West of Ireland

“ Ireland is situated in the North Atlantic, between the degrees fifty-one and a half and fifty-five and a half North, and five and a quarter and ten and a third West longitude from Greenwich. It is the last land usually seen by ships leaving the Old World, and the first by those who arrive there from the Northern ports of America. In size it is less than half as large as Britain, and in shape it may be compared to one of those shields which we see in coats-of-arms, the four Provinces—Ulster, Connaught, Leinster, and Munster—representing the four quarters of the shield. ”

“ For the wonder of Ireland is, that it is the West Pole of things; there is no place else nearer the Unseen; its next-door neighbor-land westward is this Great Plain, whither sail the Happy Dead in their night-dark coracles,—to return, of course, in due season; and all the peoplings of Ireland were from this Great Plain. So you see why the Crest-Wave, passing from dying Europe, "went west" by way of Ireland. ”

“ The Empire founded on Ireland by Henry and Elizabeth Tudor has expanded into mighty things. England deprived of Ireland resumes her natural proportions, those of a powerful kingdom. Still possessing Ireland she is always an empire. For just as Great Britain bars the gateways of northern and west central Europe, to hold up at will the trade and block the ports of every coast from the Baltic to the Bay of Biscay, so Ireland stands between Britain and the greater seas of the west and blocks for her the highways of the ocean. ”

“ There are, broadly speaking, just two classes of strangers to be met in West of Ireland towns which lie off the tourist track. There are gentlemen connected with the Government, the engineers, surveyors, and inspectors of our various benevolent boards; Members of Parliament on tour, and journalists despatched by editors to report on the state of Ireland, who are regarded by the people of Ballymoy as more or less connected with the Government, a sort of camp followers. ”

“ Ireland, though an island of moderate extent, is yet sufficiently large to contain districts far enough apart to isolate in some degree their respective peasant populations; while it is also admitted that the homogeneity of the Gaelic tongue does not indicate a corresponding homogeneity of race. It may turn out, in fact, ultimately, that we have in Ireland, not one, but several bodies of folk-lore placed in relations most favourable for aiding in the solution of certain problems ”

“ Dublin, left to itself, is a poor harbour; and from thence to Belfast there is only one small port, Ardglass, where the entrance is safe at low tide. The chief harbours of Ireland in fact were those that swelled with the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Her outlook was across its stormy waters, and her earliest traffic through the perils of the Gaulish sea. The English were [65] concerned with the north and east of Europe, the Irish with the south and west, and their paths did not cross.
For Ireland, therefore, the road to Europe did not lie across Great Britain. ”

“ The beauties of Ireland are as unspeakable as they are unknown. The strip of sea holds some tourists back, and others seek the prestige of holiday on the Continong. A German traveller, hight Bröcker, declares that Ireland beats his previous record, and that the awful grandeur of the Antrim coast has not its equal in Europe, while the wild west with its heavy Atlantic seas, is finer far than Switzerland. Germans are everywhere. The Westenra Arms of Monaghan boasted a waiter from the Lake of Constanz, and I met a German philologist at Enniskillen who had his own notions about Irish politics. ”

“ Here was that variety as to local colour denied me in the other works. It was a joy to realise this subject. The picture was for Mr. Whitehead, the owner of “Balaclava.”
The opening day of my introduction to the Wild West was on a Sunday in that June: “From Limerick Junction to Glencar. I had my first experience of an Irish Mass, and my impression is deepening every day that Ireland is as much a foreign country to England as is France or Italy. The congregation was all new to me. ”

“ In Ireland we find this tall, dark race over all the west of the island, but most numerous in Kerry, Clare, Galway and Mayo; in those regions where, we know, the older population was least disturbed. In remote villages among the mountains, reached by bridle-paths between heath-covered hills ”

“ Nature and Population of Ireland.—The “Danish” Conquests.—Traditions about the “Danes.”—Political Movements. Ireland may still be justly called the chief land of the ancient Celtic tribes. Long after the Britons and Caledonians had been driven out by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons, and obliged to fly to the remotest mountain districts of the west, their Irish kinsmen retained firm possession of the whole large and fertile country of Ireland. Subsequently, it is true, the Irish also were compelled to give way before the conquests of the Norwegians and English ”

