If Any One Of These
Intruded On This Domain Sacred To Mars, He Would In His Indignation Gift
Them With The Feathered Heels Of Mercury And Send Them Off With An
Abrupt Message For The Stars.
Had a great desire to go up to the top of the great tower and see what
could be seen from it.
I was informed, delicately, that in these
disturbed times it was not thought best to admit strangers. The lonely
martello tower on the opposite sands was pointed out to me, sitting
mistress of desolations in the shadow of the rocks of MacGilligan. I was
informed of the money's worth of pile work, thousands upon thousands of
pounds sterling, on which this ugly and useless tower is sitting. As I
walked around the outside of the fort landward and seaward, I think it
quite possible to take it. I make this spiteful remark because I did not
get into the tower.
On the opposite shores of the lough at the inland end of the range that
rose above and behind the martello tower where it slopes down, I saw the
rocky figure of a woman, gigantic, solemn, sitting with her hands on her
knees looking southward. Looking for what - for the slowly approaching
time of peace, plenty and prosperity, of tardy justice and kindly
appreciation? The cost of tower and fort would give Innishowen a peasant
proprietary, loyal, grateful and loving, that would bulwark the lough
with their breasts. Burns is true - a patriotic, virtuous populace forms
the best "wall of fire around our much-loved isle."
It is not easy to get up and leave Green Castle, and the friends there
who made me feel so pleasantly at home; but hearing of evictions that
were to take place away in the interior of Innishowen, I bid a reluctant
good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Sloan at Green Castle, and hiring a special car
set off in the direction of Carndonagh. The road lies between mountains.
The valley through which the road threads its way is varied enough; in
parts bog of the wildest, and barren-looking fields sloping up to as
barren, rocky mountains in their tattered covering of heather, black in
its wintry aspect as yet - mountain behind mountain looking over one
another's shoulders ever so many deep with knitted brows, wrinkled into
deep gullies. One of these mountains (Sliabh Sneach, snow mountain)
deserves its name; snowy is its cap, and snow lingers in the scarred
recesses running down its shoulders. We passed fair, carefully cultured
farms and farm houses, spotlessly white under the shade of trees. Other
farms meeting these ran up far on the mountain side. The white houses,
with which the mountain sides are plentifully dotted over, show very
plainly, and are rather bare-looking and unsheltered among the dark
heather. There are more dwellings on the same space in Innishowen among
the hills than in the parts of the Donegal mountains where I have been.
The people seem better off and more contented. Many of them have a kind
word for their landlords.
In no part of Innishowen that I saw is the same wretchedness and misery
apparent as I saw in "northern Donegal." There is, there must be a less
crushing set of office rules. As an instance of this, the car driver
informed me that the high, utterly heath-clad mountains were allowed to
the people for pasturage, with very little if anything to pay. This
accounts for the number of sheep I saw trotting about with lambs at
their feet, twins being the rule and even triplets far from uncommon. My
informant told me that lambs in early autumn were worth from thirty-five
shillings to two pounds when fit to kill. I thought this a fabulous
price, but it was confirmed to me by a cattle dealer on the train from
Derry to Limavady. If a small farmer had many lambs to sell, he would
have material help in making up the rent. My driver had three acres of
land; he told me if he owned it out and out, after he got it paid for,
he could lived comfortably. He had two horses and a car, and let out his
car for hire. I considered that if he got much call for his car he might
do that - a special car for four or five miles costing $1.25, and if the
driver is a hired man he often depends on his chance, so there must be
25 cents for him also.
It is very necessary, if one wants to see anything of the country to get
off regular routes at regular times, so posting becomes a necessity.
Suddenly we became aware of a great crowd assembled at a group of small
houses a little off the public road, and turned our horse's head in that
direction. There were a great many cars - well there might be, for there
were seventy police on the ground, under the command of a police officer
named McLeod. There was an immense crowd of people, who were entirely
unarmed, not even a shillelagh among them; but if knitted brows and
flashing eyes mean anything, there were men there capable, if any
incident set pent-up rage free, to imitate the men of Harlech, who, with
plaided breasts, encountered mail clad men. A large proportion of the
crowd were women and girls, for there is a flourishing branch of the
Ladies' Land League here.
The tenants to be evicted were, some of them, tenants of the Rev.
William Crawford. I was told by what seemed good authority that the
tenants did not owe much rent, but were pressed just now to punish them
for joining the Land League. It was believed that the tenants were able
to pay, but there was a strike against what they believed exorbitant
rent. The evictions were to demonstrate the landlord's power to compel
them to pay. There was a great crowd.
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