period of antiquity, appear in the cliffs towards Fair Head, and the fisheries are important. The coast-scenery and the view from the hill of Knocklayd are notable.
BALLYMENA, a town of Co. Antrim, Ireland, in the mid parliamentary division, on the Braid, an affluent of the Maine, 2 m. above their junction. Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,886. It is 33 m. N.N.W. of Belfast on the Northern Counties (Midland) railway. Branch lines run to Larne and to Parkmore on the east coast. The town owes its prosperity chiefly to its linen trade, introduced in 1733, which gives employment to the greater part of the inhabitants. Brown linen is a specialty. Iron ore is raised in the neighbourhood. Antiquities in the neighbourhood are few and the present buildings of Ballymena Castle and Galgorm Castle are modern. Gracehill, however, a Moravian settlement, was founded in 1746.
BALLYMONEY, a market town of Co. Antrim, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, 53 m. N.N.W. from Belfast by the Northern Counties (Midland) railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2952. The Ballycastle railway joins the main line here. The trade of the town is prosperous, brewing, distilling and tanning being carried on, besides the linen manufacture common to the whole county. Soap, candles and tobacco are also manufactured, and the town is a centre for local agricultural trade. Near the neighbouring village of Dervock (412 m. N.) is a cottage shown by an inscription to have been the home of the ancestors of William McKinley, president of the United States.
BALLYMOTE, a market town of Co. Sligo, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division, 14 m. S. of Sligo by the Midland Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 997. It is a centre for some agricultural trade and has carriage-building works. There are remains of a strong castle, built by the powerful earl of Ulster, Richard de Burgh, in 1300, and the scene of hostilities in 1641 and 1652. Ruins are also seen of a Franciscan foundation attributed to the 13th century; it was a celebrated seat of learning and an extant memorial of the work of its monks is the Book of Ballymote (c. 1391) in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy, a miscellaneous collection in prose and verse of historical, genealogical and romantic writings. There are also, near the town, ruins of a house of the Knights of St John (1303).
BALLYSHANNON, a seaport and market-town of Co. Donegal, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division, at the mouth of the Erne; on the Bundoran branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1901) 2359. The river is here crossed by a bridge of twelve arches, which connects the town with the suburb of The Port. Below the bridge the river forms a beautiful cascade, 150 yds. wide, with a fall at low water of 16 ft. Here is the salmon leap, where the fish are trapped in large numbers, but also assisted to mount the fall by salmon-ladders. The fisheries are of great value, and there is an export trade to England in salmon, which are despatched in ice. The harbour is a small exposed creek of Donegal Bay, and is only accessible to small vessels owing to a bar. Previous to the Union Ballyshannon returned two members to the Irish parliament and it was incorporated by James I. There are slight remains of a castle of the O'Donnells, earls of Tyrconnell, where the English, on attempting to besiege it, were defeated and lost heavily in their retreat across the river, in 1597. There are numerous raths or encampments in the vicinity and other remains. Coolmore, 3 m. N.W., is a bathing-resort.
BALM, a fragrant herb, Melissa officinalis, of the Deadnettle order (Labiatae) with opposite, ovate, crenulated leaves, which are wrinkled above, and small white or rose-spotted flowers. It is a native of central and southern Europe; it is often grown in gardens and has become naturalized in the south of England and grows apparently wild as a garden escape in North America. The name is from the Greek μέλισσα, the plant being visited by bees. Bastard Balm is an allied plant, Melittis Melissophyllum, a southern European species, found in the south and south-west of England.
BALMACEDA, JOSÉ MANUEL (1838–1891), president of the republic of Chile, was born in Santiago in 1838. His parents were wealthy, and in his early days he was chiefly concerned in industrial and agricultural enterprise. In 1865 he was one of the representatives of the Chilean government at the general South American congress at Lima, and after his return obtained great distinction as an orator in the national assembly. After discharging some diplomatic missions abroad, he became successively minister of foreign affairs and of the interior under the presidency of Señor Santa Maria, and in the latter capacity carried compulsory civil marriage and several other laws highly obnoxious to the clergy. In 1886 he was elected president; but, in spite of his great capacity, his imperious temper little fitted him for the post. He was soon irreconcilably at variance with the majority of the national representatives, and on the 1st of January 1891 he sought to terminate an intolerable situation by refusing to convoke the assembly and ordering the continued collection of the taxes on his own authority. This led to the Chilean Civil War of 1891, which ended in the overthrow of Balmaceda, who committed suicide on the 18th of September, the anniversary of his elevation to the presidency.
BALMAIN, a town of Cumberland county, N.S.W., Australia, on the western shore of Darling Harbour, Port Jackson, 2 m. by water from Sydney and suburban to it. Pop. (1901) 30,881. It is the home of great numbers of the working classes of Sydney and some of the largest factories and most important docks are situated here. Saw-mills, iron foundries, chemicals, glass and soap works, shipbuilding yards and a cocoanut-oil factory in connexion with the soap-manufacture at Port Sunlight, England, are among the chief industrial establishments. Balmain became a municipality in 1860.
BALMERINO, JAMES ELPHINSTONE, 1st Baron (c. 1553–1612), Scottish politician, was the third son of Robert, 3rd Lord Elphinstone (d. 1602). Rising to power under James VI. he became a judge and a royal secretary; he accompanied the king to London in 1603 and was made Lord Balmerino, or Balmerinoch, in 1604. In 1605 he became president of the court of session, but his ardour for the Roman Catholic religion brought about his overthrow. In 1599 on the king’s behalf, but without the king’s knowledge, he had sent a letter to Clement VIII. in which he addressed the pope in very cordial terms. A copy of this letter having been seen by Elizabeth, the English queen asked James for an explanation, whereupon both the king and the secretary declared it was a forgery. There the matter rested until 1608, when the existence of the letter was again referred to during some controversy between James and Cardinal Bellarmine. Interrogated afresh Balmerino admitted that he had written the compromising letter, that he had surreptitiously obtained the king’s signature, and that afterwards he had added the full titles of the pope. In March 1609 he was tried, attainted and sentenced to death, but after a brief imprisonment he was released and he died at Balmerino in July 1612.
Balmerino’s elder son John (d. 1649) was permitted to take his father’s title in 1613. In 1634 he was imprisoned for his opposition to Charles I. in Scotland, and by a bare majority of the jury he was found guilty of "leasing-making" and was sentenced to death. But popular sympathy was strongly in his favour; the poet Drummond of Hawthornden and others interceded for him, and after much hesitation Charles pardoned him. Balmerino, however, did not desist from his opposition to the king. A chief among the Covenanters and a trusted counsellor of the marquess of Argyll, he presided over the celebrated parliament which met in Edinburgh in August 1641, and was one of the Scottish commissioners who visited England in 1644. He died in February 1649 and was succeeded as 3rd lord by his son John (1623–1704), who in 1669 inherited from his uncle James the title of Lord Coupar. John’s son John, 4th Lord Balmerino (1652–1736), was a lawyer of some repute and, although a sturdy opponent of the Union, was a Scottish representative peer in 1710 and 1713. John’s son Arthur (1688–1746) who became 6th Lord Balmerino on the death of his half-brother John in January 1746, is famous as a Jacobite. He joined the partisans of James Edward, the Old Pretender, after the battle of Sheriffmuir in November 1715, and then lived for some time in exile, returning to Scotland in 1733 when his father had
