Almost still more beautiful, and nearly as interesting, are the bays and headlands in the neighbourhood of the Causeway. Along the entire coast, from the mouth of the little river Bush to the far-projecting promontory of Bengore, is a succession of little, deep, elegant, round bays. These bays are all surrounded with lofty basaltic shores, with a double row of columns, with strata of ochre, sandstone, and clay-slate, so that each resembles an amphitheatre. The headlands, lofty and rugged, (each of which has, at the base of its extremity, either a kind of little Causeway, or a multitude of great basalt boulder-stones, or some basalt rocks, which look like ruins or tall chimneys,) form a close succession of magnificent capes, which, in variety or elegance of form, can scarcely be equalled any where else. Viewed from the sea, all these various black headlands seem like a single, dark, lofty mass; and the entire line of coast, for about four miles, is called by the sailors Bengore, that is, the Goat's Head, or the Goat's Mountain. To the traveller on the shore, who can perceive its various little portions, each of them appears majestic and grand enough.
The first bay, which lies on the western side of the Causeway, is called Port Noffer Bay, probably an old Irish name corrupted by the English. A narrow footpath, called the ‘Shepherd's Path,’ leads up the rugged steep to the highest pinnacle of the cliff, which, as well on its edge as far into the country, is perfectly level and covered with a short grass. On this beautiful level sward one can walk round the curves of the bays, and out even to the extreme points of the headlands; for terrible as the precipices, chasms, rents, and cliffs look from below, they appear quite
Port Noffer Bay is followed by another, and then another and another. The first is called the Giant's Amphitheatre, at least by my guides; the second Port Keostan, the third Roveran Valley, and, finally, the fourth, Port-na-Spagna. The lofty capes which run out between them, and are 400 feet high, have all separate names. Thus, for instance, they call one ‘The Grand View,’ another ‘Roveran Valley Head,’ &c. It was absolutely impossible not to look down into every bay, not to run out on every headland, for the prospects were always surprising, charming, beautiful, and interesting. The high surf, dashing against the points—the smooth waters in the bays—the little islands in their centres—the beautiful roundly-formed shores—the extensive prospect over the wide ocean at their feet—the long coast, as far as Innishowen Head—the narrow entrance to Lough Foyle in the distance,—with beholding this over and over again, one can never be satisfied in the few brief moments of half a day.
The bay called the Giant's Amphitheatre is the most perfect amphitheatre in the universe, not even excepting the world-famous one at Rome. It forms a half-circle, as perfect as any architect could make it, and the rocks slope down towards the centre at the same angle on every side. The steps of the round wall of rock are equally regular: first, there is a colonnade eighty feet high; then a broad projecting circular bench, for the giants we may imagine to have been the guests of Finn Mac-Cul; then another step, sixty feet high, formed of elegantly arranged pillars, followed by another bench, which runs all round; and so on, down to the bottom. The water is completely enclosed with a wall of black boulder-stones, forming, as it were, the bounds of the arena; and the whole presents a scene in describing which no traveller need fear running into exaggeration, for all the images and expressions he can employ must fall far short of the reality.
The wind was so extremely violent, the ridges of the rocks, so narrow, and the turf so wet and slippery, that we (my head guide
We crept safely back again to the above-mentioned goose-pasture, and after crawling round some other remarkable bays and headlands, we at length arrived at Pleaskin Promontory, or as it is properly called in Irish ‘Plaisg-cian,’ i. e. the dry head. This
| No. | Feet |
|---|---|
| 1. Summit. Thin layer of earth and sward. Irregular basalts, shivered and cracked at the surface | 12 |
| 2. Perpendicular range of coarse pillars, containing air-holes | 60 |
| 3. Coarse bed of rude amorphous basalts, showing marks of a tendency toward forms, resembling an imperfect crystallization | 60 |
| 4. Second range of regular pillars, neat, and divided into joints | 40 |
| 5. Bed of red argillaceous ochre, on which the second range of pillars rests | 22 (includes 5.-7.) |
| 6. A thin course of iron ore amid the bed of ochre | |
| 7. Soft argillaceous stone, of various colours, and mottled appearance, friable, and resembling a variety of steatites | |
| 8. Succession of five or six coarse beds of table basalts, between which thin strata of ochre and other substances occur | 180 |
| 374 |
We give our readers this estimate in order to assist their imagination in forming a clear conception of the exterior of this coast. Pleaskin was immediately succeeded by Port-na-Trughen, i. e. the ‘Bay of Sighs’. According to the accounts of the people, as well as to the descriptions of credible travellers, some long-drawn sounds are produced in the fissures and chasms of the rocks surrounding this bay, which exactly resemble the sighs and tones of complaint of the human voice. I had hoped that I also might
The less I heard these sighs of nature, the more reason I had here at Port-na-Trughen, (whose nomen was for me an omen,) to do all the sighs myself; for it was here that the prematurely sleepy October sun, which had hidden his morose countenance the entire day, treacherously left us completely in the lurch. And two important things were still undone: first, the ascent of the extreme summit of the real Bengore Head; and, secondly, an examination of the ruins of Dunluce Castle, the most interesting on the northern coast of Ireland, which lie about two miles to the west of the Giant's Causeway. Had Apollo given me even the light of a farthing candle, I would certainly have used it to visit Dunluce Castle. But he took all away with him, probably because he had need of it all to rouge his favourite children, the swarthy Aethiopes, and accordingly he left us Europeans buried in night, and mist, and sighs.
