The sea wind was blowing through the open windows of the mill.  Barefoot girls—­it’s only on Sunday that Donegal country girls wear shoes and then they put them on only when they are quite near church—­silently needled khaki-worsted over the shining wire prongs.  Others spindled wool for new work.  As they stood or sat at their work, the shy colleens told of an extra room added to a cabin, or a plump sum to a dowry through the money earned at the mill.  None of them was planning, as their older sisters had had to plan, to go to Scotland or America.

“As the parents of most of the girls are members in the society they want the best working conditions possible for them,” said Mr. Gallagher as he took me out the back entrance of the knitting mill.  “So we’re building this new factory.  See that hole where we blasted for granite; we got enough for the entire mill in one blast.  That motor is for the electricity to be used in the plant.

“Northern sky lights in the new building—­the evenest light comes from the north.  Cement floor—­good for cleaning but bad for the girls, so we are to have cork matting for them to stand on.  Slide-in seats under the tables—­that’s so that a girl may stand or sit at her work.”

“Soon the hall will be free for entertainments again,” I suggested.  “Won’t the old cry be raised against it once more?”

“No.  We’re too strong for that now.”

At the Gallaghers’ home, a sort of store-like place on the main street, Mrs. Gallagher with a soft shawl about her shoulders was waiting to introduce me to Miss Hester.  Miss Hester was brought to Dungloe by the co-operative society to care for the mothers at child-birth.  She is the first nurse who ever came to work in Donegal.

But Mr. Gallagher wanted to talk more of Dungloe’s attainment and ambition.  He compared the trade turnover of $5,045 for the first year of the society with $375,000 for 1918.  But there were more things to be done.  The finest herring in the world swim the Donegal coast.  Scots catch it.  Irish buy it.  Dungloe men wanted to fish, but the gombeen man would never lend money to promote industry.  Other plans for the development of Dungloe were discussed, but the expense of the cartage of surplus products on the toy Lough Swilly road, and the impossibility of getting freight boats into the undredged harbor, were lead to rising ambition.

“Parliament is not interested in public improvements for Dungloe,” smiled Mr. Gallagher.  “I suppose if I were a British member of parliament I would not want to hand out funds for the projection of a harbor in a faraway place like this.  Irish transportation will not be taken in hand until Ireland can control her own economic policy.”

As the darkness closed in about our little fire the talk turned somehow to tales of the fairies of Donegal, and Mr. Gallagher chuckled: 

“Some persons about here still believe in the good people.”