BELFAST : The Capital.
BY ALFRED S. MOORE.
 

CITY HALL	ROYAL AVENUE

BELFAST'S name�Bel, an entrance or ford ; Fearsad, a sandbank�bespeaks its origin, and the fateful opportune linking up of the present City Hall with Donegall Square and Chichester Street epitomises its development past and present.

What Garden of Remembrance more fitting, then, than the City Hall Gardens�the old-time cherry garden of Belfast Castle only 150 years ago�to recast the apotheosis of an obscure hamlet into quadruple honours as�(l) the Capital of Northern Ireland ; (2) the eighth city in the British Isles ; (3) the United Kingdom's sixth port ; and (4) the world's leading linen centre ? All achieved within three much interrupted centuries.

In 1603 Belfast's only feature was the ford across the Lagan (near the present Queen's Bridge), communicating between the Antrim and Down counties. With the flight of the Irish Earls their forfeited estates went to English and Scotch planters whose fealty to James I. was less suspect. So in 1603 came to Arthur Chichester, a Devonian, the lands of Belfast (also known as Ballycooregalgie). As Governor of Carrickfergus, then the great English stronghold in Ulster, he was further donated a life pension of 13/4 per day. Indeed without this financial supplement Chichester might probably have refused Belfast. Thus he wrote when I have them (the lands of Belfast) in perfection I will gladly sell the whole lands for �5 fee simple." And to-day the rateable value of the 25 square miles area of Belfast, so contemned by Chichester is almost �2,000,000. Moreover, the Harbour Revenue alone approximates �300,000 yearly.

Under Chichester�later ennobled as Earl of Donegall (and so the relic of the latter name in Donegall Square, Place, Street, etc.)�Belfast was governed in nigh feudal style. Nominally, a patent in 1613 granted it a Corporation and Sovereign (mayor) with privilege to return two members to the Irish House of Commons, but Chichester overswayed all. Carrickfergus was the chief port, too, and held pre-eminence until deprived of its Customs monopoly. Thereby Belfast benefited and began as a port. The little town on the Lagan had multifarious juvenile adversities and made slow progress during the 17th and much of the 18th century, but mind rules matter�and mentality meant much in Belfast's building. The north-east corner of Ireland has produced men in the front rank out of all proportions to her numbers" ; and a plausible explanation, says Dr. Murray, is the cross-fertilisation of cultures. Many strains find conflux in Belfast character�Irish, Scottish, French, Huguenot and German. All have fused, evolving a distinct type ; independent, sturdy, pushful and, above all, determined.

" Impossible" is not in their lexicon. Against all economic postulates they have won supremacy in ships, linen, tobacco, ropes and other products�all exotic manufactures in the sense that almost every ounce of the raw material is imported. Simultaneously, natural obstacles have been conquered ; Belfast's city and its spacious docks have risen literally from the mud of its meandering river. The rise and fall of the tide is pencilled in the subsoil only six feet down. Hence, all Belfast's magnificent modern edifices�in fact any erection except a cottage�have as foundations piles many feet deep. To make their spacious harbour the Belfastians carved and channelled the mud as a child does on the shore. So has been achieved access at all tides to great ships drawing 30 feet to quayage extending seven miles, and with dock railways of 13 miles, linking up every district in Northern and central Ireland. Thus Belfast is Ulster's ocean gateway.

If the 17th and early 18th century constituted Belfast's belated boyhood the latter 18th century symbolised its rapid adolescence. The open river which ran down High Street was gradually covered over though Bridge Street still remains reminder of the once-was. Village ways were scrapped. Yea, with its great and ever increasing fleet of ships�locally built and owned�prosperous commercial contact was made with over-seas, especially with United States and West Indies. Public libraries and charities began, and Belfastians led in the democratic clamour for freedom of individual thought and conduct. Gaze to-day at the planning, so liberally direct and regular, of the streets in the City Hall vicinity�Donegall Square, Wellington Place, Chichester, May and Howard Streets �and you may estimate the culture and vision of those later 18th and early 19th century Belfastians, Pari passu the population progressed. The 2,000 at the end of the 17th century (which had grown from less than 500 at the end of the 16th century) multiplied to over 20,000 at the end of the 18th. Albeit, even then Belfast was, in population, only fifth among Irish towns, Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Limerick having more inhabitants and wealth.

Belfast marked its majority in the 19th century ; it was only created a city in 1888. What would be its gesture to the advent of industrialism ? Its industries were domestic and handicrafts. Curiously, too, although to-day Belfast is the world's Linenopolis, it had only half a dozen linen looms in 1810. Cotton ruled, with 860 looms clacking. Mass production would inevitably extinguish manual. So with characteristic Belfast prescience the Mulhollands re-equipped in 1830 their burnt-down Cotton Mill for spinning flax by steam. The venture succeeded, and is to-day the great York Street Linen Mills. Power weaving was more tardy, only coming to Belfast in 1850. A decade later the unexpected erupted to speed-up sluggishness. The American Civil War, beginning in 1861, interrupted the world's cotton supplies. Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi! Cotton was dead; Linen was king, and Belfast boomed into bounteous prosperity. Even to-day its linen leads the world, and the annual output of cloth here is sufficient to cover almost threefold Belfast's city area of 25 square miles.

Concurrently another fortuity accelerated Belfast's accession to world fame. Shipbuilding had been vicarious since 1636, and its small yard, a patch of the mud of Queen's Island�itself an artificial product adopted as a seaside pleasure resort�was moribund in 1858, when its proprietor, Robert Hickson, engaged as assistant, Edward Harland, son of a Scarborough doctor. Harland�then only in his early twenties�pluckily acquired the unpromising plant. And so in 1860�augmented by Gustavus W. Wolff, a genial German, began the Harland & Wolff firm.

THE MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY	QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY

Industry has few industrial epics more thrilling than the story of the how, within half a century or so, this insignificant little Queen's Island shop bourgeoned into the world's best equipped shipbuilding yard, and the cradle of great liners. From 23 the pay roll enlarged to normally 12,000 pre-war. What other firm in the universe built 78 ships, both sail and steam, representing over 1,300,000 tonnage, for one ownership? Harland & Wolff did so for the White Star Line. Concurrent also with the progress of Harland & Wolff was the similarly striking expansion of Belfast's second great shipbuilding plant�Workman, Clark & Co., Ltd. First an offshoot in 1879, and now an amicable rival, it is equally famed for quality and quantity output. Belfast never puts its eggs into one basket ; it has also tobacco, engineering, rope, mineral water, distilling, biscuit, and a score other varied industries �all of individuality and character. No empty boast is it, either, that Belfast is the home of five of the world's largest industrial concerns. The greatest shipbuilding plant is by the Lagan, side by side in York Street stand the mammoth linen mills (York Street Spinning Co.), and tobacco factory (Gallaher's). On the County Down side is the world's greatest ropeworks ; and when you couple with these the great Dunville distillery, you have a quintette explaining why Belfast is on the world's map. What also of the Ulster coat ? And a Belfastian, John B. Dunlop, by inventing the pneumatic tyre, provided the basis for the motor car and therefrom evolved the airplane. Hence Belfast revolutionised world transport.

SHAW'S BRIDGE ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY

Belfast's progress during its maturity era�the 19th and early 20th centuries�challenges consideration. 30,000 population in 1816 ; then 100,000 in 1851 ; and then 208,000 souls only thirty years later (1881). The 20th century began with 349,180 and now Belfast's population is probably over 480,000. Hence, during the past century the population advance of Belfast has been almost twenty fold. The civic administration of Belfast, like good wine, "needs no bush." Its civic amenities are modern and ever progressive. Moreover, this amenities, wire" city is remarkably free from slums ; its expansion has been so rapid that sites in its central area are too valuable to remain cumbered by out-of-date edifices. Excellently encouraging this exodus of dwellers to the healthy suburbs also is the cheap tramcar fare of 2d. to all termini, even five miles distant, as well as bus and train services to country and seaside.

liberally direct and regular, of the streets in the City Hall vicinity�Donegall Square, Wellington Place, Chichester, May and Howard Streets �and you may estimate the culture and vision of those later 18th and early 19th century Belfastians, Pari passu the population progressed. The 2,000 at the end of the 17th century (which had grown from less than 500 at the end of the 16th century) multiplied to over 20,000 at the end of the 18th. Albeit, even then Belfast was, in population, only fifth among Irish towns, Dublin, Cork, Waterford
and Limerick having more inhabitants and wealth.

Belfast marked its majority in the 19th century ; it was only created a city in 1888. What would be its gesture to the advent of industrialism ?

