Londonderry to Port Salon

Samuel Gamble Bayne
1902
Londonderry to Port Salon

WE leave Derry with regret, and take the train for Fahan. This brings us to the shore of Lough Swilly, where we embark on a ferry-boat and cross the lough to Rathmullen. While crossing I saw Buncrana, a short distance down the lough. This is a pretty village containing the castle of the O'Dochertys, now in ruins, and near it the castle erected by Sir John Vaughan at a later period. Half a century ago the latter became dilapidated, but it was restored and has ever since been rented "for the season," as an investment by the owner. One of my pleasantest recollections is the week's-end visit I made many years ago to its then tenant. It had fine, terraced gardens, its outer walls were skirted by a trout and salmon river, and there was a vast court-yard behind it with cell-stalls for the cavalry horses, and even a gallows on which to hang captured invaders—and many of them were hanged on this same gallows. It was not a pleasant outlook from one's bedchamber window, but then the victims had been a long time dead, and no trouble came from their ghosts.

Read "On an Irish Jaunting Car through Donegal and Connemara" at your leisure

On an Irish jaunting Car through Donegal and Connemara

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Samuel Gamble Bayne was born in Ramelton, County Donegal, and educated at Queen's University in Belfast. At the age of twenty-five he left for America with a view to making his fortune. He invested in an oil well in Pennsylvania and later founded a bank which subsequently came to be the JP Morgan Chase bank in New York. By the time this book was written he was wealthy enough to be referred to as a billionaire. His account of the tour through the north, west and south of Ireland is a pleasant snapshot of how that part of the country was in the early part of the 20th century. He describes what is to be seen, gives some background history and, through the illustrations especially, provides wonderful glimpses of the area's social history.

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