Another great family in Connaught is Macdermot, who calls himself Prince of Coolavin. He lives at Coolavin, in Sligo, and though he has not above one hundred pounds a year, will not admit his children to sit down in his presence. This was certainly the case with his father, and some assured me even with the present chief. Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Sandford, etc., came to see him, and his address was curious: “O’Hara, you are welcome! Sandford, I am glad to see your mother’s son” (his mother was an O’Brien): “as to the rest of ye, come in as ye can.” Mr. O’Hara, of Nymphsfield, is in
possession of a considerable estate in Sligo, which is the remains of great possessions they had in that country. He is one of the few descendants of the Milesian race.
To Lord Kingston’s, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately for me he was at Spa. Walked down to Longford Hill to view the lake. It is one of the most delicious scenes I ever beheld; a lake of five miles by four, which fills the bottom of a gentle valley almost of a circular form, bounded very boldly by the mountains. Those to the left rise in a noble slope; they lower rather in front, and let in a view of Strand mountain, near Sligo, above twenty miles off. To the right you look over a small part of a bog to a large extent of cultivated hill, with the blue mountains beyond. Were this little piece of bog planted, the view would be more complete; the hill on which you stand has a foliage of well-grown trees, which form the southern shore. You look down on six islands, all wooded, and on a fine promontory to the left, which shoots far into the lake. Nothing can be more pleasing than their uncommon variety. The first is small (Rock Island), tufted with trees, under the shade of which is an ancient building, once the residence of Macdermot. The next a mixture of lawn and wood. The third, which appears to join this, is of a darker shade, yet not so thick but you can see the bright lawn under the trees. House Island is one fine, thick
wood, which admits not a gleam of light, a contrast to the silver bosom of the lake. Church Island is at a greater distance; this is also a clump, and rises boldly. Rock Island is of wood; it opens in the centre and shows a lawn with a building on it. It is impossible to imagine a more pleasing and cheerful scene. Passed the chapel to Smithfield Hill, which is a fine rising ground, quite surrounded with plantations. From hence the view is changed; here the promontory appears very bold, and over its neck you see another wooded island in a most picturesque situation. Nothing can be more picturesque than Rock Island, its ruin overhung with ivy. The other islands assume fresh and varied outlines, and form upon the whole one of the most luxuriant scenes I have met with.
The views of the lake and environs are very fine as you go to Boyle; the woods unite into a large mass, and contrast the bright sheet of water with their dark shades.
The lands about Kingston are very fine, a rich, dry, yellow, sandy loam, the finest soil that I have seen in Ireland; all grass, and covered with very fine bullocks, cows, and sheep. The farms rise to five hundred acres, and are generally in divisions, parted by stone walls, for oxen, cows, young cattle, and sheep separate. Some of the lands will carry an ox and a wether per acre; rents, 15s. to 20s.
Dined at Boyle, and took the road to Ballymoat.
Crossed an immense mountainy bog, where I stopped and made inquiries; found that it was ten miles long, and three and a half over, containing thirty-five square miles; that limestone quarries were around and in it, and limestone gravel in many places to be found, and used in the lands that join it. In addition to this I may add that there is a great road crossing it. Thirty-five miles are twenty-two thousand four hundred acres. What an immense field of improvement! Nothing would be easier than to drain it (vast tracts of land have such a fall), that not a drop of water could remain. These hilly bogs are extremely different from any I have seen in England. In the moors in the north the hills and mountains are all covered with heath, like the Irish bogs, but they are of various soils, gravel, shingle, moor, etc., and boggy only in spots, but the Irish bog hills are all pure bog to a great depth without the least variation of soil; and the bog being of a hilly form, is a proof that it is a growing vegetable mass, and not owing merely to stagnant water. Sir Laurence Dundass is the principal proprietor of this.
Reached Ballymoat in the evening, the residence of the Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice, where I expected great pleasure in viewing a manufactory, of which I heard much since I came to Ireland. He was so kind as to give me the following account of it in the most liberal manner:—
“Twenty years ago the late Lord Shelburne came to Ballymoat, a wild uncultivated region without industry or civility, and the people all Roman Catholics, without an atom of a manufacture, not even spinning. In order to change this state of things, his lordship contracted with people in the north to bring Protestant weavers and establish a manufactory, as the only means of making the change he wished. This was done, but falling into the hands of rascals he lost £5,000 by the business, with only seventeen Protestant families and twenty-six or twenty-seven looms established for it. Upon his death Lady Shelburne wished to carry his scheme into execution, and to do it gave much encouragement to Mr. Wakefield, the great Irish factor in London, by granting advantageous leases under the contract of building and colonising by weavers from the north, and carrying on the manufactory. He found about twenty looms working upon their own account, and made a considerable progress in this for five years, raising several buildings, cottages for the weavers, and was going on as well as the variety of his business would admit, employing sixty looms. He then died, when a stand was made to all the works for a year, in which everything went much to ruin. Lady Shelburne then employed a new manager to carry on the manufacture upon his own account, giving him very profitable grants of lands to encourage him to do it with spirit. He continued for five years, employing