. Ireland yesterday and today . raun, I saw seventy-five new houses, erected duringthe last two years. This group constitutes another phase ofthe boards work, upon which I have not yet touched. Thehouses were not built by the board, but by the landholdersthemselves, under the boards direction. Only small loanswere made, but the trifling assistance given had stirred thelandholders to help themselves to this extent. The seventy-five houses offered eloquent testimony to the ambition andindustry of the farmers when an opportunity for bettermentby their own labor is offered to them. Thence the car
. Ireland yesterday and today . raun, I saw seventy-five new houses, erected duringthe last two years. This group constitutes another phase ofthe boards work, upon which I have not yet touched. Thehouses were not built by the board, but by the landholdersthemselves, under the boards direction. Only small loanswere made, but the trifling assistance given had stirred thelandholders to help themselves to this extent. The seventy-five houses offered eloquent testimony to the ambition andindustry of the farmers when an opportunity for bettermentby their own labor is offered to them. Thence the car ran due north to Charlestown, fromwhich place we made a circuit of ten or fifteen miles in theopen country. Two interesting features presented them-selves on this detour. One was the deepening of the Curryriver for drainage purposes, the other a hamlet of poorhouses, where the wretched conditions I saw seven yearsago still exist, the board having been unable as yet to acquiredecent lands for the tenants. A straight run westward. at \*f THINGS SEEN 155 through the Swinford district brought us to Foxford,where a notable feature is the woolen factory conducted asa successful commercial enterprise by Sisters of through the rugged mountains that surroundLough Cullen, we crossed the narrow strip of land whichseparates it from Lough Conn, amid scenery as wildly beau-tiful as can be found in all Ireland, and thence ran easilydown to Castlebar. Next morning, before starting eastward again, wemade a ten-mile detour to the southwest of Castlebar tovisit a colony of migrants who have been settled in theirnew places for eight or nine years. Here I saw the mar-velous work of the board in full fruition. The land is poor—it was impossible to find better land in the neighborhoodfor those who needed it—but the people have made a bravefight for themselves, and they have won. The little farmswere bright with growing crops, the houses gleaming withpaint and whitewash. Few that
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidire, booksubjectlandtenure
