138 THE IRISH PEOPLE. 



The passage is entirely a libel on the natives of 

 Eastern Sligo ; but as I never visited Mayo, I am 

 not prepared to deny that it may be more applicable 

 there. It does not apply to Connemara, where the 

 people, though small, are well-built and well- 

 favoured ; nor to Joyce's and O'Flaherty's country, 

 near Galway, where they are notoriously tall. The 

 military returns show that the Mayo people have 

 the Irish colour-type in a high degree ; the people of 

 Inishmurray (Sligo) are a decidedly fair race, and 

 not uncomely." According to Dr. Beddoe, out of 

 1,500 measured adult Irish recruits the naked 

 mean height of 31 from Sligo was 67-26 inches, of 

 20 from Leitrim 66-99 inches, of 62 from Mayo 

 66-64 inches; giving the average height of those 

 113 men = 66-96 inches. 



147. In 1895, Dr. Browne, in his Ethnography of 

 the Mullet, Inishkea, and Portacloy, in North Mayo, 

 says : " In no part of these districts are the people 

 of small stature, though a large number of them 

 are descendants of dispossessed Ulster people. On 

 the contrary, they appear to be taller and stouter 

 than the inhabitants of the southern part of the 

 country. A statement,* originally made by an 

 anonymous writer, has somehow gained currency, 



* Dublin University Magazine, No. 48, p. 658. 



