to America.
This information I had from General Denver's daughter, replying on
behalf of her brother, to whom I had written to find if the family were
of Irish origin. I had some doubt about this, seeing that they spell
their name with an "e" in the last syllable, whereas we and all of the
name in the County Down use an "i." The lady's letter was not only
interesting but most welcome, as showing that they were not only of
Irish but of patriotic origin. They evidently continue to take an
interest in the land from which they have sprung, for the lady made
some enquiries about the late Bishop Denvir, of whom I have already
spoken.
Most of the United Irish leaders and a large proportion of the rank and
file in the '98 Rising were Presbyterians, and fought and bled for
Ireland with the same heroism as their Catholic neighbours, amongst whom
no name is more cherished in the County Down than that of the Protestant
General Monroe, who, my Aunt Mary used to tell us, was hanged at his own
door in 1798. How is it that the sons of the men of 1782 and of
Grattan's Parliament, and of 1798 were not as good Irishmen as their
fathers? I think I can give a kind of explanation.
It must be remembered that the era of Grattan's Parliament and of the
Volunteer movement of 1782, of which present-day Nationalists are so
proud, was also the era of the Penal laws. Since then the Protestants
have seen the Irish Catholic rising from the dust of serfdom and
standing in the attitude of manhood. They have seen him gradually
obtaining a share in the making of the laws of the land, and, naturally,
becoming the predominant political power in Ireland--the Catholics being
the majority of the population. I may be wrong, but I have a theory that
many of the Protestants of Ireland--who once had all the political power
in their hands, and did not always use it too mercifully in their
treatment of the rest of their countrymen--are afraid that if they
assisted in getting self-government for Ireland the power in the hands
of the enfranchised majority might be used against them.
That this is a groundless fear is shown from the fact that no men have
been more honoured in Ireland than such Protestant leaders as William
Smith O'Brien, Thomas Davis, John Mitchel, John Martin, Isaac Butt, and
Charles Stewart Parnell. The same feeling is constantly shown at this
moment towards distinguished Protestants among the present Irish
Parliamentary Party.
What has fostered the Anti-Irish feeling among Irish Protestants for the
last hundred years has undoubtedly been the fell system of Orangeism,
which has caused so much hatred and bloodshed among men who, whatever
their race or creed, are now children of the one common soil. The
Orangeman looked upon himself as part of a foreign garrison, holding the
"Papishes" in subjection. He was armed with deadly weapons;
consequently, the defenceless Catholic was almost entirely at his mercy,
and the Orangeman was but too often backed up in his lawlessness by the
law and its administrators.
This almost necessitated the existence, as a kind of defence against
Orangeism, of a body I used to hear them speaking of when I was a boy in
Ballymagenaghy, called the "Thrashers," which, I imagine, must have been
some kind of a secret society.
It must have been a sort of survival of these "Thrashers" that my
friend, Michael Davitt, many years afterwards, came across somewhere in
the North of England. The incident, as described by him, was both
amusing and saddening. He addressed them in his capacity as a Fenian
Organiser. After they had heard him patiently, an old man, the
spokesman, said:
"Tell me--do you have Prodestans in this Society of yours?"
"Certainly," Davitt answered. "We invite all Irishmen."
"Then we'll have nothing to do with yez!"
As my Aunt Mary could relate thrilling stories of '98, so could my own
mother tell me all about the savagery of Orangemen in her days. She used
to describe to me the attempts of an Orange procession to pass through
Dolly's Brae, when she was a young girl, before she left Ireland.
Dolly's Brae is a kind of rugged defile through which passes the road
from the town of Castlewellan, which, running westward, divides the
townlands of Ballymagenaghy and Ballymagrehan. It is an entirely
Catholic district, and not at all on the ordinary route by which the
processionists would reach their homes. Yet, in a spirit of aggression,
and well-armed, as usual, with Orange banners waving, drums beating, and
bands playing "Croppies lie down," "The Boyne Water," and similar airs,
this was the district they sought to march through.
It so happened that the proposed hostile parade was not altogether
unexpected. In any case, their approach was heralded by the firing over
"Papish" houses, as the processionists came towards Dolly's Brae. From
the heights above they were seen--my mother being one of the
watchers--in sufficient time to have the people of the immediate
neighbourhood warned of the threatened Orange incursion.
