Above: The Giant Causeways

Ulster comprises the northern part of Ireland, and is bounded by the sea on three sides. It contains nine counties, and is the most prosperous province of Ireland , because it is the one in which both farming’ and manufactures flourish most. Many of the inhabitants are descendants of Scotsmen who settled there in the reign of James the First. A great deal of flax is grown in Ulster, and active linen manufactures are carried on.

county donegal lies on the north-west coast, and is washed by the Atlantic Ocean. Its shores are broken into bays, headlands, cliffs, and islands. The chief are Lough Foyle, Malin Head, Lough Swilly, North Arran Isles, and Donegal Bay.

The county is a region of mountains and long valleys, with a large extent of bog and waste land. Its mountains rise more than two thousand feet high. The river Foyle separates Donegal from Londonderry. The county is famous for its mountain lakes, which lie in the midst of splendid scenery.

Lifford, the county town, on the Foyle, is a small and unimportant place. Ballyshannon, at the mouth of the Erne, where the river forms a fine cascade over a ledge of rocks, has a salmon-fishery. Donegal, on Donegal Bay, exports farm produce. It has ruins of an old castle and also of a monastery. Moville, on Lough Foyle, is a port for American steamers.

County Derry, on the north coast washed by the Atlantic, lies between Donegal and Antrim . The mountain mass in the south of the county is more than two thousand feet high. The chief rivers are the Bann on the east, and the Foyle on the west. Lough Neagh forms part of the boundary in the south-east. Thus it will be seen that the county has a salt-water lough (inlet) on one border, and a fresh-water lough (lake) on another border.

Derry, on the Foyle, the county town, was in ancient times the scat of the monastery from which Columbus sailed to Scotland in 5G3. In modern times the town is famous for its siege, in 1689, by the forces of James the Second. It is now a place of large trade and exports provisions. Coleraine, on the Bann, is noted for its salmon-fishery. Ten miles from it, in the next county, is the famous Giants’ Causeway.