DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS--TURLOUGH--THE FITZGERALDS--FISH--THE ROYAL
IRISH WATCHDOGS.
The day on which I had to return to Sligo from Castlebar an immense
crowd was gathered at the station, and I wondered what was the matter.
It was a gathering to see emigrants start for America. The emigrants
took the parting hard. If they had been going to instant execution they
could not have felt worse. Three young girls of the party had cried
until their faces were swollen out of shape. The crowd outside wept and
wailed; some clasped their hands over their heads with an upward look to
heaven, some pressed them on their hearts, some rocked and moaned, some
prayed aloud--not set prayers, but impromptu utterances wrung out by
grief. The agony was so infectious that before I knew what I was about I
was crying for sympathy.
I was not to say sorry for them, for I knew the fine, healthy, strong
girls were likely to have a better chance to help their parents from the
other side of the water than here, and the young men might make their
mark in the new world and make something of themselves over there. Still
it was hard to witness the agony of their parting without tears.
When the carriage moved off, the cry "O Lord!" with which the passengers
started to their feet and the relatives outside flung up their hands,
was the most affecting sound I ever heard. It was a wail as if every
heart-string was torn. A countryman explained to me that the Irish were
a people that wept tears out of their hearts till they wept their hearts
away. By the conversation of the emigrants, I found that one girl had
turned back. "She failed on us, my lady," said her comrade. "Her heart
gave up when she saw the mother of her in a dead faint and she turned
back. One has but the one mother and it is hard to kill her with the
bitter grief of parting before the time."
People who have travelled much, and are loosely tied to any spot on
earth, ridicule the affection of these mountain people for their cabin
among the hills, but love of home is a glorious instinct, and if the
country of these people could afford them a little bit of the soil for a
home--liberty to live and toil--they would be both loving and loyal. All
the poor want is permission to live in a corner of their own country.
Castlebar is reached by rail. The station is a little out of town.
Castlebar is the first town where my few belongings were fought for. The
victor in the strife was a most determined old man. I thought he had a
car, but he had only his sturdy old legs. He shouldered my big bag,
little bag and bandbox and trudged off. I ventured to ask him had he not
a car. "Sorra a car, miss. After all your sitting in the cars sure it
will do you all the good in life to walk a bit." They think to flatter
elderly women by calling them Miss individually.
I had an introduction to a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary in
Castlebar. He was son to a gentleman who was kind enough to claim
kindred with me in Antrim. When I alighted from the cars I noticed a
sub-constable with quiet face taking note of all arrivals, and saw that
he was good enough looking to be an Antrim man. Found I was right and
entered Castlebar protected by a member of the force. Paid the
victorious old heathen who had walked off with my luggage the price of a
car, partly for his bravery and partly for his impudence. The approach
to Castlebar from the station, about a mile, is bounded on one side by
Lord Lucan's demesne, shut in behind a high wall, over which the tall
trees wave their arms at you. Another domain, Spencer Park, I think, is
on the other side, and as it is only shut in by a hedge, one gets
delicious peeps at it as one goes along.
Went, with my new acquaintance, who got leave and put on plain clothes
for the occasion, to the small Presbyterian Church in Castlebar. There
were about a dozen present. Presbyterianism does not, as a rule,
flourish in Mayo, though there are a good many small congregations and
many mission schools.
My friend of "the force" got leave of absence for a day and having got
into plain clothes drove with me to Pontoon Bridge between Lough Conn
and Lough Cullin. As we passed the poor-house he told me of the awful
crush that took place round its doors, where the relief was served
during the scarcity. The press and struggle of the hungry creatures were
so dreadful that no serving could be attempted for some days. I could
not help pitying the force standing in mud ankle-deep trying to beat
back the frantic people, to make serving the relief possible. But, oh!
the despair of the people who had to go and come again because the press
was so great. It seemed to a civilian like me that the matter was badly
planned and by heartless people, or two or even three places would have
been appointed for the distribution of the relief and not send them home
without. I often wonder if I am too tender-hearted, too easily moved.
The want of feeling toward the very poor strikes me forcibly wherever I
turn. I think that it was not so to such a perceptible degree before the
poor-houses were built. I solemnly think the Poor Law system educates
people into hardness of heart.
The road out from Castlebar was very beautiful but thinly populated. All
gone to grass near the town, hardly any cottages at all. Our first visit
was to Turlough where there is a round tower with an iron gate quite
close to the ground. The other two which I had seen before at Devinish
and at Killala had their doors about eleven feet from the ground. The
top of this round tower was broken and it had been mended by the
Government. There is a story among the peasantry to the effect that it
never had been finished at all. They say it was the work of the
celebrated _Gobhan saer_, an architect who seems to have had a hand
in every ancient building almost. The finishing of the rounded top of
this tower was done by an apprentice who was likely to rival his great
master. He, in a sudden fit of jealousy, before it was quite finished
pulled away the scaffolding and the too clever apprentice was killed.
