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For some time past trade, especially ship-building, had been in a state of depression in Derry, with the result that a good many of the better class of artisans, who were uniformly Unionist, had gone to Belfast and elsewhere to find work, leaving the political fortunes of the city at the mercy of the casual labourer who drifted in from the wilds of Donegal, and who at this election managed to place the Home Rule candidate in a majority of fifty-seven.
The landlord, the Reverend James Hamilton, a Protestant rector, insists on rent being paid for this washed-away land. He does not rebuild the dyke, and the land lies waste the widow paying rent for acres of useless salt marsh. That is pointed to by all the malcontents in Donegal as a specimen of landlordism, and Protestant landlordism, and more especially reverend Protestant landlordism.
They had deputed George Paris, a kinsman of the Kildare Fitzgeralds, as their agent to the French King, in the latter days of Henry VIII., and had received two ambassadors on his behalf at Donegal and Dungannon.
Davitt quite awake to the great importance of the granite quarries of Donegal. He is bestirring himself in connection with some men of Manchester, in behalf of the quarries at Belmullet in Mayo, which, if I am not mistaken, is his native county.
"As if ye knew anythin' about Americans," said Judy promptly. "Have ye ever thraveled beyant Donegal, me good little man?" "It wasn't necessary, me good woman." "Faith, it's yerself 'ud be blowin' about it if ye had. An' d'ye think people that thraveled five thousan' miles to spind a few dollars on yer miserable country wud luk at the likes o' ye?
The eyes that had not blinked before Anne Dillon, or the Senator, or Mayor Livingstone, or John Everard, or the Countess of Skibbereen, or the great Sullivan, and had modestly held their own under the charming glance of the Monsignor, were not to be dazzled by the fiercest glance of a mere Donegal housekeeper.
The vast amber wall rises out of the ocean, and passes eastward in a golden band till it merges in the Donegal highlands with their immeasurable blue. Sweeping round a wide bay, the land drawls nearer again, the far-away blue darkening to purple, and then to green and brown.
Well may the people say they can't pay rent. When Cardinal Logue's father died there was a collection for the general Church which realised more than eight hundred pounds. When a priest dies or when a priest's relative dies there is always a collection for the cause. Eight hundred pounds out of the starving peasantry of Donegal, for whose relief the English are always collecting money!
It cannot be amiss, though, to recall a specimen of Mr. Arthur O'Connor's style, that so we may judge of his superior acceptability to the people of East Donegal. O'Connor said:
This wholesome superstition doubtless was established ages ago by some good priest, when priests thought it their duty to be the preachers and makers of peace. We soon left the wooded country of the Swilly and began to climb into the grand and melancholy Highlands of Donegal.
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