The well-fed maid at the hotel informed me that they were very poor.
There is no work and no tillage, the land being in grass for sheep. "I
do not believe any of them know what a full meal means. No one knows how
they manage to live, the creatures," said the maid, comfortably. So the
night and the morning passed at Athenry, and we passed on to the village
of Oranmore.
LI.
GALWAY AND THE MEN OF GALWAY.
From Athenry and its ruins went to Oranmore and its ruins. The poverty
of Athenry deepens into still greater poverty in Oranmore. The country
is under grass, hay is the staple crop, so there being little tillage,
little labor is required. They depend on chance employment to procure
the foreign meal on which they live. Some depend for help to a great
extent on the friends in America.
There is a new pier being built here, for an arm of the sea runs up to
Oranmore. They told me that this pier was being built by the Canadian
money. It will be a harbor of refuge for fishing craft and better days
of work and food may yet dawn upon the West.
Behind the pier are the ruins of a large castle which belonged to the
Blakes, one of the Galway tribes.
