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None of them has ever paid a cent for fuel. All have turf for the digging, and much of the Achil turf is equal to coal. The sea is in front of them, and all round them, and the lakes are full of fish. And yet the hat is sent round every other year. "They used to pay their debts. Now they will pay nothing, and their audacity is something wonderful.
Hare was formally taking over the last bit of line, that between Mulranney and Achil Sound, with which the Midland and Great Western Company will at present have nought to do.
The Achil ditches are full of ferns, and a hundred yards from the sea are clumps of Osmunda regalis otherwise known as the Royal fern spreading out palm-like fronds four feet long. Other ferns, usually regarded as rare, abound in every direction, and potatoes and cabbages grow at the very water's edge.
At one of these services everybody held a lighted candle, and at a given signal, Puff! out went out the lights, and with them away went the sins of the people. "A priest was sent for in Achil. The case was urgent. A man was dying, and without Extreme Unction his chances in the next world were reckoned shady.
But why waste so much time?" I submitted that this waste was due to Mr. Gladstone, and not to England at all. He said "There is no England now. There's nothing left but Gladstone." Of course he was wrong, but the mistake is one that under present circumstances any loyal Irishman might easily make. No. 37. The final spurt from Mulranney to Achil Sound was pleasant, but devoid of striking incident.
Young Smith may be gratified to learn, for the first time, that his second bullet was not altogether thrown away. This may console him for the loss of the third reprobate, whom he had got "exactly between the shoulders," when the elder Smith ordered him to desist. The occurrence was such a lesson to the Land League assassins that they for ever after forswore Achil and its immediate surroundings.
You are reminded of Dorsetshire, of Cheshire, of Normandy, of Rhineland. The people at the wayside stations are all well-dressed and well-shod. Achil Island seems to be at an immeasurable distance. The semi-savages who in Mayo demand autonomy have no supporters here. The Ulster folks eschew them and all their works, and would no more associate with them than with Hottentots.
It was along the first sixteen miles of this line, still unopened, that I ran on the engine to Oughterard. Westport to Mulranney 18-1/4 £131,400 To which is added the Achil Island extension 8-1/4 65,000 This will enable travellers to steam from Dublin to Achil Island viâ Midland and Western, instead of the ten hours on an open car, which on their arrival at Westport now awaits visitors to Dugort.
"In Achil we have practically peasant proprietary and nothing else. Eleven hundred men and women are at this moment in England and Scotland from Achil alone. They will return in October, each bringing back ten, fifteen, or twenty pounds, on which they will live till next season. The Irish Legislature would begin by establishing peasant proprietary all over Ireland.
The Achil folks are hopeless in the direction of improvements. They have had the Protestant Colony at Dugort before them for more than sixty years a well-housed, well-clad community, living clearly and respectably, paying their way, and keeping at peace with all men, but they have not moved an inch in the same direction.
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