“ I have known p. 164gentlemen in Ireland deny their climate being moister than England, but if they have eyes let them open them, and see the verdure that clothes their rocks, and compare it with ours in England—where rocky soils are of a russet brown however sweet the food for sheep. Does not their island lie more exposed to the great Atlantic; and does not the west wind blow three-fourths of a year? If there was another island yet more westward, would not the climate of Ireland be improved? Such persons speak equally against fact, reason, and philosophy. ”

“ Which Instruments many men must make use of in the several parts of Ireland, and the rest of the World, and corresponding with each other, communicate and correct their Observation by Reason.
In the mean time let it suffice to say, that at Dublin the Wind blows 2 parts of 5 from the South-West to the West, one part from South-West to the South ”

“ But to make conquests in Ireland, and to acquire by the sword alone permanent settlements there, were no easy tasks. The remote situation of Ireland, so far towards the west in the Atlantic Ocean, was of itself no slight defence. With the exception of certain tracts, principally on the east coast, the land is full of mountains, which everywhere afford secure retreats from an invading enemy. In our days Ireland, the second of the British Isles in point of magnitude, has a population of between six and seven millions, chiefly of ancient Irish, or Celtic origin ”

“ Those which take to the west, after offering themselves to the Hebrides, where the great stationary fishery is, proceed towards the north of Ireland, where being interrupted they make a second division; that to the western side is scarcely perceived, being soon lost in the immensity of the Atlantic, whilst the other, which passes into the Irish Sea, rejoices and feeds the inhabitants of most of the coasts that border upon it. ”

“ There are few coasts in the world better provided with harbours than the west coast of Ireland. It could hardly happen that a steamer like those that take tourists from Leith to the coasts of Norway could be caught by a gale on any part of the coast from Cape Clear to Malin Head, ten miles from a harbour in which she could not take shelter. ”

“ I have already spoken of the wonders of the River Shannon, which rises in a bubbling cauldron away above Lough Allen, and flows down through ten counties to the sea; widening into lakes twenty miles long, or draining vast stretches of impassable bog; navigable for more than two hundred miles; and, finally, the great barrier between eastern Ireland, which the Danes and English over-ran and conquered, and western Ireland, which has never ceased to be Irish, and where the old Gaelic is still the language of the people. ”

“ La Touche says, if we wish to know the north better, it will do us no harm to study the Plantation of Ulster, the United Irish movement, Orangeism, Irish Jacobitism, the effect of French and Swiss Republicanism in the evolution of public sentiment, and the close relation and affection that formerly existed between the north of Ireland and New England. ”

“ The Ocean bore the same fate to Munster and to Ulster. And in fact so long as the sea surrounds this island, so long all its peoples must be linked in a common fortune. The deep that encompasses Ireland has made this country one, gathering together into the Irish family all races that have entered within its circuit. By the might of that encircling Ocean the men of Ireland are bound together in one inheritance, unchanging amid ceaseless change. ”

“ The progress of pastoral countries, political and general, as they have little city life, is slow. With beauty Ireland is well endowed. The interior is flat, with large peat bogs and brimming rivers. But the coast is mountainous and romantic. The western coast especially, where the Atlantic rolls into deep inlets, has a pensive charm which, when troubles end and settled peace reigns, may attract the villa as they do the wanderer now. ”

“ And how excellent that history was, how full of humanity and the rich wine of life, the stories of Fergus and Concobar and Cuculain, of Find and Ossin and Gael, of Meave and Deirdré and Credé bear sufficient witness. The tide of Irish life to which they belong, and which brought them forth, flowed on without break to a time so recent that their whole tradition has come down to us, practically at first hand, from the heralds and bards themselves. Ireland is, therefore, our one doorway to the history of northern Europe through the long era of pagan times. ”

