OUR REST ON THE ANTRIM COAST
When we came down to the noon lunch at the hotel, we met Miss O’Neill
and a fine-looking, elderly gentleman and lady, whom she at once
introduced as her parents.
Mr. O’Neill was very cordial, and invited us to sit at their table. In
some way I managed to monopolize both Mr. and Mrs. O’Neill, leaving
Mike out in the cold with Miss O’Neill. However, I don’t think he
minded it in the least, as both he and the fair Irish girl seemed to
get on good terms at once. I was surprised at Mike. I had never known
him before to take an interest in any girl. He always had avoided the
young ladies as long as I had known him. I think it must have been the
Irish atmosphere.
After lunch Mr. O’Neill and I went for a walk over the Causeway. Mrs.
O’Neill took an afternoon nap, and so Mike and Miss Edith were left
alone together again.
One reason why Mike capitulated so easily to the charms of this fair
Irish maiden was that she had been an ardent student of aeronautics,
and was even ambitious to fly herself.
During the afternoon Mr. O’Neill showed me the wonders of the Giant’s
Causeway. It is no wonder that this unique phenomenon in geology is so
far-famed. A stream of lava, 2600 feet wide, and fifteen miles long,
instead of forming the usual basaltic rock when it had cooled, formed
itself into detached columns, from six to thirty feet long, and from
eight to twenty-four inches in diameter. These strange columns, mostly
pentagonal or hexagonal in formation, present a smooth surface in three
parallel terraces along this Antrim coast and make the most remarkable
natural pavement ever seen by the eyes of man. There are forty thousand
of these columns, and every one of them is a perfect geometrical
figure. The columns are so close together that water will not pass
between them, and yet each is separate.
“With skill so like, yet so surpassing art;
With such design, so just in every part,
That reason ponders, doubtly if it stand
The work of mortal or immortal hand.”
As we walked over this marvelous piece of rock formation, Mr. O’Neill
told me the legend of Finn McCool, and how he built the Causeway over
to Scotland, in order to provide a way for Ben Donner to come over to
Ireland to accept his challenge. Ben was the champion of Scotland,
as Finn was in Ireland, and Finn was determined to see which was the
better man. In the contest Finn was victorious, and as there was no
further use for this strange roadway across the sea, most of it had
been swept away, but a little was left on the Antrim coast, a relic of
Finn’s remarkable handiwork.
[Illustration: HORIZONTAL PILLARS, GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.]
Science attempts to explain the Causeway by saying that, when the
rock was in a fluid state, crystalization set in, and produced the
phenomenon. It is claimed that the Palisades of the Hudson are a
somewhat similar formation. On account of the fact that rocks do not
naturally crystalize, however, the Causeway still remains the puzzle of
the scientist.
The scenery along the coast near the Causeway is sublime, and there
is a walk along the face of the cliff, which I found almost as
dangerous as aeroplaning. I found Mr. O’Neill a charming companion,
and I thoroughly enjoyed his society. After we had talked of the
Causeway, our conversation drifted to the subject of Ireland’s history.
Naturally, this was a subject dear to his heart. He gave me a brief
epitome of Irish history which was new to me. Irish history begins with
St. Patrick in the fifth century of our era. St. Patrick evangelized
the Irish, and, as a result of his labors, Ireland was the land of
saints and scholars during the period between the sixth and tenth
centuries. The Danes, who settled around the coasts of Ireland, broke
up this peaceful prosperity. Schools were demolished and the students
scattered. Brian Boru brought back a brief period of glory to Irish
history by uniting the Irish under his able sway. He defeated the Danes
in a decisive battle at Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014, but he lost
his life at the close of that fatal day. Ireland was left rudderless
again. The petty chiefs quarrelled amongst themselves, and in 1170
the English came over and claimed Ireland. The struggles of the Irish
for political freedom have been pathetic. The native Irish were often
treated as the Indians were by the white men in America, but with this
vital exception. In America the Indian quietly died out, and gave not
trouble. In Ireland, the Irish lived, multiplied, and filled Ireland
with Irishmen. The real estate deals made in Irish land by several of
England’s rulers left a bad taste in the mouths of the Irish. In 1641,
taking advantage of England’s Civil War, the Irish rose against the
English and Scotch colonists in Ireland with terrible fury. In 1649
Cromwell reduced Ireland again to English rule, treating the natives
with savage ferocity. Another rebellion arose in 1689, when James
II. was driven from the English throne by William III. James came to
Ireland and the Irish rose in his favor. William III. again conquered
the Irish. Thus the history has gone on. Laws of fearful severity were
enacted, and the native Irish, for almost a century, were outcasts in
the land of their forefathers.
