Part 10 (1/2)

THE WILD WEST COAST

By the west coast is meant the whole of that wondrous succession of far-penetrating fiords and bays, cliff-guarded sh.o.r.es, and sea-washed mountains from Bantry Bay to Malin Head, a distance of over four hundred miles. There may be wilder scenery on the coasts of Norway, Labrador, or Scotland, but for wildness, sublimity, and beauty combined, there is hardly in Europe, or in the world, another four hundred miles of coast equal to it. Its variety is one of its princ.i.p.al charms. There is the grandeur and wildness of Norwegian coast scenery, together with scenes of radiant beauty which cannot be found on the coasts of Norway or of Scotland. The more southern lat.i.tude of the Irish west coast, and its consequently milder climate, give it a great advantage over the coasts of Norway or of Scotland. Its gra.s.s is greener and more luxuriant, and its flowers bloom earlier in spring and later in autumn than those of more northern climes. The mild climate of the southern part of the Irish west coast is almost phenomenal. Winter, in its real sense, or as it generally is on the coasts of Norway, or even of Scotland, may be said to be unknown on the west coast of Munster. Snow is seldom seen, and frost still less frequently. Rain and wind are about all the climatic disagreeableness that those living on the south-west coasts of Ireland have to contend against.

It is, however, a fact that the rainfall is not so heavy immediately on the coast as it is some ten or twenty miles inland. This is owing to the fact that the higher mountains are generally some distance from the sea; and it is well-known that mountains are great attractors of rain.

Bantry Bay is the first great sea loch of the south-western coast. It is one of the finest natural harbours in Europe, but, unfortunately, s.h.i.+ps are seldom seen in it except when they take shelter from the ”wild west wind,” which blows on these storm-beaten sh.o.r.es with a fury hardly known anywhere else in the world. The whole of the coast of Kerry, up to the mouth of the Shannon, is a succession of the wildest and grandest scenery, with here and there land of only slight elevation, with level meads and pastures of perennial green. Still further north, we come to the mouth of the Shannon, which forms another very fine harbour. About twenty miles north of the Shannon the famous cliffs of Moher appear. There are higher isolated cliffs than those on the west coast, but there is no long range of cliffs so high. They average between six and seven hundred feet in perpendicular height above the sea. To be seen in all their grandeur they should be seen from the sea, but to be seen in all their terribleness, they should be seen in a storm. Such is the force of the west wind on these coasts, sweeping over three thousand miles of unbroken, islandless sea, that the waves sometimes break over the cliffs of Moher in spite of their nearly seven hundred feet of perpendicular height. In no other part of the world is the force of the sea, when driven before a gale from the west, more terrific than on the west coast of Ireland. Old men who lived close to this iron-bound coast on the night of the great storm of January 6, 1839, known over the most of Ireland as the ”Night of the Big Wind,”

say that none but those who were near these coasts on that awful night could have even a faint idea of what the Atlantic is when a storm from the south-west drives it against the rocky barriers that seem to have been placed where they are to prevent it from overwhelming the whole island.

They say that when some gigantic wave of millions of tons of water was hurled against these cliffs, the noise made was so loud that it could be heard miles inland above the roar and din of the storm; and that the very earth would tremble at every a.s.sault of the waves on those tremendous barriers to their fury.

