The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland by Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall
page 51 of 342 (14%)
page 51 of 342 (14%)
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hill or many cattle on the deserted farms. It is an awfully lonesome
place; desolation sits brooding among the broken-down walls. My guide, a lonesome-looking man, enlivened our way by remarks like these: "This was a widdy's house. She was a well-doin' body." "Here was a snug place. See, there's the remains of a stone porch that they built to break off the wind." "That was Jamie Doherty's, he that died on the road-side after he was evicted. You see, nobody dare lift the latch or open the door to any of the poor creatures that were put out." And this has been done; human beings have died outside under the sky for no crime, and this under the protection of English law. Many of these people lost their reason, and are in the asylum at Letterkenny. Some are still _coshering_ here and there among their charitable neighbors, while many are bitter hearted exiles across the sea. After walking up and down amid this pitiful desolation, and hearing many a heart-rending incident connected with the eviction, a sudden squall of hail came on, and we were obliged to take shelter on the lee side of a ruined wall till it blew over. To while away the time one of the guides told me of a local song made on the eviction, the refrain being, "Five hundred thousand curses on cruel John Adair." Across the Gartan Lake we could see from our partial shelter the point to which Mr. Stewart wasted the people off his estate. Mr. Stewart's is a handsome lonely place, but when one hears all these tales of spoliation it prevents one from admiring a fine prospect. "He is dealing kindly with the people now," said my guides, "whatever changed his heart God knows." The shower being over we returned to the house of the dummy. In our absence dinner had been prepared for us. She had no plates, but the |
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