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Created: By Arthur Young Date range: 1776–1779.
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Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergyman, at Bradfield, in Suffolk. He was apprenticed to a merchant at Lynn, but his activity of mind caused him to be busy over many questions of the day. He wrote when he was seventeen a pamphlet on American politics, for which a publisher paid him with ten pounds' worth of books. He started a periodical, which ran to six numbers. He wrote novels. When he was twenty-eight years old his father died, and, being free to take his own course in life, he would have entered the army if his mother had not opposed. He settled down, therefore, to farming, and applied to farming all his zealous energy for reform, and all the labours of his busy
Between 1768 and 1771 Arthur Young produced also The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, containing the Sentiments of a Practical Husbandman on the present State of Husbandry. In 1770 he published, in two thick quartos, A Course of Experimental Agriculture, containing an exact Register of the Business transacted during Five Years on near 300 Acres of various Soils; also in the same year appeared Rural Economy; or, Essays on the Practical Part of Husbandry; also in the same year The Farmer's Guide in Hiring and Stocking Farms, in two volumes, with plans. Also in the same year appeared his Farmer's Kalendar, of which the 215th edition was published in 1862. There had been a second edition of the Six Weeks' Tour in
the South of England, with enlargements, in 1769, and Arthur Young was encouraged to go on with increasing vigour to the publication of The Farmer's Tour through the East of England: being a Register of a Journey through various Counties, to inquire into the State of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Population. This extended to four volumes, and appeared in the years 1770 and 1771. In 1771 also appeared, in four volumes, with plates, A Six Months' Tour through the North of England, containing an Account of the Present State of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Population in several Counties of this Kingdom.
Thus Arthur Young took all his countrymen into counsel while he was learning his art, as a farmer who brought to his calling a vigorous spirit of inquiry with an activity in the diffusion of his thoughts that is a part of God's gift to the men who have thoughts to diffuse; the instinct for utterance being almost invariably
Whether he was essentially author turned farmer, or farmer turned author, Arthur Young has the first place in English literature as a farmer-author. Other practical men have written practical books of permanent value, which have places of honour in the literature of the farm; but Arthur Young's writings have won friends for themselves among readers of every class, and belong more broadly to the literature of the country. Between 1766 and 1775 he says that he made £3,000 by his agricultural writings. The pen brought him more profit than the plough. He took a hundred acres in Hertfordshire, and said of them, ‘I know not what epithet to give this soil; sterility falls short of the idea; a hungry vitriolic gravel—I occupied for nine years the jaws of a wolf. A nabob's fortune would sink in the attempt to raise good arable crops in such a country.
In 1780 Arthur Young published this Tour in Ireland, with General Observations on the Present State of that Kingdom in 1776–78. The general observations, which give to all his books a wide general interest, are, in this volume, of especial value to us now. It is here reprinted as given by Pinkerton.
In 1784 Arthur Young began to edit Annals of Agriculture, which were continued through forty-five volumes. All writers in it were to sign their names, but when His Majesty King George III. contributed a description of Mr. Duckett's Farm at Petersham, he was allowed to sign himself ‘Ralph Robinson of Windsor.’
In 1792 Arthur Young published the first quarto volume, and in 1794 the two volumes of his Travels during the years 1787–8–9 and 1790, undertaken more particularly with a view of ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France. This led to the official issue in France in 1801, by order of the Directory, of a translation of Young's agricultural works, under the title of Le Cultivateur Anglais. Arthur Young also corresponded with Washington, and received recognition from the Empress Catherine of Russia, who sent him a gold snuff-box, and ermine cloaks for his wife and daughter. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1793 his labours led to the formation of a Board of Agriculture, of which he was appointed secretary. When he was set at ease by this appointment, with a house and £400 a year, Arthur Young had
Arthur Young's sight became dim in 1808, and blindness gradually followed. He died in 1820 at his native village of Bradfield, in Suffolk, at the age of seventy-nine years.
June 19, 1776. Arrived at Holyhead, after an instructive journey through a part of England and Wales I had not seen before. Found the packet, the Claremont, Captain Taylor, would sail very soon. After a tedious passage of twenty-two hours, landed on the 20th in the morning, at Dunlary, four miles from Dublin, a city which much exceeded my expectation. The public buildings are magnificent, very many of the streets regularly laid out, and exceedingly well built. The front of the Parliament-house is grand, though not so light as a more open finishing of the roof would have made it. The apartments are spacious, elegant, and convenient, much beyond that heap of confusion at Westminster, so inferior to the magnificence to be looked for in the seat of empire. I was so fortunate as to arrive just in time to see Lord Harcourt, with the usual ceremonies, prorogue the Parliament. Trinity College is a beautiful building, and a numerous society; the library is a very fine room, and well filled. The new Exchange will be another edifice to do honour to Ireland; it is elegant, cost forty thousand pounds,
June 21. Introduced by Colonel Burton to the Lord Lieutenant, who was pleased to enter into conversation with me on my intended journey, made many remarks on the agriculture of several Irish counties, and showed himself to be an excellent farmer, particularly in draining. Viewed the Duke of Leinster's house, which is a very large stone edifice, the front simple but elegant, the pediment light; there are several good rooms; but a circumstance unrivalled is the court, which is spacious and magnificent, the opening behind the house is also beautiful. In the evening to the Rotunda, a circular room, ninety feet diameter, an imitation of Ranelagh, provided with a band of music.
