t is more like a long natural harbour without
ships. There is a mile or so of promenade with stone seats at
intervals, a shingle dotted with big rocks, a modicum of
slate-coloured sand, like that of Schevening, in Holland, and blue
hills opposite, like those of Carlingford Lough. The promenade is
kerbed by a massive sea wall of limestone, and here and there flights
of stone steps lead to the water's edge. Facing the sea are handsome
villas, with flower gardens, tidy gravelled walks, shrubberies, snowy
window blinds and other appurtenances of a desperately Protestant
appearance. No large hotels, no villas with "Apartments" on a card in
the fanlight, no boatmen plying for hire, no boats even, either ashore
or afloat; no bathing-machines no anything the brutal Saxon mostly
needs, except fresh air and blazing sunshine. The Galway end of this
fashionable resort has a few shady houses, aggressively Anglicised
with names like Wave View House and Elm Tree View, the first looking
at a whitewashed wall, the second at a telegraph post. But although
some of these houses announce "Furnished Lodgings," no English
tourists would "take them on." If you want to bathe you walk into the
sea as you stand, or hand your toga virilis to the bystanders, if any.
The Connaught folks have no false modesty.

A white-haired gentleman descends from a wagonette and promenades for
a while. Then he sits down beside me. The conversation turns on Home
Rule. My friend is impatient, has been spending a few days in Belfast.
The ignorance of the poor people is astonishing. A Roman Catholic of
the Northern city told him that the first act of the Irish Parliament
would be to level Cave Hill, and on the site thereof to build cottages
for the poor. The hill was full of diamonds, which Queen Victoria
would not allow the poor Irish folks to get. The country would be full
of money. Didn't Mr. Gladstone say we'd have too much?--a clear
allusion to the "chronic plethora." The people would have the upper
hand, as they ought to have, and the first thing would be to evict the
evictors. The only question was, would they clear out peaceably, or
would it be necessary to call in the aid of the Irish Army of
Independence?

"This poor man evidently believed that every respectable person,
everybody possessing means and property, was an enemy to the
commonwealth. An ardent Home Ruler asked me if the majority had a
right to rule. He thought that was a triumphant, an unanswerab