LONDONDERRY

LONDONDERRY, a county in Ireland, situated between 54° 56' and 55° 12' north latitude, and 6° 18' and 7° 21' west longitude, is bounded by the ocean on the north, by the county of Antrim on the east, by Tyrone on the south, and by Donegal on the west. Its area, which is of a triangular form, is 798 English square miles, or 510,720 English acres, contained within an outline of about 158 miles. It has Lough Foyle on the north-west, and Lough Neagh on the south-east. The river Foyle, which flows into the first, and the Bann, which issues from the second, are its natural boundaries on the west and east; but the city of Londonderry, with a small district around it, is on the west side of the Foyle, and the town of Coleraine, with a similar tract, is on the north-east of the Bann. The northern side, between the Bann and Lough Foyle, is very narrow, so that the line of sea-coast does not exceed 14 miles. The boundary with Tyrone on the south and south-west is irregular, and much more extensive. Londonderry forms part of the province of Ulster, and is divided into three baronies, viz. Tyrkeerin, Kenaught, and Loughinholin, and the half barony of Coleraine, with the towns and liberties of Londonderry and Coleraine. It contains thirty-one parishes, of which five belong to the primacy of Armagh, and the others to the diocese of Derry, which also extends into the counties of Donegal and Tyrone and a small part of Antrim.

On the south and south-west the surface is generally mountainous. Another range of high grounds intersects it from south to north, in which last direction the principal rivers have their course. In the valleys through which these rivers flow, there are spots of great beauty and fertility, but of no great extent. Among the mountains which enclose these valleys, the small glens, here called slacks, are, for the most part, wild and desolate; yet Samhuil, the highest

London-derry. mountain, does not exceed 1600 feet. Every variety of soil is found in this county, but the most valuable kinds, which altogether occupy no great proportion of the surface, are scattered over it in small tracts. Rich loam occurs on the shores of Lough Foyle and Lough Neagh; clay, but not fertile, on the banks of the Bann, and sand in the north-west between Lough Foyle and the sea. Gravel extends over a great part of the eastern side, and also along the river Faughan on the west, and clay and gravel, which are the most common soils, along with bog, occupy a great part of the interior.

The principal rivers are the Foyle, which enters this county from Donegal, and, after a short course, passes into the lake of the same name. It is navigable for large vessels to Londonderry, and to Liford, in Donegal, for boats of 20 tons. At the Rosses bay, on the east side of the harbour of Londonderry, there is a considerable salmon fishery. The Bann, after a course of near 40 miles, enters Lough Neagh, and then Lough Beg, and forming the boundary with Antrim for the greater part of its course, and afterwards, having the district of Coleraine on the east, falls into the sea four miles below that town. On this river also there is a valuable salmon fishery, and eels are so plentiful, that a few years ago they yielded a rent of about L. 2000. The Roe, which has its source near the centre of the county, flows north, and enters Lough Foyle through a tract of low land, which it often inundates. The Faughan rises on the south-west boundary, and taking a direction, during the latter part of its course, nearly parallel to the Foyle, falls into Lough Foyle a little to the eastward. Moyola, a considerable stream, enters Lough Neagh on the south-east. Excepting the Foyle, none of these rivers are navigable. Chalybeate springs are common, but none of them have acquired any degree of celebrity.

Minerals. The mineralogy of Londonderry has been particularly described by Mr Sampson, the author of the Statistical Survey of the county, to which we must refer. The Vale of the Roe separates two districts totally distinct. On the west lies the region of schist, and on the east that of basalt. Flag-stone, blue and white limestone, slate and sandstone, are the only rocks worked. Iron, either in an ochreous state, or mixed with manganese, abounds, but no coal worth notice has yet been discovered. Very fine crystals are found in the basalt, and rock crystal, said to be harder than the Kerry stone, in the schistose region. The lichen, from which cudbear is made, is found on the rocks near Londonderry, and has been long employed by the country people to give their flannels and other woollen fabrics an orange red colour.