The barracks are a vast building, raised in a plain style, of many divisions; the principal front is of an immense length. They contain every convenience for ten regiments.
June 23. Lord Charlemont's house in Dublin is equally elegant and convenient, the apartments large, handsome, and well disposed, containing some good
Having the year following lived more than two months in Dublin, I am able to speak to a few points, which as a mere traveller I could not have done. The information I before received of the prices of living is correct. Fish and poultry are plentiful and very cheap. Good lodgings almost as dear as they are in London; though we were well accommodated (dirt excepted) for two guineas and a-half a week. All the lower ranks in this city have no idea of English cleanliness, either in apartments, persons, or cookery. There is a very good society in Dublin in a Parliament winter: a great round of dinners and parties; and balls and suppers every
June 24. Left Dublin, and passed through the Phoenix Park, a very pleasing ground, at the bottom of which, to the left, the Liffey forms a variety of landscapes: this is the most beautiful environ of Dublin. Take the road to Luttrel's Town, through a various scenery on the banks of the river. That domain is a considerable one in extent, being above four hundred acres within the wall, Irish measure; in the front of the house is a fine lawn bounded by rich woods, through which are many ridings, four miles in extent. From the road towards the house they lead through a very fine glen, by the side of a stream falling over a rocky bed, through the dark woods, with great variety on the sides of steep slopes, at the bottom of which the Liffey is either heard or seen indistinctly. These woods are of great extent, and so near the capital, form a retirement exceedingly beautiful. Lord Irnham and Colonel Luttrel have brought in the assistance of agriculture to add to the beauties of the place; they have kept a part of the lands in cultivation in order to lay them down the better to grass; one hundred and fifty acres have been done, and above two hundred acres
Leaving Luttrel's Town I went to St. Wolstan's, which Lord Harcourt had been so obliging as to desire I would make my quarters, from whence to view to the right or left.
June 25. To Mr. Clement's, at Killadoon, who has lately built an excellent house, and planted much about it, with the satisfaction of finding that all his trees thrive well. I remarked the beech and larch seemed to get beyond the rest. He is also a good farmer.
June 26. Breakfasted with Colonel Marlay, at Cellbridge, found he had practised husbandry with much success, and given great attention to it from the peace of 1763, which put a period to a gallant scene of service in Germany. Walked through his grounds, which I found in general very well cultivated; his fences excellent; his ditches five by six and seven by
Viewed Lucan, the seat of Agmondisham Vesey, Esq., on the banks of the Liffey. The house is rebuilding, but the wood on the river, with walks through it, is exceedingly beautiful. The character of the place is that of a sequestered shade. Distant views are everywhere shut out, and the objects all correspond perfectly with the impression they were designed to raise. It is a walk on the banks of the river, chiefly under a variety of fine wood, which rises on varied slopes, in some parts gentle, in others steep, spreading here and there into cool meadows, on the opposite shore, rich banks of wood or shrubby ground. The walk is perfectly sequestered, and has that melancholy gloom which should ever dwell in such a place. The river is of a character perfectly suited to the rest of the scenery, in some places breaking over rocks, in other silent, under the thick shade of spreading wood. Leaving Lucan, the next place is Leixlip, a fine one, on the river, with a fall, which in a wet season is considerable. Then St. Wolstan's, belonging to the Dean of Derry, a beautiful villa, which is also on the river; the grounds gay and open, though not without the advantage of much wood, disposed with judgment. A winding
Mr. Conolly's, at Castle Town, to which all travellers resort, is the finest house in Ireland, and not exceeded by many in England. It is a large handsome edifice, situated in the middle of an extensive lawn, which is quite surrounded with fine plantations disposed to the best advantage. To the north these unite into very large woods, through which many winding walks lead, with the convenience of several ornamented seats, rooms, &c. On the other side of the house, upon the river, is a cottage, with a shrubbery, prettily laid out; the house commands an extensive view, bounded by the Wicklow mountains. It consists of several noble apartments. On the first floor is a beautiful gallery, eighty feet long, elegantly fitted up.
