264 THE PLANTS OF TORY ISLAND. 



friend, Mr. H. C. Hart, induces me to forward tliem to the ' Journal 

 of Botany ' as a suiDplement thereto. 



No botanist seems ever to have examined the flora of Tory 

 with care. A Hst of forty-two flowermg plants and ferns found on 

 Tory is given in an appendix to a paper by Mr. Edmund Getty, 

 M.E.I. A., published in the first volume of the Ulster ' Journal of 

 ArchfEology,' January, 1853. The paper is entitled, *'The Island 

 of Tory ; its History and Antiquities," and the Appendix is written 

 by Mr. G. C. Hyndman, who paid a visit to the island in August, 

 1845. Mr. Hyndman's list is very incomplete, and the idea it 

 gives of the vegetation of this distant island is not accurate. It is, 

 however, the only information I could obtain in reference thereto 

 prior to my visit in 1877. 



Tory is nearly three miles long, and about half a mile 

 broad ; it contains 785 statute acres ; and its population in 1871 

 numbered 343. Its highest point is the Doon, or Stronghold of 

 Balor — a remarkable peninsula which rises 282 feet above the sea 

 level ; the cliffs are, therefore, not high, but are strangely indented 

 on the north and east sides of the island, thus forming the curious 

 peninsula just referred to, and giving the island a towery outline 

 from the mainland of Donegal, whence some derive the name 

 Tory — pronounced Torry. From the edge of the cliffs on the 

 north and east the ground slopes gradually to the south and west 

 shores, which are rocky, the vegetation being swept away three or 

 four hundred yards inland in some places by the violence of the 

 westerly gales. 



Tory is one of the few fragments of Ireland of which there is 

 no geological map, and except the small scale -map, published by 

 Sir Richard Griifith in 1839, no information could be obtained at 

 the Geological Survey Office. Its general formation, however, 

 appeared to be granitic or quartzose. 



There are two small loughs on the island, Lough Ahooey and 

 Lough Ayes. The rarest of Tory plants are to be found in a 

 curious natural depression close to the cliffs north-east of a little 

 village called West Town ; this depression is called, in Mr. Hynd- 

 man's list, the Rams Hollow, and appears to be formed by the 

 subsidence or falling in of the roof of a large marine cave, for on 

 one side is a natural arch communicating with the sea. 



The fuel used by the islanders was at one time altogether peat, 

 but this has become scarce of late years, and the grassy sods of 

 the slopes have been extensively cut away and used as a substi- 

 tute. Thus the island is not so fertile as it used to be, and many 

 plants have been diminished in numbers, or perhaps extkpated 

 altogether. 



The cultivation is mainly confined to oats and potatoes, and no 

 doubt some of the '' colonists " have been introduced with imported 

 seed, yet the intercourse with the mainland is slight, and the 

 majority of the islanders cannot s^^eak English. There are no 

 trees on Tory, and it is said that those natives who visit the main- 

 land occasionally pull twigs and branches of trees to show as 

 curiosities on their return. 



