116 THE IRISH PEOPLE. 



I know part of the Upper Fews ; the people there 

 are about the same average height as those of 

 southern Lower Fews. The question as to features 

 is rather difficult to answer. In the north of the 

 Barony of Lower Fews the people are superior in 

 features, but inferior in physique, to those of the 

 upper portion and the south of the Lower Barony. 

 The natives of the Fews are, in many particulars, 

 very like their neighbours of South Down and East 

 Monaghan." 



121. The Most Rev. Dr. Conway, Bishop of 

 Killala,* which includes portions of Mayo and 

 Sligo. When parish priest of Killala, he wrote, May 

 27th, 1870: "The average height in and around 

 Killala is from 5 feet 7 to 5 feet 8 inches ; and that 

 is also the average for Mayo and Sligo. You would 

 not get five men in the two counties such as the 

 French writer describes. I am surprised that a 

 Frenchman should be led into such a blunder. The 

 only Northerns I know came to Mullaghfarry about 

 150 years ago with the ancestors of the Earl of 

 Arran, they were sixteen families." 



* Gerald Barry, in the 12th century says, that on the north 

 coast of Mayo, till then unexplored by the English, two Irish- 

 men rowed to an English vessel in a narrow, oblong curach, 

 made of osiers, and covered with the skins of animals. These 

 men had, in Irish fashion, very long yellow hair (comas flavcta} 

 falling over their shoulders. Topoyraphia Hibernica, 

 Distinctio t iii., cap. xxvi. 



