But the cultivation of the country is only in its infancy as yet, and it is easy to see how vast its resources are, and what capital and cultivation may do for it. In the green patches among the rocks, and the mountain-sides, wherever crops were grown, they flourished; plenty of natural wood is springing up in various places; and there is no end to what the planter may do, and to what time and care may effect. The carriage-road to Clifden is but ten years old; as it has brought the means of communication into the country, the commerce will doubtless follow it; and in fact, in going through the whole kingdom, one can’t but be struck with the idea that not one-hundredth part of its capabilities are yet brought into action, or even known perhaps, and that by the easy and certain progress of time, Ireland will be poor Ireland no longer. For instance, we rode by a vast green plain, skirting a lake and river, which is now useless almost for pasture, and which a little draining will convert into thousands of acres of rich productive land. Streams and falls of water dash by one everywhere—they have only to utilise this water-power for mills and factories; and hard by are some of the finest bays in the world, where ships can deliver and receive foreign and home produce. At Roundstone especially, where a little town has been erected, the bay is said to be unexampled for size, depth, and shelter; and the Government is now, through the rocks and hills on their wild shore, cutting a coast-road to Bunown, the most westerly part of Connemara, whence there is another good road to Clifden. Among the charges which the Repealers bring against the Union, they should include at least this: they would never have had these roads but for the Union, roads which are as much at the charge of the London tax-payer as of the most ill-used Milesian in Connaught.
A string of small lakes follow the road to Clifden, with mountains on the right of the traveller for the chief part of the way. A few figures at work in the bog-lands—a red petticoat passing here and there—a goat or two browsing among the stones—or a troop of ragged whitey-brown children, who came out to gaze at the car, form the chief society on the road. The first house at the entrance to Clifden is a gigantic poorhouse—tall, large, ugly, comfortable, it commands the town, and looks almost as big as every one of the houses therein. The town itself is but of a few years’ date, and seems to thrive in its small way. Clifden Castle is a fine château in the neighbourhood, and belongs to another owner of immense lands in Galway—Mr. D’Arcy.
Here a drive was proposed along the coast to Bunown, and I was glad to see some more of the country, and its character. Nothing can be wilder. We passed little lake after lake, lying a few furlongs inwards from the shore. There were rocks everywhere, some patches of cultivated land here and there, nor was there any want of inhabitants along this savage coast. There were numerous cottages, if cottages they may be called, and women and, above all, children in plenty. Here is one of the former—her attitude as she stood gazing at the car. To depict the multiplicity of her rags would require a month’s study.
At length we came in sight of a half-built edifice, which is approached by a rocky, dismal grey road, guarded by two or three broken gates, against which rocks and stones were piled, which were to be removed to give an entrance to our car. The gates were closed so laboriously, I presume to prevent the egress of a single black consumptive pig, far gone in the family way—a teeming skeleton—that was cropping the thin dry grass that grew upon a round hill which rises behind this most dismal castle of Bunown.
If the traveller only seeks for strange sights, this place will repay his curiosity. Such a dismal house is not to be seen in all England, or, perhaps, such a dismal situation. The sea lies before and behind; and on each side, likewise, are rocks and copper-coloured meadows, by which a few trees have made on attempt to grow. The owner of the house had, however, begun to add to it, and there, unfinished, is a whole apparatus of turrets, and staring raw stone and mortar, and fresh ruinous carpenters’ work. And then the courtyard!—tumble-down outhouses, staring empty pointed windows, and new-smeared plaster cracking from the walls—a black heap of turf, a mouldy pump, a wretched old coal-scuttle emptily sunning itself in the midst of this cheerful scene! There was an old Gorgon, who kept the place, and who was in perfect unison with it—Venus herself would become bearded, blear-eyed, and haggard if left to be the housekeeper of this dreary place.
In the house was a comfortable parlour, inhabited by the priest who has the painful charge of the district. Here were his books and his breviaries, his reading-desk with the cross engraved upon it, and his portrait of Daniel O’Connell the Liberator, to grace the walls of his lonely cell. There was a dead crane hanging at the door on a gaff; his red fish-like eyes were staring open, and his eager grinning bill—a rifle-ball had passed through his body. And this was doubtless the only game about the place; for we saw the sportsman who had killed the bird, hunting vainly up the round hill for other food for powder. This gentleman had had good sport, he said, shooting seals upon a neighbouring island, four of which animals he had slain.
Mounting up the round hill, we had a view of the Sline Lights—the most westerly point in Ireland.