Part 4

The train will take you to Ballina, a considerable town, with a famous fishing on the River Moy, which can be had on easy terms--and nowadays even so far as Killala, on a bay which is for ever associated with a romantic episode in Irish history. Here Humbert landed in 1798--a month too late, for the great Wexford rising had been crushed out by July, and when he came in August all the forces in the country could be mobilized to meet his tiny army of republican French (Humbert was no Bonapartist) and their backing of half-armed and untrained Connaughtmen. Yet against all odds, the republican, with Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in his heart as well as on his lips, pushed from Ballina to Castlebar, the capital town of Mayo, and there inflicted upon General Lake such a defeat as finally branded a name already deeply disgraced by the most brutal cruelties. It was a wonderful feat but wholly useless, for Humbert after forcing his way actually into Leinster was surrounded and forced to surrender without making terms for his Irish backers--upon whom Lake was free to avenge his own repulse in massacre. One of the strangest documents in history is the narrative of the Protestant Bishop of Killala, Dr. Stock, who was captured and most kindly treated during the raid.

All the shores of Killala Bay are prosperous and planted; you reach the beginning of wild country at Ballycastle, where I have pleasant memories of a little inn kept by the postmistress. Beyond that, the road is unknown to me; but another way into the heart of Erris leads out from Ballina through Crossmolina on Lough Conn. So far as this all is level land; and about this wide lake, famous for fishing (though its repute has sadly fallen away), are plenty of places to stay in. Nephin rises from its west shore, a magnificent mountain; and the whole place is well worth seeing, and the best way to see it is to fish a day on the lake, trolling or casting as you will--with the chance, especially if you troll, of big pike or salmon.

Beyond Crossmolina one runs into the wilds, with no stopping place for many miles till you reach Bangor Erris on the lower waters of the Owenmore River, which flows into Blacksod Bay. Here is a hotel, not so famous as it used to be in old days--but you will be all the better for that. The host of those days provided entertainment for the mind, but the bodies of his guests suffered some discomfort. "I left my boots outside my door last night and they were never touched," said one indignant protester. "And if you left a watch and a purse of gold with it, it's the same way they would be," the host answered triumphantly.

I stayed a fortnight there once, with an Englishman who had never seen 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.

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_