Omaha daily bee., 1888-10-21
lRELAND'S HOME OF The MIST.
A Wild and Pleasant Way in the
North Country.
THE lOUGh SWllLEY FISHERMEN
Their wild Fierce Appcarance-Thcir
Wives and Children--S Startling
Advent Into the Hut of
Mountain Distilicr.
THE LoUoA sWlLLEY FISHERMEN
!AfOot in Ireland.


CopWgb''d 1855.
BrNCRANA Ireland. oct. TO- = Special
Correspondence Of THE BEE. Down
from the mountain district OF Inisho-
wen. in the region about tardonagh,
its ancient village capital, to the ro-
mantle shores OF I.ough Swilly. is II
wild and pleasant way. Here and there
the blue Lough CLEANS through pass
and ravinc. The scent OF the heather
is waited through the hills. Shepherd
boys. and often lasscs. with their little
iiocks and faithful dogs, dot their pur-
pie sides. on stand in pastoral picture at
the jutting edge Of some crag above.
scanning me with alert and wondering
interest as tramp the ringing road be-
low Nesting in mites of valleys are
ivy-grown hamlcts OF half IA dozen
houses, a chapel or church spire break
ing through mass Of green and white
like IL mighty russet spear. OF to the
south, beyond historic Inch, stands the
noble Grianan upon the mount OF
Ailcach, like some imperishabe
sentinel of trst-world antiquity.
Far up the Lough on island and
cliff, half hid by mingled foliage
and mists, are the gray, grim ruins OF
olden castles, crumbling cromlcchs, de-
caylng duns. and the loftier masses of
those splendid mysteries. the round
towers Of ireland. Beyond all to the
west, beyond an hundred peaks and
half-lined crcsts of Donegal highlands,
looms the majestic summit of Lone
Errigal. Who can wonder, amid such
scenes, that the hcart-fbres OF the Irish
are rooted indestructibly, like ivy upon
desolate abbeys, into the very mold and
ruins Of their native land?
The eastern shore Of the Lough is a
succession OF ruins, dainty villages. like
Buncrana and Fahan. and of pilgrim
haunted shrines. Over to the west are
wilder shores, huts, round towers. fish
ers' cabins: aud here and there the
patched sails of the herring fishers
smacks lie white against the back
ground of the headlands and hills.
Here the sweetest herring known to
man are taken; and because of my
idyllic days and nights at the seines. the
weirs and the drives. along the charmed
shores of our own Passamaquoddy, at
Fundy's tide-roaring mouth, | wanted
to know these brawny toner-folIl of Ire
lands north. They have not the CHEEKY
content OF our own. The Quoddy her
ring-iishcr is the sunniest, joliest.
"roaringest' fellow in all the world.
He is pious to II ludicrous degree, and
withall the most delicious smuggler of
the American Canadian boundary line
which will be wiped out altogether di
rectly, as the world reads the prophecy
of progress. In fact he is a valient de-
fender Of his own faith, and firm re-
specter of none. But the Lough Swilly
fishermen are different lot. AS in all
else, in this old land, their toll is with
out reward beyond bare existence.
Hence, they are sodden, hopeless. hard.
But they are brave and strong as iron.
They have tremendous frames: are
brown as bronze; and form groupings of
startling impressiveness. They are
simple and peaceable, | am told. But
were pirates wanted; were fleets to be
fitted out with men for work giving one
a shudder to contemplate; these sea-
giants would furnish Incompatible hui
man, heartless flint. And if they are
flint, their wives are steel. am sure it
was not q Yetholm Gypsy but a
Lough Swilly herring fishers wife,
that Scott drew in his grewsome Meg
Merrilies." Come upon these women
suddenly in their huts, if you wish to
meet even fiercer beldame than Scott's
magic pen could linn. Above six feet
in height, broad and strong as their
burlv mates, with legs corded like
mans and bare to the knees: with arms
long, crooked and ileshless as wood:
with fiat, hairy breasts often barred
from neck to the waist, and tanned by
salt, sun and wind to the color of the
mottled alder bark: with wide Jaws,
half toOthless mouths. sunken cheeks.
eyes blue-black and flashing from deep,
yellow sockets. and brows bushy and
ragged with bristling hairs: with mar
row, creased foreheads, and great. wide
saffron -colored ears set straight out
from behind like dirty wing and
wing" sails; and their square heads
crowned by once black HAIR, faded into
snutf-brown like an ill-kept animals,
which is matted and knotted upon the
shoulders, and frequently to the waist
and you have but the falntest picture of
this half-animal who subsists upon kelp,
pulse, black oat-cake, and half-raw fish
that the buyers, who come to the
beaches in their carts from London
derry, refuse as even unworthy of sale
to mendicant and crouching man-beast
of the town.
And the children of these?
| They drag out the same horrible lives:
| help make the British navy; turn trai-
| tor to the brood OF half-pirates behind
| becoming the most remorseless of coast
guard, or mountain poteen-hunting. Of
ficers; stow themselves away at the risk
| of their lives, in the coal buniers of the
| great steamers bound for America; or
| turn outlaw and man-hater in their own
| country or in other lands. And yet
how the old blood occasionally blossoms
| through this limitless degradation. A
! daughter Of just such an one as have
| pictured was the most perfect type of
wild and simple human beauty ever
beheld. Bare-legged and breast
ed rs her mother; brown as hazel nut;
| ignorantly innocent Of fear; for four
copper coins she rowed me across Lough
Swilly to where her fathers work lay
at mending the seines, like an Amazo-
nian man -of-war s-man; while ] sa,
speechless, contemplating her marvel
Gus beauty and majestic proportions
hating myself because was not alto.
gether an artist; and wondering, in all
reverence, why God, or Gods nineteenth
century civilization, could not wait
upon the African missions for little
and reach TO and succor such as these.
,,,lN, 4 ~