The South Isles of Aran (County Galway)

The following instructions to persons applying for loans under the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund, and Sea Fisheries Fund Acts, 37 and 38 Vict. chap. 86; 45 Vict. chap. 16; and 47 and 48 Vict. chap. 21, would be read with delight and acted upon with avidity were it not for the nasty note that appears at the foot of so flaring an advertisement.

LOANS FOR FISHERY PURPOSES.

"I. Loans will be made as heretofore for the purchase or repairs of boats, vessels, or fishing gear, on the security of borrowers and persons to be joined with them as sureties in a joint and several bond and promissory notes.

"II. In special cases, where the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries shall deem it expedient that a new fishing vessel should be supplied to a borrower instead of money, they may, with the consent of the Lord Lieutenant, recommend loans on the security of the borrowers, and on the security of the fishing vessel to be supplied. In such cases the borrowers must give to the Commissioners of Public Works a joint and several bond or promissory note as the case may be, for the amount of the loan, and also execute a deed providing that the vessel shall be registered in the name of the Commissioners of Public Works, and so continue registered until the loan with interest, and any expense incurred, shall be repaid, and also providing that in default of payment of any of the instalments, by which such loan shall be made repayable, or in default of the borrowers preserving the same in proper order and condition, or in case the said vessel should become in the opinion of the said Commissioners a deficient security for the amount of the loan for the time being unpaid, the said Commissioners may cause such boat or vessel to be sold.

"III. Time for repaying any loan not exceeding ten years.

"IV. Repayment by half yearly instalments with interest at the rate of 2.5 per cent. per annum.

THE ARAN FISHERIES.

"Note. – It must be observed that loans under rule No. 2. can only be recommended under very exceptional circumstances, and to a very limited extent, as the funds available for loans for new vessels are quite insufficient to meet large demands. It will, therefore, be impossible for the inspectors to do more in carrying out this rule than to recommend loans on the security of vessels in a few cases only, where very exceptional circumstances exist, and only in cases of new first-class fishing vessels being provided for with thoroughly experienced fishermen of good character.

"No loans for the purchase of gear will be made without personal security, as laid down by the rules already in force, see No. 1.

"By order,"George Coffey,"Secretary.

"Fisheries Office, Dublin Castle, February, 1886."

IRISH FISHERIES – IRISH PARLIAMENT.

Of the immensity of the fisheries we can form no estimate. But to the islanders the fisheries are worthless without boats, and without the means of obtaining boats; without funds, and without the means of obtaining funds. Except "under very exceptional circumstances, and to a very limited extent," they are unable to launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a draught. It is said by one party that a different state of things would prevail had the Irish people an Irish Parliament. That may be so and it may not be so; but one thing is certain, that whilst in 1887 no bonus of any kind can be obtained, in 1787 bonuses of many kinds could be obtained, and were obtained. In the 27th year of George III., a. d. 1787, an Irish Act was passed "for the encouragement of the fishery usually called the deep sea fishery." The marginal note of that section, a section too long to repeat, states that "bounties will be given, 80 guineas for the greatest quantity of herrings caught by the crew of any one vessel, and imported between the 1st of June and the 31st of December in any one year; 60 guineas for the next greatest quantity, 40 guineas for the next, and 20 guineas for the next, to be paid on the 1st of January following." By the same Act bounties of four shillings a barrel were authorized to be given for herrings; and by another section, the fourteenth, three shillings and threepence by the hundredweight was allowed for all dried cod, ling, and other fish mentioned therein. Bounties, however, have long since been discouraged by political economists, and loans have long since been discouraged by other economists, and between those scientists money for the improvement of the Aran fishery was never so hard to be got at as at this present time.

THE ARAN FISHERIES – TRAWLING.

