Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Journey to the North, August 7th, 1708 (Author: Samuel Molyneux)

entry 8

Saturday
Having Passed the Night but ill, we were Soon on our journey, and arrived early thro' a wild, open Countrey at Ballymony — a pretty, clean, English-like Town belonging to the Earl of Antrim, who has here in possession a prodigious scope of Land, I believe of some 30 or 40 miles in Length. Here we tooke a Guide to the Gyant's Cawsey. The Land about it, & particularly the head Land under which it Lyes, is very good Sheepwalk, and lies very high, so that you have from hence, as indeed you have from most of the hills in this Easterly part of the North, a fair prospect of several parts of Scotland and the Isle of Man. You go down to the Cawsey by a very narrow path along the side of the Hill. I carryed along with me the print of the Cawsey after Mr. Sandys' Draught from the Philosophical Transactions, as also Dr. Molyneuxe's Discourse of it in a Letter to Dr. Lister, also in the Transactions, and compared them both on the place as strictly as I could. The Draught is pretty well as to the Cawsey itself, bit not so Exact in the face of the Hill and the Organs or Loomes as it should be; and indeed it does not repressent ye Cawsey itself to run from the Hill so as it does. I think it would be as necessary and usefull to have a plan of it as well as a prospect as for the account on't in Dr. Lister's Letter.

Having taken a sufficient view of the Gyant's Cawsey, we mounted again in order to go to Colrain. We rid here a good way along the North Shore on great sands, where I am


p.158

told are Warrens of a prodigious Length of Excellent Rabets. About three mile from ye Cawsey you come to a Fameous old place called Dunluce. This was an old Castle, formerly the seat of ye Earls of Antrim. Its situation is very romantick and out of the way. 'Tis built on a Large Rock, Entirely separated from the Land. It has been a vast Large Pile, and covers the whole Rock, so that you can spit out of most of ye Windows into the Sea, which is a Vast depth under you. However, the Natural or Artificial hollows in this Rock are such that I am told the sea beats into all the Cellars. In high tides 'tis Entirely surrounded with water, but the precipice by which 'tis divided from the shore is so terrible that this Castle seemes to me innacessible on all sides at the Lowest water, and was certain when in Repair a most inexpugnable place to the Instruments of War used in those dayes. They tell you here that one part of the house and Rock which hung over the sea, being the Kitchin and part of the Great Hall, fell down during a great Entertainment into the Sea, and Several Persons were lost. The only passage into it was by a Bridge over that precipice, of which there now Remains only one wall to go over by; but it was too windy weather when I was there to Venture this Passage without ye help of a Rope stretched across to hold by. The Court belonging to this house is on the Land, but I could not observe any remains of Gardens or Grown Trees, nor do I think it possible to have any such in this bleak situation. From hence 2 hours 1/2 brings you to Colrain, which is a good, large, compact, well-built Town, sittuated on the Fine River Bann. It looks like a clean, pretty Town as you go thro' it, but the Inn in which we Lay was the most drunken, Stinking Kennel that ever I smelt or saw. About a small mile up the River is the Famous Fishery of Colrain. This has nothing Extraordinary in its Contrivance, and has been wholly to an accident that it was ever made. There is here a fall in the River, and a Gentleman in the neighbourhood having occasion to bring Down some Timber down the River, makes at this fall Cut of a matter of 10 or 20 foot over, to Let his Timber down. The Cut Remains, and the Salmons, at those seasons of the year they go up and down the River, finding this the most Easy passage, Come up and Down in great Shoals, which the Fishermen observing, built here a Wire Enclosing some 40 foot in Length of this Cut, and with some Fish-boats that Fish at the River's mouth, takes the vast quantity of Fish that is here taken, which I think is not owing to any peculiar artifice in the Fishery, but the Love the Fish have to that water, and the great Quantity of Waters that are above, the whole River, which is no small one, much Larger than the Liffey, from Colrain to the great Lough Neagh, the whole Lough itself, and several Rivers that run into it. In the high season of the year the Fish pass here in such Shoals that the whole cut will be sometimes so full the Fish shall force one another above water. Insomuch that in one day (which the Bishope of Derry has) there have been taken sometimes to the value of 400l, and we were assured 'tis actually sett for 200l per Annum. From a Hill the Road here passes over going to Derry we have a fine Prospect of the River and Town below the Road, and of a pretty Improvement of one Mr. Jackson's joyning the Town. This River has between Colrain and the Lough two very narrow falls, which in Winter do not Discharge near so much water as the Rains make, which causes the Lough to overflow some 1,000s of Acres. This might be helped, I hear, for 5 or 6,000 pounds, so as to make the River navigable also to the very Lough to boats of 30 or 40 Ton.