Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Journey to Connaught, April 1709 (Author: Samuel Molyneux)
entry 2
Wednesday, 6th— Left Killcock. Came to Beggarsbridge4, in ye
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county of Westmeath, 17 mile in 8 hours. A good inn, but no town; the roads bad enough; the lands generally corn or sheep-walks, with some black cattle. As we went farther from Dublin no enclosures or trees to be seen, but little scrubs in ye bogs here and there. We pass'd by Clancurry5, where is a fair Dane-mount, the Blackwater, Royall Oak6, Clonard on ye Boyne, another fair Dane-mount, Kinigad, a pretty new built town, handsom market-house, Lowtown7, Gaulstown8, Castleloss9 . [On the road I observ'd now and then near a poor cabin yarn a drying as is frequent in ye North, and I am told ye wife makes up the rent sometimes in this country and in Connaght by making their 20 or 30 yards of cloath in a year, besides supplying ye necessary linnen for their own family, this manufacture is not so much improv'd here
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as to make any cloath for sale further than immediate necesssity constrains them.]