Connemara

“ Cong is very nearly on the road to Connemara, which, with the exception of parts of Donegal, is the wildest, most savage, and most extraordinary part of Ireland. Those who want to see all the wildness of Connemara, its chaotic mountains, its innumerable lakes, far-entering bays, and illimitable bogs, should drive from Cong, or from Oughterard to Clifden, and go from there to Galway by rail. Whoever travels that route will see some of the most charming as well as some of the most terrific scenery in Ireland. ”

“ We were told the Connemara was very picturesque, and the most interesting section of Ireland, both in scenery, in local color, and in costumes, but it is a disappointment in all three respects. The scenery is grand, as mountains always are, but it is very monotonous; the people are so poor and so dirty that they repel, and we seldom see them at work, except in the peat fields as we pass. The Connemara peasant woman always wears a red skirt, goes barefooted, and covers her tousled head under a heavy shawl. ”

“ Some local genius once said that “Connemara got a very wooded look since them telegraph posts was put up in it,” and after many a drive in which the line of black posts dwindling to the horizon was the only break in the barrenness we began to understand this. Here at all events the civilising hand had done its work, and we slackened pace in the greenness and shelter, and, fortified by the knowledge that the present owner of the place was far away, we began to think of luncheon. ”

“ But the stings of the midges have died away, and the recollection of the glassy curve of the river, the mirrored wild flowers at its brim, the classical grove of pines and slender white birches, and the luminous purple reflection of the mountain lying deep in the{195} stream beneath them are the things that come into our minds when we think of our last day in Connemara. As a companion picture, belonging, too, to that day, I seem still to see my cousin’s sailor hat flying from her head like a rocketing pheasant, in a gust that caught us as we crossed the Killaries on our return journey. ”

“ A rather lengthy but well-told tale of adventures in Connemara, including an old-fashioned election (time, 1854) and a well-described trial for robbery on the Drogheda and Dundalk Railway. The plot is well constructed and the characters, mainly of the landlord class, sympathetically depicted. The peasantry are faithfully, if somewhat humorously, delineated. ”

“ It was only the Connemara version of Mary calling the cattle home, written in rather faster time than is usual, and with a running accom{189}paniment in two flats, supplied by ourselves. Sibbie was not thoroughly reassured even when we reached the hotel, and we drove past it along the road seaward till we reached a point from which we saw the whole of the long exquisite fiord of the Killaries, and beyond the furthest of its dark, over-lapping points the thin silver line of the open sea. ”

“ Mike is a keen fisherman and his teeth watered as I told him of Lough Corrib’s reputation amongst the disciples of Isaac Walton.
A few miles from Galway we turned west into the heart of the far-famed Connemara country. As we swept over this part of Ireland we could see why Connemara is so celebrated. It makes a splendid panorama. There are literally hundreds of little lakes, there is grand mountain scenery, there are the heather and peat lands in abundance. ”

“ Delphi is one of the loveliest spots in Connemara, but we can hardly go as far as the enthusiastic Englishman who wrote: "It may be safely said that if Connemara contained no other beauty, Delphi alone would be worth the journey from London, for the sake of the mountain scenery." Delphi House formerly belonged to the Marquis of Sligo, and at one time he lived there. We returned by driving round the head of the bay, with a horse that would have retarded a funeral procession. Within a mile of the hotel there [73] is a double echo, which we tested by loud whistling on our fingers. ”

“ As we drove along the high ground beyond, Ballinahinch came slowly into sight; a long lake in a valley, a long line of wood skirting it, and finally, on a wooded height, the Castle, as it is called, a large modern house with a battlemented top, very gentlemanlike, and even handsome, but in no other way remarkable.
It was not the sort of thing we had expected. We had heard a great deal about Mary Martin, who was{64} called the Princess of Connemara forty years ago ”

