Morning journal and courier., 1888-10-27
AFoOT IN IRkLaND.s

| OFF THE OkEhhlES, A1eAhuus Oct. To-
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: 1 Trudging over the Lisburn road into the l spire and chimney dotted city of Belfast,
 some tri6ing impulse of interest impelled me
 to stroll upon Queens bridge. Standing 1 above its broad arches and peering down the river Lagan across the crowded shipping to where the noble Belfast Lough, or Carrick- fergus Bay beyond, shone blue and brilliant between rigging, masts and lazily-lapping
 sails, deserted several little cIaft no larger l than ordinary fishing smacks. My curiosity
 led me down along the wharves to these. I
 found among them some tiny coasters from 1 far Donegal, away over on tho western Irish shore; and within half sn hour had made l the acquaintance of the two-man crew of one; struck bargain with them for trip to their home port, and was sailing out to the Irish sea, as dusty and grimy a pilgrim as ever, in the tUinking of an eye, exchanged adventure by land for sailors luck at sea. And 50 ssas we sail an we sail," for these l Irish coasters are as slow as 8 well proven pension claim at Washington. will endeavor to picture what can be seen by the eye and l mind in cruise around that most dread and ! | wild weird north.
 To the right and the left as we descend
 Belfast Lough are winsome scenes and bold. Countless glens, villas, castles, luxuriant farms, ruins and picturesque hesdlands crowd the lovely shores. Contemplating l these strikingly beautiful scenes of opulence 1 in nature and art16ce alone, one could scarce | n. ouI fly of Ireland. But wraiths of the last centu- 1 ry's slaves of Belfast's looms peer from be- hind this magical brightness: while it's hide- ! ous antithesis is found in Belfast's streets l and slums. That is the story briefly. But over there to the left only few miles from 1 the never silent spindles and looms is an- cient, unsavory Carrickfergus with it's migh- l ty castle, it's thousand or 50 Scotch fisher
 folk and its altogether ugly memories. A queer old hive is this; and we are long enough in passing it to note some of it's odd features. Had it the same great mass of | rock behind it one would involuntarily i'm. l agine diminutive Quebec had been set down here at the waters edge. Though lacking that it Is still cracked and crum- bling prototype of Quebecs ohoked and I crowded Lower Town. The old, old central, once walled city, for it is so old that its ori- gin is well enough lost in tradition, is a suf- locating mass of angles, arches, decaying
 walls grim legends and filth. But in sense | it is blesssd. It is neutral ground. The l Scotch quarter sets over against the eastern walls. The Irish quarter struggles along shore to the west. They are thus apart. l But the ferocious denizsns of these two odor- ous quarters, craning their savage necks over 1 the seat of the law, sound pibroohs of de6- 1 apce. or shriek Gaelic invitation to war. 1 And thus it ever will be, worlds without end, in this fester spot of race and religious I viciousness. And what blessing 1t would l be if few of these old hate-breeding, hell | feeding dens in all lands could be waited into impalpable fertilizers by the dextrous
 touch of divine dynamite. After all the an- tiauity, associations, memories and history
 of Carrickfergus are so revyltiHgly written in inhumanity and blood that even one of
 noblest digestion can scarcely reach enthusi-
 asm over it's really picturesque old castle, for
 which it is most famous. Its very remote
 origin is clearly traceable to John de Cour-
 cey: and it is said to be the only existing ed- ifice in the kin zdon exhibiting 0 specimen of
 the old Norman military stronghold.
 Perched upon 8 narrow, rocky peninsula,
 and washed on three sides by the bay,
 
 the heights of Antrim, observed from the
 opulent fields of Down, or looked upon from | the bosom of the calm and shining Lough,
 it certainly grows upon the thought and
 sense as a picture of unusual, one might al most say melancholy, magni6cence and gran deur. To-day instead of being the proud | abode of Irish kings; instead of owning se-
 cret league with the Scottish Lord Of the
 Isles, and preserving the witching bardic minstrelsies of the Hsbrides; instead of
 ringing with the shouts and pipes of giant | framed Scottish guxiliaries; instead of hous- ing the lively followers of the Mccarthy and the O'Neil, the stubborn soldiery of William or the light hearted adventurers of Thurot; ! the great hall of it's massive keep is bar- l rack for red-coats and rats. One gets dry I rot from even & sniff of, and look at, the , medieval tatterdemalioD, and turns his face l to the seaward highlands with ineffable long. ing and relief.
 Rounding White Head and Black Head, ! on the north shore, which have their corres- l bonding twin headlands opposite on the lovely shores of Down, we left Belfast Lough, the Vinderius of Ptolemy, and were soon in the Irish sea, hugging Island Magee : which, scarcely separated from the mainland I at the southwest for breadth of two miles 1 and 8 length of nine, sweeps gracefully ! around in a new-moon form to the north and behind which smiles the blue waters o1 the Lough Larne, where many odd fisher
 
 their fathers for centuries before them, the l plaice. or flat fish, and the mullet. One , longs to wander in Island Magee. It is mag. ical with natural beauty; it's inhabitantt
 would furnish marvellous studies for the ar.
 tist and novelist; it is the legendary abode ol , the widest fantasies of sorcery; on it's ex. |. trenities are numberless raths and crom leehs; while the entire coast line is rife witt f natural wonders, historic fascinations anG marvels of legend and tradition. Midway . | between its northern and southern promon
 tories are the grim old Gobbins, basalti
 cliffs rising upward of two hundred feet per 5 pcndicularly out of the sea, stern and mura 8 1 in character, and with numberless caves 8
 l high water mark, the resort of olden Hebri
 dean pirates, but now put to the milder us I of fshermen's boat houses; for along thi 6 entire shore are noted fisheries of herrings blockens and turbot. It was here that il
 l 1642, one of those tender hearted Covenant
 CTS, in command of old Carriekfergus castle 3 out of revenge for some fancied slight to be N l coming reverence, came one fine morning Il F January with his soldiery and massacre' , | nearly the entire inhabitants by driving then :. like swine from the heights of the Gibbon l into the sea beneath. As we sailed past tn
 l grewsome spot my coasters skipper pofntet
 out myriads of slender and graceful hawk | nestlinQ in and wheeling about the loft crags. These are the "Gobbin hawksn o 3 lowly folk lore of to-day. But long ago the t were the Irish eoss hawks, famous in histor 8 and song as objects of chase with ancien Q nobles of the kingdom.
 We sailed between the Maidens, or the fv n Hulin rocks, the two largest with their loft '- striped lighthouses like some giants Balme f ral hose hung from invisible lines in th clouds to dry, and the main land, catchin z charming glimpses of Larne city at the SC ,- mouth of Larne Lough; and then stood ava D to the nozthweas for Kenmore or Fair Heed