19 



Proceedings. 



SUMMER SESSION. 



ROUGHAN PARK. 



The Members opened the Summer Session of their Forty- 

 fifth year by an excursion to Roughan Park on the 25th May. 

 Twenty-six members and friends travelled by the eight o'clock 

 train from Belfast, to a district which to almost all the members 

 was a terra incognita. The train was left at Coalisland Station, 

 and passing through the thriving little village, the members 

 stopped for a few minutes at the terminus of the canal which runs 

 from here to Lough Neagh. The promoters had originally 

 intended to make the waterway at least as far as Omagh, and it 

 was actually finished to Donaghmore, but the scheme was 

 abandoned. 



After a pleasant walk of a little more than a mile, Roughan 

 Park, the residence of Mr. W. G. Robinson, was reached, and 

 here a pleasant surprise awaited the party, for Mr. and Mrs. 

 Robinson kindly provided a sumptuous luncheon for the visitors. 

 The Park is situated on the shores of Roughan Lough, by the 

 margins of which the collectors found ample material, and here an 

 interesting photograph of a moorhen's nest in a tree was secured. 

 In the Lough is a Crannoge, or artificial island. Roughan Castle, 

 standing on an eminence overlooking the lough, is said to have 

 been built by Lord-Deputy Sydney, in the reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth, to curb the Northern Irish. It was afterwards 

 dismantled by order of Parliament, and is now a picturesque 

 ivy-clad ruin. The group of members, with their hosts, having 



