done much towards removing the stigma. We have done this directly and indirectly, by giving a voice to our literature, an encouragement to our scholars, and a support to many a man of genius, during that most trying of all periods, the commencement of a professional career. We have, in truth, created a periodical literature in Ireland, and for Ireland; and in so doing, we have had an ample reward. We have extended our publication far and wide. Our numbers have penetrated to the lofty range of the Himmalaya Mountains, and, crossing them, have entertained, and we hope instructed, in China; we have been read in the Pacific Ocean, and have found our way to the utmost limits of civilisation in Australia and the interior of America; while in England and Scotland we enjoy a large circulation. In these our endeavours, we have been largely aided by the press of Great Britain, and to it we now desire to render our best and most grateful acknowledgments. While our views upon subjects on which great difference of opinion prevails, have been canvassed with a free spirit of criticism, which we neither deprecate nor disapprove of, we heartily admit the fairness and good-feeling with which we have, on the whole, been treated. The British press is the most candid, the most enlightened, the most incorruptible, we firmly believe, in the world; we honour and admire the free-born spirit that animates it, and we feel that while it exists, freedom of speech and freedom of thought shall ever be secured to us. Long may this high and holy safeguard be ours. Long may popular opinion thus find its legitimate exponent and its legitimate guide; and when we fail to deserve its approval, we shall be ready to admit that we have failed in the great object of our existence, and shall no longer be worthy of popular support. But while we aim at being œcumenical in our views, we admit that our principal object is to be national. National, not in a narrow sense of the term, but in that larger sense which endeavours to raise ourselves, our interests, and our institutions from the position of mere provincialism, to that of a component part of the greatest and the most extended empire that the sun ever shone upon. Our country has ever been the land of poesy and of song. It is but recently that one of her sons, the first of lyrists, has passed away from amongst men. It is, nevertheless, a fact, however strange, that till within recent times the poetic resources and the poetic mind of Irishmen were not brought forward as they should have been. We believe that we have aided in remedying this: we believe that we have done much to foster and encourage the efforts of many a child of song, and raised around us a body of bards who may yet do credit to our land, and not dishonour the country which produced a Goldsmith, a Wolfe, a Butler, and a Moore. We can look around us and sympathising in the And if, while we watch And such are we at this Present, dear Public. Our worst trials past, our greatest dangers overcome: we have weathered the storm, we have escaped the shoals and the syrtes, and are now safe in the haven. with a thankful heart and an honest pride-estimating struggles of others, and wishing them, too, God speed. them anxiously as they work their toiling way, even as we did, we feel a complacent satisfaction, not that they are in peril, but that our perils are over :— "Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ; Non quia vexari quemquam et jucunda voluptas, Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli; Ad summas emergere opes rerum que potiri." More than ten years ago, when contemplating the prospect then before us, we ventured thus to speak :- -- "Hour after hour to our view the horizon appears brightening with the illumination of a light, that, it may be, has not yet arisen: but fast and certain follows the sunrise on the dawn. Already can we feel its harbinger, the breath of knowledge, abroad, dispersing by degrees the mists and vapours of the night the obscurity which concealed deformity, the indistinctness that gave greatness to self-seeking and meanness. With hope, therefore, do we look from the present into the future-hope, perchance not undarkened with apprehensions, but still with apprehensions soothed and softened by the charity which, believing and enduring all things, would fain perceive in the gradual diffusion of good principles, in the humanising effects of extended education and improved literature, in the growing strength and energy of the champions of truth, indications and sources of that peace and happiness which shall yet overshadow the land." What was then our future is now our present; nor have our anticipations altogether failed to be realised. Notwithstanding that on the approach of day a dark cloud suddenly arose, to hide the brightness of the sunrise, and plunge the country in gloom, yet the shadow is passing away-may we not even say, is now past? We are now in the broad light of the morning, and can hope for a glorious noon. Education has, indeed, been largely extended. The love of literature has struck its roots deeply into the hearts of the country, and has not failed to fructify in the increase as well as the improvement of literature. And with literature has come knowledge, and with knowledge has come truth. There remains now but little of our predictions to be realised. The full triumph of truth, truth that will make the soul free, and bring lasting peace and prosperity to the nation. And now for our FUTURE. Of the Future, who can speak otherwise than with diffidence? Man's vision is but short and imperfect when he looks forward. The wisdom of Him, around whose throne are clouds and darkness, has wrapped the future in the impenetra ble veil that pavilions His own brightness. All that we can do is to be true of purpose, to be firm of heart, to be resolute, industrious, self-reliant and hopeful. The principles and mode of action that have heretofore made our efforts successful, are, we believe, the best means of sustaining us in our present position, and of elevating us to a higher one. We have pledged ourselves to a good work. We will endeavour to redeem that pledge, and carry out the great object of our being. Our chiefest aim-let us rather