Recent soundings taken off the west and south-west coast of Ireland have fully proved that a very large part of the island has been washed away by the fury of the west wind and the sea, and that at some far-back epoch it extended nearly three hundred miles further towards the south-west. The sea, for some two or three hundred miles west and south-west of Ireland, is shallow--hardly deeper than the Channel between Great Britain and Ireland--but at that distance there is a sudden increase of over two thousand feet in the depth of the sea. Scientists think that this submerged mountain was once the south-west coast of Ireland, and that the shallow sea between the present coast and the deep sea, about three hundred miles south-west, was once dry land, and, of course, part of Ireland. There do not seem to be any reasonable grounds to doubt this theory, for the fury of the sea is every year was.h.i.+ng away both land and rock on these western coasts, and the way it has encroached, even in the memory of living persons, is very remarkable. Not a year pa.s.ses during which hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks are not washed away from cliff and mountain by the ceaseless a.s.saults of the stormy sea that beats with such force on the western coast of Ireland. Were it not for the cliffs and mountains that guard the whole of the west coast, the probability is that thousands of acres would be submerged every year, until there would be very little of the country left in the long run. It may be said that there must be a time coming when those barriers of cliff and mountain that now guard almost the entire west coast will be swept away, seeing that they are being constantly broken down and washed into the sea. Such a time must certainly come, unless some unforeseen event should alter the course of the Gulf Stream, or change the prevailing west and south-west winds to opposite points of the compa.s.s. The question is, How long will it be until there is real danger from the encroachment of the sea on the west coast of Ireland? This is a question which the most profound geologist living could not answer with even approximation to correctness. It is impossible to know what amount of erosion takes place every year, or what amount has taken place in any given number of years; but that not only the cliffs of Moher, but the still more gigantic ones of Slieve More in Achill, and Slieve League in Donegal, must finally succ.u.mb to the fury of the Atlantic's waves there can hardly be a doubt.

Thousands of years may elapse before the cliff barriers on the western coast become so weakened that the island will be in danger from the a.s.saults of the sea.

From the cliffs of Moher to the Killaries, or Killary Bay, or Harbour, for it is known by all these names, there are many scenes of very great beauty; but to take even pa.s.sing notice of all of them would be entirely beyond the scope of a work of the size of this. The coasts of Connemara, if not remarkable for very striking cliff scenery, are wild, sea-indented, strange, and interesting in a very high degree. But Killary Bay is one of the glories of the wild west coast. It has more the character of a Norwegian fiord than any other sea loch in Ireland. It divides the counties of Galway and Mayo. Some put it before the famed Clew Bay, and Inglis said, over half a century ago, that if the sh.o.r.es of the Killaries were as well wooded as Killarney, the latter might tremble for the supremacy it enjoys of being the fairest lake either of fresh or salt water in Ireland. The Killaries run some ten or fifteen miles inland, between some of the highest hills in the province of Connacht, with Maolrea, the king of Connacht mountains, on its northern side. This fiord, or narrow sea loch, is one of the most splendid harbours, not only in Ireland, but in the world, with not only complete shelter from winds from all points, but with depth of water enough to float the biggest s.h.i.+p that ever has been or ever will be built. But, unfortunately, there is little to attract commerce to these desolate sh.o.r.es, where there are no large towns, and only a spa.r.s.e population. It has been said by some who have seen almost all the fiords of Norway, that there are few of them superior to the Killaries in everything that const.i.tutes beauty, sublimity, and wildness. That this sea loch is, in a certain degree, dark and gloomy has to be admitted, because the mountains come so close to it that they seem in some places to rise almost perpendicularly out of the water. But Killary harbour is a glorious place on a clear, sunny mid-day, when its sombre mountains cast but little shade on its ever calm waters; for no matter how rough the sea may be outside, this mountain fiord is ever calm, as it is sheltered on all sides by towering heights. As an enchanting bay it is the only one on all the Irish coasts of which Clew Bay or Dublin Bay, were they living things and tormented with human pa.s.sions, could possibly feel jealous.

We now approach the queen, not alone of Irish bays, but of all bays in these islands, and, according to its most ardent admirers, of all bays in Europe. This is the glorious sheet of salt water, presided over by the most symmetrical and beautiful of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, and guarded from the stormy Atlantic by the rocky sh.o.r.es of Clare Island. This is Clew Bay, the radiant beauty, the ”matchless wonder of a bay,” that not one in a hundred of those in search of the beautiful know anything about.

It is indeed strange that this gem of sea lochs is not better known, now that a railway brings one to its very sh.o.r.es.

It is almost impossible to draw a comparison between Clew Bay and the many magnificent arms of the sea that penetrate the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, for it is so unlike most of them: Dublin Bay, while less grand and not so beautiful as Clew Bay, is the one that is most like it. Howth has somewhat the same position with regard to Dublin Bay that Clare Island occupies with regard to Clew Bay, and Slieve Coolan--in the name of all that's decent let that abominable name ”Sugarloaf” be dropped for ever--is the presiding mountain genius of Dublin Bay, just as Croagh Patrick is the presiding mountain genius of Clew Bay. Both bays are beautiful rather than sublime; they are bright and cheerful rather than dark and frowning. With all the wildness and grandeur of the many far-entering fiords of the coast of Scotland, with all the Alpine glories of their sh.o.r.es, there is not one of them that for beauty alone can be compared with Clew Bay. It is shrouded by no terror-striking precipices.