Mr. O’Neill was a great admirer of Daniel O’Connell. He told me that a
new era began for Ireland when Daniel O’Connell, with the assistance
of English statesmen, took off some of Ireland’s heaviest burdens.
“I believe,” said Mr. O’Neill, with great earnestness, “that since
Gladstone’s time, England has been trying to do justice to Ireland.”
He assured me that the Irish had never acknowledged that England had
conquered them. He told me about an English schoolboy who was asked
to write an essay on the “Conquest of Ireland,” and he began: “The
Conquest of Ireland began in 1170, and is still going on.”
I was much impressed with the way O’Neill recited to me the history of
his country. Sometimes tears came into his eyes. He quoted, with much
feeling, a few lines from an Irish poet:
“Of old the harp of Innisfail
Was turned to gladness,
But, Oh! how oft it’s told a tale
Of wide prevailing sadness.”
He expressed high hopes that Ireland’s darkest days are past. He
believes all Irishmen in Ireland today, the Protestant in the North and
the Catholic in the South, should blot out the unhappy memories of the
past centuries, and forget the mistakes of former times, and face the
future, united in honest efforts for Ireland’s welfare.
As we walked along, while he told me all this, we suddenly came upon
Mike and Edith at the Giant’s Wishing Chair. This is a place where the
columns of the Causeway are arranged something like a rude chair, and
it is said if you sit in this “chair,” and wish, that your wish will
come true. When we came on the scene Edith was sitting in the chair,
wishing. Mike was standing by her side, evidently much amused.
“What’s your wish,” Mike asked, after we had joined them.
“I wished that I might fly tomorrow,” she answered with a blush. Then,
walking up to her father she said:
“Oh, Papa, can I take a ride in the aeroplane with Mr. Connor tomorrow?”
I saw Mr. Neill glance quickly at her flushed face, and then turn away
with a sigh. She was his only child.
“Why, why,” he answered, “what put such a notion as that in your head?
Did you, sir?” and he looked accusingly at Mike.
“No, sir,” said Edith, before Mike could speak, “Mr. Connor never said
a word to me about it.”
“We’ll see tomorrow,” said her father.
“I think my wish will come true,” I heard Miss O’Neill say to Mike, as
they walked ahead of us up the rough road to the hotel.
I did not hear Mike’s reply but it seemed to please her immensely.
I resumed my talk with Mr. O’Neill about Ireland. I asked him about
recent land laws. I found him enthusiastic about the Wyndham Act of
1903, providing for the purchase of their farms by Irish tenants.
“It means a new Ireland inside a generation,” he earnestly exclaimed.
He then went on to say that the Irish people as a whole, the native
Celt, the descendants of the Scotch, English and French, were
developing a distinctive modern Irish race, which would be able to hold
its own in every department of life. This led him to speak of the Irish
people in America, and I found he had followed the fortunes of his
countrymen across the sea. He was delighted when I told him that Mike
and I were Irish Yankees.
“County Antrim ought to be a sacred place to you,” he said to me,
“for two of your great Presidents traced their ancestory to Antrim.”
He went on to tell me that President Jackson’s father sailed from
Carrickfergus, near Belfast, in 1765, going to North Carolina. He
also told me that the great-great-grandfather of President McKinley
emigrated from Conagher, County Antrim, in 1743. He had himself seen
the old McKinley homestead. Mr. O’Neill and I were on such good terms
of real friendship that very evening, that I could hardly believe
it possible I had only met him that day. I believe it was the Irish
atmosphere.