say our sole purpose is our country's good. Were we to descend to a lower ambition, that of self-aggrandisement, or the furtherance of mere party or local views, we should be false to our mission, and ultimately fail, even in our paltry object. To expound and enforce to the best of our ability, true, enlightened and impartial views in politics and in religion; to maintain our own principles, and to be at the same time tolerant and considerate with regard to those who differ from us; to elevate the literature of our country; to develop her resources, and to stimulate her exertions-these are the true objects of our periodical, the very life and soul that should animate her, the very end and purpose of her being. Failing in this, she fails in everything that is worth struggling for. That we have ever aimed at this, that, whatever may have been our short-comings, we have in part accomplished it, we cannot but believe, for we have the assurance of our own position to warrant us in the belief the testimony of many, who differ from us on particular subjects and controverted points, to sustain us. In the course that we have hitherto prescribed to ourselves we shall still continue, endeavouring to keep pace with the improved knowledge and enlightened progress of the age in which we live; endeavouring to see the truth, and express it fearlessly; offering no compromise of principle, making no sacrifice of consistency. And so, striving to earn the support of all who love our country, and would see it taking its rightful position amongst the nations of the world, we hesitate not to call upon them for continued favour and increased support. And now our self-examination is over. We have rendered our account of the PAST; we have stated our position in the PRESENT, and declared our intentions for the FUTURE. If in so doing we have been led to speak much of ourselves, we trust that the necessity of the case will plead in extenuation for so doing. It is not easy to do all this in a spirit of truth and candour, without seeming to do it in a spirit of self-laudation and egotism. Let us, however, acknowledge-and how willingly do we make the acknowledgment—that all our intentions would have been unavailing, all our exertions fruitless, had we not been sustained by a spirit of nationality, that, however it may slumber for a time, is never dead amongst us; had we not been supported by the hands and hearts of our own people, and the voice of public opinion in our favour. Ireland has now her own literature, her own vehicle of thought, her own exponent of feeling. Whatever may happen, of one thing we feel assured, that she will never again lapse into silence. If our zeal should grow cold, our ability become paralysed, or our industry falter, the want that we have in our day supplied and satisfied will never again be known amongst us; the spirit, once vivified and informed, never shall die within us; the voice that has been heard shall never be silenced. Meantime, we shall press forward, rallying around us many a good and a true heart, many a ready pen, many a keen wit, many a bright genuis; and as recurring months shall again and again bring round new years, it is the dearest wish of our hearts that our periodical may still be found flourishing. In this there can be no selfish feeling; individual feelings and individual interests, sink and become absorbed in a spirit of patriotism. Who or what are we who write and labour to-day? To-morrow our hands may forget their cunning, our hearts may be cold in death. But when we are laid in our graves, the same holy fire which it has been our privilege to kindle and keep alive shall be transmitted to cur successors. So may that future, which perchance is denied to us, be realised to our children and our children's children, and the work of our hands and the thoughts of our hearts be long perpetuated and improved in the pages of THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE! GWEEDORE. "SET a stout heart to a steep brae," says the Scottish proverb, and over many a sore pinch, moral and physical, has the truth that therein lies triumphantly borne our northern fellow-subjects during their toilsome wayfaring from the barbarism and misery of the first half of the eighteenth century, to the civilisation and prosperity that at the present day distinguish Scotland among the nations. Stout hearts did it all; and how much was done, is it not told by Fletcher of Saltoun, on the one hand, and by the teeming fields of the Lothians, the busy banks and waters of the Clyde, the factories of Renfrew, the forges of Lanark, and, better than all, by the schools in every parish of the kingdom, on the other? Against the obstacles of an ungrateful climate, a stubborn soil, popular ignorance, feudal oppression, and government neglect, the stout native heart of Scotland set itself, and overcame them all. "We have no hesitation in affirm. ing," says a competent, and not unfriendly judge," that no settled country, of which we have any au thentic accounts, ever made half the progress in civilisation and the accumulation of wealth, that Scotland has done since 1763, and especially since 1787." Stout hearts, we again say, have done it all; and in application of the moral, we venture to ask our own dear fellow-countrymen, what there is in the air, the soil, the nature of the people, or the political condition of Ireland, to prevent like influences from producing like effects within her boundaries? It is true that difficulties and perils thickly beset the path of the Irish regenerator, whether his course be guided by philanthropy or utilitarianism; but where is the example in which manly courage and resolution have been brought to bear upon obstacles and dangers, with prudence and perseverance, and yet have failed in surmounting or eluding them? The question opens a wider field of inquiry than it is our present object to explore; instead, therefore, of entering upon the wearisome task of discussing the causes of the failure of the thousand and one plaus that have been conceived and put into execution for the regeneration of Ireland, we shall endeavour to bring within the familiar cognisance of our readers, a modern instance, in which a steep and rugged Irish brae