At all events there is enough and to spare of interest in Aran for a week's visit or a month's; and if you spend that time there, it is odds but you shall run up against some scholar, German, Dane, or Frenchman, of European repute in Celtic scholarship, who has come here to study the ancient language and tradition where they are best preserved. Incidentally you may follow out the history of a great experiment in paternal legislation, the Congested Districts Board's successful attempt to develop a well-equipped fishing industry among these islanders, who had neither seaworthy boats nor nets of any considerable dimensions, nor when they caught it, any means of marketing their fish. All this is changed and much more with it: there are no more famines in Aran: and even in Aran an industrious and courageous man may gather a little prosperity about him without leaving the island of the saints and the way of life in which he was brought up. II That part of Mayo which adjoins Joyce country and Connemara is most easily reached by the coast road from Clifden by Leenane; and the drive from Leenane to Westport is famous. You pass through the defile of the Bundorragha river flowing into the north of Killary Bay--a mountain pass with Mweelrea gigantic on your left; and beyond that, farther along the same route, Croaghpatrick divides you from the sea, while inland is Nephin, the great cone that rises above Lough Conn. All this very wild district was the territory of the O'Malleys, just as Connemara was of the O'Flahertys, but the O'Malleys have left a greater name in history--and a stronger stock, for to-day they have overflowed into the country of the other clan and dominate Connemara and Joyce country alike. But they have departed from their old tradition which linked them to the sea: and the most famous of all these western sea-rovers was a woman, Grace O'Malley, Granuaile, whose name has become one of the titles by which the spirit of nationalist Ireland is known in song. "Poor old Granuaile" is another appellation of the Shan van Vocht. This ruler of men and warrioress was a contemporary of Elizabeth's, and no mean opponent of Gloriana's power in the west. She married, diplomatically, first an O'Flaherty by whom she spread her influence over the shores of Galway as well as of Mayo, and what was more to her purpose, got control of his galleys as well as hers, and with them raided so far, that she carried over Lord Howth's heir from the strong castle a bare ten miles from Dublin. O'Flaherty dying, she bestowed her hand on a man of Norman stock, one of the Burkes, the MacWilliam, and through him got her own adherents posted in a string of castles--which purpose accomplished, so they say, she declared the union at an end. All the castles along the Mayo shore are associated with her name; but the place of her resting is in the little old church with vaulted roof (and still a trace of colour in the stonework) on