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Father Walker has been parish priest at Burtonport for about nine years. In all that time the highest sum reached in one year by the stipend has been £560; this sum having to be divided between the parish priest, who received £280, and two curates receiving £140 each.
The powers thus given are, it will be observed, certainly drastic. In April, 1917, Sir George Stevenson, K.C.B., the Chairman of the Board of Works, asked me would I make such an inquiry for them into the Burtonport line, and, considering myself a "fit person," I gladly answered Yes.
At a place called Lickeena, masses of beautiful salmon-and rose-coloured granite actually trend into the tidewater, and at Burtonport proper is a promontory of that richly-mottled granite which I had supposed to be the peculiar heritage of Peterhead, and which is now largely exported from Scotland to the United States.
Go down to the store at Bunbeg, and see what they buy and go in debt for! You won't find in any such place as Bunbeg in England such things. And even this don't measure it; for, you see, two-thirds of them are not free to deal at Bunbeg." "Why not? Is Bunbeg 'boycotted'?" "No, not at all. But they are on the books of the 'Gombeen man' Sweeney of Dungloe and Burtonport.
In 1897 Robertson thought that "Joseph Tatlow of Dublin, and William Roberts of Inverness, were fit and proper persons" for conducting the necessary inquiry concerning a proposed light railway in north-west Donegal, from Letterkenny to Burtonport, a distance of 50 miles. William Roberts was the Engineer of the Highland Railway of Scotland, a capable, energetic, practical man, and a canny Scot.
Then followed various clauses defining the duties and authority with which Mr. Hunt, as Manager, was invested. This appointment, to supervise, under the Privy Council, the management of the Burtonport line, was the pleasant surprise which Dame Fortune brought me in my fiftieth year of railway work.
Though the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Company, which worked the Burtonport line, was a railway of only 14.5 miles in extent, it was entrusted with the working of no less than 85 other miles, 50 of which consisted of the Burtonport railway a condition of things quite unique: the tail wagging the dog!
My relations with the line by no means ended with the inquiry, and more about it will later on appear in this authentic history. It was a smaller affair than the Burtonport line, but involved similar pleasant and interesting work. This line was also constructed and was opened in 1901.
At Burtonport we found the "Gombeen man," of Dungloe, represented by a very large "store." He runs steamers between this place and various ports on the Scottish and Irish coasts, bringing in goods and taking out the crops which his debtors turn over to him. This Burtonport "store" towers high above the modest home of the parish priest, Father Walker.
Balfour, it is true, when Chief Secretary, secured the passing of the Light Railways Act, under which powers were obtained to open up the Congested Districts by means of light railways, such as those which have been built to Clifden, in County Galway, and to Burtonport, in County Donegal.
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