Loughareema! Loughareema!/Lies so high among the heather;/A little lough, a dark lough,/The wather's black and deep./Ould herons go a-fishing there,/and sea-gulls all together/Float around the one green island/On the fairy lough asleep. This lake is of some size, and is notable for at least two things. One, it vanishes from time to time, like any turlough in the West. Second point: the lines were written by the mother of Molly Keane, under the pen name Moira O'Neill. Two volumes of her Songs of the Glens of Antrim were popular early in the century. The edition from which this is taken, is dated 1910 and is the 14th impression.
It is one of the many places worth going to see in County Antrim. You can't miss it on the road from Ballycastle to Cushendun. It is said, at times to come on to the road, and a long time ago a local notability, a Colonel MacNeill, drowned together with his coachman, when his horses shied at water encroaching onto the road, then panicked, taking the Colonel, coachman and themselves into the depths.
This story is told by Robin G. Bryans in his travel book Ulster,1964. Apparently Stanford and Hamilton Harty set the poem to music and Bryans specially mentions Stanford's version as sung by Kathleen Ferrier. It is The Fairy Lough. While we're in that district and 1798 is much discussed, there is a graveyard just down the road towards Cushendall at Layde. There is to be seen a Celtic cross to an associate of Tone and other United Irishmen. It is of Dr James McDonnell, who was an on/off element. After giving £50 to the reward fund for the capture of his friend Thomas Russell, he recanted. "I had not done it one hour until I wished of all things it was undone."
Tone's diary gives nicknames to men in his circle. Russell was P.P. Clerk of this parish; Neilson was The Jacobin and McDonnell was the Hypocrite, presumed to refer to his hippocratic oath. Maybe not.
Anyway, 1798 or 1998, this corner of Ireland is one of the most beautiful. The views north to Scotland on a winter's day with snow on the long line of hills is the sight of a lifetime. Everything here is lovely. Why all this? Well, partly because the Northern Ireland Tourist Board is giving a Press do in Dublin on Friday, and when you think North, you think Antrim. Ah, yes, there is also Down and Fermanagh and whatever takes your fancy. But space is giving out. Y