Its industries were domestic and handicrafts. Curiously, too, although to-day Belfast is the world's Linenopolis, it had only half a dozen linen looms in 1810. Cotton ruled, with 860 looms clacking. Mass production would inevitably extinguish manual. So with characteristic Belfast prescience the Mulhollands re-equipped in 1830 their burnt-down Cotton Mill for spinning flax by steam. The venture succeeded, and is to-day the great York Street Linen Mills. Power weaving was more tardy, only coming to Belfast in 1850. A decade later the unexpected erupted to speed-up sluggishness. The American Civil War, beginning in 1861, interrupted the world's cotton supplies. Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi! Cotton was dead; Linen was king, and Belfast boomed into bounteous prosperity. Even to-day its linen leads the world, and the annual output of cloth here is sufficient to cover almost threefold Belfast's city area of 25 square miles.

Concurrently another fortuity accelerated Belfast's accession to world fame. Shipbuilding had been vicarious since 1636, and its small yard, a patch of the mud of Queen's Island�itself an artificial product adopted as a seaside pleasure resort�was moribund in 1858, when its proprietor, Robert Hickson, engaged as assistant, Edward Harland, son of a Scarborough doctor. Harland�then only in his early twenties�pluckily acquired the unpromising plant. And so in 1860�augmented by Gustavus W. Wolff, a genial German, began the Harland & Wolff firm.

Industry has few industrial epics more thrilling than the story of the how, within half a century or so, this insignificant little Queen's Island shop bourgeoned into the world's best equipped shipbuilding yard, and the cradle of great liners. From 23 the pay roll enlarged to normally 12,000 pre-war. What other firm in the universe built 78 ships, both sail and steam, representing over 1,300,000 tonnage, for one ownership? Harland & Wolff did so for the White Star Line. Concurrent also with the progress of Harland & Wolff was the similarly striking expansion of Belfast's second great shipbuilding plant�Workman, Clark & Co., Ltd. First an offshoot in 1879, and now an amicable rival, it is equally famed for quality and quantity output. Belfast never puts its eggs into one basket ; it has also tobacco, engineering, rope, mineral water, distilling, biscuit, and a score other varied industries �all of individuality and character. No empty boast is it, either, that Belfast is the home of five of the world's largest industrial concerns. The greatest shipbuilding plant is by the Lagan, side by side in York Street stand the mammoth linen mills (York Street Spinning Co.), and tobacco factory (Gallaher's). On the County Down side is the world's greatest ropeworks ; and when you couple with these the great Dunville distillery, you have a quintette explaining why Belfast is on the world's map. What also of the Ulster coat ?

And a Belfastian, John B. Dunlop, by inventing the pneumatic tyre, provided the basis for the motor car and there from evolved the airplane. Hence Belfast revolutionised world transport.

Belfast's progress during its maturity era�the 19th and early 20th centuries�challenges consideration. 30,000 population in 1816 ; then 100,000 in 1851 ; and then 208,000 souls only thirty years later (1881). The 20th century began with 349,180 and now Belfast's population is probably over 480,000. Hence, during the past century the population advance of Belfast has been almost twenty fold. The civic administration of Belfast, like good wine, "needs no bush." Its civic amenities are modern and ever progressive. Moreover, this amenities, wire" city is remarkably free from slums ; its expansion has been so rapid that sites in its central area are too valuable to remain cumbered by out-of-date edifices. Excellently encouraging this exodus of dwellers to the healthy suburbs also is the cheap tramcar fare of 2d. to all termini, even five miles distant, as well as bus and train services to country and seaside.

The surroundings of Belfast are indeed beautiful beyond those of most cities. High hills, heathered, wooded, and tilled, arise on every aspect save where the river embouches eastward to meet the sea. From all the big streets vistas of the circling hills give charm and chase away monotony. Withal, material assets do not entirely enrich a people and he who would really know about Belfast and its people must also take cognisance of other factors�their high place in science, literature, art and culture generally. If in the 18th century the intellectual activities of Belfast supported its claim as " The Northern Athens," it has now fully earned that title. Its University, Art Gallery, Museum, College of Technology, Art Exhibitions and Musical Festivals, authors, artists, dramatists, architects and scholars are indisputable evidences of its eminence.

In the conjoint realms of charity and curing, too, what better indication of the liberality and attitude of a city may be adduced than its public hospitals ? Certainly he who visits that square mile in West Belfast in which are located its palatial Victoria, Children's and Maternity Hospitals, all voluntarily supported, will admit that in benevolence and love of their fellowmen Belfast people are among the best of mankind.

Difficult as it is to convey a conception of Belfast's teeming interest to the visitor, some of its "high lights" may be suggested. Thus, as start off, the visitor should ascend the City Hall Dome (173 feet high), and view the delightfully comprehensive panorama. It will be observe Belfast occupies a basin traversed by the Lagan and encircled by ramparts of green hills. Surveyed from this eminence, too, the city's lay-out is traceable ; Donegall Place, dignified and broad, runs northerly to be continued into Royal Avenue and then York Street. High Street�Belfast's oldest thoroughfare�goes easterly from Castle Junction (the meeting of Donegall Place and Royal Avenue) to end at the river.

Immediately fronting the City Hall, Donegall Square North and its continuation�Wellington Place�stretch westward to terminate in the cheery red-bricked Royal Academical Institution�the one-time Belfast College, and now a public school which gave the world Viscount Bryce (who had 33 University degrees), Lord Kelvin and others. Adjoining is the more modern Municipal College of Technology.

Eastward, Donegall Square North continues in Chichester Street down to the river, and has as ending the Ulster Law Courts.

Other facets of interest are the linen district occupying Bedford Street (the continuation of Donegall Square West), and the stately near-by insurance buildings of Donegall Square and the far-distant greenery of the Ormeau Park.

And now a few minutes can be spared to visit the Council Chamber, Banquet Hall and Great Hall�the latter having a 5-ton Donegal woven carpet�as well the reposeful old-world courtyard. Emerging from the City Hall, its architecture�a pleasing blend of 17th and 18th century Renaissance so synonymous with Belfast's history�and especially the allegorical group of the Central pediment call for some interest.

Boarding a "Malone" or "Stranmillis" tramcar the visitor soon alights at Queen's University�more fittingly " Ulster University." In its Examination Hall is a replica of Titian's "Assassination of Peter the Martyr," now enormously enhanced in value by the loss of the original in a fire at Venice in 1867. The visitor will also find much interest in the various Natural History, Medical and Surgical Museums and the Gallery of Classical Archeology, and especially in the placid Quadrangle.

The Botanic Gardens Park, adjoining the University grounds, a delightful area with charming vistas at every turn, includes conservatories, lawns, rose walks and a splendid tropical garden where it is possible to see figs and even banana trees bearing abundant fruit. A fine statue of Lord Kelvin, the famous Belfast scientist, who elucidated the laws of nature for men, adorns the entrance to this beautiful park.

Good pictures call for frames in harmony, and Belfast's City Fathers acted wisely in selecting the Botanic Gardens to contain the Municipal Art Gallery and Museum, which, although not yet fully completed, will well repay visiting. The Museum, the foundation stone of which was laid by H.R.H. the Duke of York in 1924, is unique in its collection of Spinning Wheels and also early models of bicycles, as well as its wonderful relics of the pre-Celtic world and of bygone Ulster life. The McGowan collection of views of Old Belfast will fascinate students of the city's history. The Art Gallerys prime feature is the representative collection of pictures donated by Sir John Lavery, R.A., to the city of his birth, as well as works by William Conor, James Humbert Craig, F. McKelvey, J. W. Carey, W. R. Gordon, John A. Hunter, and others of the Ulster school. It is indicative of Belfast's art pretensions that the Art Gallery is to be extended. No visitor to Belfast should miss this building, especially on Wednesday afternoons, when an orchestral concert blends so admirably art and music.

Leaving the Art Gallery and Museum the visitor may stroll along the Stranmillis Road past the new Lagan Boulevards to the first lock on the River Lagan, and thence along the towpath is a delightful ramble with each turn revealing a still more felicitous view. At Shaw's Bridge, the visitor may regain the road, and returning cityward board the tramcar at Malone, or walk on towards Drumbo to see the famous Giants Ring, an earthwork built aeons before Belfast was even a village. At the tramway terminus on the Lisburn Road are situated the beautiful Show Grounds of The Royal Ulster Society, where will be seen the imposing Pavilion, opened on 29th May, 1934, by H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester, and named by the gracious order of His Majesty the King, "The King's Hall."

Approached by the " Dundonald" car the Northern Ireland Parliament Buildings, in the Greek Classical tradition, constitute a majestic edifice, occupying the centre of Stormont Park, which also holds Stormont Castle, the official residence of the Premier, together with the Lodge wherein the Speaker resides. The Parliament Buildings comprise the two legislative halls, together with 147 rooms devoted to various administrative departments. An imposing statue of Lord Carson is prominent in front of the pile. A few paces beyond the Parliament Buildings and the tram terminus at Dundonald is the apex of the 13 miles' triangle of roads constituting the world famous Inter-national Tourist Trophy motor race held every September.

