_A Joyful Day in Donegal_
Holland is noted the world over for its neatness. The Dutch housewives
spend a good part of each morning in scrubbing the sidewalks in front
of their houses. Philadelphia is also a clean town and there you will
see house-maids out scrubbing the front stoops and the brick
pavements. Now a good part of the inhabitants of Donegal emigrate to
Philadelphia. (We in America all know the song, "For I'm Off to
Philadelphia in the Morning.") Well, the third neatest place that
occurs to me is Rathmullan, in Lough Swilly, in County Donegal.
Whether Philadelphia is neat because of the Irish or the Irish of
Donegal go to Philadelphia because it is neat, I leave to others to
determine.
All my life I've read and have been told that the north of Ireland was
very different from the south; that the people were better off and
more thrifty, but I did not expect to see such scrupulous neatness.
The houses are mostly white and severely plain in line, built of stone
faced with plaster, sometimes smooth and sometimes rough finished, but
always in apple-pie order (unless they were on parade the three days I
was there). Even the alleys are sweet and clean, and where the people
keep their pigs is a mystery to me. I snapped one, but he was being
driven hither and thither after the manner of Irish pigs, and may not
have lived in Rathmullan at all.
Here in the town of Donegal while the houses are not of Philadelphia
neatness, they show evidence of housewifely care, and if there is
abject poverty it is carefully concealed. (I have been a week in
Ireland and I have not seen a beggar or a drunken man, although I have
kept my eyes moving rapidly.)
[Illustration: IN DONEGAL]
How often must an emigrant who has elected to live in noisome
tenements in American cities long for the white cottages and the green
lanes and noble mountains and verdant valleys of Donegal!
Every hotel at which I have stopped so far has had hot and cold water
baths and I have only been to small towns.
I heard a bathing story from a vivacious Irish lady at an evening
gathering that may never have seen American printer's ink.
She said that in former times a lady stopping at a primitive hotel in
the west of Ireland asked for a bath. She was told by the maid that a
colonel was performing his ablutions in the room in which the bathing
pan was set.
"But he'll not be long, I'm thinkin', miss," said the maid.
This lady waited awhile in her room, and at last growing impatient,
she stepped out into the hall and found the maid with her eye to the
keyhole of the bathroom.
On hearing the lady's footstep she turned around quite unabashed and
said, "He'll be ready in a minute, miss. He's just after gettin' out
of the tub."
This story was told me in a drawing-room with many young people
present, so it must be true, but candor compels me to say that I have
observed nothing of the kind on this trip. There are no terrors like
those of a bath in an English tub of which I had occasion to speak
last year.
Speaking of anecdotes, I heard one that concerned the father of the
man who showed us through the lovely ruins of McSwiney's castle at
Rathmullan. Son, father, and grandfather have all in their turn acted
as caretakers of the ruins, and proud enough is the son of his
position.
But it is of the father that the story goes.
The wife of an English admiral, whose family were in the habit of
being buried in the graveyard adjoining the abbey whenever they died,
departed this life, and to "Jimmy" fell the task of digging her grave.
Meeting the admiral some two weeks later he said, "It'll be ten
shillings for yon grave."
"Is it ten shillings, man?" said the admiral. "Why that's
extortionate. I'll pay five shillings and that's a shilling more than
usual, but I'll not pay ten shillings."
"Ah, well," said Jimmy, composedly, "if ye'll not pay ten shillings
then I'll dig her up again." And the admiral, knowing Jimmy to be a
man of his word, paid him what does not look to be an exorbitant
price.
Among the most impressive ruins in the world are those of the Grianan
(or summer palace) of Aileach on Elagh mountain. Here is a circular
fort of rocks some three hundred feet in circumference that antedates
Christ's nativity by from two thousand to three thousand years. It is
supposed to have been a temple of the sun worshippers and occupies a
magnificent and awesome position from which to see either the arrival
or the departure of the sun god, for the half of County Donegal lies
north, south, east, and west at your feet. Such an extended view is
seldom vouchsafed to the dwellers within towns and I don't wonder that
the sun worshippers built there a temple to their deity.
