excellent byelaw must be obsolete, to judge by the “get ups” that I observed on Sunday parading the road to Salthill, which is the fashionable residence of the good citizens. The lower classes of Galway, on whom fashions do not exert such a marked influence, have a handsome olive complexion, which, when backed up by the red petticoat, bare legs, the scarf over the head, and frequently a pair of massive ear-rings, gives a remarkably foreign tout ensemble which does not seem to belong to a native of the United Kingdom. But to see costume or physiognomy, there is no place like the Claddagh, an extraordinary suburb of low thatched huts, tenanted solely and wholly by a clan of fishermen and their belongings. It is on the opposite side of the river to the great bulk of the town which it adjoins, though in appearance, habits, manners, and customs, it might as well be 100 miles distant. The early history of this curious settlement is not known, but it is certain that the Claddagh fishermen have been established in this corner for a very great number of years, exercising a peculiar self-government and owning no other. One of the clan is elected a sort of mayor, to whose decisions all defer with such good will, that quarrels have seldom been obliged to be carried before the civil powers of the town. Of course they intermarry only with each other, and have such an aversion to strangers that they will not even suffer them to reside within their district, although the visitor need not fear any incivility or unpleasant attentions in walking through the Claddagh; indeed I have generally been struck with the little notice that is bestowed on the stranger, not only in this district, but in many parts of the west of Ireland. As I have now come down from the antiquities to the inhabitants of Galway, I will briefly wind up with the present state of the town and the advantages which it possesses, which are twofold; first, in the amazing amount of water-power which it enjoys, and, second, in its situation as a packet-station.
1st. As regards water-power, there is not such another town in the kingdom, for not only is there a rapid river emptying itself into the sea, but there is also the vast area of Lough Corrib, which stretches for twenty-five miles from the foot of the Joyce country mountains, almost close to the outskirts of Galway. A canal, known as the Eglinton Canal, was constructed to connect the Lough with the sea, and a convenient harbour was made at the same time for the accommodation of vessels which made use of this inland navigation; but, when I was there, both canal and harbour seemed but little used, and the great inland navigation scheme, I fancy, appeared better on paper than it has done in practice.
2nd. As regards the packet-station, Galway may be pronounced, to all intents and purposes, the nearest and best port for the transmission of passengers and mails from Great Britain to America. It is situated nearly at the head of a long sheltered bay, at the mouth of which, some nine-and-twenty miles off, the huge cliffs of the Aran islands may be seen in clear weather looming in the distance; indeed so peculiar are the physical features of Galway bay, that we should naturally expect it to have a legend. According to tradition it was once a freshwater lake which, by an irruption of the Atlantic was converted into sea-water, what are now the islands of Aran having been the western frontier of the coast. It is very singular by the way that legends and geological phenomena so often tally, the one merely conveying in the form of fiction (but often word for word) what really did happen. But whatever might have been the previous condition of the bay—there it is now, forming a splendid harbour, with good holding ground, and requiring no very large outlay to make it one of the most secure on the whole coast.
It is certain that it is the nearest port to America, as the Atlantic Company’s steamers have, and are still, performing the journey between St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Galway in five days, the distance between the latter place and London being run by rail and steamer in fourteen hours.
I have no intention of going into the awful question of the subsidy, but would merely remark, that if proximity and speed are the grounds on which Government should discuss the matter of pecuniary aid, irrespective of any other circumstances, then Galway is facile princeps the Transatlantic packet-station. Let us hope that the hitch in Galway affairs is but temporary, and that there may be no cessation of American traffic, and still more of the stream of business and personal intercourse which such traffic causes between England and the west of Ireland, feeling assured that the more the two countries know each other, the more cordial will be their accord, and the greater their mutual benefit.
ANA.
The late Mr. Pat Lalor, who sat in Parliament for a short time as M.P. for an Irish county, was as inveterate a joker as ever took his seat in the House of Commons. When a new Parliament was elected, Mr. Pease, the Quaker, and the late Mr. Edward Baines were among the recent additions to St. Stephens. “Bedad,” whispered honest Pat in his comic brogue to a friend on his right, “here’s the agricultural interest has sent us up some new members—in the shape of Pays and Banes.”
The late Mr. Nicholas Aylward Vigors, sometime M.P. for Carlow, was an F.R.S. and an eminent naturalist, and for many years honorary secretary of the Zoological Society. Some five-and-twenty years ago he was ejected from the representation of that constituency by Colonel Bruen. It is related in Dr. Doyle’s memoirs that a common friend remarked, à propos of the circumstance, that Vigors need not have gone very far from his favourite Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park to see Bruin at the top of the pole.
James Smith (“Rejected Addresses”) gave the following reason for the election of Gully, the boxer, for Ponte-fract:—
“You ask me the cause that made Pontefract sully
Her fame by returning to Parliament Gully?
The etymological cause, I suppose, is—
His breaking the bridges of so many noses.”