Returning to the city, the visitor travels through Ballymacarrett, Belfast's great transpontine industrial suburb, largely occupied by workers in the shipyards, ropeworks and other industries. The view down the river from the Queen's Bridge gives a glimpse of the importance of Belfast's daily commerce with England and Scotland. However, to deduce how similarly great is the overseas commerce and also to visit the shipyards, the visitor should take a car to the York Street railway terminus and proceed to the river, and then across by ferryboat to the County Down side.

Some other noteworthy places of interest are St. Anne's (Belfast) Cathedral in Donegall Street, the new Law Courts in Lower Chichester Street, and the Linen Research Institute at Lambeg (reached by bus).

The pilgrim to Belfast can not reckon his visit complete unless he includes Belfast Castle demesne (donated by Lord Shaftesbury), and the connected pleasure grounds of Bellevue and Hazelwood on the Antrim Road, reached by tram and bus from Castle Junction. Few cities are blessed with a more charming pleasure region than this shelf with its desirable and extensive views of land and sea. It represents the happy combination of nature and art at their best, while the Hazelwood portion simulates a miniature Switzerland. Visitors are recommended to ascend from Bellevue through the rustic glen to reach the lofty Cave Hill and McArt's Fort (1,100 feet) from which the view is surpassing fine. Indeed, from a little behind the Fort and rather more northerly it is possible to scan four loughs �Belfast, Strangford in County Down, Larne (a peep), and Neagh (the largest United Kingdom lake). If not pressed by time the visitor may stroll citywards over the hills and descend to board the bus on the Cavehill Road.

A reference to a few of Belfast's citizens who have enriched the world with their learning and art, and brought honour to their city, who have not been referred to already in these pages, would not be out of place. Amongst these are Sir William MacCormac, Sir Donard Currie, and Sir Almroth Wright. In the 18th century there was Dr. William Drennan, in whose poems the description of Ireland as "the Emerald Isle first found birth, and in the 19th century Sir Samuel Ferguson, a poet of real distinction. Of our own generation, Mr. Forrest Reid is a novelist with a very subtle and sensitive genius, and Mr. Richard Rowley's poetry, beautiful in itself, has carried beauty into the grime and stress of workaday life. Mr. Robert Lynd, a truly delightful essayist, comes from Belfast, as does Mr. Douglas, editor of the " Sunday Express " ; Mr. St. John Ervine, the famous author, dramatist and dramatic critic, Mr. George A. Birmingham, Miss Helen Waddell and Dr. W. J. Lawrence, the Shakespearian authority. To the stage Belfast has contributed of recent years Mr. J. B. Fagan, author of the happy And so to Bed" ; Mr. John Rea, of "Abraham Lincoln" fame ; and three clever women�Miss Cathleen Nesbit, Miss Moyna MacGill, and Miss Helen Gilliland.

County Antrim.
BY ALEXANDER RIDDELL.

" So to the land our hearts we give,
Till the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike --
That deeper than our speech and thought,
Beyond our reason's sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow clay.''�KIPLING.

AND if we in County Antrim think of our fields or moors, our towns, our villages, whichever be our home, much as Dr. Boteler looked upon the strawberry : " Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did " out of the depths, the very fundamentals of existence, comes the cause, as phrased by Kipling :

"Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow clay."

There are, to be sure, externals�proud memories, prouder, it may be, than those of any other county in Ireland.

Almost in the centre of the county stands Slemish, the mountain on whose slopes the captive Patrick herded Milchu's pigs, and where he made his first convert�himself. " Now after I came to Ireland "�the words are Patrick's own�"daily I herded flocks and often during the day I prayed. Love of God and His fear increased more and more, and my faith grew and my spirit was stirred up so that in a single day I said as many as a hundred prayers, and at night likewise, though 1 abode in the woods and in the mountain."

In Antrim, too, was the Kingdom of Dalriada, one of whose rulers, Fergus MacErc, crossed the narrow channel to what was then Alba and founded another kingdom, gradually extended by his descendants, till they gave the whole country a single name, Scotland, and that single and central monarchy by which it was saved many of the evils which rend Ireland till this day.

These are, indeed, proud memories, but there are others. There is history, at times vehement and bloody, beyond the memory of man ; and there is romance, which, after all, is history though told rather by the heart than by the head, in which what matters is not the date, or the cause, or the consequence, but the vivid and poignant emotions and personalities of the moment.

These are the things the traveller, the visitor, the passer-by can gather, the wise traveller becoming thereof a harvester rather than a gleaner, and no matter how great the bounty he may seek County Antrim can offer and supply it�and more.

And with that let us move on.

Belfast is described elsewhere, and we are now moving out of it between the hills on the left and the sea on the right, for the long coast run. It is worth while glancing towards the Cave Hill to see the outlines of Napoleon's face, which can only date from his deathbed in St. Helena, yet nobody has ever been able to tell me whose name it bore before the days of the Corsican ogre ; and it is worth while glancing at the beach and recalling the old Quaker who, having left his hat at home that he might not have to take it off to Royalty, somewhere on the shore not far from the town met King William III. with the sedate but sincere greeting, " Friend, thee art welcome here."

Carrickfergus
The first place of importance is Carrickfergus.  (the Rock of Fergus), the Fergus mentioned above.

" Lustie he was, and large of lym and lith,
His forme, his figure and his countenance
Than thought that tyme rycht gudlie to advance."

He it was who took to Scotland the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, fabled to be Jacob's pillow, which lay in his castle of Dunstaffnage till a later generation removed to Scone, whence King Edward, the " Hammer of the Scots," removed it to Westminster Abbey. A not uninfluential school of Irish Archaeologists, however insist that the veritable Lia Fail never left Ireland, and that in " Tara of the Kings" it still remains. When Fergus had been on his Scottish throne for twenty-five years he returned to Ireland�some say to arbitrate in a dispute, others that, afflicted with a skin disease I came to drink of a water in a medicinal well. Be that it may the galley that bore him was wrecked at or near this rock, and hence the name.

" In all that schip eschapt nor aid nor young
But perreist all with guid Fergus their king ;
Efter his name, my stone tellis thus,
That place sensyne is callit Craigfergus."

Six centuries after the time of Fergus, the Angle Normans swept across the land, and Carrickfergus Castle, the castle we see now, was built either by De Courcy, the first Norman to invade Ulster and conquer of its littoral from Downpatrick to Derry, or by his successor, De Lacy. Here during his visitation of Ireland rested for a while King John, by whom the district round the castle was made a county, the rent to the Crown, according to charter being "the rising of one mann, with a bow without a string and an arrow without a feather." Here for a space dwelt two kings together Robert and Edward Bruce, though Edward, to be sure was never more than titular King of Ireland, his kingdom resembling that chateau in Spain which is first cousin to the castle in the air. Its walls also welcomed William III., before he journeyed on to Belfast. It has stood sieges, one by the Bruces, when the garrison was ultimately starved into surrender, having first, says tradition, or legend (not synonymous terms) devoured thirty Scottish prisoners. It suffered siege in Cromwellian days, and later by Schomberg ; later still by Thurot, Irish by descent, a smuggler, sometime gamekeeper to the Earl of Antrim, and at the time of his invasion an officer in the Royal French Navy. Again the Castle, which then was in a ruinous condition, had to surrender, but not until the small garrison, a few recruits of the 62nd Foot, now the Wiltshire Regiment, had fired away all their ammunition, had fired away also their buttons, and then taken to throwing stones. A piece of plate was later presented to their C.O., a Captain Jennings. Where it is now who can say, but the regiment still wears a splash or dent upon its buttons in memory of the defence. Thurot made a hasty levy of provisions and money and sailed away, to be caught and brought to battle three days later by Captain Elliott, off the Isle of Man, when he himself was killed and his little fleet captured. A pleasing and true story of the fight at Carrick records that one of the French, seeing an infant straying on to the street, dropped his firelock and carried the child to a place of safety. Curiously, as good an account as any of the whole transaction is told by John Wesley, who visited the town shortly afterwards, and for a man of peace was surprisingly interested in the field of war.

Another notable building in Carrickfergus is the Parish Church, dedicated, as it should be in a seafaring town, to St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors. Its chief monument is to Sir Arthur Chichester, founder of Belfast. Beneath it is a small figure of his brother, Sir John, whose head was struck off in a battle with the Macdonnells. Years later James Macdonnell, according to a foolish story, protested against the figure being any-thing but headless. " How cam he to get his held, for sure I am I ance took it frae him "�and the inventors of the story forgot that Macdonnell was purely a Gaelic speaker to whom Lowland Scots was as alien as Greek.

