
LARNE, COUNTY ANTRIM. -The above handsome town stands on the Inver
river, near the mouth of Larne Lough, and is the pleasant little capital
of a prosperous district of the county Antrim. Behind it, in the sketch,
may be observed the well-cultivated fields, divided off into numerous
squares, as is the custom throughout Ireland, by quick-set, thorn
hedges, which occupy a great deal of valuable ground, but add much
to the picturesqueness of the country, which would be, otherwise,
rather destitude of arborage. The long wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries did much to destroy the Irish forces, and they are only
now beginning to recuperate, having increased four-fold since 1845.
The town was, in old times, Inver-an-Laharna; and the river that flows
through it the Ollarbha, or Larne Water.
Olderfleet Castle, some remains of which still exist,
and which is said to have been built by the Danes, and rebuilt by a
Scotch family, named Byser, stood on what is called "the Curran" by
the harbor. It was here that Edward Bruce, brother of King Robert of
Scotland, landed
in 1315, with 6,000 men, to fight for the crown and independence
of Ireland, of which he was chosen king by the Irish chiefs and people.
The castle was destroyed duing the Elizabethan wars.

LARNE CHURCHYARD, CO. ANTRIM. -the quaint entrance to the chapel
and graveyard of Larne, County Antrim. The churchyard contains the
graves of thousands upon thousands of "Os" and "Macs" - "Irish-Irish"
and "Scotch Irish," who now sleep peacefully there side by side, heedless
of the "blood blood" of 1641, and of the factions bred by the fight
of 1690 on the banks of "the Boyne's ill-fated river."
It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the term "Scotch-Irish"
is almost unknown in Ireland, and one has to cross the Atlantic to America
in order to discover it in general use. We find the term first applied
to the non-Catholic inhabitants of Ulster by Chaplain Story, of King
William's army, who wrote what he humorously called "An Impartial History
of Affairs in Ireland," published in London, 1693. In his chapter descriptive
of the battle of the Boyne he says, on page 82: "Doctor Walker (defender
of Derry) going, as some say, to look after the Duke (Schomberg) was
shot a little beyond the river, and stripped immediately; for the Scotch-Irish
that followed our camp were got through already, and took off most of
the plunder." After Story, the men most responsible for the nickname
"Scotch-Irish" were Lord Macaulay and Horace Greeley.
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