andlord and tenant. From Blarney to the Blaskets the distance is not
that of a couple of counties, but the gap between Kylemore and Rinvyle
between civilization and savagery. It would be thought that worse
degradation than that on Innisturk and Innisbofin would be difficult
to find; but in poverty, misery, and lawlessness the population of
those inclement isles is far outdone by the five-and-twenty families
now in the position of squatters on the Great Blasket. This is an
island some three miles and three-quarters long, lying off the
peninsula of Corkaguiny beyond Dunmore Head, on the northern side of
Dingle Bay, as Bray Head and the island of Valentia lie on its
southern side. Of old the Greater Blasket, which has some good
pasturage upon it, was let to a few tenants who made a sort of living
on this wild spot. They fed their sheep, they grew potatoes, caught
great store of porpoises, which they converted into bacon, and thus
kept body and soul together in a rough way. But whatever of rude
plenty once existed on Great Blasket has vanished before its
increasing population. The island is now asked to maintain some
hundred and forty persons, and refuses to respond to the demand.

The tenants can hardly complain of much interference of late years,
either from Lord Cork, the head landlord, or from Mr. Hussey, who till
just recently leased the island from him; for they have paid no rent
for four or five, nor county cess for seven, years. They have never
paid any poor-rate, and yet hunger after "relief meal." They are
simply attempting the impossible--to live on a place which might
perhaps support a score of people, but will not support six times that
number.

Blarney, for other reasons than its groves and "the stone there, that
whoever kisses he never misses to grow eloquent," is one of the most
interesting places in the south of Ireland. It is not only the centre
of a rich agricultural country and the abode of an improving landlord,
Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, but the seat of an
important manufacture of woollens, a rare and curious industry in
Munster. The Blarney mills make a great "turn over" of tweed, and
employ five hundred and fifty men, women, and girls. I had an
excellent opportunity of seeing the factory hands, for I went to
Blarney on pay-day, and was greatly struck by the difference between
their appearance and that of the people engaged in agriculture alone.
The number and appearance of the women