Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Pococke's Tour in Ireland in 1752 (Author: Richard Pococke)
entry 25
On the 19th I rode with the family to Church and preached, met Mr. Wray and family there, who came and dined at Mr. Stewart's. This Gentleman's house is situated on the side of the hill over the bay, which extends to the north east and makes Horn Head; the house is fortified in some manner, and stood a siege against a privateer's crew in the wars at the beginning of this century; there is a bay on the main sea to the north west, called Trahemore (the great Strand) between that and the other strand is a great bank and hillocks of sand, which gain on the ground to the east, this and some ground bordering on it, make a very large warren belong to Mr. Stewart, of which he makes about £500 a year, killing commonly 14 or 1500 dozen in a year, the skins of which he sells for about nine shillings a dozen, and the flesh for six pence a dozen. In the evening we rode across it to the bay, on each side of which the rocks are very fine, the beach consists of large pebbles, and finding ridges of them farther from the sea under the sand, they conclude that the sea looses here. We went to the north west side of the bay to the sea cliffs, to see that great curiosity Mac Suines Gun. The cliffs about 100 feet high form a little triangular creek
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at the bottom of which is a hole in the rock like a large arch, it may be fifty feet wide, this may go in about thirty feet, and over it is an opening which is irregular, but at the top forms a triangle it may be fifteen feet on one side and thirty on the two others; on the arch mentioned on the outside we saw the waves roll in, and filling the hole, they tumbled back with a great noise, 'tho it was a very fine calm evening; but in stormy weather when the waves are drove in with great violence, and one succeeding another very quick, the water is forced up to the top with the very stones, and sometimes with such force that it forms a jetteau in a large body rising very high, some said, a height hardly to be believed, but probably an hundred feet, the wind blowing the water with great force over the land, so as that there is no standing against it, not only on account of the water, but likewise of the stones which it throws up. From this I went over the stony ground, in which the stones are laid along in rows in many places as for bounds, but in some places so near to one another, that I concluded many of them were pickt up by the herdsmen to clear the ground. The rocks at Horn Head are very high, and it is a curious sight to see the birds when they are breeding; being much like that of the Isle of Wight; they are of three sorts, the Puffin about as big as a partridge, called also Coulterneb, they have a parrot's bill: the Razor bill or Auk, as big as a Pheasant, with a parrot bill likewise: the Furun with a sharpe picked bill; on the strands they have a seapye with a red bill and legs, which lays in the rocks on the shore and does not go into the sea, and I was informed that Curlieus lay in the rocks of inland mountains: Passing through the water over a strand, I was made to observe that the birds follow'd the horses, and dived down where 'ere
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they had trod, which is to take up the sandeeles, and other small fish that are pressed out of the sand by the feet of the horses. I went to see the marble quarry near Dunfanahy, it is a white marble with some bluish veins, the bed may be about six or seven feet thick, in which there is one layer near three feet thick, of much better marble than the rest: It lies in a large patch from the mountain to the sea, where a stream spreads itself from the mountain; by the look of it and by the manner in which the bed lies, I concluded it to be an Alabaster made by the running of the water which brings the fine particles of the stone that unite and form the Alabaster as in the Stalactites; asking the quarriers whether it was an Alabaster, they said it was not, but a lime stone, which I imputed to their ignorance, if so be that Alabaster will burn to lime, as if I mistake not, it does. Going from church in the morning I observed a circumstance, which added to the Romantic view of the mountains to the south: In the side of one of them a sort of Amphitheatre is formed in the rock; here I saw several hundred people spread all over that plain spot and the priest celebrating Mass under the rock, on an altar made of loose stones, and tho' it was half a mile distant, I observed his Pontifical vestment with a black cross on it; for in all this country for sixty miles west and south as far as Connaught, they celebrate in the open air, in the fields or on the mountains; the Papists being so few and poor, that they will not be at the expense of a public building.