Just Irish Part 3

Holland is noted the world over for its neatness. The Dutch housewives spend a good part of each morning in scrubbing the sidewalks in front of their houses. Philadelphia is also a clean town and there you will see house-maids out scrubbing the front stoops and the brick pavements. Now a good part of the inhabitants of Donegal emigrate to Philadelphia. (We in America all know the song, "For I'm Off to Philadelphia in the Morning.") Well, the third neatest place that occurs to me is Rathmullan, in Lough Sw.i.l.l.y, in County Donegal.

Whether Philadelphia is neat because of the Irish or the Irish of Donegal go to Philadelphia because it is neat, I leave to others to determine.

All my life I've read and have been told that the north of Ireland was very different from the south; that the people were better off and more thrifty, but I did not expect to see such scrupulous neatness.

The houses are mostly white and severely plain in line, built of stone faced with plaster, sometimes smooth and sometimes rough finished, but always in apple-pie order (unless they were on parade the three days I was there). Even the alleys are sweet and clean, and where the people keep their pigs is a mystery to me. I snapped one, but he was being driven hither and thither after the manner of Irish pigs, and may not have lived in Rathmullan at all.

Here in the town of Donegal while the houses are not of Philadelphia neatness, they show evidence of housewifely care, and if there is abject poverty it is carefully concealed. (I have been a week in Ireland and I have not seen a beggar or a drunken man, although I have kept my eyes moving rapidly.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN DONEGAL]

How often must an emigrant who has elected to live in noisome tenements in American cities long for the white cottages and the green lanes and n.o.ble mountains and verdant valleys of Donegal!

Every hotel at which I have stopped so far has had hot and cold water baths and I have only been to small towns.

I heard a bathing story from a vivacious Irish lady at an evening gathering that may never have seen American printer's ink.

She said that in former times a lady stopping at a primitive hotel in the west of Ireland asked for a bath. She was told by the maid that a colonel was performing his ablutions in the room in which the bathing pan was set.

"But he'll not be long, I'm thinkin', miss," said the maid.

This lady waited awhile in her room, and at last growing impatient, she stepped out into the hall and found the maid with her eye to the keyhole of the bathroom.

On hearing the lady's footstep she turned around quite unabashed and said, "He'll be ready in a minute, miss. He's just after gettin' out of the tub."

This story was told me in a drawing-room with many young people present, so it must be true, but candor compels me to say that I have observed nothing of the kind on this trip. There are no terrors like those of a bath in an English tub of which I had occasion to speak last year.

Speaking of anecdotes, I heard one that concerned the father of the man who showed us through the lovely ruins of McSwiney's castle at Rathmullan. Son, father, and grandfather have all in their turn acted as caretakers of the ruins, and proud enough is the son of his position.

But it is of the father that the story goes.

The wife of an English admiral, whose family were in the habit of being buried in the graveyard adjoining the abbey whenever they died, departed this life, and to "Jimmy" fell the task of digging her grave.

Meeting the admiral some two weeks later he said, "It'll be ten shillings for yon grave."

"Is it ten shillings, man?" said the admiral. "Why that's extortionate. I'll pay five shillings and that's a shilling more than usual, but I'll not pay ten shillings."

"Ah, well," said Jimmy, composedly, "if ye'll not pay ten shillings then I'll dig her up again." And the admiral, knowing Jimmy to be a man of his word, paid him what does not look to be an exorbitant price.

Among the most impressive ruins in the world are those of the Grianan (or summer palace) of Aileach on Elagh mountain. Here is a circular fort of rocks some three hundred feet in circ.u.mference that antedates Christ's nativity by from two thousand to three thousand years. It is supposed to have been a temple of the sun worshippers and occupies a magnificent and awesome position from which to see either the arrival or the departure of the sun G.o.d, for the half of County Donegal lies north, south, east, and west at your feet. Such an extended view is seldom vouchsafed to the dwellers within towns and I don't wonder that the sun worshippers built there a temple to their deity.

There it still stands, its walls eighteen feet high and twelve feet thick. It has been somewhat restored by Dr. Bernard, of Derry, but does not seem to vie with the Giant's Causeway as an attraction to visitors. There were only three persons there when we went up, but there is a holy well just outside of it and from the number of bandages fluttering in the wind there I imagine that a good many maimed people manage to scale the steep ascent.

I said that Elagh mountain afforded a fine view for the dwellers within towns. It is only six miles by car and a mile by foot (I suppose seven miles in any manner would cover it) from Derry.

By the way, for ease and comfort to a naturally lazy man, commend me to a jaunting car. The cushioned top with which they cover the "well"

that lies between the sidewise seats is an admirable place on which to "slop over" and loll on from the seat, and so far from being an insecure perch, it is just as safe as a dog cart or a buggy. And the motion is pleasantly stimulating to the system. The well-built, vigorous, well-fed cob trots with the regularity of a metronome or a London cab horse, reeling off mile after mile. We did our twelve miles to and from Elagh mountain in less than two hours and at a cost of three shillings apiece, exclusive of the sixpenny tip. They don't do those things as cheap in New York or Chicago.

