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44
LEINSTER
many a hill in Donegal or Kerry whose bolder shape
gives a far more imposing appearance.
Here at last, far up on the moors, you strike the
military road near its southernmost point; and planted
on it, facing down the glen, is a queer, gaunt, half-
ruined building, evidently a barrack. A barrack it was;
but in more recent times it fell to Parnell, who rented
these moors, and he used it as a shooting-lodge—fur-
nished in the roughest way, with a few bedsteads
and chairs. There is a kind of legend about the
haughty, unbending chief, who treated all his followers
with the scantest courtesy. Very different is the
impression I have got from those who were privi-
leged to walk the hills after birds with him and to
camp in that bare but friendly shelter. To-day, in-
deed, its grimness is somewhat mitigated; but, as
you may readily discover, the old barrack has not
lost its associations with the nationalism of to-day.
From Aughavanagh the military road will carry
you north across the hill, till beyond it you reach the
valley of the Avonbeg and Drumgoff Bridge. Here
is the foot of Glen Malure — boldest and wildest of
all these glens—which divides Lugnaquilla from Lug-
duff. This valley, commanding the pass westward
into the plains at Dunlavin, was always the central
stronghold of the O'Byrnes, the great Irish clan who
held out stubbornly among the hills. Lord Grey de