There it still stands, its walls eighteen feet high and twelve feet
thick. It has been somewhat restored by Dr. Bernard, of Derry, but
does not seem to vie with the Giant's Causeway as an attraction to
visitors. There were only three persons there when we went up, but
there is a holy well just outside of it and from the number of
bandages fluttering in the wind there I imagine that a good many
maimed people manage to scale the steep ascent.
I said that Elagh mountain afforded a fine view for the dwellers
within towns. It is only six miles by car and a mile by foot (I
suppose seven miles in any manner would cover it) from Derry.
By the way, for ease and comfort to a naturally lazy man, commend me
to a jaunting car. The cushioned top with which they cover the "well"
that lies between the sidewise seats is an admirable place on which to
"slop over" and loll on from the seat, and so far from being an
insecure perch, it is just as safe as a dog cart or a buggy. And the
motion is pleasantly stimulating to the system. The well-built,
vigorous, well-fed cob trots with the regularity of a metronome or a
London cab horse, reeling off mile after mile. We did our twelve miles
to and from Elagh mountain in less than two hours and at a cost of
three shillings apiece, exclusive of the sixpenny tip. They don't do
those things as cheap in New York or Chicago.
At Donegal my friend had to see a solicitor on business and after it
was over he came to me and said that the solicitor would like to take
us sailing down Donegal Bay. I was delighted to go, but I wondered
whether we would walk down to the bay or ride there. I knew that it
was several miles out, for I had seen it across the wet sands that
stretch from the town's center seaward.
My uncertainty was soon dispelled, for two minutes' walk brought us to
where the bare sands had been a few hours before, and lo, Donegal Bay
had come to us and the solicitor's boat was riding on the water
waiting to be off. A tide is a handy thing to have about.
As one leaves the inlet and looks back he gets a picture that might
have been composed by an exceedingly successful landscape gardener.
The trim little town showing a bit of the ruins of Donegal castle and
one graceful church spire, wooded hills running up from the town on
either side; back of all this hills of greater magnitude, destitute
of trees, and then, towering up in the distance, the great, gaunt
Barnesmore that forms part of a heaven-kissing train.
We sailed well out into the bay with favoring winds, and had most
noble views of purple mountains on every side, but when we turned to
go back the wind made off to sea, laughing at us, and we came back
laggingly, but in plenty of time for a cozy supper in the solicitor's
home and an all evening chat with him.
We had never met until that day, but his welcome was as hearty as if
he had been anxiously awaiting our coming.
As I got off the train at Donegal a heavy hand clapped me on the
shoulder, and, turning, I saw Seumas McManus, whose Irish stories are
so well known in America.
He lives at Mount Charles, a village lying three Irish miles from
Donegal, and nothing would do but my friend and I must have dinner
with him.
We accepted with pleasure, and next day walked up there, meeting more
pretty girls returning from mass than it seemed right for two to meet
when there were so many people in the world who seldom see a pretty
face. But we tried to bear our good fortune meekly and strode on,
quite conscious in the warm sun that an Irish mile has an English mile
beaten by many yards. That ought to be cause for satisfaction to any
Irishman.
McManus has a bungalow on top of Mount Charles, and at his feet lie
seven counties. They have a way of throwing counties at your feet in
this part of Ireland that makes the view superb. The furthermost land
that is his to look at on a clear day lies a hundred miles to the
south.
Such a view ought to stimulate a man to noble thoughts, and I was not
surprised to learn that McManus is a member of the Sinn Fein (Shinn
Fane) Society (it means, "Ourselves Alone"), what one might call
bloodless revolutionists, although it comprises much of the best blood
and the youngest blood in Ireland.
[Illustration: THE BUNGALOW OF SEUMAS MCMANUS]
McManus is an ardent believer in a glorious future for Ireland when
she shall have shaken off the shackles that bind her, and as a good
American, I wrote in his guest book, "May Ireland come to her own
before I die."