98 Proceedings of the Royal Trkh. Academy. 



but usually haTiug a large mountain run, over which, the tenant has 

 grazing rights. The average rent for a holding of the better class 

 would be about £5, £3 for the poorer. As in the Mullet, the land is 

 not usually well fenced. The principal crops are potatoes, barley, 

 and rye. Spade labour is almost universal. Sea-weed is the prin- 

 cipsd mamire. A plot of land is cropped until worn out ; then a fresh 

 piece is reclaimed and fenced, and so on. During the summer ui nths 

 the cattle were formerly moved to the mountain runs ; some of the 

 younger people going o^S to tend them there, and living, while thus 

 engaged, in roughly-built huts called boothies. TLis :_:-:: 12 -vas =till 

 in vogue until about thirty years ago. 



ilany of the men — my informants stated the number at about 130 — 

 annually go to England or Scotland every summer to work as migratory 

 labourers, returning to their homes for the winter months. 



Along the coast-line a good deal of kelp is m^ade, on which no royalty 

 is paid. The sea-weed for this purpose is sometimes brought by boat 

 to points where it is to be burned, but Knight mentions a method of 

 conveying it common in his time, and still practised. A description 

 of it is best given in his own words : " Transporting sea-weed from 

 one part of these sheltered shores to another, either for burning into 

 kelp or for manure, in large masses, without any other means than a 

 man standing on the heap, and pushing it forward with a long pole, 

 is a very common practice, and hundreds of these may be seen float- 

 ing with the tide up and down the sound of Achill, or on the Ballycroy 

 shores, in the fine summer days ; while a single man sits quietly on 

 the heap, roasting his potatoes and limpets, or other shell-fish, for his 

 evening meal, carried forward towards his destination without any 

 trouble or exertion from him until the tide slackens, or that he is 

 obliged to pole it forwards in some parts against the current.'" 



As before stated, there is practically no sea-fishing ; a few coal-fish 



^ 1 am indebted to my friend ilr. G. H. "K^inahan for the following note on the 

 cutting and transportation of sea-weed : — " During springs the weed-cutters must 

 be on the claddagh (the foreshore left dry during low water) when the tide is one- 

 third gone ; the men with hooks cut the weed, while the boys and girls pile it in 

 heaps like hay-cocks ; these heaps must be properly built to gire them solidity. As 

 the tide comes in, the men come back and put a tuggaun, made of sea- weed, round 

 the butt of each heap, or two viggaum, one above the other, if there is a rough 

 sea. If the sea is rotigh, they often fasten a rope to the heap, and tow it into shelter 

 as the tide rises. If there is a quiet sea, a man Trill sit on the heap, and, as it rises, 

 will direct it with a pole to wherever he wants it to go ; he will even go out into 

 he tidal race, and run with it to the place he wants to land the weeds, goierally 

 ome harbour or coose where it can be easily landed, and carried to the land." 



