from TW Freeman - Ireland: A General and Regional Geography
London: Methuen & Co., 1950

The Sliabh Aughty

These uplands, which extend over some 250 square miles, are of Armorican structure and expose Old Red sandstones at the surface with occasional inliers of Silurian strata.They consist of long monotonous ridges rising to 1,000-1,200 feet, and are covered by bogs. The Sliabh Aughty are by-passed by almost all travellers and offer little scenic attraction; their isolation is accentuated by Lough Derg, a waterbarrier of considerable significance, on the east. Settlement is restricted to the valleys and some lower hillslopes: the farming lands are generally surrounded by rough pasture...

A substantial past of this upland was congested in 1891 and in spite of heavy loss of population, part of it has hardly risen above the congested level since. The farms generally have about three acres of meadow and a share in the mountain grazing, which is either individually owned or grazed in common by two or more holders. Home-made butter, eggs, pigs, calves and sheep are the main sources of income, and as neither migratory labour nor local employment have ever been common in the district the emigration rate has been particularly heavy. The main problem of the farmer in such an area as this is access to markets: many farms are as much as fifteen miles distant from Loughrea or Gort and therefore depend on the intermittent fairs and on the inconsiderable facilities of Woodford, a village of 240 people.

The Withering of the Boughs
WB Yeats

I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds:
"Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind."
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the leafy paths that the witches take
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.
A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind
With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by;
I know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.