Morning journal and courier., 1888-10-20
AFOOT IN IRELAND.
A Wild and Pleasant Way-The Tough SWHllY Fisherman-HerrfnG Fishing -Fmhmn-On SlLeve Snaughe.
 

oUNCRANAt 1Eo1auu, OCb. 1U-
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 Down from the mountain district of Inish
 owen in the region about Cardonagh, its an- cient village capital, to the romantic shores of Lough SwilIy, is wild and pleasant way Here and there the blue Lough gleams through pass and ravine. The scent of the heather Is waited through the hills. Shep- herd boys, and often lasses, with their little Aocks and faithful dogs, dot their purple sides, or stand in pastoral picture at the jHt- ting edge of some crag above, scanning me with alert and wondering interest ss tramp the ringing road below. Nestling in mites of valleys are ivy-grown hamlets of half 8 dozen houaes, 8 chapel or church spire break ing through the mass of white and green like e mighty russet spear. Of to the south,
 beyond historic Inch, stands the noble Gri-
 anan upon the mount of Aileach, like some
 imperishable sentinel of first-world antiqui-
 ty. Far up the Lough on island and cliff, i,
 half-hid by mingled foliage and mists, are
 the gray, grim ruins of olden castles, crum-
 bling oromlechs. decaying duns and the loft
 fer masses of those splendid mysteries, the round towers of Ireland. Beyond all to the west, beyond an hundred peaks and half lined crests of Donegal highlands, looms the majestic summit of Lone Errigal. Who can wonder, amid such scenes, that the heart- flores of the Irish are rooted indestrucsibly, like ivy upon desolate abbeys, into the very mold and ruins of their native land
 The eastern shore of the LouRh is suc- csssion of ruins, dainty villages, like Bun- erana and Fahan, and of pilgrim haunted shrines Over to the west are wilder shores, huts, round towers, fishers cabins; and here and there the patched sails of the herring Hoha an, acka 1ia aoyaipsf khn boalr. ground of the headlands and hills. Here l the sweetest herring known to man are talk. en; and because of my idyliic days and nights at the seines, the weirs and the drives along the charmed shores of our own Passa maquoddy, at Fundy's tide roaring mouth, | wanted to know these brawny fisher folk oi Ireland's north. They have not the eheery \ fisher is the sunniest, jolliest, "roaringest' 1 fellow in all the world. He is pious to lu I dicrous degree, and withal the most delicious smuggler of the American-C Canadian boun' | diary line-which will be wiped out altogeth CT directly, as the world reads the prophecy i of progress. In fact he Is valiant defender of his own faith and firm respeeter oi | none. But the Lough Swilly fishermen are ! different lot. As in all else in this old land | their toll is without reward beyond bare ex | istenee. Hence they are sodden, hopeless hard. But they are brave and strong ai | iron. They have tremendous frames; art brown as bronze and form groupings o \ startling impressiveness. They are simpl, ! and peaceable am told. But were pirate wanted: were fleets to be fitted out with meI ! for work giving one shudder to contem plate, these sea giants would furnish incom parable human, heartless flint. And if the, are flint their wives are steel. am sure
 was not Yetholn gipsy, but Lough Swil
 ly herring fsher's wife, that Scott drew il