178 A YEAR OF liberty; or, 



boat. If these are all charming, what shall be said for its coast 

 line, from the mouth of the Moy to the head of Killery Harbour, 

 stretching to a length exclusive of the minor indentations of the 

 shore of 250 statute miles ? Let any tourist consult his. travelling 

 map, as I did mine, under the tree, and exult in what it shows him. 

 If he be a sportsman, what wealth does it not promise ? If he be a 

 sailor, what safe harbours, noble headlands, and peaceful bays does it 

 not indicate ? If a poet, what themes may it not suggest ? If a 

 painter, what treasures for his easel ? Beautiful Mayo I to me there 

 is something musical in the sound of your name. Sweet are the 

 memories of the bright summers and rainy autumns I have spent 

 on your mountains, lakes, and streams, and delicious are the 

 anticipations of that time when I shall visit you again. 



All this while my companions had been collecting dry sticks, stones, 

 and dead grass, and having cooked a fish sufficiently large for the 

 wants of six men, graciously brought me a slice, and forthwith 

 devoured the residue. 



The receiver of stolen goods is worse than the thief, says the 

 proverb, and in Mayo we have a fine example of the truth of the 

 axiom. The generosity of our early Norman kings was on a grand 

 scale, especially when they gave away the property of other people ; 

 and in their dealings with this county they were more splendidly 

 lavish than usual, for it formed part of the grant made by Henry II. 

 to William de Burgho, about the year 1180. The history of the 

 transaction is curious. The new possessor soon made a permanent 

 settlement, for, in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Henry III., 

 the then king of Connaught made a journey to England to complain 

 of the invasion of his teri'itory by the family of the Burkes. Very 

 little is known of the subsequent proceedings of the settlers, until the 

 period of the great rebellion in 1333, when the William de Burgho 

 of that day was assassinated. Mayo fell away from all subjection to 

 the English law immediately after the murder of the earl, for some 

 of the younger branches of the Burke family, seeing that the entire 

 province of Connaught would be inherited by his infant daughter 

 (who afterwards married Lionel Duke of Clarence, and so gave the 



