The birds were singing in the trees, which all about our hotel make what in the West would be called an "opening" in the wide and woodless expanse of hill and bog.
This hotel was for many years the home of Lord George Hill, who built it in the hope of making Gweedore, what in England or Scotland it would long ago have become, a prosperous watering-place.

Now that a battle-royal is going on between Lord George's son and heir and the tenants on the estate, organised by Father M'Fadden under the "Plan of Campaign," it is important to know something of the history of the place.
Is this a case of the sons of the soil expropriated by an alien and confiscating Government to enrich a ruthless invader?
I was told by a Nationalist acquaintance in Dublin that the owner of Gweedore is a near kinsman of the Marquis of Londonderry, and that the property came to him by inheritance under an ancient confiscation of the estates of the O'Dounels of Tyrconnel.

All of this I find is embroidery.
The "Carlisle" room, which our landlord has assigned to us, contains a number of books, the property of the late Lord George, and ample materials are here for making out the annals of Gweedore.

Lord George, it seems, was a posthumous son of the fourth Marquis of Downshire, and a nephew of that Marchioness of Salisbury who was burned to death with the west wing of Hatfield House half a century ago.

He inherited nothing in Donegal, nor was any provision made for him under his father's will.