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From: "Jean R." <>
Subject: [Irish-in-UK] Writer Margaret Dixon McDOUGALL (1826-1898) North ofIreland>Ontario>MI - "The Letters of 'Norah' on Her TourThrough Ireland"
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:07:36 -0700
SNIPPET: Margaret Dixon McDOUGALL (1826-1898), was brought up in the north
of Ireland by "the strictest of conservatives," went to live in White River,
Ontario and then Michigan, writing novels and poetry. She never lost her
love of Ireland and returned in the early 1880s on a visit, after which she
espoused the cause of Irish nationalism after revisiting her homeland. This
book is based on a collection of her letters about Ireland circa 1882.
"Left Ramelton at seven o'clock Monday morning, April 4th, the hoar-frost
lying white on the deck of the little steamer. The cabin was black with
smoke that would not consent to go in the way it should go, so one had to be
content with the chill morning, the hoar frost and the deck. We steamed up
past the town of Rathmullen with the two deserted forts grinning at one
another. Two women of the small farming class were, like myself, sitting
close to the machinery to get warm. They were gravely discussing the value
of a wonderful goose owned by one of them. I do not think the owner of a
fast horse could go into greater raptures or more minute description of his
good points than these two ladies did about the goose. One declared that
she had been offered eight shillings ($2) for the goose and had refused it.
This is one proof of the high figure at which all animals, birds and beasts,
common to a farm are held. Although this goose was exceptionally valuable,
yet a goose is worth five shillings or $1.25. A laborer's wages is two
shillings, without food, so it would take him two and a half days' work to
earn a goose, a day's work to earn a hen or a duck, fifteen days' work to
earn a suckling pig, nearly four months to buy the cheapest cow; always
considering that he has food to support him while so earning. I have heard
poor men blamed for not raising stock. When the price of stock is
considered, and that a small field for grazing purposes is rented at L8, I
confess I wonder that any poor man has a cow. If he has, butter is now
thirty cents per pound in this locality, and a cow is therefore very
valuable.
Before I leave bonnie Ramelton behind altogether, I must say that it has
been in the past fortunate in a landlord. Old Sir Annesly STEWART, lord of
this fair domain at one time, invariably advised his tenants who purposed to
build houses, to secure titles first, saying, "Do not trust to me, I am an
old man and will soon pass away: who knows what manner of man may succeed
me? I will give a free farm grant, equivalent to guarantee deed, I am told,
to anyone wanting to build." So the owners of houses in Ramelton pay ground
rent, while at Milford, Kilmacrennan and Creaslach the strong hand has
seized the tenants' houses without compensation. It is said that the
present owner of old Sir Annesly's estate, who is not a lineal descendant,
however, feels as Bunyan describes the two giants to feel, who can grin and
gnash their teeth,
but can do no more. All this and more I hear, as the sun comes up and the
frost disappears, and we sail over bright waters. One might enjoy sailing
over Lough Swilly, the whole of a long summer day. Everything pleasant
comes to an end, and we land at Fahan, and while waiting for the train my
attention is drawn to the fair island of Inch, with its fields running up
the mountain side, and the damp black rocks through which the railway has
cut its way at Fahan. The train comes along, and we go whirling on past
Inch, Burnfoot Bridge, and into Derry. A Presbyterian doctor of divinity
is in our compartment, and some well-to-do farmers' wives, and again and yet
again the talk is of the land and the landlords. Instance after instance of
oppression and wrong is gone over. But Derry reached, I must say good-bye
to some agreeable travelling companions, and take the mail car to Moville
for a tour round Innishowen; Innishowen, celebrated for its poteen;
Innishowen, sung about in song, told about in story.
"God bless the dark mountains of brave Donegal,
God bless royal Aielich, the pride of them all--
She sitteth for ever a queen on her throne,
And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen.
A race that no traitor or tyrant has known
Inhabits the valleys of green Innishowen."
>From Derry to Moville is, as usual, lovely--lovely with a loveliness of its
own. Fine old trees, singly, in groups, in thick plantations; beautiful
fields; level clipped hedges; flowers springing everywhere, under the
hedges, in little front gardens, up the banks. The land is dreadfully
overrun with gentry's residences fair enough to the eye, some
of them very beautiful, but one gets to wonder, if the land is so poor that
it is spueing out its inhabitants, what supports all these?
The wide Lough Foyle is in sight of the road most of the way, and a sea-
bound steamer carries me away in thought to Canada. The air is nipping
enough to choke sentiment in the bud. It is bitter cold, and I have the
windward side of the car, and shiver at the nodding daffodils in blooming
clumps at every cottage as we pass along. There are some waste
unreclaimed fields, and the tide is out as we drive along, so that long
stretches of bare blue mud, spotted with eruptions of sea weed, fit well
with the cold wind that is enjoying a cutting sweep at us. Then we come
again to trim gardens and ivy garnished walls. The road follows the curves
of the Lough, and we watch the black steamers ploughing along,
and the brown-sailed little boats scudding before the breeze. The Lough is
on one side, and a remarkable, high steep ridge on the other, yellow with
budded whins, green with creeping ivy, and up on the utmost ridge a row of
plumed pines.:
Excerpts: The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour
Through
Ireland, by Margaret Dixon McDougall. Check website FreeBooksToRead.com for
her compelling story.
Ramelton, Co. Donegal: The town was built between 1609 and 1622. Before
this time there was a castle which stood on the water's edge and belonged to
a relative of the O'Donnell, Lord of Tirconaill. Sir William Stewart, given
land by the King, extended the castle and then built the town with 45 houses
along a paved street, a Reformation church and a corn mill. The castle was
burned in 1642. The beautiful old town of Ramelton was used as the backdrop
to the fascinating televised drama 'The Hanging Gale'. The drama portrayed
the devastating conditions under which people in Donegal lived during 1846
and 1847 at the time of the Great Famine where the potato crop failed.
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