for the growth of flax out of which the finest linen fabrics can be made. It would almost seem as if Ireland was fated to be for ever suffering some sort of ill-luck, and that things which are blessings to humanity at large are often misfortunes to her. There cannot be any doubt but that the cotton plant has proved one of the greatest of blessings to mankind in general, but it has been a great misfortune to Ireland. Were it not for cotton, three-fourths of the land of Ireland would now be growing flax, and it would most likely contain a dozen linen manufacturing centres as large as Belfast. Whatever the future of the linen trade may be, it is hardly possible that Belfast can ever sink into insignificance, for its people have so much of the true commercial spirit in them that if linen became as useless as the chain armour of the middle ages, they would turn their energies to some other branch of manufacture and make it a success. Belfast hardly figures at all in ancient Irish history or annals. It is a comparatively new place. It is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 1476, where it is said, "A great army was led by O'Neill against the son of Hugh Boy O'Neill; and he attacked the castle of Bel-feiriste, which he took and demolished, and then returned to his house." The name Belfast is a corruption of _Bél-feiriste_, or as it would probably be written in modern Irish, Beulfearsaide, the mouth or pass of the spindle. This seems nonsense, but the following, from Joyce's "Irish Names of Places," will explain it: "The word _fearsad_ is applied to a sand-bank formed near the mouth of a river by the opposing currents of tide and stream, which at low water often formed a firm and comparatively safe passage across. The term is pretty common, especially in the west, where these _fearsets_ are of considerable importance; as in many places they serve the inhabitants instead of bridges. A sand-bank of this kind across the mouth of the Lagan gave name to Belfast, which is called in Irish authorities Bel-feirisde, the ford of the _farset_; and the same name in the uncontracted form, Belfarsad, occurs in Mayo." The Irish name for a spindle is _fearsaid_; it also means a sand-bank, as described above, probably because the shape of such sand-banks is generally something like that of a spindle. According to the orthography of the Four Masters, whose spelling of place names is generally correct, _feiriste_ is the genitive singular of _fearsaid_; while in the name "Belfarsad," mentioned by Joyce, _forsad_ seems to be the genitive plural.