No cataracts pour into it even in flood time. No mountains overhang it. It seems to have been made to cheer and to delight, and not to terrify or to startle. It seems to have said to the mountains round it--”Stand back; come not too near me lest your shadows should fall on me and hide, even for an instant, one gleam of my radiant loveliness.” So the mountains round it do stand back, and this is the one cause of its winsomeness, brightness, and cheerfulness. When the tide is full on a sunny day, Clew Bay seems absolutely to laugh. No shadow of surrounding hills can fall upon it, for they are too far away. It is as bright and as radiant a bay as there is in the world, and the glory of the coasts of Connacht.

Clew Bay has a great advantage over the greater part of the bays on the Irish coast on account of its size. Killary Bay is in no place more than a mile wide, but Clew Bay is fully seven miles wide at its narrowest part, and about sixteen miles long--that is from Clare Island to the quay at Westport. Those who desire to see this splendid bay aright should not attempt to look at it from the town of Westport, for it cannot be seen to advantage from there. Neither can it be seen to advantage except during high tide, when all its mult.i.tude of islands are clearly defined. Let them ascend the high lands east of the town of Westport for about a mile, and then look back on the scene beneath them. If the day is fine, if there is plenty of sunlight, they will have to be the least sensitive of mortals if they can gaze on such a scene unmoved. Scenes sublimer and grander, and views more extensive, can be found in other countries; but for pure beauty--a beauty that seems to laugh and rejoice at its own matchless charms--Clew Bay may challenge anything of its kind on earth.

North of the bay rises that most symmetrical of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, or the Reek, as it is frequently called. It seems to have been made to order, it is so regular and at the same time so graceful and grand in its outlines. There are few mountains of its height that look so high as Croagh Patrick. It is somewhat less than three thousand feet high, but owing to its symmetry and its steepness it looks higher and more imposing than many mountains of double its alt.i.tude. Exactly at the mouth of the bay, stretching almost straight across it, and almost completely shutting it in from the Atlantic, rises the great ma.s.s of Clare Island, making the bay a safe harbour as well as adding in a most extraordinary degree to its beauty. Clare Island is almost a mountain; its highest point cannot be less than fifteen hundred feet above the sea level, and it rises sheer from the water. It is almost as beautiful an object as Croagh Patrick itself. The hills on the north side of the bay are rather tame, but the beauty of the famous Reek is such that almost any other mountain would appear tame in comparison with it. The number of islands in Clew Bay is said to be three hundred and sixty-five--one for every day in the year.

There seem not to be any exact details as to the number of these islands, but it cannot be much less than the number stated. They seem so numerous as to be uncountable. The reason that those wis.h.i.+ng to see this wondrous bay at its best are advised to see it when the tide is full is because all the islands do not appear at low water. This is certainly a defect, but no sea loch looks so well at low water as when the tide is full. The citizens of Dublin know what a difference the tide being in or out makes in the appearance of their own magnificent bay. But in Clew Bay the difference in its appearance caused by the tide being full or low is much greater than in the bay of Dublin, for the reason that has been already stated. However much the difference the state of the tide may make in Clew Bay, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful bay, not only in Ireland, but in all those countries known as the British Isles.

Those who go to this part of the west coast in search of the sublime and beautiful should not omit to ascend Croagh Patrick, and gaze from its top on one of the grandest and most extensive views to be seen in Ireland. The mountain, seen from Westport or its environs, appears wellnigh inaccessible, but it is not so steep on its south side, and can be ascended with no great amount of difficulty. The view from Croagh Patrick is one of the most sublime that can be imagined. The whole of that wild, storm-beaten, cliff-guarded coast of Connacht, from Slyne Head in Connemara to the most northern part of Mayo, lies before one; and Clew Bay, beautiful as it is from wherever it is seen, seems fairer than ever when seen from the summit of Croagh Patrick.