June 27. Left Lord Harcourt's, and having received an invitation from the Duke of Leinster, passed through Mr. Conolly's grounds to his Grace's seat at Cartown. The park ranks among the finest in Ireland. It is a vast lawn, which waves over gentle hills, surrounded by plantations of great extent, and which break and divide in places so as to give much variety. A large but gentle vale winds through the whole, in the bottom of which a small stream has been enlarged into a fine river, which throws a cheerfulness through most of the scenes: over it a handsome stone bridge. There is a great variety on the banks of this vale; part of it
From hence took the road to Summerhill, the seat of the Right Hon. H. L. Rowley. The country is cheerful and rich; and if the Irish cabins continue like what I have hitherto seen, I shall not hesitate to pronounce their inhabitants as well off as most English cottagers. They are built of mud walls eighteen inches or two feet thick, and well thatched, which are far warmer than the thin clay walls in England. Here are few cottars without a cow, and some of them two. A bellyful invariably of potatoes, and generally turf for fuel from a bog. It is true they have not always chimneys to their cabins, the door serving for that and window too. If their eyes are not affected with the smoke, it may be an advantage in warmth.
Went in the evening to Lord Mornington's at Dangan, who is making many improvements, which he showed me. His plantations are extensive, and he has formed a large water, having five or six islands much varied, and promontories of high land shoot so far into it as to form almost distant lakes; the effect pleasing. There are above a hundred acres under water, and his lordship has planned a considerable addition to it. Returned to Summerhill.
June 29. Left it, taking the road to Slaine, the country very pleasant all the way; much of it on the banks of the Boyne, variegated with some woods, planted hedgerows, and gentle hills. The cabins continue much the same, the same plenty of poultry, pigs, and cows. The cattle in the road have their fore legs all tied together with straw to keep them from breaking into the fields; even sheep, and pigs, are all in the same bondage.
Lord Conyngham's seat, Slaine Castle, on the Boyne, is one of the most beautiful places I have seen; the grounds are very bold and various, rising round the castle in noble hills or beautiful inequalities of surface, with an outline of flourishing plantations. Under the castle flows the Boyne, in a reach broken by islands, with a very fine shore of rock on one side, and wood on the other. Through the lower plantations are
Under Mr. Lambert's house on the same river is a most romantic and beautiful spot; rocks on the side, rising in peculiar forms very boldly; the other steep wood, the river bending short between them like a land-locked basin.
Lord Conyngham's keeping up Slaine Castle, and spending great sums, though he rarely resides there, is an instance of magnificence not often met with; while it is so common for absentees to drain the kingdom of every shilling they can, so contrary a conduct ought to be held in the estimation which it justly deserves.
June 30. Rode out to view the country and some improvements in the neighbourhood: the principal of which are those of Lord Chief Baron Foster, which I saw from Glaston hill, in the road from Slaine to Dundalk.
In conversation with Lord Longford I made many inquiries concerning the state of the lower classes, and found that in some respects they were in good circumstances, in others indifferent; they have, generally speaking, such plenty of potatoes as always to
Reverse the medal: they are ill clothed, and make a wretched appearance, and what is worse, are much oppressed by many who make them pay too dear for keeping a cow, horse, &c. They have a practice also of keeping accounts with the labourers, contriving by that means to let the poor wretches have very little cash for their year's work. This is a great oppression, farmers and gentlemen keeping accounts with the poor is a cruel abuse: so many days' work for a cabin; so many for a potato garden; so many for keeping a
Left Packenham Hall.
Two or three miles from Lord Longford's in the way to Mullingar the road leads up a mountain, and commands an exceeding fine view of Lock Derrevaragh, a noble water eight miles long, and from two miles to half a mile over; a vast reach of it, like a magnificent river, opens as you rise the hill. Afterwards I passed under the principal mountain, which rises abruptly from the lake into the boldest outline imaginable. The water there is very beautiful, filling up the steep vale formed by this and the opposite hills.
Reached Mullingar.
It was one of the fair days. I saw many cows and beasts, and more horses, with some wool. The cattle were of the same breed that I had generally seen in coming through the country.
July 5. Left Mullingar, which is a dirty ugly town, and taking the road to Tullamore, stopped at Lord Belvidere's, with which place I was as much struck as with any I had ever seen. The house is perched on the crown of a very beautiful little hill, half surrounded with others, variegated and melting into one another. It is one of the most singular places that is
From Mullingar to Tullespace I found rents in general at twenty shillings an acre, with much relet at thirty shillings, yet all the crops except bere were very bad, and full of weeds. About the latter-named place the farms are generally from one hundred to three hundred acres; and their course: 1. fallow; 2. bere; 3. oats; 4. oats; 5. oats. Great quantities of potatoes all the way, crops from forty to eighty barrels.
The road before it comes to Tullamore leads through a part of the bog of Allen, which seems here extensive, and would make a noble tract of meadow. The way the road was made over it was simply to cut a drain on each side, and then lay on the gravel, which, as fast as it was laid and spread, bore the ears. Along the edges is fine white clover.
In conversation upon the subject of a union with
I think the idea is erroneous, were it only for one circumstance, the kingdom would lose, according to this reasoning, an idle race of country gentlemen, and in exchange their ports would fill with ships and commerce, and all the consequences of commerce, an exchange that never yet proved disadvantageous to any country.
