On the banks of the Finn, near Strabane, was born the celebrated hero Finn ma Coul. I think this just means Finlay McDougall, and, therefore, claim the champion as a relative. Strabane lies in a valley, with round cultivated hills, fair and pleasant to the eye, swelling up round it. Near it is the residence of Lord Lifford. I have heard townspeople praise him as a landlord, and country people censure him, so I leave it there. His recent speech, in which he complains of the new Land Bill, that, if it passes into law, it will give tenants as a right what they used to get as a favor from their landlords, has the effect of explaining him to many minds.
Leaving Strabane behind, went down or up, I know not which, to Newtown- Stewart, in the parish of Ardstraw (ard strahe, high bank of the river). In this neighborhood is the residence of the Duke of Abercorn, spoken of as a model landlord.
The Glenelly water mingles with the Struell and is joined by the Derg, which forms the Mourne. After the Mourne receives the Finn at Lifford it assumes the name of the Foyle and flows into history past Derry's walls.
At the bridge, as you enter the town of Newtown-Stewart, stands the gable wall of a ruined castle, built by Sir Robert Newcomen, 1619, burned by Sir Phelim Roe O'Neil along with the town, rebuilt by Lord Mountjoy, burnt again by King James.
Upon a high hill above the town, commanding a beautiful view of the country far and wide, stand the ruins of the castle of Harry Awry O'Neil (contentious or cross Harry), an arch between two ruined towers being the only distinct feature left of what was once a great castle. This castle commanded a view of two other castles, owned and inhabited by two sons or two brothers of this Harry Awry O'Neil. These three castles were separate each from each by a river. Here these three lords of the O'Neil slept, lived and agreed, or quarrelled as the case might be, ruling over a fair domain of this fair country. I do not think the present generation need feel more than a sentimental regret after the days of strong castles and many of them, and hands red with unlimited warfare.
Towering up beyond Harry Awry's castle is the high mountain of Baissie Baal, interpreted to me altar of Baal. I should think it would mean death of Baal. (Was Baal ever the same as Tommuz, the Adonis of Scripture?) In the valley beyond is a village still named Beltane (Baal teine—Baal's fire), so that the mountain must have been used at one time for the worship of Baal. The name of the mountain is now corrupted into Bessie Bell.
In the valley at the foot of the mountain is the grand plantation that stretches miles and miles away, embosoming Baronscourt, the seat of the Duke of Abercorn, and the way to it in the shade of young forests. There are nodding firs and feathery larches over the hills, glassing themselves in the still waters of beautiful lakes. Lonely grandeur and stately desolation reign and brood over a scene instinct with peasant life and peasant labor some years ago. The Duke of Abercorn was counted a model landlord. His published utterances were genial, such as a good landlord, father and protector of his people would utter. Some one who thought His Grace of Abercorn was sailing under false colors, that his public utterances and private course of action were far apart, published an article in a Dublin paper. This article stated that the Duke had evicted over 123 families, numbering over 1,000 souls, not for non- payment of rent, but to create the lordly loneliness about Baronscourt. His Grace did not like tenantry so near his residence. Those tenants who submitted quietly got five years' rent—not as a right, but as a favor given out of his goodness of heart. They tell here that these evictions involved accidentally the priest of the parish and an old woman over ninety, who lay on her death-bed. He had called upon the priest personally and offered ground for a parochial house; he forgot his purpose and the priest continued to live in lodgings from which he was evicted along with the farmer with whom he lodged. Of the evicted families 87 were Catholics and 36 Protestants. If they had been allowed to sell their tenant right they might have got farms elsewhere. Of those cleared off seventeen who were Protestants and six who were Catholics got farms elsewhere from His Grace. Some sank into day laborers, some vanished, no one knows where.
People here say that the reason why there are Fenians in America and people inclined to Fenianism at home is owing to these large evictions— clearances that make farmers into day laborers at the will of the lord of the land. The people feel more bitterly about these things when they consider injustice is perpetrated with a semblance of generosity. Nothing—no lapse of time nor change of place or circumstances—ever causes anyone to forget an eviction. Now they say that the Duke of Abercorn holds this immense tract of country on the condition of rooting the people in the soil by long leases, not on condition of evicting them out; therefore, he has forfeited his claim to the lands over and over again. This article, published in a Dublin paper, was taken no public notice of for a time, but when sharply contested elections came round, the Duke and four others, sons and relations, were rejected at the polls because of the feeling stirred up by these revelations. Such is the popular report of the popular Duke of Abercorn.
Omagh is a pretty, behind-the-age country town. The most splendid buildings are the poor-house, the prison, and the new barracks. The hotels are very dear everywhere; they seem to depend for existence on commercial travellers and tourists. Tourists are expected to be prepared to drop money as the child of the fairy tale dropped pearls and diamonds, on every possible occasion, and unless one is able to assert themselves they are liable to be let severely alone as far as comfort is concerned, or attendance; but when the douceur is expected plenty are on hand and smile serenely.
Left Omagh behind and took passage for Fermanagh's capital, Enniskillen of dragoon celebrity. The road from Omagh to Enniskillen showed some, I would say a good deal, of waste, unproductive land. Land tufted with rushes, and bare and barren looking—still the fields tilled were scrupulously tilled. The houses were the worst I had yet seen on the line of rail, as bad as in the mountains of Donegal, worse than any I saw in Innishowen. I wonder why the fields are so trim and the homes in many cases so horrible. Not many, I may say not any, fine houses on this stretch of country.