In Carrick, readers may be interested to hear, was held the first regularly constituted Presbytery in Ireland, attended by five ministers and four ruling elders, for the four sessions already erected. It met on the 10th June, 1642, and two centuries later the event was sung by William McComb, Presbyterianism's poet laureate :

" Two hundred years ago there came from Scotland's storied land
To Carrick's old and fortress town a Presbyterian band ;
They planted on the Castle wall the banner of the Blue,
And worshipped God, in simple form, as Presbyterians do."

The pleasure amenities of the town include a golf course, public lawn tennis courts, boating, bathing and fishing.

Kilroot and Swift.
Not far from Carrick is Kilroot, where Thurot's force landed ; but more famous for the fact that it was here Swift lived during his brief clerico-official stay in the north. His garden is still to be seen ; so also is what is claimed locally to be his cottage, thatched and of a curious oval shape ; so also are the ruins of his church. An Episcopalian in a Presbyterian district, his congregations were small; and the story is told that he spent part of one Sunday carrying stones into the church. Curious to see what he was doing, a number of people followed him, and, having got them inside, Swift locked the doors and conducted a service. Tradition also preserves an account of his fondness of skimming stones along the surface of the Lough. It was during his residence in the north that Swift had that love affair with Jane Waring, which expired in perhaps the strangest of all the world's love letters. Of the Warings nothing is left in Belfast except the name perpetuated in one of its streets�called after Jane's father and brother, and before that�eloquent of the narrow streets of the little town�known as Broad Street.

Whitehead and Islandmagee
"Allays a-moving on," like Poor Jo,  one comes next to Whitehead, a pleasant town by the edge of Belfast Lough. How rapidly it has grown from hamletry may be gauged from the fact that not so many years ago its station was an old railway carriage. In its development it echoes Addison :

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."

Once named Castle Chichester, it is the centre of a district rich in historical associations. The ruins of the old castle, built by a Sir Moyses Hill in Elizabethan days, still stand, and the story is told how within its rooms Sir Moyses was once neatly hoist with his own petard.

Wishing to get the better in a piece of business with the Governor, Sir Moyses invited him to supper, and ordered the butler to serve the guest with wine and Sir Moyses himself with coloured water. The butler reversed the order, with the result that at the end of the evening the Governor very drily thanked Sir Moyses more for his meat than for his drink," while the latter was scarcely able to move from his seat. "What have you to say, Sirrah," he demanded of the butler next morning, "Why I should not hang thee ?" The butler's reply was that he did not see why the man who paid for the good wine should drink water, while he who paid nothing drank of the best�which proved to be another of the soft answers which turn away wrath.

As behoves a place which is partly residential and partly a seaside resort, Whitehead caters well for health and for amusement It is the headquarters of the County Antrim Yacht Club, which in addition to the weekly sailing events, runs an Annual Regatta. Excellent sea bathing can be had, and the Council has provided a swimming pond which renders the bather independent of the tides. Sea fishing can, of course, be practised alike by boat and from the rocky coast. The town offers golf (a nine-hole course) and tennis, both available for visitors. It is a fine centre for the walker, who should not omit a visit to Blackhead with its caves and cliff path. There are numerous places still possessing historical interest�such as Muldersleigh, which contains an ancient entrenchment and was at one time a "hosting" or gathering place, for the name means "bare height of the host," and Slaughterford Bridge, reminiscent of "old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago."

In the neighbourhood also is Aldfreck, where James Macdonnell defeated Sir John Chichester, and not far away is Ballycarry, through which access is gained to the peninsula of Islandmagee. Ballycarry is notable for more than that, for if the first Presbytery met in Carrick, the first Presbyterian services in Ireland were held in this little village, as sung by James Orr, the " Bard of Ballycarry."

"There thy revered forefathers heard,
The first dissentors dared to tarry,
On Erin's plain, where men felt pain
For conscience sake in Ballycarry."

Orr died over a century ago, and his tomb, erected by Brother Freemasons, may still be seen. He shared in the "Turn-out," i.e., the rebellion, of 1798; took part in the Battle of Antrim, and later fled to America. He returned under an amnesty, and more fortunate than a namesake, lived the remainder of his life untroubled.

Islandmagee itself is worth exploring. Its most tragic memory is connected with the Wars of 1641, when some of the inhabitants�one says "some," because the number varies in different accounts from 30 to 3,000�were driven over the cliffs into the sea by the Scottish garrison of Carrickfergus. The shocking deed is commemorated, it is said, in the name of Slaughterford Bridge. One of the very few Irish trials for witchcraft�few things in Irish history are more extraordinary than the country's almost complete freedom from the witch mania which devastated Europe in the 17th century�had its origin in Islandmagee in 1711, when eight unfortunate women were solemnly tried by two judges (who disagreed), found guilty, and awarded imprisonment and the pillory.

Gobbins
One of the most striking walks in the country is that round the foot of the precipitous cliffs known as the Gobbins, made possibly by vision and genius of a railway engineer, who bridged and tunneled and cut a path which runs for over a mile. The Druid's Altar and the Rocking Stone are other objects of interest.

Islandmagee, however, is a diversion from the main road, which runs on the mainland side of the Lough and passes through Magheramorne. Now chiefly important as a tiny harbour exporting limestone, it was the birthplace of St. Comgall, founder of the famous Abbey in Bangor, in the County Down, from which, according to tradition, in later centuries King Alfred sought teachers and leaders. The hamlet has given a title to the peerage, Baron Magheramorne, and the story has been published that an English butler, unable to pronounce the, to him, extraordinary gutterals, at one important reception, announced the first holder as the late Sir James McGarel Hogg."

Larne.
So one passes to Larne. Here at the Corran, at the head of 300 ships and 6,000 men, landed Edward Bruce in that disastrous attempt to make himself King of Ireland�three years of war, pestilence and famine, when the people, it is said, became cannibals and even dug the dead out of their graves, while the Scots were reduced to eating their own horses. Bruce was at last crowned near Dundalk, but his was, like Macbeth's, a barren victory and, like Duncan's murderer, he fell in battle and entered a bloody grave.

It was somewhere off the entrance to Larne Lough that there was found in the shape of a salmon Liban, the daughter of Ecca, in whose time Lough Neagh burst forth. All were drowned except Liban, who lived as a salmon for three hundred years. At the end of that time Beoc, a monk under the St. Comgall already mentioned, was sailing across the waters when he heard chanting beneath his vessel. Liban raised her face above the surface. " I am Liban," she said, and I beseech thee to come to Inver Ollarba (the mouth of the Larne Water) a year hence from to-day. Say to Comgall, and to the other holy men of Bangor, all that I say to thee. Come with thy boats and thy fishing nets, and thou shalt take me from the waters in which I have lived so long." And a year hence she was taken in a net, given the choice to die immediately and go to heaven, or live as long as she had lived in the sea and then go to heaven. She preferred to die immediately, so Comgall baptised her as Murgen, or the " Sea-Born, and so she died.

Lough Neagh borders a large part of Antrim, and though there will be reason to mention it again when this brief narrative refers to the town of Antrim, the rest of the legend may as well be told now. Ecca was the son of a King of Munster, and for some reason had to flee north. To help him in his journey he was given a great horse, but warned never to allow it to stand still. Ater long travel Ecca reached the Plain of the Grey Copse, and here he determined to settle. But he allowed the horse to stand and immediately a spring burst out beneath its feet. Upon it Ecca built a door, over which he placed a woman whose sole duty it was to keep it shut. Curnan the Simpleton foresaw disaster :

" Come forth, come forth, ye valiant men, build boats and build ye fast !
I see the waters surging out, a torrent deep and vast ;
I see our chief and all his host o'erwhelmed beneath the wave,
And Arin, too, my best beloved, alas, I cannot save."

But nobody listened, there was no Noah, and when at last the woman forgot to close the well door, the flood rushed out �and all, except Liban, were drowned. And thus the Plain of the Grey Copse is now Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Islands.

Larne, it need scarcely be said, has the distinction of being the Irish terminus, as Stranraer is the Scottish, of the shortest sea passage between this island and Great Britain �a privilege once held by Donaghadee and Portpatrick. Larne owes many of its amenities to the love borne for the place by the late Mr. Chaine, whose body, buried upright in the cliffs, looks eternally over the waters he knew so well. A modern Round Tower, 92 feet high, to his honoured memory, was erected by public subscriptions.