Viewed Mount Juliet, Lord Carrick's seat, which is beautifully situated on a fine declivity on the banks of the Nore, commanding some extensive plantations that spread over the hills, which rise in a various manner on the other side of the river. A knoll of lawn rises
The river is a very fine one, and has a good accompaniment of well grown wood. From the cottage a more varied scene is viewed, cheering and pleasing; and from the tent in the farther plantation a yet gayer one, which looks down on several bends of the river.
July 11. Left Kilsaine. Mr. Bushe accompanied me to Woodstock, the seat of Sir W. Fownes. From Thomastown hither is the finest ride I have yet had in Ireland. The road leaving Thomastown leads on the east side of the river, through some beautiful copse woods, which before they were cut must have had a most noble effect, with the river Nore winding at the bottom. The country then opens somewhat, and you pass most of the way for six or seven miles to Innisteague, on a declivity shelving down to the river, which takes a varied winding course, sometimes lively, breaking over a rocky bottom, at others still and deep under the gloom of some fine woods, which hang down the sides of steep hills. Narrow slips of meadow of a beautiful verdure in some places form the shore, and unite with cultivated fields that spread over the adjoining hills, reaching almost the mountain tops. These are large and bold, and give in general to the scenes features of great magnificence. Passed Sir John
Taking my leave of Mr. Bushe, I followed the road to Ross. Passed Woodstock, of which there is a very fine view from the top of one of the hills, the house in the centre of a sloping wood of five hundred English
Having now passed through a considerable extent of country, in which the Whiteboys were common, and committed many outrages, I shall here review the intelligence I received concerning them throughout the county of Kilkenny. I made many inquiries into the origin of those disturbances, and found that no such thing as a leveller or Whiteboy was heard of till 1760, which was long after the landing of Thurot, or the intending expedition of M. Couflans. That no foreign
July 15. Leaving Courtown, took the Arklow road;
Reached in the evening Mount Kennedy, the seat of General Cunninghame, who fortunately proved to me an instructor as assiduous as he is able. He is in the midst of a country almost his own, for he has 10,000 Irish acres here. His domain, and the grounds about it, are very beautiful; not a level can be seen; every spot is tossed about in a variety of hill and dale. In the middle of the lawn is one of the greatest natural curiosities in the kingdom: an immense arbutus tree, unfortunately blown down, but yet vegetating. One branch, which parts from the body near the ground, and afterwards into many large branches, is six feet two inches in circumference. The General buried part of the stem as it laid, and it is from several branches throwing out fine young shoots: it is a most venerable remnant. Killarney, the region of the arbutus, boasts of no such tree as this.
July 16. Rode in the morning to Drum; a large extent of mountains and wood on the General's estate. It is a very noble scenery; a vast rocky glen; one side
July 17. Took my leave of General Cunninghame, and went through the glen of the downs in my way to Powerscourt. The glen is a pass between two vast ridges of mountains covered with wood, which have a very noble effect. The vale is no wider than to admit
Lowering the hill the scenery is yet more agreeable. The near inclosures are margined with trees, through whose open branches are seen whole fields of the most lively verdure. The trees gather into groups, and the lawn swells into gentle inequalities, while the river winding beneath renders the whole truly pleasing.
Breakfasted at the inn at Tinnyhinch, and then drove to the park to see the waterfall. The park itself is fine; you enter it between two vast masses of mountain, covered with wood, forming a vale scattered with trees, through which flows a river on a broken rocky channel. You follow this vale till it is lost in a most uncommon manner; the ridges of mountain, closing, form one great amphitheatre of wood, from the top of which, at the height of many hundred feet, bursts the water from a rock, and tumbling down the side of a very large one, forms a scene singularly beautiful. At the bottom is a spot of velvet turf, from which rises a clump of oaks, and through their stems, branches and leaves, the falling water is seen as a background, with an effect more picturesque than can be well imagined. These few trees, and this little lawn, give the finishing to the scene. The water falls behind some large fragments of rock, and turns to the left, down a stony channel, under the shade of a wood.
Returning to Tinnyhinch, I went to Inniskerry, and
Return to the carriage, and quit the Dargle, which upon the whole is a very singular place, different from all I have seen in England, and I think preferable to most. Cross a murmuring stream, clear as crystal, and, rising a hill, look back on a pleasing landscape of inclosures, which, waving over hills, end in mountains of a very noble character. Reach Dublin.
July 20. To Drogheda, a well-built town, active in trade, the Boyne bringing ships to it. It was market-day, and I found the quantity of corn, &c., and the number of people assembled, very great; few country markets in England more thronged. The Rev. Mr. Nesbit, to whom recommended, absent, which was a great loss to me, as I had several inquiries which remained unsatisfied.
