CHAPTER XXIII 



The Pig Fair at Roundstone Pat Jennings spoils his Market 



for Pollack 



ROUNDSTONE is more like a small, old-fashioned, 

 English market town than any other place in Ire- 

 land that I have visited. Its broad main street of 

 prosperous shops, its commercial hotel and superior 

 private houses looking out on a bay, beyond which 

 is the broad Atlantic, while at the back are high 

 hills of limestone, dotted with lakes, make it a 

 pleasant and healthy place at which to stay. A 

 glance at a map will show that an angler will have 

 lakes innumerable to visit that are high up above 

 the sea whence breezes will come to give vigour to 

 the arm that wields a rod. 



Much has been written to prove that there are 

 more places in Ireland, in proportion to population, 

 where spirits may be purchased than in any other 

 country, and statistics tend to show that licences are 

 granted where the need cannot go far beyond that 

 of the petitioner and his relatives, and in Roundstone 

 such must surely be the case. Why there should 

 be so many puzzled me until our host explained that 

 to be trusted with a licence was regarded more 

 as an honour by the holder than as a source of 

 profit, and that it had been found difficult to grant it 

 to one and deny it to another. If there could be a 



till the year to justify such opportunity to go 