“ The Irish are, unfortunately, not so; and yet, what is English or Scottish history to compare with Irish? Ireland was a land of saints and scholars when Britons were painted savages. Wise and noble laws, based upon the spirit of Christianity, were administered in Erin, and valuable books were written ere the Britons were as far advanced in civilization as the Blackfeet Indians. In morals and intellect, in Christianity and civilization, in arms, art, and science, Ireland shone like a star among the nations when darkness enshrouded the world. ”

“ The Irishman called O'Neill, O'Brien, O'Donnell, steps out of a past well-nigh co-eval with the heroisms and tragedies that uplifted Greece and laid Troy in ashes, and swept the Mediterranean with an Odyssey of romance that still gives its name to each chief island, cape, and promontory of the mother sea of Europe. Ireland, too, steps out of a story just as old. Well nigh every hill or mountain, every lake or river, bears the name today it bore a thousand, two thousand, years ago, and one recording some dramatic human or semi-divine event. ”

“ Our people by their toil of mind and muscle have made other lands rich in manufacture and commerce. Ireland remains poor.
That is why there is not and cannot be a history of Ireland. It is never in Ireland that our history has been made. The threads of our story are ours, spun at home, but they are woven into splendid fabrics elsewhere, not in Ireland. But the history of the Irish people will be a great work when it is written. ”

“ Every one appeared to enjoy the holiday which the Royal visit had caused. But the Irish are indeed a strange people. How varied their aspect—how contradictory their character. Ireland, the land of genius and degradation—of great resources and unparalleled poverty—noble deeds and the most revolting crimes—the land of distinguished poets, splendid orators, and the bravest of soldiers—the land of ignorance and beggary! Dublin is a splendid city, but its splendour is that of chiselled marble rather than real life. ”

“ This is a great and critical occasion in the history of the Six Counties, but not for the Six Counties alone, for everything which interests them touches Ireland, and everything which touches Ireland finds an echo in the remotest parts of the Empire.
Few things are more earnestly desired throughout the English speaking world than a satisfactory solution of the age long Irish problems, which for generations embarrassed our forefathers, as they now weigh heavily upon us. ”

“ What ought, in fact, to be considered as Ireland proper consists, then, of the eastern province or Leinster, the southern or Munster, and the western or Connaught. Ulster is in reality, as well by the nature of its soil as by the race and habits of the majority of its inhabitants, an annex and dependency of Scotland. The three other provinces, on the contrary, form a whole, as distinct from England or Scotland by the constitution and aspect of the land, as it is different by the race, genius, the traditions and beliefs of the population. ”

“ By dowering the crown of England with as fair a cluster of flourishing towns and loyal centres of industry as are to be found in any portion of the Empire. Would you see what Ireland might have been—go to Derry, to Belfast, to Lisburn, and by the exceptional prosperity which has been developed, not only within a hundred towns and villages, but for miles and miles around them, you may measure the extent of the injury we have sustained. ”

“ The main street at Killarney is unattractive enough, crowded as it is with shops whose principal stock in trade is post-cards and photographs and books of views and monstrosities in bog oak and Connemara marble—souvenirs, in a word, for Cook tourists to take home. But turn up any of the narrow lanes which branch off on either side, and there is authentic Ireland—the Ireland of plastered cottages and thatched roofs and half-naked children and gossiping women leaning over their half-doors. ”

“ A scene of such great beauty and uniqueness, so near a fine and interesting city like Limerick, to be so little known to those who go so far in search of the beautiful, shows how much the world at large, and even the Irish themselves, have to learn about Ireland. If the rapids of Doonass were in England, or even in the United States, there would be not only one, but perhaps three or four hotels on their banks,—hotels which would be full of guests every summer. ”

“ But all these together will not make the quantity we have in the four northern counties; the valleys in the Irish mountains are also more inhabited, I think, than those of England, except where there are mines, and consequently some sort of cultivation creeping up the sides. Natural fertility, acre for acre over the two kingdoms, is certainly in favour of Ireland ”