The visitor must walk down to the Curran, a sickle-shaped beach, hence the name, which in English is the "reaping-hook," on which the plundering Norsemen drove their galleys, and here he may wonder how Ulfrek's Fiord, the Norse name of the Lough, became changed into Wolverflete and Olderfleet, the name eventually given to a castle which was later built here by the English. In another direction are the Sallagh Braes, also a pleasant walk ; and in yet another a visit should be paid to the villages of Glynn and Glenoe. The former is proud of the ruins of a church said to have been founded by St. Patrick, and the latter of its glen and waterfall and four cascades. A hint may be given to the botanist to search for the Irish polypody.

The town is a great tourist centre, and is well deserving of its popularity, for in addition to being a most central spot for 'exploration of the Northern counties, Larne has in itself many resources and amusements. There are excellent bathing, boating and fishing ; there are tennis courts and a golf links ; while "just over the way," as Dick Swiveller would say, in Islandmagee, is another golf course.

The Coast Road
It is from Larne, running westward, that there starts the Coast Road proper, of  which it has been said that " had the engineer worked with a poet and a painter at his back he could not have laid out his course more agreeably to the eye and imagination." Turning and soaring and dipping, like a swallow in its flight, with the sea on one hand and the cliffs on the other, white masses of limestone, dark masses of basalt ; with glens running into the country and streams tumbling down to the sea, the road for the whole of its course has a beauty which needs no adjectives. Its country, more-over, is haunted with stories, from the dim past of legend till to-day. This was the land over which struggled Macdonnells, O'Neills, and O'Cahans, whose castles, once the homes of passion and emotion, are now voiceless ruins.

"Around the warrior's hearth and through the long
Coarse narrow-bladed grass that wraps his halls
like tell-tale life-stains of the past, arise
The lonely sea-pink's wiry-tufted flowers."

The O'Cahans have vanished, territorially, from the district, so have the O'Neills, but the Macdonnells remain, their head, the Earl of Antrim, having his family seat at Glenarm. Here in the days of Elizabeth was buried the great Shane O'Neill, who had been stabbed to death by the skeans of the Macdonnells. A local tradition states that soon after his burial there a friar from Armagh arrived. " Father," he said to the Abbot at Glenarm, " I come from our brothers of Armagh to beg that you will permit us to remove the body of the great O'Neill for the purpose of interment in the tomb of his ancestors at Armagh." The Abbot paused for a moment. " Have you," he asked, "brought with you the remains of James Macdonnell, Lord of Antrim and Cantire, who was buried among strangers at Armagh ?" The Friar replied that he had not. " Then," declared the Abbot, "whilst you continue to tread on the grave of James, Lord of Antrim and Cantire, know ye that we here in Glenarm will trample on the dust of the great O'Neill." When one adds that this James Macdonnell had been starved to death in O'Neill's dungeon, and that O'Neill's head, "sund'red from his bodie, was carried into the citie of Dublin, where it was bodied on a stake and standeth on the top of your majestie's castle," some vision will have been conveyed of the savagery of the times.

Still the road runs on�past Carnlough, past Garron Tower, near which is Dunmaul whence it is said the last of the Danes sailed when leaving Ireland, past a curiously pinnacled rock in the sea, "Clough-i-Stookan, which, it is said again (useful and non-committal phrase), was the northern point from which the country used to be measured to Mizen Head in the south. So the road twines round to Red Bay and Cushendall and Cushendun, in which space of country are the " Nine Glens of Antrim." Glens they are, but the name is more correctly " Glynnes," i.e., wooded places. Here too are hills with names that sing like verse�Lurigethan, and Trostan, and Tieve Bulliagh, and Slieve-an-Aura and Knocklayde. On Lurigethan is said to have been the home of Ossian, his grave in Lubitavish being marked by a stone circle, and on Slieve-an-Aura was fought another of the innumerable battles, this time between the Macdonnells and McQuillans. Near the viaduct at Glendun is a relic of a different kind, a stone altar where the people used to meet for worship in the penal days. The glens themselves, as has been said, are nine�Glenarm, Glencloy, Glenariff, Glenballyemon, Glenaan, Glencorp, Glendun, Glenshesk, and Glentaise�of which Glenariff is the most beautiful.

For the non-Gaelic visitor the names may be translated with the proviso that Gaelic scholars evidently do not agree. Glenarm, then, means " Glen of the Army" ; Glencloy, " Glen of the Sword," or " Glen of the Dykes" ; Glenariff, the "Arable Glen" ; Glenballyemon, " Edwardstown Glen" ; Glenaan, " Glen of the Proverb," or " Hemmed-in Glen" ; Glencorp or Glencorb, " Glen of the Dead Body," or " Glen of the Coaches" ; Glendun, the " Brown Glen " ; Glenshesk, the "Sedgy glen " ; and Glentaise, " Glen of Taise Taobhgeal "�Taise being a daughter of a King of Rathlin, and of how she was sought as a wife by the King of Norway, of his invasion of Rathlin, and of the battles that followed till he was killed, a long, long story is told. " It is better than the enjoyment of a feast how we have fought the great battle," said Taise when it was all over.

Carnlough, Cushendun & Cushendall
There are few pleasanter places than Carnlough,  Cushendun or Cushendall for the seeker of a quiet holiday, especially to those still given to the use of their legs, with the glens to explore and lofty hills to climb. Glenariff, as has been suggested, is the most scenic. Art has here been added to nature, paths have been cut and bridges erected to allow the visitor easier access to this " Switzerland in miniature," as Thackeray called it. There are several waterfalls, the upper and higher being Ess-na-Larach, the " Fall of the Mares," the lower being Essna-Crub, " Fall of the ' Hoof," though why the names, what mares and hoofs are thus perpetuated. one does not know. But Glenariff is only one. All are worth exploring, and what has been said of one of the lofty hills can be said of the whole district

" People rave of the scenery out in the west,
And they say of all lands 'tis the fairest and best,
But they don't know the talent Dame Nature displayed
When she last touched her canvas and painted Knocklayde.

The flowers of the tropics are fair to behold,
Where the orange tree nurses her globules of gold ;
Still it seems to my mind they don't `aquil' the shade
Of the blossom-clad whins on the side of Knocklayde."
 

And the visitor, especially if he takes any interest in the stories and traditions of a district steeped in history and romance, may be assured, in the words of another local poet, that

" Tho' lowly the cabins that dot this fair island,
Nor princely their tables nor sumptuous their fare,
Yet still for the wanderer by moor, vale or highland
There's a chair and a ` cead mille failthe ' found there."

Passing Cushendall and Cushendun, it may be noted that the latter was once the home of Miss Moira O'Neill, who has sung of the district in verse that attains to poetry. Here the road turns inland from the sea, but over ground which to the lover of moorland is as beautiful, and past the fairy lake, Loughareema, whose waters at times vanish. Miss O'Neill has so written of it :

Loughareema ! Loughareema !
 Lies so high among the heather ;
A little lough, a dark lough,
The wather's black and deep.
Ould herons go a-fishing there,
And seagulls all together
Float round the one green island
On the fairy Lough asleep.

Loughareema ! Loughareema !
Stars come out, an' stars are hidin' ;
The wather whispers on the stones,
The flittherin' moths are free.
One'st before the mornin' light
The horsemen will come ridin'
Roun' an' roun' the fairy lough,
An' no one there to see."

It can be a dangerous lough, and not so very many years ago Colonel MacNeill and his coachman were drowned when, the lake being in flood, their carriage went off the road in the darkness. It is a long climb to the top of the moor and a long descent into Ballycastle.

There is another route from Cushendun to Ballycastle, following the coast by a road less skilfully engineered, however, than the coast road followed so far. It is, nevertheless, well worth taking for the sake of Loughan and Portaleen Bays and Torr Head, and, above all, a diversion on foot to Murlough Bay, and the Grey Man's Path, a slippery and steep but possible path to the beach. A little further on is Fair Head, on whose summit are two small lakes, Lough Dhu (" Black Lake "), and Lough-na-Crannoge (" Lake of the Island "), a crannoge being a small artificial island, found not only in Ireland, but also on the Continent, and eloquent of days when it was necessary to seek every means of safety and protection. From Fair Head it is easy to reach Ballycastle, either by returning inland or scrambling down to the Coast Road, which reaches the foot of the headland.

Ballycastle
Is connected with two of the most beautiful stories in Irish literature�the one, that of the fate of the children of Lir, being pure fantasy, but the other, concerned with Deirdre and the children of Usneach being most probably true in its essentials. On the beach are to this day the rocks, Carrig-Usneach, on which the latter landed coming from Scotland to betrayal and death.]]

