Slieve League, however, if the Ordnance Survey maps are to be trusted, is not the finest cliff in Ireland. On the western coast of Achill Island are the cliffs of Croaghaun, 2192 feet high. But my friend, Colin Phillip, who was there in the summer of 1901, made a somewhat startling discovery. A piece of land to the west of Croaghaun, more than a square quarter of a mile, has been left out altogether from the map. Where this land should be a bay is marked; perhaps, however, his own words will describe better how the discovery was made. 'The seaward face of Croaghaun is usually spoken of as an almost perpendicular cliff of over 2000 feet. This is not true. It is a fine, rocky, more or less buttressed mountain face, dropping to the sea at an angle of perhaps 50 degrees in places. But its general inclination would not be so much. There appears to be a curious error in the Ordnance Survey map with regard to the sea front of this hill. Expecting to find a grand view of this giant amongst the cliffs of Ireland, I made for a point marked on the map as a headland, projecting well out to sea on the west side of Croaghaun, from which a complete survey of the face should have been obtained. I was astonished to find, instead of a broad bay, with the great cliff of the mountain descending into it, a narrow inlet, like a 'geo' in Shetland, on the other side of which, almost completely blocking the view, was the south-west buttress of Croaghaun, and certainly not steeper than 40 degrees.' The whole bay, therefore, as marked on the Ordnance map, is now occupied by the lower part of the mountain; consequently, instead of a sheer cliff, this western side of the mountain is no more than an easy slope which may be traversed in many places.
Another piece of information of Phillip's which may be novel, is that perhaps Sir Walter Scott was right when he called the hills in Skye the Cuchullin hills. During a discussion on the Skye hills with Mr. Seaton F. Milligan (past vice-president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland), whom Phillip met on the west coast of Ireland, Mr. Milligan said that the hills had been named after the Irish hero Cuchulain; and the reason he gave was the following:—
In those early days the sons of the kings of Ireland were often sent to Skye to learn the art of war. At the end of their first year, a test of their progress was whether they were able to walk across what was called 'the bridge of the cliffs'; this bridge is supposed to have been part of the ridge of the Coolin. The bridge is thus described in the legend:—
'Wonderful was the sight the bridge afforded, when any one would leap upon it, for it narrowed until it became as narrow as the hair of one's head, the second time it shortened till it became short as an inch, and the third time it grew slippery until it was as slippery as an eel of the river, and the fourth time it rose up on high against you as the mast of a ship.'
That this description agrees with the ridges of Sgurr nan Gillean (the peak of the young men) no one can deny, and the story goes on to say how Cuchulain at once performs the feat at the first trial, so astonishing the onlookers that the bridge was named after him.
In opposition, however, to this, we have the weighty statement of the late Alexander Nicolson, who says,[N] 'They are known to the natives of Skye and always have been as "A Chuilionn." There was an Ossianic hero of the name Cuchulain, said to have been brought up at Dun-Sgàthaich, an ancient fort near Ord in Skye, but the natives never called the great mountain range by his name. In this view I am supported by our greatest Celtic archæologist, Dr. Skene.'
But to return to Ireland: besides the cliffs on Achill, all along the north coast of Mayo are excessively wild and grand precipices often of hard quartzite rock, and this part of the west coast is perhaps the finest and most picturesque in all Ireland.
East and south of Achill lie a series of detached mountains and ranges of mountains, all of which are more or less interesting as they command wide views of sea, valley, and moorland. South of the Killary lies perhaps the most beautiful of all the mountainous districts in Ireland, the district of Connemara. In fact, it is not exaggeration to say that there are few finer groups of hills in Britain than the twelve Bens of Connemara, and this is the more remarkable when one considers that they are only 2395 feet high. To again quote Phillip: 'The views from some of the summits are enchanting, in particular from the easily got at summit W.S.W. of Leenane. From this point the Killary can be traced from the ocean to its head. The valley of the Erriff river carries the eye over the plains of Mayo northwards to the far away hills in Sligo. To the eastward the Formnamore mountains, with glimpses through their gaps of Loughs Maske and Corrib, beyond which the plains extend through Mayo, Galway, to Clare. Then Maam Turk blocks the view, which opens again, however, to the south, with wild moorland and the whole of the twelve Bens. Through the gaps of these mountains the Atlantic is seen in more than one direction, fringed by rocky headlands and white sandy bays, carrying the eye back again to the westward and the solemn Killary, beyond which, lying almost hidden amongst the hills, is the beautiful valley of Delphi and glimpses of the Dhu Lough.'
I have left the Kerry hills till the last, because they are the most important and the highest in Ireland. The Connemara hills are perhaps, on the whole, more beautiful, but the hills of Kerry possess a grandeur and such characteristic form, that one at once thinks of them as mountains and not hills. This is not surprising, for they easily surpass the English hills in height, Carran Tuohill, 3414 feet, Been Keragh, 3314 feet, Caher, 3200 feet, and Brandon, 3127 feet, being the highest.
Moreover their bases are in some cases (Brandon, for instance) on the seashore. The chief points of this group, which in some respects differentiate them from the other ranges of mountains in the British Isles, are the numberless wild mountain tarns that lie hidden in their corries, the masses of vegetation that clothe even the rock precipices, and the curious capping of peat that is to be found on some of the hill-tops.