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  [Illustration]

  ON AN
  IRISH JAUNTING CAR
  Through Donegal and Connemara



  BY SAMUEL G BAYNE




  [Illustration: "THE REAL THING"]




  On An
  Irish Jaunting-Car
  Through Donegal and Connemara

  BY S. G. BAYNE


  _ILLUSTRATED_



  [Illustration]



  NEW YORK AND LONDON
  HARPER & BROTHERS
  PUBLISHERS




  Copyright, 1902, by HARPER & BROTHERS.


  _All rights reserved._

  Published November, 1902.




PREFACE


In the compiling of this little book, I am deeply indebted for
historical data, etc., to John Cooke, M.A., the Messrs. Black, Lord
Macaulay, the _Four Masters_, and many others, from whose writings I
have made extracts; and for photographs to Messrs. W. Lawrence, T.
Glass, and Commissioner Walker.

I sincerely hope I may be forgiven for the shortcomings and errors
which can doubtless be found in this brief sketch of a few weeks' tour
through the north, west, and south of Ireland.

  S. G. BAYNE.

  NEW YORK CITY.




  CONTENTS


                                         PAGE

  NEW YORK TO LONDONDERRY                   1

  LONDONDERRY TO PORT SALON                 9

  PORT SALON TO DUNFANAGHY                 14

  DUNFANAGHY TO FALLCARRAGH                23

  FALLCARRAGH TO GWEEDORE                  36

  GWEEDORE TO GLENTIES                     40

  GLENTIES TO CARRICK                      46

  CARRICK TO DONEGAL                       49

  DONEGAL TO BALLYSHANNON                  53

  BALLYSHANNON TO SLIGO                    57

  SLIGO TO BALLINROBE                      65

  BALLINROBE TO LEENANE                    67

  LEENANE TO RECESS                        70

  ACHILL ISLAND                            78

  RECESS TO GALWAY                         92

  ARAN ISLANDS                            106

  LIMERICK                                117

  CORK AND QUEENSTOWN                     128




  ILLUSTRATIONS


  "THE REAL THING"                          _Frontispiece_

  RATHMULLEN ABBEY, COUNTY DONEGAL        _Facing p._   10

  CARNISK BRIDGE AND SALMON-LEAP
  (IN LOW WATER), NEAR RAMELTON,
  COUNTY DONEGAL                               "        12

  OUR FIRST CAR                                "        14

  IN THE GREAT ARCH, "SEVEN
  ARCHES," PORT SALON, COUNTY
  DONEGAL                                      "        16

  DUNREE FORT, LOUGH SWILLY,
  COUNTY DONEGAL                               "        18

  TEMPLE ARCH, HORN HEAD, COUNTY
  DONEGAL                                      "        24

  "MCSWINE'S GUN," HORN HEAD,
  COUNTY DONEGAL                               "        26

  GLEN VEIGH, COUNTY DONEGAL                   "        34

  A TURF BOG                                   "        38

  NATIVES OF COUNTY DONEGAL                    "        44

  A TURF CREEL, CARRICK, COUNTY
  DONEGAL                                      "        50

  DONEGAL CASTLE                               "        54

  SALMON-LEAP, BALLYSHANNON, COUNTY
  DONEGAL                                      "        60

  GOING TO THE BOG FOR TURF, BUNDORAN,
  COUNTY DONEGAL                               "        62

  LORD ARDILAUN'S CASTLE, CONG,
  COUNTY MAYO                                  "        66

  CONG ABBEY, COUNTY MAYO                      "        68

  WATER-FALL IN THE MARQUIS OF
  SLIGO'S DEMESNE, WESTPORT,
  COUNTY MAYO                                  "        72

  KYLEMORE CASTLE AND PRIVATE
  CHAPEL, COUNTY GALWAY                        "        74

  DEVIL'S MOTHER MOUNTAIN, AASLEAGH
  FALLS, AND SALMON-LEAP
  ON ERRIFF RIVER, COUNTY GALWAY               "        76

  THE FISHERY, ACHILL ISLAND,
  SLIEVEMORE IN THE DISTANCE                   "        78

  CATHEDRAL CLIFFS AT MENAWN,
  ACHILL ISLAND                                "        81

  ACHILL HEAD, COUNTY MAYO                     "        88

  BOYS FISHING, NEAR RECESS, COUNTY
  GALWAY                                       "        94

  A CONNEMARA TINKER                           "       102

  THE LANDING OF THE COW, ARAN
  ISLANDS                                      "       106

  ON OUR WAY TO DUN AENGUS, ARAN
  ISLANDS                                      "       108

  "WE TAKE TO THE WATER IN A
  CURRAGH." ARAN ISLANDS                       "       112

  CURRAGHS, ARAN ISLANDS                       "       114

  THE CLOISTERS, ADARE ABBEY,
  COUNTY LIMERICK                              "       126

  SHE SAT AND DROVE ON A LOW-BACK
  CAR                                          "       134

  THE KETTLE IS BOILING FOR OUR
  TEA                                          "       136




ON AN IRISH JAUNTING-CAR

THROUGH DONEGAL AND CONNEMARA




NEW YORK TO LONDONDERRY


At New York, on the 26th of June, we boarded the SS. _Columbia_, the
new twin-screw steamer of the Anchor Line. Every berth was taken, and
as the passengers were a bright set, "on pleasure bent," there was an
entire absence of formality and exclusiveness. They sang, danced, and
amused themselves in many original ways, while the _Columbia_ reeled
off the knots with a clock-like regularity very agreeable to the
experienced travellers on board.

