Ireland before; and everything happened to us that happens in Lever's
novels and that we all declare happens no longer. Our own water was
poached to extinction; but we made friends with the most skilful angler
I have seen (Dan Keary is his name, at your service), who escorted us
to fish on a little stream high in the mountain, where in a raging
flood we caught more big sea trout than either of us would have cared
to carry and came home triumphant--to be confronted a couple of days
later with the indignant owner of that water who wanted to know what we
had been doing there. The upshot was that we had had the best day's
fishing of many years, and made close alliance with the gentleman whose
preserves we had innocently invaded. And I have no doubt that Dan spoke
the exact truth when he said that he had been fishing that water all
his life as often as the fancy took him.
Nowadays much of the land (if it can be called land) about these parts
has been bought by the tenants, who lease out the shooting and fishing
and pay their instalments of purchase with the proceeds--an admirable
condition under which both shooting and fishing are likely to improve.
But except for fishing and shooting I cannot recommend anyone to go to
Bangor Erris, which is the most desolate spot that I have ever trodden.
Distant views of Achill's high peaks made the one element of beauty in
that depressing landscape--where, nevertheless, I would gladly go back,
to try my luck once again on that wildly rushing stream that comes
down, a torrent from Corrsliabh.
III
Sligo town in itself is well worth a pilgrimage, if only because,
unlike other towns in western Ireland, it is making modest advances
towards prosperity: and for the lover of beauty it makes the centre of
a district rich in scenery, rich in historic associations, and in
monuments of a time far before written history.
[Illustration: LOUGH GILL]
The town lies at the outfall of a short broad river which flows from
Lough Gill, and the row up to that lake with Hazelwood demesne on your
left, rich in varied wooding, may honestly challenge a comparison with
whatever is finest at Killarney. The lake itself is girded about with
mountains, not perhaps so picturesque as Carrantuohil and Mangerton,
yet far more known in story. On the west is Knocknarea, crowned with
the huge cairn of stones which is named after Maeve, the fierce Queen
of Connaught, wife of Ailill, lover of Fergus MacRoy, she who headed
the great hosting into Ulster for the Brown Bull of Cooley. Yet earlier
by far than this deposit of legend must be placed the great stone
remains at Carrowmore three miles out of the town and in Hazelwood
demesne. At Carrowmore are stone circles, cromlechs, and subterranean
chambers of stone--all far prehistoric: in Hazelwood are what can be
seen nowhere else in these islands but at Stonehenge--huge trilithons,
part in the ritual of some Druidic cult.
All these, I confess, seem to me to belong to the dusty domain of
archæologists; but Maeve figures in a story which before long may be as
well known as the epic of the Nibelungs, so strong is the grip which
Gaelic mythology begins to take upon the imagination of the world--an
imagination guided by Irish-born poets, not the least of whom has his
native place here in Sligo. William Butler Yeats was born and nurtured
here, and these names and these hills and rivers coloured his earliest
poetry.
From Maeve's cairn--it is an easy climb--you can see north of you to
all the mountains of West Donegal, from Barnesmore to Slieve League and
Glen Head: south and west you can see the heights of Mayo, Nephin
farthest inland, then Croaghpatrick--and stretching away far out to the
western sea, the long cliffy shore of Erris, ending up with those
peaked rocks, the Stags of Broadhaven.
But more famous by far than Knocknarea is the greater mountain,
flat-topped Benbulben, which lies north of the lake and the town. And
for those who would know the beauties of this county, as I unhappily do
not know them, the place of all places to visit is the road which,
following the coast, turns round the shoulder of Benbulben, and so
running inwards along the south shore of Donegal Bay, brings you
ultimately to the pleasant watering-place of Bundoran. And, since I
must write of what I know, let me limit myself to two of the historic
associations of that drive.