There is a ruined abbey adjoining the round tower. It is roofless and
open, yet still an iron gate opens from one part to another. Here in
this abbey has been the burying-place of many of the sept of the
Fitzgeralds, and it was interesting to pass from tablet to tablet and
read of the greatness that had returned to dust. The most remarkable
dust which moulders here is the celebrated George Robert Fitzgerald, a
man who was handsome, well educated, who had spent much of his time at
the French Court. In Ireland he felt himself as absolute as King Louis
(le petit grand). In pursuance of a private feud he arrested his enemy,
and with a slight color of law murdered him. The act was too glaring, he
was tried and to his great surprise hung. The rope broke twice, and the
country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to
a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of
the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a
reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the
memory of this man in the country side.
Continued our drive to Pontoon. As soon as the land became rugged, boggy
and comparatively worthless the tenant houses became more plentiful. Saw
some sheep about, which is always a cheering sign amid the utter poverty
of the people. On the way to Pontoon, on the top of a rock stands one of
the famous rocking stones of the Druidical time in Ireland. A party of
soldiers in their boisterous play determined to roll it down from the
rock. This they were unable to do, easy as the matter looked, but they
destroyed the delicate poise of it, and it rocks no more.
The rocks become bolder and the scenery wilder as you come to the shores
of Lough Conn. Lough Cullen, or lower Lough Conn, has bare round-
shouldered rocks sleeping round it, reminding one of the rocks on the
Ottawa about the Oiseau. The Neiphin Mountain towers up among the rocks
far above them all, looking over their heads into the lake. Lough Conn
is three miles long, and in its widest place three miles wide. Where the
upper and lower lakes meet it is narrow as a river, and over this the
bridge is placed. The marvel here is that a strong current sets in from
Lough Conn to Lough Cullen half the time, and then turns and sets from
Lough Cullen to Lough Conn. The bridge is called Pontoon because a
bridge of boats was made here at the time of the French invasion.
Saw some fishermen fishing in the lakes. There were many boats here and
there lying on the sandy shore, or anchored out in the lake. These
fishermen had no boats; they had waded out waist-deep, and stood fishing
in the water dressed in their shirts. As the fishing is strictly
monopolized, I should not wonder if these breekless, boatless fishermen
were poaching.
The quantum of fish in the waters, the scarcity of fish on the shore is
often referred to as a proof of the people's laziness. The fishing is so
severely monopolized that fish diet and fishing are to the people almost
lost arts. I heard of the delicious oysters found on the coast, but one
would require to go to England or Dublin to test their flavor. Lobsters
could be purchased in their season at Montreal, but not at the seaports
in Mayo. I asked for a bit of fish at Castlebar, where I remained some
time, and once succeeded in buying a small herring, for which I paid 2
1/2 pence.
To return to Pontoon; we stood on the bridge in the sunlight and drank
in the scene--broad blue waters, spotted with islands, guarded by the
munitions of rocks, watched over by the eternal mountains, bald and
wrinkled, every wrinkle scored deep on their brows, heather on the
cliffs, ivy creeping some places, ferns waving their delicate fronds in
another; bare, desolate grandeur here, tree-crowned hill tops waving
their magnificence before you there. This was the scene spread out on
either hand.
We came back over the bridge to the police barracks, sitting on a rock
with its back to a grove of trees, and reached by a flight of stone
steps. I was introduced to the sergeant in charge, a fine specimen of
the Donegal men. Tall and straight, strong and kindly are the men of
Donegal. The sergeant took us to a hill back of the barracks where was a
very lonely vale surrounded by steep hills wooded to the top. Down the
perpendicular sides of this hill a waterfall dashes in the rainy
seasons, but it was only a tinkling splash at this time. The sergeant
and I had some conversation about Donegal, and of course Lord Leitrim.
This noblemen has graven his name with an iron pen and lead on the rocks
for ever.
We bade adieu to the kindly sergeant and drove back to Castlebar in the
quiet evening. Opposite the Turlough round tower is the charming
residence of a Fitzgerald, one of the race whose dust moulders in an
aristocratic manner in the ruined abbey of Turlough. This gentleman, not
thinking himself safe even under protection, has left the country. Only
fancy a squad of police marching from their barracks in the dusk, five
or ten miles as the case may be, pacing round a gentleman's house in
rain or snow, sleet or hail, no shelter for their coercion heads, no
fire at which to warm their protecting fingers; pace about from dusk
till dawning, march back to barracks and to a few hours' rest. I was
silly enough to suppose that the protected family would provide a bowl
of hot coffee for their protectors through the silent watches of the
night, or a glass of the handier and very popular whiskey, but dear, oh
no! the most of them would not acknowledge the existence of the Royal
Irish protectors with a word or a nod no more than if they were watch
dogs.