From the coastguard return it would appear that the Galway coastguard division is guarded by five coastguard stations, two of them being on the Aran islands, in which there has been an increase in 1886 of two second class and sixteen third class boats solely engaged in fishing. The trawlers work from Barna to the islands of Aran. That trawling injures the supply of fish is insisted upon by the one party and denied by the other. A court of public inquiry was held in Galway, where the entire question was investigated; the result of which investigation will form the subject of a special report. We shall only observe that the Scotch Fishery Board has prohibited trawling in some places in Scotland. "In the Galway Bay trawling was prohibited for a number of years in about half the bay. For about four years it was not followed at all, and, so far as the evidence at public inquiries could be relied on, there was no improvement in the fisheries during the cessation of this mode of fishing in either the whole, or part of the bay. In the case of Dublin Bay trawling has been prohibited for nearly forty-four years; and the question arises whether the fisheries of that bay have increased in that period.

"In other bays no trawling has ever been carried on; and the present state of the fisheries in such places will have to be carefully inquired into."19

CHAPTER VI

"The darksome pines on yonder rocks reclinedWave high and murmur to the hollow wind."Pope.

Having thus far spoken of the wealth that might be realized by the islanders from the waters that surround their islands, let us turn to speak of the wealth that might be realized by the islanders from the islands themselves – wealth produceable neither by patches of potatoes, nor by tillage, nor by minerals, nor by pasturage. On the islands are vast terraces of naked rocks, and there are vast terraces of rocks not naked on which grew those forests of oak, of yew, and of fir of which we have already spoken, when treating of Druidism.

RE-AFFORESTING ARAN.

To re-afforest the disafforested wilderness has of late occupied the thoughts of the thoughtful in our country. Dr. Lyons, for some time M.P. for the city of Dublin, gave to it much of his attention. He has been taken away, but his mantle has fallen upon another. Dermot O'Conor Donelan, Esq., J.P., of Sylane, near Tuam, teaches us how the people of other countries are enriched by their forests. Having made a tour through the unwooded mountains of Connemara, he subsequently in the present year made a tour through the wooded mountains of the Grand Duchy of Baden. His inquiries and the result of his inquiries in that prosperous country he published in a series of letters in the Irish Times and Freeman's Journal. To give those letters in extenso, however instructive, would fill too many of our over-filled pages, but we may be permitted to make a few quotations from them.

"It is a noteworthy fact," writes Mr. Donelan, "that from the class of lands similar to those that lie waste in Ireland, the recent progress of Germany is generally believed to proceed. Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemburg, Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine have a combined population of 40,644,000.

FORESTS IN BADEN.

The labour connected with the forests of those countries and their products have been estimated to be worth £9,450,000; and those earnings suffice for the maintenance of about 300,000 families." He then forms a painful contrast between Baden and Ireland – between the German mountain districts, and the mountain districts of the same kind in Ireland where there is a similarity of soil; but there the similarity ends.

"The mountains and bogs of Connemara, with the roots and remains of trees scattered everywhere amongst them, are lying there in their bare and melancholy desolation, and but for the presence of some miserable hovels, the whole scene might be inside the Arctic circle. The mountains of Schwartzwald, however, are covered with forests of silver fir, and by their vast supplies of timber are creating vast industries. In a tour which I made through it some months ago, I observed that almost every branch of wood-work was in active operation, and for miles together the rattle of machinery was hardly ever silent.

FOREST INDUSTRIES.

The manufacture of paper from wood, which is comparatively new, has already assumed very large proportions in South-Western Germany. Second class wood-ends, etc., for paper-making, can be had for about eight shillings a ton; while straw must always cost from 30s. to £2 10s. This difference will gradually transfer the manufacture of paper and papier-maché to this and similar forest districts. Within the last few years several mills have been established for the manufacture of cellulose from wood. They have been found successful, and it is expected that this will soon be among the most important of the forest industries. A list of the objects of which cellulose is the basis would form a curious example of recent invention. In the American Patent Office no less than one hundred and twenty patents have been taken out in connection with cellulose since 1870. Gun-cotton, collodion, celluloid, artificial ivory, handles for knives, etc; dental plates, cuffs, collars, shoe-tips and in-soles, billiard balls, are a few names taken from a long list, and which will give an idea of the number of trades this one material is establishing in many cities and towns of Germany. Celluloid can be made as hard as ivory or be spread on like paint; it is water proof, air proof, and acid proof. It can be pressed or stamped, planed as wood, turned in a lathe, and it can be transparent or opaque.

"I am not able to state the quantity of basket and wicker-work used in the United Kingdom, but at the lowest computation it must be several millions worth a year, the imports alone being very large.