To the field of battle on the Boyne. The view of the scene from a rising ground which looks down upon it is exceedingly beautiful, being one of the completest landscapes I have seen. It is a vale, losing itself in front between bold declivities, above which are some thick woods and distant country. Through the vale the river winds and forms an island, the point of which
Returned part of the way, and took the road to Cullen, where the Lord Chief Baron Forster1 received me in the most obliging manner, and gave me a variety of information uncommonly valuable. He has made the greatest improvements I have anywhere met with. The whole country twenty-two years ago was a waste sheep-walk, covered chiefly with heath, with some dwarf furze and fern. The cabins and people as miserable as can be conceived; not a Protestant in the country, nor a road passable for a carriage. In a word, perfectly resembling other mountainous tracts,
To Dundalk. The view down on this town also very beautiful: swelling hills of a fine verdure, with many rich inclosures backed by a bold outline of mountain that is remarkable. Laid at the Clanbrassil Arms, and found it a very good inn. The place, like most of the Irish towns I have been in, full of new buildings, with every mark of increasing wealth and prosperity. A cambric manufacture was established here by Parliament, but failed; it was, however, the origin of that more to the north.
July 22. Left Dundalk, took the road through Ravensdale to Mr. Fortescue, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately he was in the South of Ireland. Here I saw many good stone and slate houses, and some bleach greens; and I was much pleased to see the inclosures creeping high up the sides of the mountains, stony as they are. Mr. Fortescue 's situation is very
Breakfasted at Newry—the Globe, another good inn. This town appears exceedingly flourishing, and is very well built; yet forty years ago, I was told, there were nothing but mud cabins in it. This great rise has been much owing to the canal to Loch Neagh. I crossed it twice; it is indeed a noble work. I was amazed to see ships of one hundred and fifty tons and more lying in it, like barges in an English canal. Here is a considerable trade.
Reached Armagh in the evening, and waited on the Primate.
July 23. His Grace rode out with me to Armagh, and showed me some of the noble and spirited works by which he has perfectly changed the face of the neighbourhood. The buildings he has erected in seven years, one would suppose, without previous information, to be the work of an active life. A list of them will justify this observation.
He has erected a very elegant palace, ninety feet by sixty, and forty high, in which an unadorned simplicity reigns. It is light and pleasing, without the addition of wings or lesser parts, which too frequently wanting a sufficient uniformity with the body of the edifice, are unconnected with it in effect, and divide the attention. Large and ample offices are conveniently placed behind a plantation at a small distance. Around the palace is a large lawn, which spreads on every side over the hills, and is skirted by young plantations, in one of which is a terrace, which commands a most beautiful view of cultivated hill and dale. The view from the palace is much improved by the barracks, the school, and a new church at a distance, all which are so placed as to be exceedingly ornamental to the whole country.
The barracks were erected under his Grace's directions, and form a large and handsome edifice. The school is a building of considerable extent, and admirably adapted for the purpose: a more convenient or a better contrived one is nowhere to be seen. There are apartments for a master, a school-room fifty-six feet by twenty-eight, a large dining-room, and spacious, airy dormitories, with every other necessary, and a spacious playground walled in; the whole forming a handsome front: and attention being paid to the residence of the master (the salary is four hundred pounds a year), the school flourishes, and must prove one of the greatest advantages to the country
He has been the means also of erecting a public infirmary, which was built by subscription, contributing amply to it himself.
A public library he has erected at his own expense, given a large collection of books, and endowed it. The room is excellently adapted, forty-five feet by twenty-five, and twenty high, with a gallery, and apartments for a librarian.
He has further ornamented the city with a market-house and shambles, and been the direct means, by giving leases upon that condition, of almost new-building the whole place. He found it a nest of mud cabins, and he will leave it a well-built city of stone and slate. I heard it asserted in common conversation that his Grace, in these noble undertakings, had not expended less than thirty thousand pounds, besides what he had been the means of doing, though not directly at his own expense.
In the evening reached Mr. Brownlow's at Lurgan, to whom I am indebted for some valuable information.
Upon inquiring concerning the emigrations, I found that in 1772 and 1773 they were at the height; that some went from this neighbourhood with property, but not many. They were in general poor and unemployed. They find here that when provisions are very cheap, the poor spend much of their time in whisky-houses. All the drapers wish that oatmeal was never under one penny a pound. Though farms are exceedingly divided, yet few of the people raise oatmeal enough to feed themselves; all go to market for some. The weavers earn by coarse linens one shilling a day, by fine one shilling and fourpence, and it is the same with the spinners—the finer the yarn, the more they
This country is in general beautiful, but particularly so about the straits that lead into Strangford Loch. From Mr. Savage's door the view has great variety. To the left are tracts of hilly grounds, between which the sea appears, and the vast chain of mountains in the Isle of Man distinctly seen. In front the hills rise in a beautiful outline, and a round hill projects like a promontory into the strait, and under it the town amidst groups of trees; the scene is cheerful of itself, but rendered doubly so by the ships and herring-boats sailing in and out. To the right the view is crowned by the mountains of Mourne, which, wherever seen, are of a character peculiarly bold, and even terrific. The shores of the loch behind Mr. Savage's are bold ground, abounding with numerous pleasing landscapes; the opposite coast, consisting of the woods and improvements of Castle Ward, is a fine scenery.