At Donegal my friend had to see a solicitor on business and after it was over he came to me and said that the solicitor would like to take us sailing down Donegal Bay. I was delighted to go, but I wondered whether we would walk down to the bay or ride there. I knew that it was several miles out, for I had seen it across the wet sands that stretch from the town's center seaward.

My uncertainty was soon dispelled, for two minutes' walk brought us to where the bare sands had been a few hours before, and lo, Donegal Bay had come to us and the solicitor's boat was riding on the water waiting to be off. A tide is a handy thing to have about.

As one leaves the inlet and looks back he gets a picture that might have been composed by an exceedingly successful landscape gardener.

The trim little town showing a bit of the ruins of Donegal castle and one graceful church spire, wooded hills running up from the town on either side; back of all this hills of greater magnitude, dest.i.tute of trees, and then, towering up in the distance, the great, gaunt Barnesmore that forms part of a heaven-kissing train.

We sailed well out into the bay with favoring winds, and had most n.o.ble views of purple mountains on every side, but when we turned to go back the wind made off to sea, laughing at us, and we came back laggingly, but in plenty of time for a cozy supper in the solicitor's home and an all evening chat with him.

We had never met until that day, but his welcome was as hearty as if he had been anxiously awaiting our coming.

As I got off the train at Donegal a heavy hand clapped me on the shoulder, and, turning, I saw Seumas McMa.n.u.s, whose Irish stories are so well known in America.

He lives at Mount Charles, a village lying three Irish miles from Donegal, and nothing would do but my friend and I must have dinner with him.

We accepted with pleasure, and next day walked up there, meeting more pretty girls returning from ma.s.s than it seemed right for two to meet when there were so many people in the world who seldom see a pretty face. But we tried to bear our good fortune meekly and strode on, quite conscious in the warm sun that an Irish mile has an English mile beaten by many yards. That ought to be cause for satisfaction to any Irishman.

McMa.n.u.s has a bungalow on top of Mount Charles, and at his feet lie seven counties. They have a way of throwing counties at your feet in this part of Ireland that makes the view superb. The furthermost land that is his to look at on a clear day lies a hundred miles to the south.

Such a view ought to stimulate a man to n.o.ble thoughts, and I was not surprised to learn that McMa.n.u.s is a member of the Sinn Fein (Shinn Fane) Society (it means, "Ourselves Alone"), what one might call bloodless revolutionists, although it comprises much of the best blood and the youngest blood in Ireland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BUNGALOW OF SEUMAS MCMa.n.u.s]

McMa.n.u.s is an ardent believer in a glorious future for Ireland when she shall have shaken off the shackles that bind her, and as a good American, I wrote in his guest book, "May Ireland come to her own before I die."

CHAPTER IV

_The Dull Gray Skies of Ireland_

I am coming more and more to believe that we have better weather in America than we give the poor country credit for. What pa.s.ses for good weather here would make a poor subst.i.tute for the American article. I will not deny that it is soft and insinuating, but it is also not to be depended upon. I went out to climb a wild-looking mountain near Bundoran, on the northwest coast. To my inexperienced eye the day looked promising--that is promising rain--but the driver, of whom I had ordered a car to take me to the base of the mountain, said there'd be no rain. All those ugly clouds hovering over the summit of it were merely reminders that there was such a thing as rain, and so we started.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SKY LINE AT BUNDORAN]

And here let me make a few remarks about Irish weather in general. You are out walking in a fine "mizzle," that penetrates ordinary cloth with the utmost ease, and you meet a countryman to whom you observe "Not very pleasant." "Oh, it's a bit soft, but it's pleasant enough."

What a blessing it is to be easily satisfied.

You strike a day without sun and positively chilly, and the natives a.s.sure you it is fine, that they had awful weather last week, but that, according to the barometer, the weather is going to be steady for awhile. They have borrowed the barometer habit from the English, and it really is a comfort when you're going for a long walk or drive to see that it points to fair. "Fair to middling" would be better.

Well, my driver and I set out for the mountain, and on the way I asked him the question I ask all of the peasants with whom I hold conversation, "Would you like to go to America?"

"Sure I would. I'll not be stayin' here long. I've an aunt an' a brother an' a cousin an' a sister an' an uncle beyant. There's no chance here."

I wonder whether the reason why there is no chance is because the Irishman is lacking in application. I fell in with a delightful man at a little town in County Fermanagh. I wanted a little thing done to my watch and I asked him how long it would take to do it.

He a.s.sured me that he was driven to death with work and was up till late every night trying to get ahead, but that he would try to find time to mend my watch some time before seven o'clock, when he nominally closed. Then he followed me to the door of his shop and began to ask me questions about America, which I was glad to answer, as I had a half hour to kill before starting for some sight or other, and I killed that half hour most agreeably with the little man's help.

He pointed out different pa.s.sers by and told me their life histories.

And every once in a while he would say, "I've not had a day off for nearly a year, not even bank holiday. Never a minute for anything but work. I've an order now that's going to keep me busy, except for the time I'll give to your watch, all the rest of the day. And dinner eaten in my workshop to save time."