"It would not be possible to enumerate," he writes, "the number of industries which supplies of timber are capable of developing. Some of those would spring up within twelve or fourteen years, and which are further capable of enormous development. Poplar grows rapidly in Ireland; in twelve years the thinnings are of considerable size, and, according to Mr. Herbert's report on the forestry of Russia (Blue Book, commercial, 31, 1883), it appears that from poplar most of the paper exported from Russia is manufactured.

RE-AFFORESTING ARAN.

The consumption of paper in the United Kingdom must be over £30,000,000 a year, and if it be probable that mountain forests are likely to be the scene of a considerable portion of its production in the future, what an opportunity is there then of utilizing by means of forestry the waste lands and the cheap labour of Donegal and Connemara. Ever since 1800 the question of the waste lands has been before the public. It was reported on in 1812, and again by the Devon Commission of 1840. Every writer on the industrial resources of Ireland had paid it particular attention. It was mentioned by Sir Richard Griffith, by Munns, by Dutton, and even before 1800 by Arthur Young. There is hardly a Government in Europe which has not undertaken the work of reclaiming and afforesting waste lands."

FORESTS FORMERLY IN ARAN.

So writes the author of those interesting letters, and he dissipates an illusion which is prevalent amongst us, namely, that to turn planting into profit requires long years and gross timber. On the contrary, as his observations prove, in their earlier years of growth forests will supply many industries for which old timber is unsuited. A great objection to re-afforesting mountains and rocky districts is the length of time that is generally supposed must elapse before so gigantic a work could become remunerative; but Mr. O'Conor Donelan shows that no great length of time is necessary, and that after a very few years timber would be suitable for the works of which he speaks. Would that the Government would take his words to heart, and do in Ireland what German statesmen have done in Germany! There are men amongst us who would fain believe that Aran is too much exposed to the westerly winds to admit of timber being grown on the islands; but the great roots old in the earth tell of the great trees that grew in Aran many centuries ago.

CHAPTER VII

SUPERSTITIONS OF THE GROVE"Oh the Oak, and the Ash, and the bonnie Ivy treeFlourish best at hame in the North Countrie."

SUN-WORSHIP IN ARAN.

In the present chapter we propose to give a few of the legends with which groves were enriched when the worship of the sun (Baal) was the religion of the world – legends yet remembered in Aran. In the groves they offered sacrifices, and "burnt," writes the Prophet Hosea, "incense under the oak and the poplar and the turpentine tree [the pine], because the shadow thereof was good."20 And we are told that "Abraham planted a grove in Bersabee, and there called upon the Name of the everlasting God."21

WORSHIP OF BAAL IN ARAN.

The selection of such places originated, no doubt, in the fact that the gloom of the forest was calculated to excite awe, and because they considered that the spirits of the departed hovered over the places where the bodies were buried; and it was common to bury the dead under trees, as appears from the eighth verse of the thirty-fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis, where it is stated that when Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, died, she was buried at the foot of Bethel under an oak tree, and the name of that place was called "The Oak of Weeping;" and when Saul, the first King of Israel, fell at the battle of Gilboe, his bones were buried under an oak tree at Jabesh.22 Amongst the Hebrews it was common, before the time of Moses, to plant groves. But the idolatrous nations planted them also; and groves and the places of idol-worship soon became convertible terms. For the purpose, therefore, of extirpating idolatry, the Lord thus spoke through Moses: "Thou shalt plant no grove, nor any tree near the altar of the Lord thy God."23 And in after-centuries, when Josias abolished the worship of Baal in Judah, and destroyed them that offered incense to the sun, and the moon, and to the twelve signs, he caused the grove to be burnt there.24

Whether the groves of Aran were destroyed at the time of the destruction of the religion of Baal and of the introduction of Christianity, or in after-ages, it is impossible now to state. That great trees had existence in the islands in 1618 is certain, as appears by a partly hereinbefore recited indenture of that date, when Henry Lynch did demise a moiety of the three islands to William Anderson, his executors, etc., for a long term of years, excepting thereout great trees.

NYMPHS OF TREES.

