The Letters Of
The Letters Of "Norah" On Her Tour Through Ireland By Margaret Dixon Mcdougall - Page 116 of 208 - First - Home

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I Heard Of The Delicious Oysters Found On The Coast, But One Would Require To Go To England Or Dublin To Test Their Flavor.

Lobsters could be purchased in their season at Montreal, but not at the seaports in Mayo.

I asked for a bit of fish at Castlebar, where I remained some time, and once succeeded in buying a small herring, for which I paid 2 1/2 pence.

To return to Pontoon; we stood on the bridge in the sunlight and drank in the scene - broad blue waters, spotted with islands, guarded by the munitions of rocks, watched over by the eternal mountains, bald and wrinkled, every wrinkle scored deep on their brows, heather on the cliffs, ivy creeping some places, ferns waving their delicate fronds in another; bare, desolate grandeur here, tree-crowned hill tops waving their magnificence before you there. This was the scene spread out on either hand.

We came back over the bridge to the police barracks, sitting on a rock with its back to a grove of trees, and reached by a flight of stone steps. I was introduced to the sergeant in charge, a fine specimen of the Donegal men. Tall and straight, strong and kindly are the men of Donegal. The sergeant took us to a hill back of the barracks where was a very lonely vale surrounded by steep hills wooded to the top. Down the perpendicular sides of this hill a waterfall dashes in the rainy seasons, but it was only a tinkling splash at this time. The sergeant and I had some conversation about Donegal, and of course Lord Leitrim. This noblemen has graven his name with an iron pen and lead on the rocks for ever.

We bade adieu to the kindly sergeant and drove back to Castlebar in the quiet evening. Opposite the Turlough round tower is the charming residence of a Fitzgerald, one of the race whose dust moulders in an aristocratic manner in the ruined abbey of Turlough. This gentleman, not thinking himself safe even under protection, has left the country. Only fancy a squad of police marching from their barracks in the dusk, five or ten miles as the case may be, pacing round a gentleman's house in rain or snow, sleet or hail, no shelter for their coercion heads, no fire at which to warm their protecting fingers; pace about from dusk till dawning, march back to barracks and to a few hours' rest. I was silly enough to suppose that the protected family would provide a bowl of hot coffee for their protectors through the silent watches of the night, or a glass of the handier and very popular whiskey, but dear, oh no! the most of them would not acknowledge the existence of the Royal Irish protectors with a word or a nod no more than if they were watch dogs.

XXXVII.

CASTLEBAR - WASTING THE LAND - CASTLE BOURKE - BALLINTUBBER ABBEY.

Castlebar is not a large town at all. It is, like all other towns which I have yet seen in Ireland, swarming with houses licensed to sell liquors of different kinds to be drunk on the premises.

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