236 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



The Clare folk are a wild race, pure Irish, 

 ready for an5rthing. There is a story that all the 

 Irish were put across the Shannon long ago and 

 that here we have a mixed race of Irish and Dane 

 and old Saxon. I know there were Normans and 

 Cliffords and Kennedys all round Fedamore. 



Fishing in Connemara is something to dream of 

 out on the lakes with the hills towering stonily 

 round you, with the scent of heather and peat and 

 salt sea as the wind changes, with the lake rippled 

 by a steady breeze and no cap of mist on the 

 hills. Days when one hopes for a good catch, for 

 the drift will be at a steady pace, the hiUs are 

 whimpering tears still, their hours of wild sobbing 

 when all the little rills were torrents is past, there 

 is fresh water to the fish, with the little heather- 

 crowned islets to drift past, the brown water 

 whispering and splashing off their stony sides. 



These days when the Jock Scot and claret and 

 Connemara black are thrown with careful hope, 

 with tense waiting for the boil of a " beeg feesh," 

 the whir of the wheel, the blasphemous joy of 

 the boatman ; the anxiety until the white trout 

 is in the net. 



Then there are days when the black squalls rush 

 across the waters, dark and ominous, when one's 

 line flies out wildly and the boatmen keep anxious 

 watch for the fierce rush of the storms. You will 

 see the lakes whipped to miniature sea with waves 

 white crested, flinging spume of wrath, with cakes 