The children of Lir were the victims of a stepmother who, jealous of their father's love for them, turned them into swans doomed to live nine hundred years till released from the enchantment by the sound of a Christian bell. Three hundred of these they spent on the stormy waters opposite Ballycastle, the only girl of the four, Fionnghuala, spending herself to warm and shelter her brothers. At last they heard a bell from a Christian church, and resumed their human form, but incredibly old. They were baptised and died and buried in the one grave, with Fionnghuala in the middle, a brother on either side, and her youngest brother in her arms that she might shelter him as always. Moore has sung their story :

"Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter wave weeping,
Fate bids us languish long ages away ;
For still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping
And still doth the pure light its dawning delay."

While in Ballycastle Knocklayde should be climbed and a walk taken to Armoy for the sake of its Round Tower, nor could a visit to Bunamargy Abbey be neglected, in whose graves were ended the loves and griefs of countless generations of fierce and stormy hearts.

Ballycastle is famous as a tennis centre, the courts, oddly enough, being laid out in what was once a harbour. It has good golf links, bathing, boating, and fishing�and life has few pleasanter things to offer than a day along the Cary or the Shesk rivers.

Rathlin
Out at sea is Rathlin, where Robert Bruce took refuge after one of the defeats which he avenged at last at Bannockburn, and no doubt Rathlin still shelters descendants of the spider which taught him to "try, try again." His victory, according to tradition, was foreseen and foretold by an old woman of the island, who was so sure of it that she sent her two sons with him to share in his coming good fortune :

"Within short time ye shall be king
And have the laud to your liking,
And overcome your foes all ;
But many annoyis thole ye shall
or that your purpose end have tane;
But you shall them outdrive ilkane,"

--the last line suggesting that the old lady was a golfer.

Rathlin has been the scene of three frightful massacres �one by the clan Campbell of all the inhabitants of the island�and for generations afterwards no Campbell dare put a foot on its shores�the others by English forces warring against Macdonnell ; on the second occasion over 600 were slain. Macdonnell saw the tragedy from the mainland, and "was likely to run mad from sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself and saying that he had then lost all he ever had."

The island is well worth visiting. There is a motor boat service between Ballycastle and Rathlin on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week, tide and weather permitting.

 

Ballintoy,
From Ballycastle to Portrush one may still follow the coast past Whitepark Bay, beloved by archaeologists, Kinbane, or White head, with its fragment of castle, Grace Staples cave, something like the cave at Staffa, and that famous spot Carrick-a-Rede, which means the "rock in the road," that is in the road of the salmon. It is separated from the mainland by a gap sixty feet wide, across which, ninety feet above the sea, is a frail rope bridge, which to ordinary nerves is a fairly severe test, though the fishermen can run across it and even carry sheep. Nearby is Ballintoy, well worth noting as a little known beauty spot and a delightful place for peaceful holiday-making, and for the sake of the history and legend which may be found around it, as in the ruins of Dunseverick Castle.

In the legends of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster Dunseverick was the home of Conal Cearnac, so famous as a wrestler and swordsman that with a band of comrades he pitted Irish skill against Roman, both in Britain and in Rome itself, and was victorious always. He then journeyed east and was in Jerusalem on the day of the crucifixion. He was near the Cross when the soldier pierced Christ's side, a drop of blood falling upon Conal's brow. He watched the soldiers casting lots for Christ's seamless coat, and joining them, won but refused to accept it. He was present at the burial, and it was he pushed aside the stone when Joseph was opening the tomb for, the reception of Christ's body

Another legend records the return of a Turlough O'Cahan from the crusades just in time to find a Danish chieftain, Hakon, undergoing baptism as a preliminary to marriage with Turlough's sister. Turlough, enraged at the proposal cried, " You have come here for baptism. I will baptise you with Greek fire." One can let the poet David Lindsay tell the rest :

" Turlough, from beneath his cloak, raised a vase above his head,
That descended, wrapping Jarl in flames that quick as lightning spread.
Soon the castle was on fire, and great were the alarms,
The Norseman upon Turlough leaped and locked him in his arms.
He tells him that he's now avenged they roll in death's embrace,
I am avenged,' again he cries ; and both died in that place.
The horror-stricken visitors fled down the deep descent,
In haste to reach the causeway ; to cross was their intent.
But the dreadful climax remains yet to be told
A wild cry went up from the crowd at what they did behold :
The lovely maiden, young and fair, being witness of such woe,
Leans from the cliff. a hundred feet. to the Seething waves below."

Saint Patrick once came to Dunseverick. The stone on which he sat has disappeared, but the well from which he drank and to which he gave his blessing, still flows at the foot of the adjoining cliff.

And now, after crossing the squat triangle on which are Bengore and Benbane Heads, we come to the famous Giant's Causeway.

The Giant's Causeway.
The Causeway is by some thought to be almost arm-in-arm with Portrush, but it is some six miles away, a distance  happily spanned by electric tram�and it is worth remembering that the original tram was the first in Great Britain on the hydro-electric principle. What can one say about the Causeway ?

" With skill so like, yet so surpassing, art ;
With such design so just in every part :
That reason pauses, doubtful if it stand
The work of mortal or immortal hand."

And indeed legend has ascribed it to a mortal if giant hand, declaring it to be the work of the famous Irish giant, Finn McCoul, though whether with the object of allowing him to cross to Scotland or a Scottish rival to cross to Ireland versions differ. That being so, it is better to stick to the teachings of geology which ascribe it to those gigantic outbursts of lava which did so much to mould County Antrim. Dr. Talmage best describes the quality which sets the Causeway apart : " You go to look at a celebrated lake, but you have seen other lakes. You go to look at a high mountain, but you have seen other mountains. You go to see .a great city, but you have seen other cities. But there is nothing in the world like the Giant's Causeway." That is its great quality. It is alone of its kind, unexampled, unique, a miracle in shape, as if gigantic bees had been its builders and their work had been in stone instead of wax. Here are many things�the Little, the Middle and the Grand Causeway, Lord Antrim's Parlour, the Organ, the Giant's Loom, the Giant's Well, the Gate-way, the Wishing Chair, the Lady's Fan, and the Key-stone. Other things to be seen are Portcoon Cave, Runkerry Cave, the Giant's Amphitheatre and Pleaskin Head, with a series of pillars sixty feet high shaping the face of the cliff, and no doubt a continuation of the Causeway. A long-forgotten entertainment with a long-forgotten singer once put it all into song :

" Then buy a box of specimens and take me for your guide,
I'll point you out all to he seen along the Causeway side;
I'll lead you to the Magic Well and to the Giant's Chair�
And all will surely come to pass you wish when seated there.
Who'll give a shilling for a box ? I really wish to sell�
Do buy a box of specimens from little Irish Nell."

Bushmills and Portballintrae.
Leaving the Causeway en route for Portrush one comes to Bushmills, a neat little town on the River Bush.

The river is well known for its salmon and trout fishing, and the town has also acquired a more than local reputation for its production of a whiskey known to connoisseurs as " Old Bushmills." Near Bushmills is the delightful seaside hamlet of Portballintrae. As a quiet health resort it is ideal, and its sandy beach a paradise for children.

Dunluce Castle.
Halfway between the Causeway and Portrush, placed on a rock jutting into the sea, are the ruins of Dunluce Castle, the most impressive on the entire coast. It was held by and reft from McQuillans, O'Neills, Macdonnells, and English garrisons, and in the reign of Elizabeth finally, by grant from her, was confirmed as the possession of Sorley Boy Macdonnell, the fiercest, most resolute, and most sagacious of his race. One story of its capture is worth re-telling on the authority of Sir John Perrot. When the Deputy, he says, "first took that pile he placed a pensioner called Peter Cary to be constable of it, with a ward of fourteen soldiers, thinking him to be of the English pale or race, but afterwards found that he was of the north. This constable, reposing trust in those of his country and kindred, had gotten some of them unto him, and discharged the English soldiers unknown to the Deputy. Two of these, having confederated with the enemy, drew up fifty of them by night with ropes made of withies. Having surprised the castle, they assaulted a little tower wherein the constable was and a few with him. They had first offered them life and to put them in any place they would desire (for so had the traitors conditioned with them before), but the constable, willing to pay the price of his folly, chose rather to forego his life in manly sort than to yield to any such conditions, and was slain."

To this wild spot on the northern coast another Macdonnell, the first Marquis of Antrim, brought his bride, widow of that Duke of Buckingham who was assassinated by Felton in the streets of Portsmouth, and thus Dunluce is strangely linked with D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and Miladi and Richelieu and Anne of Austria and the other children of history and the teeming mind of Dumas. It was in her time and during preparations for a banquet that portion of the castle collapsed into the sea, carrying with it to their death nine unfortunate servants. A tinker who was sitting in a window escaped, and the " Tinker's Window" is there till this day. But more and more ruin fell upon the castle. It changed hands during the wars of 1641-9, and finally the family seat was removed to Glenarm, where it is till this day.

" (trim fortress of the Northern Sea,
Lost are thy power and pride ;
Within thy undefended walls,
The folded sheep abide."

