The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1894-03-10
COUNTY OF MAYO
An American Traveller Says it is
the Garden Spot of all
Ireland.

ireland.
A GRAPHIC PORTRAITURE.
A Factor in Discovery, Colonization
and Conquest Since the Days L
of st. Brendan.
When the midland Great Western"
train from Dublin, Ireland, has jolted
one well into the depths of the western
province tall, blue cone begins to push
itself above the rim of q horizon notified
with gray rocks, green fields, and black
bogs. Then, On inquiry, somebody will
likely say, "That is the big hill OF Nephin
the second in the province-snd We are
now going into the county Mayo" says q
travelling correspondent of the Chicago
Tribune.
Familiar name, is it not? You heard it
somewhere before-beald it in lots of
places. Surprising if you didn't, for this
big, remote Irish county, washed on two
sides by the wild Atlantic and hemmed
in on the others by Roscommon boys and
Galway mountains, has been mighty
big factor in the work of discovery, col
onization and conquest from the time it
sent over st. Brendan to find America in
the sixth century.
Crossing the southern ''frontier"-the
Black River--we are in country of good,
rich soil. Fat cattle stroll through the
fat meadows; gray old castles and abbeys
raise their venerable heads in various
directions. This is Kilmaine of the Clan
Jennings-apr prominent member of which,
by the way, was one of Napoleon's
famous generals. To the west, between
as and the rugged Connemara noun
tains, glitter two large lakes. Conspic-
uous on dechvity beside one of these is
handsome residence, formerly the home
OF the Wildes- of the distinguished doc
tor and litterateur, Sir William, and his
wife, the brilliant poetess ''Speranza," :"
and their sons, the queer genius Oscar
and bis brother "Willie."
Close at hand, where mysterious river
rumbles underground. are the ivied ruins
of Cong Abbey, where the last monarch
of Ireland died, and Ashland, the fine
demesne of the Dublin porter magnate,
Lord Ardilaun, facetiously called Lord
Cruiekeen-La Lawn. Further on the coun-
try upheaves in great limestone crop,
mottled with green, beyond which, on
the shores of Lough Mask, a lofty old
castle marks the spot where was coined
one of the most important and useful
words of the century. It was here, some
dozen years ago, that Captain Boycott
mads himself obnoxious by his fines and
penalties on his laborers and tenants,
making the whole countryside turn it's
rugged back on him, 80 that it required
grand movement Of cavalry and infan-
try to protect the help imported to save
HIS devoted crops-just as many sim
liar tranegressor has been ''boycotted"
since in Mayo and elsewhere. ~.
A short distance off is the neat little
town of Ballinrobe, whore the illustrious
Cardinal Gibbons spent the sunny days
of his childhood. Another celebrity.
celebrated not in the spiritual but the
physical-owes his origin to the same
Mayo town; thence came the father of
the redoubtable champion, Jim Corbett.
Still treading northward, where Lough
Cerra extends big wet hand amid
groves and meadows and old castles, we
come to Moore Hall, once the residence
of the gifted patriot and orator, the late
George Henry Moore, father Of very
degenerate son, George Moore, who out
Zolas Zola in his salacious literary Of
forts. Another member of the family
collaborates with the Anglomaniac, Wal
dorf Astor, on the "Pall Mall" Near by
the bones of Shawn, the priest hunter,
rot beneath the ruins of Ballintubber
Abbey.
Within the last quarter century there
was but one man hanged there for mur-
der-a shopkeeper who killed his wife.
OF course there were few evicting land
lords and agents shot during the land
agitation, but that was the way Of the
times.
We now come to wide, green wastes,
tenanted only by kline and sheep, with
here and there the trace OF q levelled cot
tage. It is Goldsmith's Deserted Vii
lage" but on q most extensive and appal-
ling scale. Here is whore, in the black
'47, Lord Lucan, seignior Of the soil,
swept away thousands Of families of the
unfortunate famine.stricken peasantry
with even less remorse than when, In
later years, he sent the 600 to doom in
the bloody valley Of Balaklaya. Lord
Sligo, q Union peer, whose estates adioin
i 1rllnuod fl,o saram MIA: 0f oYfnr1uinA tim