As our destination was Londonderry, we took a northerly course, which
brought us into floating ice-fields and among schools of porpoises and
whales; in fact, it was an uneventful day on which some passenger
could not boast of having seen "a spouter, just a few minutes ago!"

We celebrated the morning of the Fourth of July in a very pretentious
way with a procession of the nations in costume and burlesques on
the conditions of the day. The writer was cast to represent the Beef
Trust, and at two hundred and twenty-five pounds the selection met with
popular approval; but he found a passenger of thirty-five pounds more
in the foreground, and thereupon retired to the side-lines. Attorney
Grant, of New York, made a striking "Rob Roy," with his colossal
Corinthian pillars in their natural condition. A long list of games
and a variety of races for prizes gave us a lively afternoon, and the
evening wound up with a "grand" concert, at which Professor Green, of
Yale, made an excellent comic oration.

W. A. Ross, of New York, was my companion on the trip; A. B. Hepburn,
ex-Comptroller of the Currency, intended going with us, but was
prevented at the last moment by a pressure of business, which we very
much regretted.

The steamer soon sighted Tory Island, rapidly passed Malin Head, and
then turned in to Lough Foyle. When a few miles inside the mouth
of the latter, we stopped at Moville and the passengers for Ireland
were sent up to Londonderry on a tender. We were so far north and the
date was so near the longest day that we could easily read a paper at
midnight, and as we did not get through the custom-house until 4 A.M.,
we did not go to bed, but went to a hotel and had breakfast instead.
The custom-house examination at Derry, conducted under the _personal_
direction of a collector, is perhaps the most exasperating ordeal of
its kind to be found in any port in existence. The writer has passed
through almost all the important custom-houses in the world, and has
never seen such a display of inherent meanness as was shown by this
"collector." He seized with glee and charged duty upon a single package
of cigarettes belonging to a passenger, and he "nabbed" another man
with a quarter-pound of tobacco, thereby putting an extra shilling
into his King's pocket. He was an Irish imitation Englishman, and his
h's dropped on the dock like a shower of peas when he directed his
understrappers in a husky squeak how best to trap the passengers.
The owner of the quarter-pound of tobacco poured out the vials of
his wrath on the "collector" afterwards at the hotel: "I would give
a five-pound note to get him in some quiet place and pull his parrot
nose," was the way he wound up his invective. Neither were the ladies
allowed to escape, their clothing being shaken out in quest of tobacco
and spirits, since those are about the only articles on which duty is
charged. The very last cigar was extracted by long and bony fingers
from its cosey resting-place in the vest-pocket of a passenger who
shall be nameless--hence these tears! All other ports in Europe vie
with one another in liberal treatment of the tourist; they want his
gold. The writer landed both at Southampton and Dover last summer, and
at the latter place, although there were over five hundred trunks and
satchels on the steamer, not one was opened, nor was a single passenger
asked a question. Smuggling means the sale at a profit of goods brought
into port for that purpose; nothing from America can be sold at a
profit, unless it be steel rails, and they are much too long to carry
in a trunk.

We are now in "Derry," as it is called in Ireland, and every man in it
is "town proud"; and well he may be, as Derry has a historical record
second to but few cities in any country, and its siege is perhaps
the most celebrated in history. At this writing it has a population
of thirty-three thousand and is otherwise prosperous. Saint Columba
started it in 546 A.D. by building his abbey. Then came the deadly Dane
invader, swooping down on this and other Foyle settlements and glutting
his savage appetite for plunder. Out of the ruins left by the Danes
arose in 1164 the "Great Abbey of Abbot O'Brolchain," who was at that
time made the first bishop of Derry. The English struggled and fought
for centuries to gain a foothold in this part of Ireland, but to no
purpose until Sir Henry Docrora landed, about 1600 A.D., on the banks
of the Foyle with a force of four thousand men and two hundred horse.
He restored Fort Culmore and took Derry, destroyed all the churches,
the stones of which he used for building fortifications, and left
standing only the tower of the cathedral, which remained until after
the siege.

In 1608 Sir Cahir O'Doherty, of Inishowen, who at first had favored the
settlement, rebelled, took Culmore fort, and burned Derry. His death,
and the "flight of the earls" Tyrone and Tyrconnell to France, left
Derry and other vast possessions to English confiscation, over two
hundred thousand acres alone falling to the citizens of London. The
walls were built in 1609, and still remain in good condition, being
used as a promenade; the original guns bristle from loop-holes at
intervals, and "Roaring Meg" will always have a place in history for
the loud crack she made when fired on the enemy. She sits at the base
of Walker's monument now, silent, but still ugly. This monument is
erected on a column ninety feet high, starting from a bastion on the
wall, and has a statue of Walker on its summit. One of the earliest
feats in sight-seeing which the writer ever accomplished was to climb
to its top, up a narrow flight of spiral stairs. (There would not be
room enough for him in it now.)

James I. granted a new charter of incorporation to Derry in 1613, and
changed the name from Derrycolumcille to Londonderry. James II. laid
siege to the town in person in 1689, but failed to capture it. It was
defended for one hundred and five days by its citizens under George
Walker, but two thousand of them lost their lives from wounds and
starvation. On the 28th of July, the ships _Mountjoy_ and _Phoenix_,
by gallantly rushing in concert against the iron boom laid across
the Foyle, broke it, and relieved the starving people with plenty of
provisions; and so the siege was ended.

There are seven gates in the walls of Derry--viz., Bishop's Gate,
Shipquay Gate, Butchers' Gate, New Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Castle Gate,
and the Northern Gate, a recent addition. Those favorites of fortune
who live near New York know that