Called at Lord Bangor's, at Castle Ward, to deliver a letter of recommendation, but unfortunately he was on a sailing party to England; walked through the woods, &c. The house was built by the present lord. It is a very handsome edifice, with two principal fronts, but not of the same architecture, for the one is Gothic and the other Grecian. From the temple is a fine
Belfast is a very well built town of brick, they having no stone quarry in the neighbourhood. The streets are broad and straight, and the inhabitants, amounting to about fifteen thousand, make it appear lively and busy. The public buildings are not numerous nor very striking, but over the exchange Lord Donegal is building an assembly room, sixty feet long by thirty broad, and twenty-four high; a very elegant room. A card-room adjoining, thirty by twenty-two, and twenty-two high; a tea-room of the same size. His lordship is also building a new church, which is one of the lightest and most pleasing I have anywhere seen: it is seventy-four by fifty-four, and thirty high to the cornice, the aisles separated by a double row of columns; nothing can be lighter or more pleasing. The town belongs entirely to his lordship. Rent of it £2,000 a year. His estate extends from Drumbridge, near Lisburn, to Larne, twenty miles in a right line,
I was informed that Mr. Isaac, near Belfast, had four acres, Irish measure, of strong clay land not broken up for many years, which being amply manured with lime rubbish and sea shells, and fallowed, was sown with wheat, and yielded £87 9s. at 9s. to 12s. per cwt. Also that Mr. Whitley, of Ballinderry, near Lisburn, a tenant of Lord Hertford's, has rarely any wheat that does not yield him £18 an acre. The tillage of the neighbourhood for ten miles round is doubled in a few years. Shall export one thousand tons of corn this year from Belfast, most of it to the West Indies, particularly oats.
August 1. To Arthur Buntin's, Esq., near Belfast;
On my way to Antrim, viewed the bleach green of Mr. Thomas Sinclair; it is the completest I have seen here. I understood that the bleaching season lasted nine months, and that watering on the grass was quite left off. Mr. Sinclair himself was not at home, or I should probably have gained some intelligence that might have been useful.
Crossed the mountains by the new road to Antrim, and found them to the summits to consist of exceeding good loam, and such as would improve into good meadow. It is all thrown to the little adjoining farms, with very little or any rent paid for it. They make no other use of it than turning their cows on. Pity they do not improve; a work more profitable
From Antrim to Shanes Castle the road runs at the end of Loch Neagh, commanding a noble view of it; of such an extent that the eye can see no land over it. It appears like a perfect sea, and the shore is broken sand-banks, which look so much like it, that one can hardly believe the water to be fresh. Upon my arrival at the castle, I was most agreeably saluted with four men hoeing a field of turnips round it, as a preparation for grass. These were the first turnip-hoers I have seen in Ireland, and I was more pleased than if I had seen four emperors.
The castle is beautifully situated on the lake, the windows commanding a very noble view of it; and this has the finer effect, as the woods are considerable, and form a fine accompaniment to this noble inland sea.
Rode from Mr. Lesly's to view the Giant's Causeway. It is certainly a very great curiosity as an object for speculation upon the manner of its formation; whether it owes its origin to fire, and is a species of lava, or to crystallisation, or to whatever cause, is a point that has employed the attention of men much more able to decide upon it than I am; and has been
Returned to Lesly Hill, and on August 5th. departed for Coleraine. There the Right Hon. Mr. Jackson assisted me with the greatest politeness in procuring the intelligence I wished about the salmon fishery, which is the greatest in the kingdom, and viewed both fisheries, above and below the town, very pleasantly situated on the river Ban. The salmon spawn in all the rivers that run into the Ban about the beginning of August, and as soon as they have done, swim to the sea, where they stay till January, when they begin to return to the fresh water, and continue doing it till August, in which voyage they are taken. The nets are set in the middle of January, but by Act of Parliament no nets nor weirs can be kept down after the 12th of August. All the fisheries on the river Ban let at £6,000 a year. From the sea to the rock above Coleraine, where the weirs are built, belongs to
The linen manufacture is very general about
From Limavady to Derry there is very little uncultivated land. Within four miles of the latter, rents are from 12s. to 20s.; mountains paid for but in the gross. Reached Derry at night, and waited two hours in the dark before the ferry-boat came over for me.
August 7. In the morning went to the bishop's palace to leave my letters of recommendation; for I was informed of my misfortune in his being out of the kingdom. He was upon a voyage to Staffa, and had sent home some of the stones of which it consists. They appeared perfectly to resemble in shape, colour, and smell, those of the Giant's Causeway.
August 8. Left Derry, and took the road by Raphoe to the Rev. Mr. Golding's at Clonleigh, who favoured me with much valuable information. The view of Derry at the distance of a mile or two is the most picturesque of any place I have seen. It seems to be built on an island of bold land rising from the river, which spreads into a fine basin at the foot of the town; the adjacent country hilly. The scene wants nothing but wood to make it a perfect landscape.