One cannot leave the neighbourhood of Dunluce without a reference to its connection with the Spanish Armada, still commemorated in the name of the little cove Port-na-Spania. Here was wrecked the Gerona, one of those gigantic galleys of the Armada which carried fifty guns and were driven by oar. At the moment of the wreck she was under the command of the famous Alonza da Leyva, who "was so celebrated a personality, with so many attractions combined in him of birth, bearing, and distinguished services, that of the fathers of the high-born youths who had volunteered to accompany the Armada most of them had committed their sons to da Leyva's special care." Already in that great rout he had lost his first ship and his second, the latter on the Irish coast ; but most of the company had been saved and made their way to Killybegs, where they found the Gerona. It could take on board only three hundred of the newcomers, and with this crowded vessel da Leyva tried to reach the Scottish coast. But with the single vessel, as with the great Armada, in the words of the Elizabethan medal, "Afflavit et Dissipantur, "the Lord sent His wind and scattered them," a gale broke, the oarsmen were utterly unable to keep the unwieldy vessel out to sea, and so she drove ashore on this narrow spit.

Only five, it is said, survived ; the others perished, and some 260 bodies, including da Leyva, were strewn upon the shore. The inevitable Macdonnells secured some of the vessel's guns, which they mounted in Dunluce, and at least one of the great iron treasure chests. What became of the guns has long since passed out of knowledge, but the chest, one understands, is still in the possession of the family at Glenarm.

Portrush.
Thus one comes to Portrush, of which one scarcely knows which is the more famous�the Golf Links or the Blue Pool.
When both are so good, there is no need to quarrel over pre-eminence. Portrush is, above all things. a health and holiday resort, and how long it has been noted as both may be judged from an advertisement of 1761 :

"At the house commonly called Bushfoot, where John Dunkins, Esq., usually lived, there will be lodgings kept for bathers or those who have a mind to drink the salt water, by Edward Fayth. Any gentlemen or ladies who will favour him with their company may depend on clean and orderly attendance with a reasonable charge, his wife being an Englishwoman. Also he will keep a cakehouse for those who pass by or repasses to the Giants Causeway with cyder and mead, and a fish dinner will be dressed for any that inclines to dine ; and those who come to bathe are desired to give a week's warning to your most obedient humble servant, Edward Fayth. N.B.�He intends keeping of goats."

Edward Fayth is long since a handful of indistinguishable dust; so is his wife, whose nationality was given as a pledge of cleanliness�a nasty jar to the natives of yesterday�but their spirit goes marching on in the Portrush of to-day, though we no longer have the taste of our ancestors for goat's whey.

Portrush it is a pretty place surrounded by the sea,
If it were cut from strand to strand an island it would be,"

which is the poet's way of saying it is built on a promontory some three hundred feet wide and is washed on three sides by the Atlantic. The mere site suggests fortification, and, when in the days of James I. it was rented from the Macdonnell of the time by a Captain Phillips on a forty years' lease at an annual payment of a hogshead of claret, the latter was vastly pleased with his bargain. He had visions of fortifications and of harbours which were to make it at once the key and the gate of the north. Neither came to anything, and more than two centuries after Phillips had been gathered to his fathers such emigrant ships�and they were many�as called at Portrush had to lie off the Skerries (those rocks to seaward) while the passengers and their gear were carried out by boat. More important now than its defensive strength is Portrush's salubrity, and the clean salt Atlantic winds are among the best of physicians. Ramore Head, nearly flat on the top, but ending on the west in a long range of steep cliffs, affords a magnificent view, more extended than Dick Swiviller's "over the way." One can to the west look over Derry into the hills of Donegal, northward to Scotland, notably Islay and the Paps of Jura, and, turning east, to Cantire and the hills of Arran, and down to Rathlin. Then there are walks along the strands, the west, which is about a mile and leads to the Black Rocks, and the east, about two miles long, leading to the White Rocks, carved by the sea into fantastic shapes. Here are the " Lion's Paw," the " Giant's Head," the " Wishing Well," and about twenty-seven caves, some accessible afoot but the greater number only by boat.

At the foot of Ramore Head are the recreation grounds, including greens for bowls and putting, and hard and grass tennis courts.

But it is for its golf that the town is most famous, and its links are not afraid to challenge those of St. Andrews. The course has long been on the championship rota, and with its recent changes is better and more strenuous than ever. There is also an eighteen-hole course for women.

The Blue Pool has already been mentioned in connection with bathing, and a more delightful spot and one better fitted to test the diver it would be hard to imagine. The South Pier is also notable, and there is in addition the Ladies' Bathing Place on the east side as well as facilities for those who cannot swim. In addition the L.M.S. authorities have built a large indoor sea-water Swimming Pond, open to the public, Music and Refreshments being available.

Portrush has had its share of tribulations. It was destroyed in 1584 by Sir John Perrot and again in 1642 by General Munroe, who razed both the castle and church. Portrush did not begin to recover from this second disaster till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when building once more commenced. It is worthy of note that from 1642 till 1831 it had no place of worship of any kind. Then a few of the Methodists got a grant of a piece of ground from the Earl of Antrim, and built a chapel. Its bell had a curious history. It was presented by Alexander I. of Russia to the Duke of Newcastle ; by the latter given to the famous Dr. Adam Clark (a notable divine, whose statue stands in the town), and by him to the chapel. It has an inscription " 1681. Franciseur Legillon Mammes Fremy Me Fecit Amster Dames." Surely a curious concatenation of people and events.

As Portrush is virtually at the western edge of County Antrim, one turns one's back upon the sea and heads the car into the long road which runs south-ward to Ballymoney.

Ballymoney.
Ballymoney, or rather the "Aenach- Cross," which a thousand years ago preceded it, has known what it is to entertain kings and to be described as Paradise. In the eighteenth century distinction was given to it by two brothers, John and David MacBride, sons of the Pres-
byterian clergyman. John, entering the Navy in days when promotion virtually depended upon birth and influence, rose through sheer force of ability till when he died in the year 1800 he was Admiral of the Blue. His was one of the vessels of Rodney's Fleet which beat the Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent, and it was MacBride in the Bienfaisant of 64 guns who captured the Spanish Admiral, Langara, in the Phoenix, of 84 guns. It is worth mentioning as a nice example of the naval chivalry of the day that MacBride allowed the Spaniards to remain prisoners on parole aboard their own vessel as his was reeking with smallpox, and that the Spaniards punctiliously observed the parole.

David, settling in Dublin, became a most distinguished physician, and, no doubt because of his brother's profession, turned his attention to scurvy, that immeasureable plague of countless generations of seamen. In course of time he concocted what he called a "wort," an infusion of herbs, some barrels of which Cook took on one of his voyages, with the result that not a man died during that particular voyage.

Within comparatively easy reach is Dervock, near which, at a townland named Conagher, was and is the ancestral home of President McKinley, one of the very many men of Ulster descent who have attained the White House.

Ballymena.
Once again the car heads southward till it reaches Ballymena, the "City of the Seven Towers," which is the geographical centre of the county. Comparatively modern, the town originally owed its prosperity to the linen manufacture introduced about 1732 by families named Adair and Dickey. The former family, which now holds a baronetcy, is still associated with the district, and it is probable that the " Fortunate Irishman " of the eighteenth century, the happy-go-lucky doctor with whom Admiral Keppel's daughter fell in love (with as one result the beautiful song " Robin Adair "), was one of them.

The most exciting incident in Ballymena's history was no doubt the battle which took place in its streets during the "turnout" of '98. It was, to use an Ulster phrase, a very "throughother" affair, reflecting little credit on the courage, the military skill, or the discretion of the insurgents. The town was in their possession for three days, after which the news of the defeats of their comrades elsewhere reached them, when there was a swift and almost general dispersal.

Ballymena is the nearest railway station to Slemish, which, as already mentioned, was the scene of St. Patrick's activity, also within easy reach are Kells, which contains the remains of an Abbey (not to be con-founded with the more famous Kells in Southern Ireland) ; and Gracehill, a Moravian settlement founded in 1765. The Valley of the Braid may be mentioned as one of the most fertile and placidly beautiful districts in the north.

Ballymena, it may be worth recalling, was the home of William Herbison, the " Bard of Dunclug," one of the many Ulster peasant poets who took to verse largely because Burns had been a peasant and a poet before them.