has been manfully and successfully encountered by a stout Irish heart. But let there be no mistake; the story of Gweedore includes no panacea for the Irish diffi culty; the lesson it teaches is for all mankind, and for all time. Its subject is the power of kindness, reason, and firmness over the heart of man. Applied at home, it but shows that the native prejudices, the indolence, and the obstinacy of the merest Celt, are not altogether beyond those influences that work marvels upon the rest of the hu man race. It It is now, we regret to say, nearly a quarter of a century since we took horse, at six o'clock one fine summer's morning, in the small town of Letterkenny, and with "back turned to Britain, and face to the west," we bent our course toward the Bloody Foreland, the extreme north-western headland of the county of Donegal. was late in the afternoon of the same day, when, under the direction of a guide, we arrived at the lead-mine of Kildrum, close to the north-eastern verge of the district of country now known as the Gweedore estate of Lord George Hill. Although the mine was then in active work, the only mode of approaching it, or of transporting the ore for shipment at Ballyness Bay, was by a road little better than the track of a mountain stream, over which it required some nerve to ride upon the well-accustomed and sure-footed horses of the country. The district, including more than twenty-three thousand acres, and inhabited by upwards of three thousand persons, will be found on the map, in a nook lying between the point of the Bloody Foreland on the north, the estuary of the Gweedore on the south, and the conical mountain of Arrigal on the south-east. It has a coast line of several miles in length, washed by the Atlantic Ocean, and garnished by a number of picturesque islands. It was then disjoined from the world, rather than connected with it, by the track terminating at Kildrum mine, and by two other lines of disjunction, one of which, passing along the coast from Ballyness Bay to Clady Bridge, was indeed called a road, but was altogether impassable by any variety of wheeled carriage. This, nevertheless, was the channel of the whole traffic of the district. Through it flowed the export trade in oats and poteen whiskey; and it served equally for the reflux of articles of import, then consisting almost exclusively of leather for brogues, iron for horse-shoes, and boards and nails for coffins. Inward and outward, the transit of these important goods was carried on upon the backs of men and horses; and the experienced observer could always trace the destination of the last exotic luxury enjoyable by a resident of Gweedore, in the furrows left by the corners of the coffin boards, as, with one extremity tied over the shoulders of a pony, the other was suffered, in contemptuous disregard of the laws of friction, to trail along the mountain path. On the southern border, an adventurous traveller on foot or horseback might wade waist-deep over the bar formed by the meeting of the river with the sea in the estuary of the Gweedore; but as this passage, figuratively called "the ferry," could only be effected at certain periods of the tide, and was often dangerous, in consequence of the shifting nature of the sands, it was not available as a path for even that limited commerce to which we have alluded. Seawards, the natives indulged their wandering impulses by excursions to the islands in their neighbourhood, in boats so pri. mitive in construction and character as to deserve a particular description. The corragh is an oval vessel, of wicker work, not unlike a large round-bottomed cradle, without a head. It is about nine feet in length, over all, three feet in width, and two feet in depth. It has no keel; and in the process of building, the order of procedure is the opposite of that adopted in ordinary naval architecture. The gunwale is laid down first, and consists of a flat oval frame, perforated with holes, at regular distances, into which the ribs-stout willow rods-are inserted. Between these, slighter willows are interwoven, so as to form a basket-work bulwark, of about six inches in depth. The ribs are then brought together at the place where the keel ought to be, and being intertwined, are strengthened by laths crossing them from stem to stern, and lashed at each crossing with cords of horsehair. The frame being thus completed, it is "skinned" with a horse or cowhide, or now, in the progress of civilisation, with a covering of tarred can vas. The gallant ship is then finished, and ready to brave the dangers of the ocean. It is fitted with neither beam nor thwart, but accomodates its crew in that primitive posture which men and monkeys assumed before the invention of chairs, and the continued use of which by modern tailors proves the unbroken succession of that ancient craft. Squatted on the floor of his corragh, it behoves the adventurous navigator to remain perfectly steady. If he throws but a very little too much of his weight to one side, he will be upset; if he extend his leg with Celtic energy, he will, in all probability, drive his foot through the slight partition that separates him from the deep. In using the short paddle, then, with which the corragh is propelled, the utmost caution is required, and yet the burthens with which it is occasionally freighted are really extraordinary. A load of turf, a keg of whiskey, a cow, are no unusual freight; nay, an adventure is related by Lord George Hill, in which a man and his wife not only crossed from the island of Arranmore to the mainland in a corragh, filled with turf, and with a horse standing on top, but actually succeeded in getting the horse inboard, after he had been washed off by a sea at a considerable distance from the shore. It is not difficult to conceive that many strange features must characterise the moral and social condition of a people thus separated from the world in aboriginal wildness; but a slight preliminary glance at the aspect of physical nature, with which they are confronted from the cradle to the grave, will, perhaps, help to render some of their strangest peculiarities intelligible, "Facts from Gweedore. Compiled from Notes by Lord George Hill, M R.I.A," Dublin. 1846. |