Going north from Clew Bay the next most interesting and wild spot is the island of Achill, and the grandest things there are the cliffs of Minnaun and Slieve More. As we are going north, Minnaun Cliffs, which are on the southern side of Achill, must be spoken about first. They are seven hundred feet in height, and will, therefore, average higher than the cliffs of Moher in the County Clare, but they do not rise perpendicularly from the sea as those of Moher do. But their sea sides are so steep as to be quite inaccessible even to the wild goats which still haunt the cliffs of Achill. The cliffs of Minnaun are magnificent, but if they rose sheer from the sea they would form a much more grand and impressive sight.

But the cliffs of Minnaun, gigantic as they are, are only insignificant things compared with the great sea wall on the northern sh.o.r.es of the island, formed by Slieve More and Croghan. The whole northern sh.o.r.e of Achill, from Achill head in the extreme west of the island to the narrow straight that separates it from the mainland on the east, a distance of some thirteen miles, may be said to be a terrific barrier of cliffs, rising to the height of over two thousand feet at the hills Croghan and Slieve More. It is generally allowed that the north sh.o.r.e of Achill has the most stupendous mural cliffs that are to be seen anywhere nearer than Norway, and that even Norway has not very much cliff scenery more magnificent. There is nothing in the shape of cliffs or sea walls in these islands that can compare with the cliffs of Achill in grandeur except Slieve League in Donegal, of which mention will soon be made. A geologist has said, speaking of the cliffs of Achill, that it appeared to him as if part of the mountain which forms the western extremity of the island, and terminates in the noted cape of Achill head, had suffered dis-severance from a sunken continent by some convulsion of Nature. These gigantic cliffs can only be seen to advantage from the sea, but in the almost entire absence of pa.s.senger steam-boats on these coasts, it is very difficult for those who visit them to get a proper means of seeing them as they ought to be seen. They rise from out of one of the stormiest oceans in the world, that even in summer-time is often rough and dangerous; and very few would care to risk their lives in the c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l boats, or _currachs_, of fishermen to see the stupendous cliffs of Achill from where they look best. In far distant Norway there are plenty of large and commodious steamboats to take tourists all round its coasts; but if they want to see some of the grandest and most beautiful scenery of their own country to its best advantage, they must trust to a fisherman's cot.

It would take at least a week of the longest summer days to see all the wonders and grandeur of these tremendous cliffs, or rather cliff mountains, of Achill. In the interior of the island there is not anything of great interest to be seen, but it has more cliff scenery of the stupendous sort to boast of than perhaps any other island of its size in the world.

It is a ”far cry” from Achill to Slieve League in Donegal--considerably over a hundred miles if the coast is followed; but between the giant sea walls of that island and Slieve League there is nothing of their kind that will in any way bear comparison with them. There is, however, much magnificent scenery on the northern coast of Connacht, and also a great many things of antiquarian interest. There is the extraordinary Druid remains of Carrowmore, only three miles from Sligo town, where there are almost, if not quite, half a hundred cromlechs to be seen on about half a dozen acres. They are of almost all sizes. Some of them are baby cromlechs, the top stones of which are not much more than a hundredweight.

This place must have been a sort of Stonehenge at one time. In no other known spot of either these islands or France are so many cromlechs to be seen in so small a s.p.a.ce, and very few seem to know anything about it. Sir Samuel Ferguson seems to have been the only person who has written anything about it. But here the same disrespect for monuments of antiquity that has been so long prevalent all over the country may be noticed. Many of the cromlechs have been torn down, and some of them have been actually made to serve as road walls and have been built over. Fully half of them have been either utterly torn down or in some way mutilated. Their generally small size has made them an easy prey for those who wanted stones to build walls or houses. These curious relics of far-back ages should not be allowed to be any further ruined.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCH GILL.]

The country in the vicinity of Sligo is one of the most interesting and beautiful in Ireland. Close to it is the famous Loch Gill, the queen of the fresh water lakes of Connacht. It is so near the coast that it is not improper to say something about it in treating of the scenery of the coast. It is connected with the sea by a river only a few miles in length that pa.s.ses through the town of Sligo, consequently it is only three or four miles in a direct line from the sea. There is no other large fresh water lake in Ireland, except Loch Corrib, so near the sea as Loch Gill.

