Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Pococke's Tour in Ireland in 1752 (Author: Richard Pococke)
entry 70
On Monday October 2d 1752 I set out from Waterford to Ross and crossed over to the County of Kilkenny, in about two miles I passed by a small cairn with a Cross on it, and had soon to the left a rocky hill of that cement of pebbles, chiefly of the Alabaster kind, which abound all over the country and of which the walls of Waterford are built; after riding about two miles farther, we passed by an old church call'd Kilmacoivow: we had a fine view of the river Suir and then of the Nore and Suir and going up to a height, I had a delightful prospect of the mouth of the harbour, of the winding of the Nore and of what they call the great Island, which is only a Peninsula. We came to the Nore
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and crossed it into the County of Wexford to Ross; all the Country we passed over is a union of Vicaridges in the gift of the City of Waterford. Ross is very pleasantly situated on the river and on the side of the hills over it, a rivlet runs down the middle of it through the street in a little hollow between the two hills; it is encompassed with a wall defended by turrets; on the top of the hill is the large church of the Convent of the Minorites, the east end of which serves for a Parish Church; there is a handsome tower to it, which commands a view of the Country, of the Barrow falling into the Nore about a mile higher, a fine flat on the river below, a little like the Campo of Scio, except that instead of wall'd gardens, it is laid out in beautiful meadows. In the church they show the tomb of Rosa Marra, who they say built the Town walls and the Church, and near it is what they call the tomb of her son, who being drowned as they say, she built Hook Tower at the mouth of the Harbour of Waterford. Under the south cross Isle are two or three vaults which are open. The body of the church is cover'd with lead. There is a good Town house here, built of a very fine white mountain stone or Granite. The quay is a most pleasant walk. Half a mile from the town in the road to Inniscorthy is a Charter School for twenty boys and twenty girls.