and Cockburn's. The tourist will see nothing to admire in the architecture of the place. There is a large-sized Protestant church, with nothing in its look to recommend it save its fine situation on the historic, or rather prehistoric, Mullaghnashee. Not less suggestive of the past is the site of the Catholic church, which holds an elevated position in the old Castle Park, a very spacious building, and abundantly rich in its internal appointments and decorations. Ballyshannon is remarkable for its excellent salmon-fishing, and is in consequence a favourite resort for the lovers of the peaceful sports of Isaak Walton. Leave to fish must be had of Dr Sheil, the lessee of the fishery, who is liberal to anglers, but they "are so numerous that it is not always possible for the proprietor to grant permission." * The trade of the town has very much declined within the past thirty years; the population is 3197, but a large proportion of the inhabitants are poor. It was incorporated by a charter of James I. (1613.) It returned two members to the Irish Parliament, from the time of its incorporation till the Union, when it was disfranchised, and the £15,000 compensation was pocketed by the Earl of Belmont.

Within three minutes' walk of any of the hotels

* Murray.

is the celebrated Fall of Ballyshannon, where the whole body of the Erne is projected over a cliff of from fourteen to sixteen feet high. This cataract exhibits a noble crest line of some 150 yards, over which the water is pretty equally distributed, and falls in a creamy sheet that contrasts finely with the black basin below. The roar is something deafening. But the Fall is hardly less interesting as a cascade than as a salmon-leap. If the tourist's visit should hit on a time when the troops of salmon in full career, rising fourteen feet at least in a spring, go bounding up that raging floodgate, he will be slow to come away from the spectacle.

This waterfall is the famous Asharoe, of which mention is so often made in Irish annals. It owes its name to an incident which heads one of the most interesting chapters in the romance of Irish history. Some three hundred years or more before the Christian era, three cousins, the sons of three brothers, claimed each for himself the kingship of Erinn. The dispute, however, was adjusted by the Filès, or Druids, who engaged the three claimants in a solemn compact by which each should be allowed to reign in turn for a period of seven years. Their names were Dithorba, Aedh Ruadh, and Cimbaeth,* and they lived on amicably until each had enjoyed * Pronounced Deorba, Ee Rua, and Kimbahe.

his turn of the sovereignty three times, when Aedh Ruadh was drowned in this cataract, henceforth named Eas-Aedh-Ruadh, now contracted into Asharoe, that is, the cataract of Hugh Roe.* His body was recovered, and buried in the mound of Mullaghnashee, where the Protestant church now stands. Aedh left but one child, a daughter, by name Macha Mongruadh, or Macha the Red-haired. She claimed her father's right to the seven years' reign when his turn came round, but the cosovereigns refused to allow this privilege to a woman. Whereupon, the strong-minded Macha raised an army, and after a fierce contest made good her claim by force of arms. Dithorba having been slain in the contest, and his five sons banished into the wilds of Connaught, the victorious Macha completed her triumph by marrying the remaining co-sovereign, Cimbaeth. As, however, danger was still possible from the sons of Dithorba, this energetic lady of the golden hair set out in quest of these luckless youths, and did not give over the pursuit until she had captured them among the rocks of the distant Burren. It was suggested to her to put them to death, but she was pleased to grant them their lives on the condition of their

*

Eas, a cataract; Aedh, pronounced ee in Irish, and in the English Hugh; Ruadh, pronounced Rua, or Roe.

becoming her slaves, and she gave them for a task to build her a court, or rath, which should be thereafter the chief residence of the princes of Ulster. The queen took a golden brooch, or bodkin, with which she used to fasten her cloak round her neck, and traced out with it the foundations of the court at a place about two miles west of Armagh; and thus was begun the palace of Eomuin, so called from Eo, a breastpin or brooch, and Muin, the neck, "* Latinised into Emania-the resort of the celebrated Red-branch Knights, and the palace of the kings of Ulster for more than eight hundred years.

66

From the Fall the tourist may have an easy walk to the Abbey, keeping the road along the bank for a short distance, from which he will have good views of the estuary of the Erne -a charming landscape on a bright evening. The Abbey is the name given to what remains of the monastery of Asharoe, a house of the Cistercian order of monks, founded in 1178 by Roderick O'Canannan, prince of Tyrconnell. The ruins of this sometime illustrious monastery are so scanty as hardly to preserve any one of its lineaMr Allingham gives a true portrait of the Abbey of Asharoe as it is at the present day

ments.

* Professor O'Curry's MS. Materials of Irish History.

“A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide,

Singing a song of ancient days in sorrow not in pride,
The bore-tree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow,
And heaven itself is now the roof of the Abbey Asharoe."*

The ground within the Abbey precincts has long been used as a burial-place, which, together with the sparse remains still left, is protected by a strong wall built a few years back by Dr M'Gettigan, the present Bishop of Raphoe.

The ford Athseanni, (the ancient name of Ballyshannon,) was from the oldest times regarded as the key to Tyrconnell, and here stood a famous castle of the O'Donnells. In the wars with the English, Ballyshannon was the chief point of attack. In the year 1597 Sir Conyers Clifford, at the head of twenty-two regiments of foot and ten of horse appeared suddenly on the south bank of the ford, which he crossed, and laid siege to the castle, establishing his headquarters at the monastery of Asharoe. The little garrison, consisting only of eighty men, defied all his efforts, until after a considerable interval the warriors of Tyrconnell came to their relief, when the tide of war was rolled back, and Clifford was obliged to keep within his quarters

* “Abbey Asharoe:" Modern Poems. Mr Allingham is a native of Ballyshannon. If our tourist be not already acquainted with "Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland," and other occasional poems by the same author, he is a loser, for there are few that have sung in so sweet or so pure a strain as William Allingham.