Tired and weary, I sat down on the lofty edge of the Bay of Sighs—always, of course, with my twenty guides—and sighed, first to the east, towards Bengore Head. The heads of the old promontories, unshaken after many a storm, stood along the shore like venerable sages, dark Bengore closing the rank. My guides told me—all twenty at once, in unison!—that a pair of eagles dwelt on the top of Bengore, and had built and bred there from time immemorial. At Fair Head, also, I had been told of a similar pair of eagles; thus it appears that these birds every where select only the highest points.
My second sigh was directed to the east, to Dunluce Castle, which I had seen beckoning me so near at many points of my coast-expedition, and which was now, alas! separated from me by four miles of volcanic basalt. My sigh was echoed by all my twenty guides, so heartily, that I almost thought it came from a deft in the rock.
‘Ah, your honour! you will be sorry your whole life long that you have not seen Dunluce, and that you cannot turn thither to-morrow.’ There is not another castle in the world in such an extraordinary situation. The rock is a great cubical block, which has been separated from the shore, and lies surrounded on all sides by wild surf and breakers. On the land side is a cleft, which is crossed by the remains of a wooden bridge. The top of the rock is almost quite level, though the sides are so rugged that a swallow would find it hard to get up them. Its entire summit is covered with ruins, towers, houses, and mason-work, to the very edge, like a beer-glass with froth. Maiva's Tower, Mac Quillan's Tower, the great old castle-wall, all are still to be seen. There are many courts, some inner, some outer, and round them lie the ruins. Some fragments of houses and walls have fallen into the sea, the rock having given way under them, and now lie with the boulder-stones in the surf. Part of the fortification is built on the land side also, and though all lies in ruin, yet the plan may be still distinctly traced; and what renders it particularly handsome is, that a great part of the walls of the castle is built of the natural columns and columnar blocks of basalt, many of which are so placed as to show their polygonal sides plainly on the outside. To the present day, the black basalt is generally used for buildings in the neighbourhood of the coast.
This castle of Dunluce, whose name, though that of a ruin, is still borne by the eldest son of the Earl of Antrim, was in times beyond memory built and inhabited, and was for more than a thousand years, down to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the seat and fastness of several proud independent races. The law of the strongest, the right of robbery, oppression of vassals, and all its concomitants, were abolished here, on the basalt coast of Ireland, as also in the highland valleys of neighbouring Scotland, later perhaps than in any other part of Europe. I hardly think that we in Germany, so late as Queen Elizabeth's time, had such haughty knights, or castle-lords, or mountain-kings, as was that Mac Donnell of Dunluce, who received the Queen of England's letter-patent so rudely. This queen sent to the said Mac Donnell—his name at full length was Sorley Buye Mac Donnell—as a mark of her favour, a long, handsomely-ornamented epistle, in which all
Those Mac Donnells, who are still in possession of Dunluce, and, as I have said, of the best estates in the county of Antrim, belong to the so often named Antrim family, and came over from Scotland in the year 1580. Their predecessors in the possession of Dunluce, and the entire territory adjoining, called the Root, or the Route, were the Mac Quillans or Magwillies, an aboriginal and famous Irish family. With respect to the manner in which the still flourishing Mac Donnells came into possession of their possessions, and how the old kings of the coast, the Mac Quillans, sunk into their present insignificance, there is a very interesting account by Hamilton, taken from an ancient manuscript. As this account, in a short space, throws a very clear light on the ancient history of the country or coast I have described, and may give my readers an idea of the manner in which the old Irish families lost their properties, how such events were brought about, and what English and Scottish families were their successors, I will here give the purport of it, which is the more interesting, as the matters related in it refer to the beginning of the power of the two richest families of the north of Ireland at the present day, namely, the family of the Earls of Antrim (the Mac Donalds as they were then called, the Mac Donnells as they now write their name), and that of the Marquis of Donegal (Chichester), whom I mentioned before at Belfast.
The Irish chieftains, the Mac Quillans, were the original and ancient lords of Dunluce, and rulers of the adjoining territory as far as the river Bann. On the one side they were engaged in continual strife with the neighbouring chieftains beyond the river Bann, while on the other they were exposed to the attacks and forays of the Scottish islanders, who lay to the north-east of them.