It is fully ten miles in extreme length, and from three to four in breadth. Its sh.o.r.es cannot be said to be mountainous, but the hills around it are so bold, and their lower parts are so well wooded, that Loch Gill, in spite of its having comparatively few islands, is yet one of the most beautiful lakes in Ireland, and no one in search of the beautiful should omit to see it. There is no other town in Ireland that has more objects of scenic and archaeological interest in its vicinity than Sligo. There is the immense cairn on top of Knocknarea, sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. There are four or five other immense cairns close to the town, and there is the extraordinary mountain of Ben Bulben, anciently Ben Gulban, that is shaped like a gigantic rick of turf. It is a couple of miles long, and some sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. Its summit is perfectly flat. It can be ascended in a carriage from the south side; but on the north side, facing the sea, it is not only perpendicular, but overhangs its base in some places. If not the highest or most beautiful mountain in Ireland, it is certainly the most extraordinary.

We now approach the famous Slieve League, the grandest, the boldest, the steepest, if not the highest, of all the cliff barriers on the coasts of these islands, and one of the most remarkable in the known world. It can be seen from the sh.o.r.e near Sligo, rising almost perpendicularly from the sea. The cliff-mountains of Achill, colossal as they are, seem to shun the full fury of the western gales, for they face the north-west; but Slieve League looks almost due south-west, and thrusts itself out into the ocean as if to court the most tremendous shock of the Atlantic's billows. It forms the culminating point of a range of cliffs that are over six miles in extent, extending from Carrigan Head to Teelin Head, the lowest cliff of which is over seven hundred feet in height. Slieve League is two thousand feet high, and almost perpendicular. It is two hundred feet lower than the highest of the cliff-mountains of Achill, but it is bolder, nearer being perpendicular, grander, and more rugged than they. Those who have not been on the sea at the base of Slieve League cannot form a true idea of its awful grandeur. Its summit is almost as sharp as a knife blade; and he who could look from the jagged rocks that form its cone down on to the seething ocean under him without feeling giddy should have a steady head and strong nerves. Those who go from these islands to Norway in search of the sublime should first see this king Irish cliff-mountains, and know how grand and beautiful are the sights that may be seen at home.

The whole of the coast of Donegal is magnificent. There is no other cliff on it as high or as grand as Slieve League, but there are hundreds of places along its nearly a hundred miles of iron-bound, storm-beaten coast that are well worth seeing. It has nothing like Clew Bay, but it has gigantic cliffs, narrow arms of the sea, some of which are nearly as wild and as grand as the famous Killary Bay that has already been described.

There may be certain places in the more southern coasts that are finer and fairer than anything on the coasts of Donegal with the exception of Slieve League, but for general wildness and cliff scenery there is hardly any sea-coast county in Ireland can equal it. It has the longest sea loch in the island on its coast--namely, Loch Sw.i.l.l.y. Following its windings from its mouth to where it begins must be over five and twenty miles. It is a beautiful lake also, and hardly known at all to tourists, and never can be known until better means are supplied for seeing it from a steamer on its waters. The ”wild west coast” may be said to end at the mouth of Loch Sw.i.l.l.y. From there eastward it is the northern coast. There is much of the grand, beautiful, and curious to be seen on the northern coast from Inishowen to Fair Head, including the celebrated Giant's Causeway, and ”high Dunluce's castle walls.” The latter have been already described.

It would be hard to find anywhere in the world another sea coast of the same length as that from Cape Clear in the south to Inishowen in the north, where there is so much to be seen of the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. If the mountains on the coasts of Norway are higher, if its fiords penetrate further inland, and if in some places the s.h.i.+ning glacier may be seen from them, there is not such astonis.h.i.+ng variety of scenery on the coasts of Norway as there is in the west coast of Ireland. The climate of Norway does not permit the growth of many species of wild flowers which add so much to the beauty of even the wildest and most sterile parts of Ireland. In Norway there are no mountains radiant with purple heather and golden furze,--mountains that may be unsightly and sombre for ten months out of the twelve, but are, in autumn, turned into living bouquets, thousands of feet in height, and with areas of tens of thousands of acres.