A little row of
white-washed houses on one side of a street that ran up hill, another
row of whitewashed houses that ran along the brow of the hill at a right
angle. Slieve Mor behind towering up between the village and the sea;
below the hill at the foot of another mountain is the rectory, beside it
the church, both having a trimming of young trees; some good fields, the
best I have seen in Achill, and a pretty garden lie round both rectory
and church. This is the mission village of Dugart.
At the corner where the two rows of whitewashed houses meet is the Post
Office. As we drove up there was a gentleman with a northern kindliness
in his face, a long brown beard, an unmistakable air of authority, whom
we found out was the rector of Achill. After introduction and some
conversation, he kindly invited me to the rectory after I had brushed
off some of the dust of travel.
The Dugart hotel possesses a large collection of stuffed sea birds, the
proprietor having taste and skill in that direction, and I was enabled
to take a nearer view of specimens of the birds that sail and scream
round the Achill mountains, eagles and gulls, puffins and cormorants,
than I would otherwise have done. After a little rest and refreshment I
walked down the hill to the lonely, lovely rectory in the valley below.
