the glacial age, and say that the boulder was left there by
an iceberg from the north; but the mountain peasants know better. They
know that Fin McCoul heaved it at Brian Boru, jerking it across the
Lough from the opposite mountain five or six miles away, as an
indication that he didn't care a button for his rival. These modern
mountaineers are almost as easily gulled as their ancestors. They
believe in Home Rule because they will, under an Irish Legislature,
"get all they want." They have votes, and they use them under clerical
advice. "I don't know anything about Home Rule except that we are to
get all we want." Those are the very words of an enlightened and
independent elector resident near Cloughmore. Never was there more
simple faith, or more concise _credenda_. The Newcastle programme is
comparatively unpromising. The wildest Radical, the most advanced
Socialist, never came up to this. The Grand Old Man himself in his
most desperate struggles for place and power, never exactly promised
everything that everybody wished. To get all you want is, indeed, the
_summum bonum_, the Ultima Thule, the _ne plus ultra_ of political
management. After this the old cries of peace, retrenchment, and
reform sound beggarly indeed. Never was there such a succinct and
complete compendium of political belief. Nobody can outbid the man who
offers "all you want." For compactness and simplicity and general
satisfactoriness this phase of Home Rule diplomacy takes the cake.
Failure to fulfil the promise is of course to be charged to the brutal
Saxon. Meanwhile the promise costs nothing, and like sheep's-head
broth is very filling at the price.

Not long ago the point in the Lough was a rabbit warren, whence the
name. Before that the situation was too exposed to the incursions of
rovers to tempt settlers, and Narrow-water Castle, built to defend the
pass, was (and is) between the town and Newry. But times have
changed. Settlers flocked across from Ayr, from Troon, from Ardrossan,
and other Scots ports lying handy. A smart, attractive town has sprung
up, starting with a square a hundred yards across. Big ships which
cannot get up to Newry discharge in the Lough by means of lighters. An
eight-hundred-ton barque from Italy is unloading before my window.
There is a first-rate quay, with moorings for many vessels. The
harbour is connected by rail with all parts of Ireland, and in it
seven hundred to eight hundred ships yearly discharge cargoes.