28 



eighteen miles in fair weather. The Commissioners of Irish 

 Lights have been improving and re-erecting lighthouses at 

 various important points round the coasts, and Tory is now 

 having their attention. But I am unable to say whether or not 

 this had been decided on prior to the loss of the gunboat Wasp 

 on the island on the 22nd September, 1884. This melancholy 

 event, by which no fewer than 52 persons lost their lives, 

 directed much attention to this lonely island, and invested it 

 with a melancholy interest at the time of our visit. Had a 

 powerful siren, such as has lately been erected on Ailsa Craig, 

 been then in existence at Tory to warn off vessels in thick 

 weather when the light cannot be discerned, the loss of that 

 vessel and so many of her gallant crew might have been averted. 

 Well, it was to awaken more general interest in the establish- 

 ment of such a signal station, the utility of which, both from 

 a practical and humane point of view, I think, had been 

 demonstrated, that Mr. M'Neil organised the trip to the island, 

 in which it was my good fortune (as representing, at the request 

 of its President, my friend Mr. Megaw, the Belfast Chamber of 

 Commerce) to take part. After glancing briefly at the early 

 history of the island, Mr. Patterson went on to give an account 

 of his personal experiences of the place, as related by him 

 shortly after the visit in the columns of the Northern Whig. 

 Referring to the vicissitudes which the inhabitants of the 

 island have suffered from time to time, he said in unfavourable 

 seasons it is next to impossible for the small amount of arable 

 land to produce food enough for even a small population. In 

 recent years more than once the people were reduced to the 

 verge of starvation. On one occasion a severe gale swept 

 immense waves over the island, and carried the greater portion 

 of the crop of corn, which had been partially cut, but not housed, 

 into the sea, washed the potatoes out of the ground, and 

 rendered the fresh water undrinkable ; and on other occasions 

 a more or less partial failure of the crops left the poor people 

 partially dependent on the outside world for the supplies which 

 nature denied them at home. 