August 11. Left Mount Charles, and passing through Donegal took the road to Ballyshannon; came presently to several beautiful landscapes, swelling hills cultivated, with the bay flowing up
Before I got to Ballyshannon, remarked a bleach green, which indicates weaving in the neighbourhood. Viewed the salmon-leap at Ballyshannon, which is let for £400 a year. The scenery of it is very beautiful. It is a fine fall, and the coast of the river very bold, consisting of perpendicular rocks with grass of a beautiful verdure to the very edge. It projects in little promontories, which grow longer as they approach the sea, and open to give a fine view of the ocean. Before the fall in the middle of the river, is a rocky island on which is a curing house, instead of the turret of a ruined castle for which it seems formed. The town prettily situated on the rising ground on each side of the river. To Sir James Caldwell's. Crossing the bridge, stopped for a view of the river, which is a very fine one, and was delighted to see the salmon jump, to me an unusual sight; the water was perfectly alive with them. Rising the hill, look back on the town; the situation beautiful, the river presents
August 15. To Belleisle, the charming seat of the Earl of Ross. It is an island in Loch Earne, of two hundred Irish acres, every part of it hill, dale, and gentle declivities; it has a great deal of wood, much of which is old, and forms both deep shades and open, cheerful groves. The trees hang on the slopes, and consequently show themselves to the best advantage. All this is exceedingly pretty, but it is rendered trebly so by the situation. A reach of the lake passes before the house, which is situated near the banks among some fine woods, which give both beauty and shelter. This sheet of water, which is three miles over, is bounded in front by an island of thick wood, and by a bold circular hill which is his lordship's deer park; this hill is backed by a considerable mountain. To the right are four or five fine clumps of dark wood—so
They plough all with horses three or four in a plough, and all abreast. Here let it be remarked that they very commonly plough and harrow with their horses drawing by the tail: it is done every season. Nothing can put them beside this, and they insist that, take a horse tired in traces and put him to work by the tail, he will draw better: quite fresh again. Indignant reader, this is no jest of mine,
At Clonells, near Castlerea, lives O'Connor, the direct descendant of Roderick O'Connor, who was king of Connaught six or seven hundred years ago; there is a monument of him in Roscommon Church, with his sceptre, &c. I was told as a certainty that this family were here long before the coming of the Milesians. Their possessions, formerly so great, are reduced to three or four hundred pounds a year, the family having fared in the revolutions of so many ages much worse than the O'Niels and O'Briens. The common people pay him the greatest respect, and send him presents of cattle, &c., upon various occasions. They consider him as the prince of a people involved in one common ruin.
Another great family in Connaught is Macdermot, who calls himself Prince of Coolavin. He lives at Coolavin, in Sligo, and though he has not above one hundred pounds a year, will not admit his children to sit down in his presence. This was certainly the case with his father, and some assured me even with the present chief. Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. O'Hara, Mr. Sandford, &c., came to see him, and his address was curious: ‘O'Hara, you are welcome! Sandford, I am glad to see your mother's son’ (his mother was an O'Brien): ‘as to the rest of ye, come in as ye can.’ Mr. O'Hara, of Nymphsfield, is in
To Lord Kingston's, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately for me he was at Spa. Walked down to Longford Hill to view the lake. It is one of the most delicious scenes I ever beheld; a lake of five miles by four, which fills the bottom of a gentle valley almost of a circular form, bounded very boldly by the mountains. Those to the left rise in a noble slope; they lower rather in front, and let in a view of Strand mountain, near Sligo, above twenty miles off. To the right you look over a small part of a bog to a large extent of cultivated hill, with the blue mountains beyond. Were this little piece of bog planted, the view would be more complete; the hill on which you stand has a foliage of well-grown trees, which form the southern shore. You look down on six islands, all wooded, and on a fine promontory to the left, which shoots far into the lake. Nothing can be more pleasing than their uncommon variety. The first is small (Rock Island), tufted with trees, under the shade of which is an ancient building, once the residence of Macdermot. The next a mixture of lawn and wood. The third, which appears to join this, is of a darker shade, yet not so thick but you can see the bright lawn under the trees. House Island is one fine, thick
The views of the lake and environs are very fine as you go to Boyle; the woods unite into a large mass, and contrast the bright sheet of water with their dark shades.
The lands about Kingston are very fine, a rich, dry, yellow, sandy loam, the finest soil that I have seen in Ireland; all grass, and covered with very fine bullocks, cows, and sheep. The farms rise to five hundred acres, and are generally in divisions, parted by stone walls, for oxen, cows, young cattle, and sheep separate. Some of the lands will carry an ox and a wether per acre; rents, 15s. to 20s.
Dined at Boyle, and took the road to Ballymoat.