Climate. The range of the barometer, in seven years, from 1795 to 1801, was from 28.37 to 30.84;—of the thermometer, from 17° to 81°; mean temperature 49°; the quantity of rain was from 25.7 to 34.7 inches. In the same period the number of fair days was 129 yearly at a medium. The principal winds are from the west and north-west, which blow for more than half the year. The general character of the climate is humidity, but it deserves this character rather from the frequency of the showers that

fall, than from the quantity of rain indicated by the rain gauge. London-derry.

With the exception of lands belonging to the church, and the towns of Londonderry and Coleraine, and certain portions reserved by the Crown to be afterwards erected into freeholds, the whole of Londonderry was granted by James I. to the twelve companies or guilds of London. The estates are therefore held from these companies, either in perpetuity, or on determinable leases. The principal proprietors or leaseholders are Lords Waterford and Londonderry, Mr Conolly, Mr Ogilby, and the families of Beresford and Ponsonby.

The average size of farms is from five to twenty Farms. Irish acres, or at a medium little more than fifteen acres English. Whole districts are subdivided into patches of seven or eight acres; but in a few situations there are farms of upwards of 300 acres. The leases are for a great many different periods, though most commonly for 21 years and one life.

The principal crops are potatoes, barley, oats, and Agriculture. flax. Wheat is not in general cultivation; turnips are very rare, and sown grasses and clovers far from being common. No uniform rotation of crops is recognised in practice, but it is usual to take two crops of oats successively, and sometimes flax the year following. Fiorin is the predominating plant in the meadows, where it grows spontaneously with great luxuriance. The live stock presents nothing worthy of particular notice. Grazing grounds are not extensive, and there are few dairies. On the east side of the Bann there are two extensive rabbit-warrens.

The principal manufacture is linen. According Manufactures. to Mr Sampson, the value of the linen bleached in this county exceeds half a million sterling, and brown or unbleached linens are exported in considerable quantities. The flax-seed is chiefly imported from America and Holland. They sow about nine pecks the English acre, if the object be to have fine flax, and little more than half that quantity when the seed is to be saved. The produce is about 160 pounds of rough flax for every peck of seed, which yields from 40 to 48 pounds of milled flax. By the hackle this is divided into nearly equal portions of dressed flax and tow. Hence the produce of an English acre may be about 180 pounds of flax and the same weight of tow, which, according to the prices given in the Statistical Survey, would be worth about L. 18. The weavers, who are also small farmers, work at the loom little more than half the year. The finer qualities of linen are sold in the Coleraine market, and the coarser at Londonderry. In 1802 there were sixty registered bleachers, who were supposed to finish altogether about 250,000 pieces.

Londonderry imports iron, hemp, flax and flax-Commerce. seed, tallow, and tar, from the north of Europe; flax-seed, tobacco, tar, and timber from America; wine from Portugal, and coals, herrings, and other articles from Britain. During war it has sometimes had a considerable share of the provision trade. The principal articles exported are linen, beef, butter, and hides, of which the first is by far the most considerable. The trade by sea is carried on at the ports of Londonderry and Coleraine, but chiefly at the former.

The chief towns are Londonderry, Coleraine, New-Town.

London-derry, Magherafelt, and Castle-Dawson. Londonderry has a population of about 12,000, and Coleraine near half that number. The villages are Ballaghy, Moneymore, Kilrea, and Dungiven.

The cabins, clothing, food, and fuel of the lowest class of labourers, the cottiers, who form a great part of the population, are much the same as in the Irish counties already described. As the turbaries are fast exhausting, fuel is becoming scarce in the low country. In such situations, when the turf no longer bears to be cut, it is collected into heaps in the state of mire, baked and shaped with the hand, and afterwards spread to harden, but it makes very bad fires; and in some places, even this miserable substitute can no longer be procured but from a distance. The poor inhabitants of the coast, and in the vale of the Roe, employ three months of the year in providing fuel; coal, which is brought from Liverpool and Scotland, selling at a price beyond their means of purchasing. The wages of common labour all the year round may be from 8d. to 10d. a day; in hay and corn harvest 1s. 6d. In 1800, oatmeal, at one time, sold at 4s. 6d. per peck of 10 lb. avoirdupois, and potatoes were proportionally high. In 1811, potatoes were 3d. per stone, beef 6½d. and mutton 7d. per pound, oatmeal 18s. per cwt. Milk 2d. and butter-milk, in summer, ¼d. and in winter 1d. per quart.