The defenders of Dolly's Brae had no firearms, as their opponents had,
but they gathered up any weapons they could to repel the invaders. The
Orangemen came on, expecting an easy victory. They had got well into the
defile, and were firing at their opponents, who were in sight before
them at some distance on the road, and into the houses on each side,
when they were thrown into confusion by a storm of large stones and
pieces of rock hurled down the steep sides of the defile upon them by
assailants who had been up till then invisible.
According to the description of my mother, who was always a militant
Catholic of the most orthodox description, and a strong physical force
Irishwoman as well, the Dolly's Brae engagement must have borne some
resemblance to the battle of Limerick, as described by Thomas Davis:--
"The women fought before the men;
Each man became a match for ten;
So back they pushed the villains then
From the city of Luimneach Lionnglas".
She ought to know, for she was in the thick of the fight. The confusion
of the Orangemen was turned into a complete rout, and they fled, leaving
their banners and other trophies in the hands of the mountainy men.
For many years the Orangemen never attempted to go near the place, but,
with the connivance and active aid of the guardians of the peace, they
did at last, many years afterwards, appear on the scene again. The
Orange anniversary was celebrated at Tollymore Park, the seat of Lord
Roden, who was a sort of Orange deity at the time. Tollymore Park is
some four or five miles south-east of Dolly's Brae, which is in the
heart of the Catholic district, and, as I have said, far out of the
direct road of the Orangemen returning to their own homes.
Yet they deliberately took this route. They were a formidable body, well
armed with guns. At their head was one Beers, the agent of Lord Roden,
and a magistrate who, for the "protection" of the Orangemen, had under
his command a strong body of the constabulary and a detachment of
soldiers. The ordinary Englishman, who knows the police as they are in
his country as the guardians of the public peace, must not confound them
with those in Ireland. The Irish constabulary are simply the permanent
British army of occupation, well armed and drilled, and, physically, as
fine a body of men as any in the world. These were the forces under the
command of Lord Roden's agent, for the invasion, for such it was, of a
peaceful Catholic district.
When the people sought to defend themselves from this invasion as best
they could, Beers, in his capacity as a magistrate, gave the police and
soldiers under his command the order to fire--which they did--upon the
people and into their houses. Consequently, what followed was nothing
short of a butchery, under cover of which the Orangemen wrecked the
Catholic houses in the glen.
I shall never forget the grief of my mother, at this time residing in
Liverpool, at reading in the newspapers the names of the victims who
had been murdered outright or wounded. They were all her next door
neighbours "at home"--people she had known from childhood.
The horrible outrage roused universal indignation. In Parliament the
Irish members demanded a full official enquiry as to how this murderous
business came to be carried out by a Government official. As a result
Lord Roden and his agent were deprived of the Commission of the
Peace--their offence was too glaring to be entirely overlooked. But to
the friends of those who had been legally murdered, and the innocent
people whose houses had been wrecked, this was a cruel mockery. Had the
criminals been Catholic peasants, they would have been put upon their
trial for their lives, and, at the very least, sent into penal
servitude. What confidence could the Catholics of Ulster have in the
administration of the law, knowing, as they did, that even where they
were more than able to hold their own against the Orangemen, they were
sure to be sufferers in the long run, seeing that their opponents would
be backed up by the forces that should go to preserve law and order.
It is thirty-five years since I last re-visited the County Down. I took
my son with me. He was nearly of the same age as I was myself when I
lived in Ballymagenaghy, but I could only show him the site of Oiney
Bannon's house. It was not the too common case of an eviction, for the
Annesleys had the reputation of being tolerably good landlords. The
land, as I have said, was very poor, in fact, if the people got it for
nothing it would hardly repay cultivation. But it was picturesque, and
therefore Lord Annesley took some of it into his domain, and these
barren hills and rocks, when planted with trees, added to the beauty of
the scenery. The dispossessed tenants got land from him in Clarkhill,
not far off.
Since that time, judging from the Irish newspapers, there seems to have
been progress in the right direction, for the little town of
Castlewellan, where for a short time I went to school, from being a
place where, in the Penal days, a Catholic was scarcely allowed to live,
seems to have become a strong Nationalist centre for South Down. This
was my mother's part of the country. I have seen similar paragraphs
which proved to me that, in the barony of Lecale, County Down, my
father's part, the people, though not so demonstrative as the "mountainy
men," can still, as ever, be relied upon to stand as firm as Slieve
Donard itself for creed and country.