Off the western Irish coast, from Connemara and Mayo, there are yet to be found remote islands with an exceedingly primitive civilization. Achill owes much of its interest to the fact that it exhibits a similar state of things, in many points little altered by contact with the mainland. The people, the cabins they inhabit, and their manner of life show very little change, in spite of the introduction of a good many articles of manufacture which a generation or two ago were quite unheard of. One thing which cannot fail to be noticed will be the queer little "public houses." The tenement itself, however aboriginal, is sure to contain an assortment of strong drinks as varied as the average West End bar. The quality may be dubious, but there will be no question as to the strength and specific gravity of the spirit, particularly the _eau-de-vie_, or the "mountain dew."
Of the charms of Dugort, the "Settlement," and Dugort proper, the poet-laureate, in the pages of "Maga," has written eulogistically. He says:
"A more perfect place of holiday resort it would not be possible to imagine. There are fine yellow sands, where children may make dykes, fortresses, and mountains of moderate height.... There is fishing, either in smooth or rolling water, for those who love the indolent rocking or the rough rise and fall of the sea; precipitous and fretted cliffs, carved with the likeness of some time-eaten Gothic fane by the architectonic ocean; rides, drives, and walks amid the finest scenery of the kingdom. 'I think she prefers Brighton,' said a stranger to me of his companion; and, if one prefers Brighton, one knows where to go. But if nature, now majestically serene, now fierce and passionate, be more to you than bicyclettes and German bands, you can nowhere be better than at Achill."
The Settlement, or modern Dugort, is a group of cabins above the shore, which owed its creation to the Rev. Edward Nangle, a clergyman of the Established Church. In 1831 he visited Achill, and was so impressed with what he deemed the "spiritual destitution"
of the islanders that he organized a mission. Some seventy acres of land having been bought, two or three cottages were erected in 1833, and in the following year Mr. Nangle settled at what is now the bright little village of modern Dugort. Whatever opinion may be held as to the value or wisdom of his undertaking, Catholic and Protestant alike, now that the dust of the battle has settled, will agree that Mr. Nangle had in him the stuff that heroes are made of. His immediate oversight was withdrawn about 1852, though for the rest of his life he took an active share in promoting the continuance of his work. He died in 1883, in his eighty-fourth year, but long before that time the "mission" had ceased to be a cause of dispute, and now Dugort is merely a small Protestant preserve in a Catholic district.