The county of Londonderry is represented in Parliament by two members, and the towns of Londonderry and Coleraine by another for each. The population in 1790, according to Dr Beaufort, was 125,000; in 1813 it was 186,000. The inhabitants of the mountains are all Catholics, and also one-third of the people of the low country. Of the other religious denominations, the Presbyterians are the most numerous. Their clergy have salaries of from £40 to £100 from government, the dissenters from the Presbyterian church, as established in Scotland, as well as those who belong to that church.

See Sampson's Statistical Survey of Londonderry; Mason's Statistical Survey of Ireland, and the works quoted under the former Irish counties. (A.)

LONGFORD is a county in the province of Leinster, in Ireland, bounded on the north by the counties of Leitrim and Cavan, on the east and south by Westmeath, and on the west by the river Shannon, which separates it from the county of Roscommon. In its greatest extent it stretches about 25 miles from north to south, and 20 miles from east to west; and its area is 366 English square miles, or 234,240 English acres, which is divided into six baronies and twenty-three parishes. Twenty-two of the parishes are in the diocese of Ardagh, which is now united to Tuam.

A great part of this district consists of bog, mountain, and waste. On the south, near the river Inny, there is a tract of bog extending to 36,000 acres, and towards the north the county is particularly rugged and sterile. The Inny is the only river of any note which passes through it, and that only for a short distance on the south in its progress towards the Shannon. At its conflux with the Shannon, the latter expands into a lake called Lough Reagh; the only other considerable piece of water is Lough

Gawnagh, on its northern boundary, near which there are rocks of ironstone and some indications of coal. The line of the Royal Canal, from Dublin to Tarmonbarry, on the Shannon, enters Longford on the south, and passes through its south-western quarter. The climate is not more humid than that of other parts of Ireland. At Edgeworthstown, about midway between the Inny and the Shannon, the medium number of fair days, for a period of twelve years, was 140.

Here, as in many other parts of Ireland, much of the land is divided into large estates of from £3000 to £7000 a year and upwards. Leases are commonly for twenty-one years and a life. Farms are, for the most part, very small where tillage is the principal object; but only a small proportion of the district is under the plough. It is chiefly occupied in grazing, in which the resident gentry almost exclusively employ the farms which they retain in their own hands.

Longford, in common with almost every county in Ireland, has a share of the linen manufacture. Being an inland county, it carries on little other commerce than the exchange of the raw produce of its soil, chiefly oats, with cattle and sheep, for articles required for the use of the inhabitants. The towns are Longford, the county town, where the assizes are held, Ballymahon, Lanesborough, Killashee, Edgeworthstown, the seat of the distinguished family of Edgeworth, Granard, and St. Johnstown. None of these is so considerable as to be represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

In 1810, the wages of common labour were 8d. a-day the year round; in hay and corn harvest 1s. 1d. Potatoes were 3d. per stone, beef 5d., and mutton 6½d. per pound, oatmeal 15s. per cwt., and herrings 9s. 4d. the hundred. These wages and prices seem to prove that the condition of the labouring classes is still worse in Longford than in many other parts of Ireland; and it is not easy to conceive how they find the means of rearing families.

The county sends two members to Parliament. The population in 1790, according to Dr Beaufort, was 50,100. In 1808, the Catholics were to the Protestants as eight or ten to one.

See the general works referred to under the former Irish counties, and LONGFORD in the Encyclopaedia. (A.)