The Oak.– The chief object of worship was the oak, which has not inaptly been called "the king of the forest." With its life was bound up the life of a nymph, for the nymphs of trees, called in classics Hamadryades, were believed to die together with the trees which had been their abode, and with which they had come into existence. Those that presided over woods in general were called Dryades, as the divinities of particular trees were Hamadryades. Not unfrequently has the axe of the woodman been stayed by the voice of the nymph breaking from the groaning oak.

THE OAK.

That misfortune was believed to follow in the footsteps of those who wantonly felled an oak is abundantly proved by the soothsayers in the olden time. Often have oaks become attached to the lords of the house with whose existence they were bound for hundreds of years. If the leaves in a living state have prophesied touching the affairs of men, so did the dried timbers, as in the case of the Argo, when they warned the Argonauts of the misfortunes that awaited them. Not unfrequently has the falling of a branch of the oak tree warned the protecting family of coming disasters. The idols in idolatrous times were manufactured from its wood, though more frequently from that of the ash, and from it was cut the yule-log which served to maintain the perpetual fire. Once a year all fires and lights but one were extinguished, and that was the oaken log, from which every other fire in the islands was with much ceremony relighted.

The medicinal qualities of the tree, and the charmed life it bore, prophetic, as we have said, and causing diseases to depart by its spells and incantations, must have made its existence, if it knew anything at all about it, a happy one. The Irish of the "oak" is Dara, and many an Aranite bears that name.

Now, there was a blessed Saint, "Mac Dara," who lived in those islands long ages ago, and there was a renowned statue of him made of oak, which the people venerated with an idolatrous veneration. It was in vain that the Catholic clergy called on them to desist from kneeling before the graven image, and from swearing on it rather than on the Book of the Gospels, on which all men swore. Malachy O'Queely, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, was, however, resolved to put down an exhibition which he considered a scandal to the Catholic Church, and so, coming to the islands in 1645, he tore down the statue and flung it into the sea; but ill luck awaited him. In the same year he was sent by the Supreme Council of Kilkenny to accompany the confederate troops to Sligo, which had been lately taken by the Parliamentary forces. He did so, and the warrior archbishop rushed to the relief of the town, and for a season dislodged the enemy; but the tide of victory turned, the Irish were routed, and the body of the prelate was literally cut to pieces. Upon him was found that treaty with Charles I. which afterwards helped to bring the unhappy king to the scaffold.

OAK – ASH.

Another of the superstitions that attaches to the king of the forest is that, if his majesty leafs before the ash, the coming season will be dry; if, however, the ash leafs before the oak, then the coming season will be wet.

"If the oak's before the ash,Then you'll only get a splash;If the ash precedes the oak,Then you may expect a soak."

Of the Irish oak and of the horror that insects have of that tree, we may form an estimate from Hall, who, in his Chronicles, says that "William Rufus builded Westminster Hall, and the oaks with which the said Hall was roof'd were felled in Oxmanstown Green, near Dublin, and no spider webbeth and breedeth in that roof of oak even to this day." Of the remote pedigree of the oak we need not speak further than to remind those who are curious about such matters that the oak all over the world is said to be the first created of all trees, and next to it comes the ash.

The Ash is "the Venus of the forest." On ashen sticks (dreadful in matters of witchcraft, as appears from the evidence given in the case of "the Dame Alice Kettler," tried for witchcraft in Kilkenny, in 1324) witches were wont at night to ride "through the fog and filthy air." To love-sick maidens the even ash leaf – that is, where the leaflets of the leaf are even in number – is of priceless value, "and note that if a youngster meeteth and plucketh an even ash leaffe and a four leaffed clover [shamrock], they are most certaine to meet their husband or wyfe, as the case may be, before the day passeth over;" and so runs the old saw —

"And if you findAn even-leaved ash and a four-leaved clover,You'll see your true love 'fore the day is over."

ASH – ROWAN TREE.

Strange that the mountain ash, the rowan tree, should be held in horror by witches. "Of it whip-handles are made, for the bewitched and stumbling horses thereby become unbewitched and unstumblers." So also the housewife should, before turning the cows out to grass for the summer, tie a switch of mountain ash with a red worsted thread around the cow's tail. The churn, so often bewitched of its butter, is certain to withstand the evil eye when the churn-staff is manufactured of the rowan tree. The roots of the ash or the mountain ash, in Aran, are of rare occurrence; we shall, therefore, pass on to the aspen, of which it is said that it alone refused to bow, as the other trees did, to the Redeemer, and that for such conduct the aspen leaf all over the world trembleth even to this hour.

