Omaha daily bee., 1888-10-28

quarter sets over against
the eastern walls. The Irish
struggles alongshore to
the west. They are thus apart. But
the ferocious denizens of these two
odorous quarters, craning their savage
necks over the seat of the law, sound
pibrochs OF defiance, or shrek Gaelic
invitation to war. And Illus
it ever will be, worlds without end, in
this tester spot of race and religious
viciOusness. And what a blessing it
would be if a few Of these old hate
breeding, h%ell-feeding dens in all lands
could be waited into impalpable fertil-
izers by the deXtrous touch of divine
dynamite. After all, the antiquity, as
sociations, memories mi history OF Car
rickfergus are so revoltingly written in
inhumanity and blood, that v one Of
noblest digestion car scarcely reach en-
thusiasm over its really picturesque old
castle, for which it is most famous Its
very remote origin is clearly traceable
to John de Courcey; and it is said to be
the only existing edifice in the king
dom exhibiting q specimen OF the old
Norman military stronghold. Perched
upon a narrow, rocky peninsula, and
washed on three sides by the bay,
whether approached from the sea, seen
from the heights of Antrim, observed
from the opulent fields of Down, Or
looked upon from the bosom of the calm
and shining Tough, it certainly grows
upOn the thought and sense as a picture
OF unusual, one might almost say mel
eur. To-day instead of being
the proud abode of Irish
kings; instead of owing secre league
with the Scottish lord of the isles, and
preserving the witehing baldic min
strelsies Of the Hebrides; instead of
ringing the shouts and pipes Of giant
framed Scottish auxiliaries; instead Of
housing the lively followers of the Nc
Carthy and the O'Neil, the stubborn SOL
diery of William, Or the light-hearted
Adventures OF Thurot: the great hail
Of its massive keep is a barrack for red
coats and rats. One gets dry-rOt from
even a sniff of, and a look at, the me-
diaval tatterdemalian, and turns his
face to the seward highland, with in
effable longing and relief.
Rounding White Head and Black
Head, on the north shore, which have
their corresponding twin headlands OPP
posite on the lovely shores of Down, we
left Belfast Tough, the Vinderius of
Ptolemy, and were soon in the Irish sea,
hugging Island Magee, when, scarcely
separated from the mainland at the
southwest, for a breadth of two miles
and a length Of nine sweeps gracefully
around in a new-moon form to the north,
and behind which smiles the blue
waters of the Tough Larne, where many
odd fisher-folk live and talk the year
round, as did their fathers for centuries
before them, the plaice, OF iat-fish, aud
the mullet. One longs to wander in Is
land Magee. IL is magical with natural
beauty; its inhabitants would furnish
marvellous studies for the artist and nov
elist; it is the legendary abode Of the
widest fantasies of sorcery; on it's ex-
| tremities are numberless raths and
cromlechs; while the entire coast-line
is rife with natural wonders, historic
destinations, and marvels of legend and
tradition. Midway between its north
ern and southern ~promontories are the
| grim old Gobbins, basaltic cliffs rising
upward of 200 feet perpeudicularly out
of the sea stern and murai in character,
and with numberless caves at high
water mark, the resort. OF olden
Hebridean pirates, but now put To
the milder use OF tishermen's boat
houses; for along this entire shore are
noted fisheries Of behring's, blockens
and turbot. 1t was here that, in 1912,
| one of those tender-hearted Covenah-
tors. in'command of old C~arrickfergus
Castle, out OF revenge for some fancied