“ Men were scarce, but we saw some, mostly at work in the peat lands. We caught sight of some Connemara women also, with red skirts, and Mike said he thought they were shoeless.
We went through the pass of Kylemore, called the “Gem of Connemara.” Two lofty peaks rise on each side, and, in order to avoid land currents, we had to rise to a height of 500 feet in going through. ”

“ Glimpses of real life in Connemara and Aran (described p. 48 sq.) , dealing less with outward incidents than with the beauty of the people’s faith, the hardness of their lot, the joys and sorrows of their lives. Told with a very delicate suggestiveness, full of touches of humour and of feeling, without preaching or moralising, by one in thorough sympathy with the people, and alive, too, to all the influences of nature. The dialect is reproduced with great fidelity. ”

“ But a fair is not to them merely a place of business, it is a conversazione, extending from sunrise to sunset, at which the keen spectacular enjoyment of bargaining is blended with the purely personal pleasure of getting drunk.
Another mile or two of switchbacking brought us in sight of trees, which, in Connemara, answers to coming in sight of land, as far as civilisation is con{135}cerned; before long we were driving underneath them, and pulling up at the entrance gate of a demesne. ”

“ Taking all things into consideration, especially Sibbie’s powers as a roadster, we hardened our hearts to starting at once, without taking the half-mile walk to see the wonderful stables that cost Colonel Martin £15,000 to build, and are paved with blocks of the green and white Connemara marble. ”

“ Admirable illustrations of Connemara scenery, clever sketches of “natives” (usually of the lowest type) . Light magazine sketches written in clever, racy style. Subjects: Holidays in Aran and Connemara and Carbery, picnics, country house anecdotes, superficial studies of peasants in Connemara and Cork. “In Sickness and in Health” pays a tribute to the strength of the marriage bond in Ireland. ”

“ In Connemara the "bawneen" or sleeved waistcoat of whitish flannel is general and very becoming to its wearers, among whom are to be found the handsomest men in Ireland. Kerry women, who in certain parts really have the "black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes", may perhaps hold their own even with the girls of Connaught; but for fine-looking men I would back Galway against any county in the British Isles. ”

“ For two long burning hours did the Connemara filly circle in Ring 3, and during all that time not once did her owner’s ears hear the longed-for summons, “Hi! grey mare!” It seemed to her that every other horse in the ring was called in to the rails, “and she doesn’t look so very thin to-day!” said Fanny indignantly to Captain Spicer, who, with Mr. Gunning, had come to take her away for lunch.
“Oh, you’ll see, you’ll sell her on the last day; she’s getting fitter every minute,” responded Captain Spicer. “What would you take for her?” ”

“ A great many people have asked us why we did not make our journey through Connemara on tricycles: the roads are so good, the mail-cars offer such facilities for the transport of baggage, the speed and simplicity are so great. To this we have our reply—what then of the luncheon hamper? These objectors have not taken into account the comfortable wayside halt by the picturesque and convenient lake ”

“ The trackless wilds of Connemara;" and the men who put it in its place scarcely knew whether king or queen ruled in an England that was as remote from them as the India of to-day.
It is probable that in the youth of the pump its labours were light. Baths were the eccentricity of a few, a revival of the corrupt days of the Roman Empire; and the process by which the stalwart fox-hunter of the beginning of this century got into his clothes was one that it might be well to slur over, invaluable as he and his costume have been to the Christmas numbers. ”

“ This district was popularly called the Kingdom of Connemara, a name applied to that great tract extending from the town of Galway to the Killery harbour, bounded on the east by the great lakes called Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and comprising within it the baronies of Moycullen and Ballinahinch, and the half barony of Ross. It is not an unknown region now. It has two prosperous towns and several villages, good roads, and comfortable hotels. ”

“ There is practically not a woman of the working class in the town—certainly not one in the Claddagh fishing quarter—who does not cling to this bit of colour, as thick as a blanket and very fleecy. It is spun, woven, and made at home; and, as a result,{147} raggedness is exceedingly infrequent among the Galway natives. Indeed, all Connemara is remarkable for the clean, neat, and whole clothing of its people, who are otherwise poverty-stricken. ”