Antrim.
From Ballymena to Antrim there is a choice of routes�the one direct, the other through Toome, at the exit of the River Bann from Lough Neagh. In the old fighting days it was one of the most important river crossings In Ulster ; now it is chiefly notable as a centre of the eel fisheries of the lough. From Toome one passes to Randalstown, which although it lay in O'Neill territory was. amazing as it may seem, named after a Macdonnell ; and so, still skirting Lough Neagh, the car comes to Antrim, also on the lough. Not so much is heard nowadays of the

" Lough Neagh hones! Lough Neagh hones!
You put 'em in sticks and you take 'em out stones,"

from a former belief in the petrifying qualities of the water. It was even said that the fishermen had no need to buy hones for their razors, as all they had to do was to turn up their trousers and sharpen the blades on their shins.

Antrim is one of the most interesting little towns in the north, and rare, if not unique, in being now a couple of miles from its original site. It has, moreover, one of the only two perfect Round Towers in Ulster, the other being on Devenish Island, in Lough Erne. It, too, was the scene of a battle in '98, and the insurgents being led by Henry Joy McCracken himself, one of the chiefs, the fighting here was severe though it had the usual ending. It may be added that McCracken, a young and honest enthusiast of whom one can only speak with respect, was afterwards hanged in the High Street of Belfast, from the Market House, which had been the gift, or so it is said, of his family to the town.

The little town has a happier memory in being the first place in Ireland where the principles of the Society of Friends were advocated, its and Ulster's first Quaker being a William Edmundson, of whose journal Wesley wrote : ` His opinions I leave ; but what a spirit was there ! What faith, love, gentleness, long-suffering ! Could mistakes send such a man as this to hell ? Not so. I am so far from believing this that I
scruple not to say, ' Let my soul be with the soul of William Edmundson.' " Antrim has had other notable figures of various denominations, and one cannot but be charmed with a poetic tribute to one of them, a Mr. Abernethy :

He was a bright and luminous preacher,
A sound and honest moral teacher.
He knew the system of creation
Better than most men of the nation --
And sat sedately at his ease
And ate his butter, bread and cheese."

Coming to the present day, the cottage in which was born Rev. Alexander Irvine, D.D., author of that poignant Irish peasant life story " My Lady of the Chimney Corner,' and other works, who, by his own efforts, rose from a newspaper boy, is in Pogue's Entry, off Church Street, where a memorial has been erected to his parents.

In the old graveyard at Donegore, a few miles from Antrim, was buried Sir Samuel Ferguson. one of the most considerable Irish poets prior to Yeats. Ferguson, by the way, being born in High Street, Belfast, where a plaque marks the house.

Other persons connected with the town have been Owen O'Connelly, who first gave information about the intended rising of 1641, and thus was the means of preventing Dublin Castle from capture ; Sir John Clot-worthy, one of the eleven Presbyterian Members of the House of Commons in Cromwell's day who were impeached for their opposition to those who had seized King Charles and were about to try him for treason. The Rev. William King, Archbishop of Dublin, was the son of an Antrim tradesman.

Those who do any flying in Ulster know Aldergrove, an R.A.F. centre, some four miles from Antrim, and the training ground of Ulster's Auxiliary of the Air Force.

Fishing is to be had near the town in the Maine and the Six Mile Rivers.

The Massereene Golf Club has a pretty nine-hole course along the shores of the lough. There are tennis clubs at Antrim and Muckamore nearby, both open to visitors.

From Antrim the car runs, still southward, through Crumlin, a village whose name means " Crooked Glen," and Glenavy, another village, whose name, properly Lanaway, indicates the " Church of the Dwarf " from a diminutive cleric installed here by St. Patrick. Not far away is Crewe Hill, on which the Kings of East Ulster (Ulidia) used to be crowned, and where, in the year 1005, one of them and no less a person than Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, exchanged courtesies and gifts�or possibly dues. Brian gave the Ulsterman 1,200 horses, receiving in his turn 1,200 oxen, 1,200 pigs and 1,200 sheep�which seems a somewhat unequal barter. Passing Ballinderry, famous for its onions�"As strong as a Ballinderry onion " is an Ulster simile�one runs into the compact town of Lisburn.

Lisburn
As a town owes its foundation to a Sir Fulke Conway, to whom the district was granted about 1609, and its prosperity to the establishment of the linen trade here in 1698 by Louis Crommelin, a French Huguenot refugee appointed by William III. to organise the entire linen industry of Ireland. The town was twice destroyed, first in the war of 1641, when, however, the Irish Army was defeated (a long account of the battle is contained in the Cathedral register), and the second time in 1707 by an accidental fire, when the castle, the church and the whole town were reduced to ashes.

Many famous men have been associated with Lisburn. They include Louis Crommelin, already mentioned, whose work fructifies in Ulster till this day. Here also as Bishop of Down and Connor lived Jeremy Taylor, the great English divine, author of " Holy Living" and " Holy Dying," who also died in Lisburn, though, curiously enough, he was buried in Dromore. An interesting ruin connected with his ministry is to be seen at old church, Ballinderry, on the shores of Portmore Lake. But greatest of all Lisburn's great figures was Nicholson of Delhi, a true native in that his parents were Lisburn people and part of his youth was spent in the town, though he was not, despite the inscription on his statue, born there but in Dublin. " Rare gifts had marked him for great things in peace and war," says the tablet in the Cathedral. " He had an iron mind and frame,
a terrible courage, an indomitable will. His form seemed made for an army to behold, his heart to meet the crisis of an empire." In that great "crisis of an empire," the Indian Mutiny, the part played by Ulstermen�by Nicholson at Delhi, Henry Lawrence in Lucknow, John Lawrence in the Punjab�should be remembered while one British foot treads Indian soil. Of smaller and yet noteworthy people associated with Lisburn mention should be made of the Rev. Philip Skelton, an eighteenth century clergyman, a man of many eccentricities, but one of the very few real Christians in that very venal age ; W. H. Betty, the " Infant Roscius," to see whose acting as a child Pitt adjourned the House of Commons ; and Sir Richard Wallace, who gave to the nation Hertford House and its collection of pictures. Nor should one forget Henry Bayly, who just a century ago immortalised Lisburn in verse that is unique in English literature as a description of a British town :

" No snakes, nor toads, nor adders here abound,
To fill with venom dire the smiling ground ;
No wolves or bears here panting range the plain
For human blood, the fertile soil to stain ;
No ravenous lions here are heard to roar
With flaming tongues, which thirst for human gore ;
No serpents with a poisonous hiss are here
To strike the traveller with dread and fear ;
(On these blest plains, oh ! never may they roam,
Except when critics damn for trash my poem !)

The town is fortunate in possessing such amenities as the Castle Gardens and Wallace Park, the latter containing cricket, tennis and bowling grounds. There is, moreover, an excellent nine-hole golf course within five minutes' walk of the centre of the pleasant town. Fishing may be had in the Rivers Lagan and Ravarnette, and also in the lake at Ballykeel.

And so the traveller has now but a few miles to run and he is back in Belfast, his tour of Antrim completed, and here not a tithe has been told of its interest.

As a large part of this journey has been made by car it is not inappropriate to relate that the very first car to be put on the road, certainly in Ulster and almost as certainly in all Ireland, was driven and owned and had been built by a County Antrim man, and that as far back as the year 1836. It was the handiwork of Rowan, of a famous foundry, who drove it through Belfast on the 5th January, the band of the 46th Regiment preceding it. It was, needless to say, a steam coach ; it had two engines, each of ten horse-power; its boilers were water tubes ; it carried twenty-eight passengers, and it could travel at fifteen miles an hour. In another year every motorist of Ulster ought to celebrate its centenary.

A word or two might be added of some of the famous men who have been the offspring of County Antrim. Among churchmen these would include the Archbishop King and Philip Skelton, already mentioned. Scientists will know the names of Joseph Black, one of the pioneers of modern chemistry and an intelligible theory of heat, and the still living Joseph Larmor, so long the secretary of the Royal Society. Soldiers include the towering figure of Nicholson of Derry ; of Sir Charles Rowan, who fought in Wellington's campaigns, and later became the first chief of Peel's new police, and did so much to reconcile the public to the " Peelers " ; his brother, Sir William, also one of Wellington's men, who died a Field Marshal. Poets would include Sir Samuel Ferguson and Dr. Drennan, It was Drennan who first christened Ireland the " Emerald Isle" in a poem written in 1795.

" When Erin first rose from the dark swelling flood,
God blessed the green island, He saw it was good ;
The Emerald of Europe, it sparkled, it shone,
In the ring of the world the most precious stone.

" Arm of Erin, prove strong ; but be gentle as brave,
And, uplifted to strike, still be ready to save ;
Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile
The cause or the men of the Emerald Isle."

Art supplies the name of Patrick MacDowell, the sculptor, and of Sir John Lavery, the painter, and medicine and surgery the two MacCormacs, father and son. There are many more. The list could be indefinitely extended. But we in County Antrim are a somewhat curiously modest lot. We are so conscious of our worth that we do not care who doesn't know it.