Croy Lodge and Ballina

Asenath Nicholson

1851

Through the romantic snow-topped mountains of Doughhill, a son of Mrs. Wilson conducted me on her car to Ballycroy, or Croy Lodge, the cottage on a most wild coast, where Maxwell wrote his "Wild Sports of the West." We wound among mountains of the most lofty kind; and hanging over the sea, reflecting their snowy sides from its molten surface, with a bright morning sun shining upon them, they were strangely beautiful. The panorama was exceedingly interesting, and the more so that the peasants appeared better fed than any I had met in the country. The relief-officers here might be more attentive, seeing that this destitute spot so inclosed could yield no possible relief.

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