New Ireland (Volume 2) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE FATE OP GLENVEIH. Iff the remote and wild north-west of Ireland, lashed by billows that roll from the frozen ocean, stands ancient Tyrconnell, better known to modern ears as the Donegal Highlands. There is probably no part of the island of equal expanse more self-contained, or separate, as it were, from the outer world. Nowhere else have the native population more largely preserved their peculiar features of life and character, custom and tradition, amidst the changes of the last two hundred years. The eastern portion of Donegal abounds in rich and fertile valleys, and is peopled by a different race. Two hundred and fifty years ago all of the soil that was fair to see, that seemed worth possessing, was handed over to " planters," or " undertakers." The native Celts were driven VOL. II. E to the boggy wastes and trackless hills that were too poor or too remote for settlers to accept. Here, shut out from the busy world, their lowly lot shielding them from many a danger, the descendants of the faithful clansmen of " Dauntless Red Hugh" lived on. Their life was toilsome, but they murmured not. Along the western shore, pierced by many a deep bay, or belted by wastes pf sand, their little sheelings nestled alongside some friendly crag, while close at hand " the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean " boomed eternally in sullen roar. The scenery, from Slieveleague to Malin Head, is wildly romantic, and in some places surpassingly beautiful. There are wide stretches of bleak and utter desolation, but ever and anon the eye is arrested and the fancy charmed by views which Alpine regions rarely excel. Lough Swilly? " the Lake of Shadows "?is one of the most picturesque ocean inlets on our coasts. It steals southward past Buncrana and historic Rathmullen,.till it r...