I saw Donegal in April, softened as much as might be by the wild April showers and the bursts of April sunshine. The clouds and the mountains, the cliffs and the sea--Slieve League, Errigal, Muckish, Bunglass, Horn Head, the Glen Head, Tory Island--were all beautiful beyond telling, with a wild and stormy magnificence of beauty. I try to imagine their desolation in winter and fail to realize it.
Ardara I remember by the beauty of Glengesh on an April day, with a hundred streams running down its sides; and at Ardara we halted on Sunday, and knelt in the gallery of the church, looking down at the peasants kneeling in rows on the stone floor before the altar. The doors were wide open, and birds wheeled in from the sunlight and out again with flashing wings; and the air was exquisite, fresh and wild and sweet.
At Gweedore, as I have said, we tarried nearly a week, held there by the hospitality of the parish priest, who would have us see everything thoroughly. We stayed at an idyllic little inn, and were fed on the best and simplest fare: stirabout, made as only the Irish can make it; home-made bread; delicious butter, new-laid eggs; little delicate chickens, with green parsley sauce and boiled bacon, potatoes, and cabbage, cooked as only the Irish can cook them; for in certain simple dishes of their own the Irish cannot be beaten.
There was a most picturesque waiting-maid, a shy little girl, as pretty as a picture, who wore a pink cotton frock, and had pink bare feet showing under it, who had the softest, most appealing of voices.
At the inn our priest found us, sallying in with his great blackthorn in his hand to see who were the strange visitors to the Glen. He was a redoubtable priest--the Law of Gweedore, they called him--and he sheltered his people as the hen sheltereth her chickens. The Glen was exquisitely clean from end to end, though starveling poor. But the priest saw to it that they did not starve.
For four or five days, perhaps, we abode in this little inn, where the Glen opens out to the sea. We visited the people in their cottages, under the guidance of our redoubtable _padre_, and saw all there was to be seen. His hospitality was unbounded, although at the time there was a wide and bitter division in politics between us.