north-east, from both of which good views may be

gained.

EXCURSION TO INISHOWEN HEAD.

It is a fine drive along the coast, passing Greencastle, where there is a good modern fort guarding the entrance into the Lough, between the Head and M'Gilligan Point opposite. Here also are the ruins of a fine old fortress belonging to the O'Dohertys, and three miles farther on Inishowen Head is reached, from which the lover of stern coast-scenery may set off on a most enjoyable scramble over the precipices that here face the Atlantic.

MOVILLE TO DERRY.

In the summer months the tourist may go from Moville to Derry by steamer, and a pleasanter trip than this it is not easy to find. About half-way up, the Lough expands into a splendid bay, narrowing again to an estuary at the famous Culmore, some four miles from Derry. It were hard to conceive a more beautiful landscape than that which greets one's eye as he passes up the river. Before him rises the "Maiden City," an amphitheatre of houses surmounted by the cathedral spire, and flanked on either side by green hills dotted with

handsome residences. The highly-cultivated shores rise fresh and luxuriant from the calm water, going off gently to the peaceful hills of Inishowen on the right, and on the left to the blue forms of the more distant mountains of the County Derry. Should the tourist wish to go by the road, it is a charming drive of about nineteen miles to Derry. The road skirts the shore almost the whole way, affording beautiful views over the Foyle. The name of the Lough is said to be derived from Febhal, or Feval, a distinguished chief of the Tuathde-Dannans. At the end of the eighth mile, you come to the small village of Carrowkeel, off which point the Foyle attains its greatest breadth. Having Crockglass (1296 feet) close upon the right, and crossing the Cabry stream, the road holds its course by the coast, passing, some four miles farther on, Eskaheen, the place where the renowned Eoghan, the first lord of Inishowen, was buried, though the exact site of the grave has not been determined. It was in this neighbourhood also that Toland, the teacher of Bolingbroke and leader of the English Deistical school in the reign of Queen Anne, was born. At a short distance from Eskaheen the traveller reaches Muff, a small village, adjoining which is Kilderry, (G. Hart, Esq.,) and down at the water's edge is the historic Fort of Culmore. Beyond

Culmore the road lies through a pleasant suburb into Derry. In the grounds of Belmont, about a mile from the city, is St Columb's stone—a mass of gneiss-which was long one of the inauguration stones of the chiefs of the district.

DERRY TO LETTERKENNY.

The direct road keeps along the right bank of the Foyle for the first two or three miles, and then bends westward to Newtowncunningham,* and from hence keeps along the Swilly sea-board, though the Lough does not appear till you approach Manorcunningham, a small village about fourteen miles from Derry, which the traveller will not be sorry to leave behind, to follow up the beautiful valley of the Swilly to Letterkenny. But for the general tourist the best route to Letterkenny is to go by railway to Burt, and thence by steamer on Lough Swilly, which plies during the summer months between that place and a point some two miles from Letterkenny, where he joins the main route.

DERRY TO STRANORLAR.

The tourist may go by rail to Stranorlar. Leaving the railway station at Derry, the line runs close * Page 223.

to the beautiful estuary of the Foyle, passing Carrigans (four miles,) and St Johnstown (eight miles,) which is now a miserable village, though, before the Union, a borough returning a member to the Irish Parliament. Quitting St Johnstown, we pass, on the right, a pretty Catholic church, built by Rev. J. Stephens, and "a square tower, all that is left of the Castle of Mountgevlin, in which James II. held his court till the termination of the siege of Derry," and pursue our way along the stately stream, crossing it above Porthall, (J. Clarke, Esq.,) thus passing into Tyrone, in which county is Strabane, where we now arrive. A short mile from Strabane is Lifford, the assize town of the County Donegal. It may be easily understood how Lifford, situated at an important military position at the confluence of the Finn and the Mourne, which here unite their waters to form the Foyle, which flows in a majestic stream from hence to Derry, was one of the hardest and oftenest contested points on the frontiers of Tirconnell. It was while staying in his castle here, built to resist the encroachments of the O'Neils, that Manus O'Donnell composed his Irish Life of St Colum Cillè, the kinsman and patron saint of his family. In the year 1600, Nial Garv O'Donnell having joined the English, established himself in the Castle of

Lifford, and held it against the celebrated Hugh Roe O'Donnell. *

From Strabane the train carries the traveller on the Finn Valley Railway along the bank of the river Finn, passing Castlefin, where once stood a castle from which the O'Donnells ruled the district down to the beginning of the seventeenth century, and Killygordan, a clean village, a little higher up, and comes to a full stop at Stranorlar.

STRABANE TO LETTERKENNY,

The majority of travellers in Donegal enter the county by the road from Strabane to Letterkenny. This road (fifteen and a half miles) is carried over hilly ground, affording nothing special to interest the general tourist, unless indeed he be concerned in the flax crop; this is a flax country, par excellence, as the traveller will be sure to perceive if he happen to pass this way in the end of August, or the beginning of September, during which season the air is impregnated with the abominable odour of that fibrous plant. There are good views from some points of the route over the valley of Foyle and the valley of the Swilly, into which the road falls at the tenth mile, and pursues its way up to Letterkenny.