Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-09
AFOOT IN IRELAND.


 Arm of Galway Bay-The Islands ef Arran-The Irish Curraghs-A Chat
 With the Eeatnan.
 ARRAN ISLANDS, Ireland, Feb. 10. Tothe Editor fthe JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 There is an old quatrain among the Irish peasantry, the origin of which, for the spirit of insistive prophecy it contains, might fair ly be attributed to the provident genius of one of the characters to which it refers:
 You'll have forevermore
 The bocough and the corrag
 Beside your cabin door.
 The bocough was the wandering minstrel and story teller of Ireland. He had keen scent for every spot where genialisy and gen. erosity fourished; but poverty, oppression and sorrow have long ago withdrawn the scant cheer that once gave him place. The bocough is gone. But the other one, the corrag, who requires no raiment, food or housing. remains within the shadow of the Irish cabin door. Throughout Connamars, and particularly in my tramp down from the Ballindoon district to Cloghmore and the sea, I saw one of these silent, dried-up old fel- lows trembling in the wind by the door of every hat or cabin passed. To my fancy each one took on 8 separate individuality and seeming. This one stood there defiant, as if repellant of your approach. That one had a saucy air as if to intimate that fine, s'right" blackthorne was concealed about his person. Another seemed deerepit and weary from silent vigil out there in the bitter mountain wind. Another was bent and leaning as though it could stand there no longer. Another seemed to beckon the pass- CT to enter, or to hint with weary gesture that you keep upon your way. And many, very many, stood bowed and sadly attentive as if listening in reverent solemnity to end less tales of want and woe that come in hope less tones from the halt-starved souls within. oisers, set before the door to break the hurt of the savage mountain blasts, "the ould man of tho branches,n the peasants call it; but one sometimes feels that this insensate typi6ed protector of the Irish cabin was the only object in guise of human that ever got thus near the man-neglected, God-forsaken peasantry of this cruelty wronged land.
 night was passed at old Cloghmore. During the evening I engaged boatman for the journey across the northern sea-arm of Galway Bay to the Islands of Arran The distance is from ten to fifteen miles accord- ing to the conscience of the boatman. This ones was fairly honest, and the distance was but twelve miles. The fare was to be but two shillings to Killaney Bay, the principal harbor of great Arran, and but three shil- lings in the event of his returning with me. As the round trip could not be made in less than one day in fair weather, this was hum ble compensation indeed. He awakened me before dawn, as the tide would shortly be going out, and after nasty breakfast of "bannock-eake," eggs and milk -posset, came to the waterside to find my man wait ing for me in an affair that could hardly be described as a diminutive wagon haY-rack, but certainly had no right to the appellation of boat.
 'sAre we going in thiss" inquired pro- testingly.
 "Arrah an we are that, me sundown"
 "But, by all the saints, we'll drown"
 "Its by thim same"-and here he crossed himself reverently-'swe'n not. Faith an 'twas the brave curragh that carried safe iv. cry wan O their blissed selves, God give them power!"
 He had me there. He was hagiologically and historically correct. For surely Saint Patrick in his wanderings himself braved the waves of every savage tough and bay upon the northern and western coasts in the hide-bottomed curragh. Saint Columb, of the royal race of Nial, in the sixth century took his heartrending departure from Ireland in a curragh. Saint Brendan's famous pill grimages were all begun in . curragh. The ancient merchants of Erinn traded between Ireland and Catalonia, sometimes with fleets l s'containing fifty and hundred curraghs, corrachs, curachs or coracles" And the three sons of Ua Cora built in these very waters great curragh covered with three hides deep, and 'capable of carrying nine persons" for their imramh, or voluntary or penetential pilgrimages upon the great At iantic, celebrated by the ancient poem be- ginning:-
 The Ua Corras of Connacht, Undismayed by mountain waves, Over the profound bowling ocean, Sought the land of the marvellous