One of these memories is legendary. In the cycle of stories which deal
with the deeds of Finn MacCool and the Fianna of Ireland, it is told
how Finn, old and subtle and strong, went to Tara to be married to the
High King's daughter; but she, the Lady Gránia, cast eyes of desire on
one of the Fianna, Diarmuid of the curling dusky hair and the berry-red
cheeks, who was reputed for the best lover of women in all the world:
and, drugging the guest cup, Gránia fled with Diarmuid, till after many
escapes and wanderings, the two made their peace with Finn and with the
High King Cormac MacArt, and settled down to dwell on the round hill of
Keshcorran in County Sligo. Long years they lived together, and
Diarmuid was content, but Gránia, the king's daughter, thought her
house slighted because the two greatest men in Ireland, Finn MacCool
and Cormac MacArt, had never entered its door. "They are enemies to
me," said Diarmuid. "Make a feast and win their friendship," said
Gránia, and it was agreed; so Cormac with his counsellors and Finn with
his Fianna came and hunted for many days about Keshcorran and feasted
for many nights in Rath Grainne. But at last a day came when they were
hunting, and omens had warned Diarmuid to stay back from the chase: but
he set them aside, and followed the hunt to the top of Benbulben and
there was Finn standing alone. "It is the wild boar of Benbulben they
are hunting," said Finn, "and it is an enchanted beast, and its fate is
to have life while you live, Diarmuid, and to die when you die." Then
Diarmuid knew that the wizard Finn had planned this hunt for his death
and he reproached him; but Finn turned away, and when the boar came
against Diarmuid it found him alone, and armed only with light weapons.
The fight raged down the mountain and up it again, Diarmuid bestriding
the beast to avoid its tusks; but at last the boar threw him and ripped
his bowels; but with a last stroke of his broken weapon Diarmuid slew
the boar. Then as he lay mangled, Finn came up and taunted him with the
wreck of his beauty and wished that all the women of Ireland were at
hand to look at him. But Diarmuid called on Finn to use his magical
powers and bring water in his hands to heal the wounds of his body; and
he appealed to his comrades of the Fianna, Ossian and Oscar, who were
with Finn, calling up memories of the times when he had saved Finn and
the Fianna from destruction: and Oscar took part with Diarmuid, bidding
Finn bring the water and heal the man. Twice Finn went to the well and
made a cup of his hands and fetched the water, and twice he let it flow
through his fingers, having thought upon Gránia. Then Oscar threatened
him with battle and Finn fetched it the third time, but as he came up,
the breath left Diarmuid's body, and his comrades keened for him there
on the mountain and cursed Finn's treachery.
And when they came back to Keshcorran, Gránia knew what had happened,
and she went to her sons who were nearly grown men, and bade them seek
vengeance for their father. Finn sought to muster the Fianna to crush
out the revolt that threatened, but Ossian and Oscar rose up and laid
all the blame on him, and bade him settle the quarrel by himself for it
was of his own making. And Finn, since violence failed him, had
recourse to craft, and went to Gránia's house and greeted her cunningly
and with sweet words. The more she railed upon him, the more he
flattered and wooed and plied her "with sweet words and loving
discourse until he had brought her to his own will and he had the
desire of his heart and soul of her", and carried her with him to his
own place.
But when the Fianna saw Finn and Gránia coming towards them, "they gave
one shout of derision and mockery at her so that Gránia bowed her head
in shame". And so ends in cynical bitterness the story of the love of
Diarmuid and Gránia, and of the hunt on Benbulben.
The other story whose ghosts you may waken on that beautiful drive
belongs to a more recent cycle--the epic of the Spanish Armada.
Skeletons of vast ships laden with men and arms and treasure lie
crusted with shell and seaweed all down this north-western shore of
Ireland from Inishowen to Blacksod: but the greatest wreckage of all
was on the Streedagh Strand which stretches away to Bundoran. Three
great vessels went ashore here, and the long beach was strewn with more
than a thousand corpses, with shattered timbers, boats, huge masts, and
all the flotsam and jetsam of that vast defeat.
It is a tragic memory: most of the memories in Connaught have a tragic
cast. This windy, western province has always had its double dose of
the sorrows in a sorrowful land; and the Connaughtman's gaiety wears a
touch of the recklessness which knows some kinship with despair. Yet to
make holiday in, to hunt or shoot or fish in, no part of all Ireland is
better, nor is there any where the country folk have more enchanting
and endearing ways. Famine, the gaunt spectre which haunted them, has
been banished from their ken; and the years that are to come may well
bring to the west much that it lacked without taking away or abating
one jot of its glamour and its charm.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
_At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_