ELDER – PINE.

The Elder.– The most unlucky of all trees is the elder, now a mere bush; for out of it was made the cross of Christ, and from one of its boughs Judas hanged himself. In Scotland this tree is known as the bourtree, and hence the rhyme —

"Bourtree, bourtree, crooked wrung,Never straight and never strong;Ever bush and never tree,Since our Lord was nailed to thee."

The mushrooms growing in or near the elder are known as Judas's ears, of wondrous virtue in curing coughs.

"For a cough take Judas' ear,With the parings of the pear;And drink this without fear."

The superstitions attached to this tree are many, and to tell them would fill a volume.

Stumps of Pine and Fir are numerous in the Aran islands. The fir tree has been ever highly esteemed. It was amongst the materials employed in the building of Solomon's temple. Together with the pine it was held in such veneration in France, that St. Martin met with the strongest possible opposition when he proposed the destruction of the holy fir groves. The fir grew luxuriantly in Palestine; and the Prophet Hosea saith that the Lord will make Ephraim flourish "like a green fir tree."25 And another prophet, Ezechiel, informs us, in the fifth verse of the twenty-seventh chapter of his prophecy, that the navy of Tyre was constructed of this tree, whilst the masts were from the cedars (pines) of Libanus. It was the timber, too, used for the manufacture of musical instruments in Israel; for in the Second Book of Samuel (ch. vi. 5) it is written that "David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and lutes, and timbrels, and cornets, and cymbals." And when Hiram, King of Tyre, sent timber to Solomon for the building of the temple, it was the cedar and the fir26 he sent, for which he was allowed twenty thousand measures of wheat. It was, in Palestine, a tall tree, on the tops of which, we are informed somewhere in the Psalms, the storks built their nests.

HOLLY – IVY.

The Holly, or Holy, and the Ivy are indigenous in the soil of Aran. In idolatrous times holly was planted, according to Pliny, in the neighbourhood of dwelling-houses, to keep away spirits and all manner of enchantments. There can be no doubt that those who believe dreams to be other than the wanderings of the fancy can on any night have steady sensible dreams of a reliable nature if they bring home in their handkerchief (observing the strictest silence all the time) nine leaves of thornless holly and place the same under their pillow. Amongst the conversions of the trees of the forest from the pagan to the Christian faith, that of the ivy was the most remarkable; it no longer adorns the brow of a drunken Bacchus, but is now entwined in wreaths over the altar at the midnight Mass on Christmas night. Nevertheless, they that would look into futurity can still read in the ivy leaf of what is coming to pass in after-times. Place a leaf, on New Year's Eve, in a basin of water, and take it out on the eve of Twelfth Night; if it come out fresh, health is on the house; but if it come out spotted, sickness and death are sure to follow.

HAWTHORN – BLACKTHORN.

The Hawthorn and Blackthorn grow freely in the islands. Need it be told that the antipathy between these shrubs is so great that the one is never found to be growing naturally near the other? Of course, if planted together, they will struggle on for a time; but one or other generally sickens and dies; for there is a controversy between them as to which had the misfortune to supply the crown of thorns to Christ on the night of the Passion. The peasantry in England, Scotland, and France believe it was the hawthorn, and they look on it as an outrage to bring in flowering hawthorn in May to their houses, it being unlucky and accursed ever since that dreadful night preceding the Crucifixion. So also the blackthorn in Austria and the south of Europe is considered unlucky; as it is there insisted on that it supplied the thorns, wherefore it is doomed to blossom when no other tree of the forest dares, in the teeth of the poisonous Eurus, so to do. On which side the truth lies we shall not venture to speculate; but our astonishment is great when we learn that the walking-stick of Joseph of Arimathæa was of hawthorn, that in Glastonbury he stuck it accidentally in the ground, and that ever since it and its descendants bud, blossom, and fade on Christmas Day!