‘Many go away,’ he said, ’who could stay if they wished to, for it is a fine place for fishing, and a man will get more money and better health for himself, and rear a better family, in this place than in many another.  It’s a good place to be in, and now, with the help of God, the little children will all learn to read and write in Irish, and that is a great thing, for how can people do any good, or make a song even, if they cannot write?  You will be often three weeks making a song, and there will be times when you will think of good things to put into it that could never be beaten in the whole world; but if you cannot write them down you will forget them, maybe, by the next day, and then what good will be your song?’

After a while we went upstairs to a large room in the inn, where a number of young men and girls were dancing jigs and reels.  These young people, although they are as Irish-speaking as the people of Connemara, are pushing forward in their ways of living and dress; so that this group of dancers could hardly have been known, by their appearance, from any Sunday party in Limerick or Cork.  After a long four-hand reel, my friend, who was dressed in homespun, danced a jig to the whistling of a young man with great energy and spirit.  Then he sat down beside me in the corner, and we talked about spring trawling and the price of nets.  I told him about the ways of Aran and Connemara; and then he told me about the French trawlers who come to this neighbourhood in April and May.

‘The Frenchmen from Fecamp,’ he said, ’are Catholics and decent people; but those who come from Boulogne have no religion, and are little better than a wild beast would lep on you out of a wood.  One night there was a drift of them below in the public-house, where there is a counter, as you’ve maybe seen, with a tin top on it.  Well, they were talking together, and they had some little difference among themselves, and from that they went on raising their voices, till one of them out with his knife and drove it down through the tin into the wood!  Wasn’t that a dangerous fellow?’

Then he told me about their tobacco.

’The French do have two kinds of tobacco; one of them is called hay-tobacco, and if you give them a few eggs, or maybe nine little cabbage plants, they’ll give you as much of it as would fill your hat.  Then we get a pound of our own tobacco and mix the two of them together, and put them away in a pig’s bladder—­it’s that way we keep our tobacco—­and we have enough with that lot for the whole winter.’

This evening a circus was advertised in Dingle, for one night only; so I made my way there towards the end of the afternoon, although the weather was windy and threatening.  I reached the town an hour too soon, so I spent some time watching the wild-looking fishermen and fish-women who stand about the quays.  Then I wandered up and saw the evening train coming in with the usual number of gaily-dressed young women