“ My cousin and I are old travellers, and we have two properties, a spirit lamp and a folding indiarubber bath, without which we never take the road. It is my belief that if my second cousin were told that a chariot of fire was at the door, waiting to waft her to the skies, she would rush upstairs for the indiarubber bath and the spirit lamp. After this I suppose I need hardly say that they had accompanied{108} us to Connemara. We do not for an instant wish to insinuate that the bath, as an institution, does not obtain in those parts. We have every reason to believe that it flourishes there ”

“ I've had men lodging with me out of the west—men who would be walking the world looking for a bit of money—and every one of them would be talking of the wonders below in Connemara. I remember one time, a while after I was married, there was a tinker down there in the glen, and two women along with him. I brought him into my cottage to do a bit of a job, and my first child was there lying in the bed, and he covered up to his chin with the bed-clothes. ”

“ It is said that many of this subjugated and exiled race returned from their wanderings about the first century before the Christian era; that they were kindly received by Meave and Aillil, then rulers of the western province; and that they received from them a grant of Connemara, the Isles of Aran, and other uncultivated districts, in which they strongly entrenched themselves against any possibility of future attack. ”

“ Caillin as their patron saint. In West Connaught they were divided into three families or branches—the Conmaicne Mara, of the Sea, who have given their name to the modern Connemara; the Conmaicne Cuil-Tola, who occupied the present barony of [Pg 542] Kilmaine in the County Mayo, and the Conmaicne Chineal-Dubhain, who dwelt around Dunmore in the County Galway. Tuam is in the barony of Dunmore, or at least on its borders, and so we may assume that Jarlath belonged to the Conmaicne of Dunmore, for the Irish saints generally founded their churches in their own tribe-land. ”

“ He belonged to a family which ruled Connemara till 1238, when they were conquered by the O'Flaherties. He became a student at the college of Navarre in Paris, and there graduated D.D. He returned to Ireland, became vicar-apostolic of Killaloe, and on 11 Oct. 1631 was consecrated archbishop of Tuam, in succession to Florence Conroy [q. v.] , at Galway, by Thomas Walsh, archbishop of Cashel, Richard Arthur, bishop of Limerick, and Baeghalach Mac Aedhagain, bishop of Elphin. In 1632 he presided at a council held at Galway to enforce the decrees of the council of Trent in Ireland. ”

“ A volume of stories and sketches, founded for the most part on fact. Some are autobiographical episodes of childhood. There is an incident of ’98, an incident of the Land War, and two episodes of Irish history, the story of Geroit Mor, Earl of Kildare, and that of Art Macmurrough, told in vivid, romantic style without political bias. Again, there are extremely interesting “memories” of the Famine of 1846-7. On pages 142-150 is a remarkable description of Connemara. The story-telling is full of vivacity and picturesqueness, reminding one of French storytellers, such as Daudet. ”

“ Connecticut, a river in the United States which rises on the confines of Canada, and, after a course of 450 m., falls into the Atlantic at Long Island.
Connemara, a wild district with picturesque scenery in W. of co. Galway, Ireland.
Conolly, John, physician, born in Lincolnshire, studied at Edinburgh, settled in London, distinguished for having introduced and advocated a more rational and humane treatment of the insane (1794-1866) .
Conrad, Cadet of the House of Hohenzollern, served under the illustrious Barbarossa; proved a capable young fellow under him; married the heiress of the Vohburgs ”

“ The continual passing in this island between the misery of last night and the splendour of to-day, seems to create an affinity between the moods of these people and the moods of varying rapture and dismay that are frequent in artists, and in certain forms of alienation. Yet it is only in the intonation of a few sentences or some old fragment of melody that I catch the real spirit of the island, for in general the men sit together and talk with endless iteration of the tides and fish, and of the price of kelp in Connemara.
After Mass this morning an old woman was buried. ”