All these things came into my mind as I sat on the beach by Fahan and watched the colour fade out and new colour take its place—masses of dark green where there had been shimmers of grey and blue. Other memories came there too—less historical: it was there that somewhere in the 'seventies I had my first sight of a real railway train. I carry away from Lough Swilly my earliest as well as my latest impression of pleasant, beautiful Ulster, enhanced by a grateful thought of the dinner which Mrs. MacMahon provided for one about to take a long night journey. And whoever leaves the north of Ireland with such impressions on his mind will have no cause to quarrel with the close of his holiday.
Yet it is not well to depart leaving unexplored the mountainous peninsula of Inishowen which separates Lough Swilly from Lough Foyle. This great ridge of land is dominated by the graceful shape of Slieve Snacht ("Snow Mountain"), a model of what mountains should be: bold and peaked, yet with swelling curves that balance on either flank, it fills the centre of a distance more impressively than far loftier hills.
Inishowen was owned by the O'Doghertys, a clan who, tossed between Tyrone and Tirconnell, had at least great staying power, for the saying is—you cannot beat a bush in Inishowen without "rising" an O'Dogherty. Their castles remain, and at Green Castle, on Lough Foyle, is the work of greater men, Norman-planned, Richard de Burgo's fortress. Many traces, too, of a far older period are to be seen. At Carrowmore, not far from Culdaff, is a "souterrain" with five chambers—a great mansion, in short, for these burrowers. Rivers and lakes, too, are there with fair fishing, though I believe that a certain old professor in Derry has skimmed the cream of it all in his learned leisure, any time this fifty years. But the Castle River at Buncrana is a fine salmon stream still, and the links there constitute an attraction for very capable golfers—though not equal to those at Port Salon on the opposite shore. In a word, if you cannot get to the west of Lough Swilly you may be very well content with the east of it; and though much of infinite beauty and interest lies beyond, when you have seen and known Lough Swilly and its shores, and the people who live on them—that mixed race, Scot and Irish, lowland and highland, Protestant and Catholic, all neighbourly together—why, at least you will have had a very fair chance to know and love, not the Ulster that people rant about or rail at, but Ulster as it really is.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland
Transcriber's Notes
The Table of Contents has been added for convenience.
Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks.
Page [34]: Replaced the oe ligature with "oe" in the two instances of "Phoenix."