There is no trace remaining of the castle, but just below the graceful bridge of stone which crosses the river is the ford over which the English poured that day, and an ugly ford it is, for the water runs deep and strong, quickening at its lower edge into the rapids above the falls. From the centre of this bridge, some twenty-five years ago, the ashes of one of Ireland's truest poets were scattered on the swift, smooth-running water and carried down to the sea, and a tablet marks the spot:
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
A Native of This Town
Born 1824; died 1889.
Here once he roved, a happy boy,
Along the winding banks of Erne,
And now, please God, with finer joy,
A fairer world his eyes discern.
It is certainly a halting quatrain, quite unworthy the immortality of marble. A couplet from Allingham's own poem in praise of his birthplace would have been far more fitting; but I suppose that the lines on the tablet were composed by some local dignitary, and that nobody dared tell him how bad they were. I know of no more graceful tribute to any town than Allingham paid to Ballyshannon in his "Winding Banks of Erne." The first stanza gives a savour of its quality:
Adieu to Ballyshanny, where I was bred and born;
Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn:
The kindly spot, the friendly town, where everyone is known,
And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own;
There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,
But east or west, in foreign lands, I'll recollect them still;
I leave my warm heart with you, though my back I'm forced to turn—
Adieu to Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne.
You will note that the savour is the same as that of the lines I have already quoted describing Abbey Assaroe, and of course the same hand wrote them. I wish I could quote the whole poem to Ballyshannon, for it is worth quoting, but one more stanza must suffice, the last one:
If ever I'm a moneyed man, I mean, please God, to cast
My golden anchor in the place where youthful years were passed;
Though heads that now are black or brown must meanwhile gather grey,
New faces rise by every hearth, and old ones drop away—
Yet dearer still that Irish hill than all the world beside;
It's home, sweet home, where'er I roam, through lands and waters wide.
And if the Lord allows me, I surely will return
To my native Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne.
His birthplace is not far away—one of a row of plain old stone houses standing in the Mall, with a tablet:
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
Poet
Born in This House
19th March, 1824
I walked on past it, down to the river below the falls, where, close to the water's edge, a seat has been placed under a rustic canopy, and I sat there for a long time and watched the foaming water rushing over the cliff, with a crash and roar which, as Allingham says, is the voice of the town, "solemn, persistent, humming through the air day and night, summer and winter. Whenever I think of that town, I seem to hear the voice. The river which makes it, runs over rocky ledges into the tide. Before, spreads a great ocean in sunshine or storm; behind stretches a many-islanded lake. On the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains; and on the north, over green, rocky hills, rise peaks of a more distant range."