In the year 1580 a Mac Donald, as Hamilton writes the name,—though the Antrim family call themselves Mac Donnells—came from Cantire to Ireland, with a parcel of Halanders (highlanders), to assist the chieftain Tyrconnell against the great O'Nial, with whom he was then at war. In passing through the land of the Mac Quillans, he was civilly received and hospitably entertained by the Mac Quillan, who was then lord and master of the Root. Mac Quillan was the more friendly towards Mac Donald, as he
On the day when Mac Donald was taking his departure to proceed on his journey to Tyrconnell, Mac Quillan, who was not equal in war to his savage neighbours, called together all his ‘Gallogloghs,’ as these Irish lords called their militia, vassals, and retainers, to revenge his affronts beyond the Bann; and Mac Donald, thinking it uncivil not to offer his service that day to Mac Quillan, after having been so kindly treated, sent one of his gentlemen with an offer of his service in the field. Mac Quillan was right well pleased with the offer, and declared it to be a perpetual obligation on him and his posterity. So Mac Quillan and the Highlanders went against the enemy, and where there was a cow taken from Mac Quillan's people before, there were two restored back: after which Mac Quillan and the knight Mac Donald returned to Dunluce with a great prey, and without the loss of a man, where they gave themselves up to rejoicings for their victory, and all the pleasure Mac Quillan could command.
Winter then drawing nigh, Mac Quillan, more good-hearted and hospitable than prudent and cunning, gave Mac Donald an invitation to stay with him at his castle, advising him to settle himself until the spring, and to quarter his men up and down the Root. This, Mac Donald, who was pleased with the mode of living at Dunluce, and had also cast an eye on Mac Quillan's daughter, accepted after some pressing. The men were quartered two and two through the Root; that is to say, one of Mac Quillan's Gallogloghs and a Highlander in every tenant's house. ‘In the mean time,’ says the manuscript, ‘Mac Donald seduced Mac Quillan's daughter and privately married her; on which ground the Scots afterwards founded their claim to Mac Quillan's territories.’
While this was going on at Dunluce Castle, the Highlanders and the Gallogloghs were not on the most friendly terms. In the castle, love was the occasion of strife; in the huts it arose, as usual, from the distribution of provisions. It so happened that the Galloglogh, according to custom, besides his ordinary rations, was entitled to a meather38 of milk, as a privilege. This the Highlanders deemed a great affront; and at last one of them asked his host—‘Why do you not give me milk as you give to the other?’ The Galloglogh, who was sitting by drinking his milk, immediately replied for his host, ‘Wouldst thou, Highland beggar as
The affair of course soon became known, and Mac Quillan's Gallogloghs assembled to demand satisfaction. A council was held, in which the conduct of the Scots, their great and dangerous power in the Root, and the disgrace arising from the seduction of Mac Quillan's daughter, was debated, and it was agreed that each Galloglogh should kill his comrade Highlander by night, and their lord and master with them. But Mac Quillan's daughter, the wife of Mac Donald, discovered the plot, and told it to her husband. As Mac Quillan too, who was by this time tired of his guests, was not a stranger to the conspiracy, Mac Donald took the advice of his friends, and fled with them and his wife in the night-time, and escaped to the island of Raghery, which being at this time (A. D. 1580) uninhabited, they were forced to feed on colts' flesh, for want of other provisions.
From this beginning, the Mac Donalds and the Mac Quillans entered on a war, and continued to worry each other during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, while now the Mac Donalds, and now the Mac Quillans, were lords of Dunluce and of the Root. This war continued till the English power became so superior in Ireland that both parties made an appeal to James I., who had just then ascended the throne of England. This king, as is well known, had a predilection for his Scotch countrymen. He accordingly made over to the Mac Donald, by letters patent, four great baronies, including, along with other lands, all poor Mac Quillan's possessions. However, to preserve some appearance of justice, he gave to Mac Quillan a grant of the great barony of Ennishowen, the old territory of the O'Doghertys in Donegal, and sent to him Sir John Chichester, to inform him of this decision and to carry it into execution.
Mac Quillan was extremely mortified at his ill success, and very disconsolate at the difficulties which attended the transport of his poor people over the river Bann, and the Lough Foyle, which lay between him and his new territory. The crafty Englishman, taking advantage of his situation, by an offer of some lands which lay nearer his old dominions, persuaded him to cede his title to the remote barony of Ennishowen, in exchange for the district of Clanreaghurkie, which belonged to the Chichesters. The honest
Thus the Mac Quillans fell from the fine castle of Dunluce and the Root to a little estate in the interior of the country. But they fell still farther: for one of them, Bury Oge Mac Quillan, who, after the old Irish fashion and the custom of the Mac Quillans, wished to be more hospitable and generous than his scanty income could afford, sold his estate at a low price to the Chichesters, and, instead of a landed property, had now a full purse. This he spent in hospitality and generosity, as long as any thing remained in it; and thus at length fell the old Irish family of the Mac Quillans. At the end of the last century, Mac Quillans were still to be found on the Clanreaghurkie estate, amongst the lowest of the people, in the enjoyment of nothing to distinguish them from the rest of the peasants, except, the title of King Mac Quillan, bestowed on them in mockery by their neighbours. I have already mentioned that in many other parts of Ireland the descendants of such kings are frequently to be found among peasants, stablemen, &c.