Reached Ballymoat in the evening, the residence of the Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice, where I expected great pleasure in viewing a manufactory, of which I heard much since I came to Ireland. He was so kind as to give me the following account of it in the most liberal manner: —
‘Then it was that Mr. Fitzmaurice, in the year 1774, determined to exert himself in pushing on a manufactory which promised to be of such essential service to the whole country. To do this with effect, he saw that it was necessary to take it entirely into his own hands. He could lend money to the manager to enable him to go on, but that would be at best hazardous, and could never do it in the complete manner in which he wished to establish it. In this period of consideration, Mr. Fitzmaurice was advised by his friends never to engage in so complex a business as a manufacture, in which he must of necessity become a merchant, also engage in all the hazard, irksomeness, &c., of commerce, so totally different from his birth, education, ideas, and pursuits; but tired with the inactivity of common life, he determined not only to turn manufacturer, but to carry on the business in the most spirited and vigorous manner that was possible. In the first place he took every means of making himself a complete master of the business; he went through various manufactures, inquired into the minutiae, and took every measure to know it to the bottom. This he did so repeatedly and with such attention in the whole progress, from spinning to bleaching and selling, that he became as thorough a master of it as an experienced manager; he has wove
August 30. Rode to Rosshill, four miles off, a headland that projects into the Bay of Newport, from which there is a most beautiful view of the bay on both sides; I counted thirty islands very distinctly, all of them cultivated under corn and potatoes, or pastured by cattle. At a distance Clare rises in a very bold and picturesque style; on the left >Crow Patrick, and to the right other mountains. It is a view that wants nothing but wood.
September 5. To Drumoland, the seat of Sir Lucius O'Brien, in the county of Clare, a gentleman who had been repeatedly assiduous to procure me every sort of information. I should remark, as I have now left
There is a view of the Shannon from Limerick to Foynes Island, which is thirty miles, with all its bays, bends, islands, and fertile shores. It is from one to three miles broad, a most noble river, deserving regal navies for its ornament, or, what are better, fleets of merchantmen, the cheerful signs of far-extended commerce, instead of a few miserable fishing-boats, the only canvas that swelled upon the scene; but the want of commerce in her ports is the misfortune not the fault of Ireland—thanks for the deficiency to that illiberal spirit of trading jealousy, which has at times actuated and disgraced so many nations. The prospect
At the foot of this hill is the castle of Bunratty, a very large edifice, the seat of the O'Briens, princes of Thomond; it stands on the bank of a river, which falls into the Shannon near it. About this castle and that of Rosmanagher the land is the best in the county of Clare; it is worth £1 13s. an acre, and fats a bullock per acre in summer, besides winter feed.
To Limerick, through a cheerful country, on the banks of the river, in a vale surrounded by distant mountains. That city is very finely situated, partly on an island formed by the Shannon. The new part, called Newtown Pery, from Mr. Pery the speaker, who owns a considerable part of the city, and represents it in Parliament, is well built. The houses are new ones, of brick, large, and in right lines. There is a communication with the rest of the town by a handsome bridge of three large arches erected at Mr. Pery's expense. Here are docks, quays, and a custom-house, which is a good building, faces the river, and on the opposite banks is a large quadrangular one, the house of industry. This part of Limerick is very cheerful and agreeable, and carries all the marks of a flourishing place.
The exports of this port are beef, pork, butter, hides, and rape-seed. The imports are rum, sugar, timber,
Whole revenue: 1751 [...] £16,000
Whole revenue: 1775 [...] £51,000
Revenue of the Port of Limerick
| Date | Amount in £ |
|---|---|
| Year ending March 25, 1759 | 20, 494 |
| Year ending March 25, 1760 | 29,197 |
| Year ending March 25, 1761 | 20,727 |
| Year ending March 25, 1762 | 20,650 |
| Year ending March 25, 1763 | 20,525 |
| Year ending March 25, 1764 | 32,635 |
| Year ending March 25, 1765 | 31,099 |
Land sells at twenty years' purchase. Rents were at the highest in 1765; fell since, but in four years have fallen 8s. to 10s. an acre about Limerick. They are at a stand at present, owing to the high price of provisions from pasture. The number of people in
Upon the whole, Limerick must be a very gay place, but when the usual number of troops are in town much more so. To show the general expenses of living, I was told of a person's keeping a carriage, four horses, three men, three maids, a good table, a wife, three children, and a nurse, and all for £500 a year:
| Servant | Cost from £ s. d. | To £ s. d. |
|---|---|---|
| A footman | 4 4 0 | 6 6 0 |
| A professed woman-cook | 6 6 0 | |
| A house-maid | 3 0 0 | |
| A kitchen-maid | 2 0 0 | |
| A butler | 10 0 0 | 12 0 0 |
A barrel of beef or pork, 200 lb. weight. Vessels of 400 tons can come up with spring tides, which rise fourteen feet.
September 9. To Castle Oliver; various country, not so rich to appearance as the Caucasus, being fed bare; much hilly sheep walk, and for a considerable way a full third of it potatoes and corn: no sign of depopulation. Just before I got to the hills a field of ragwort (senesio jacobcea) buried the cows. The first hill of Castle Oliver interesting. After rising a
September 16. To >Cove by water, from Mr. Trent's quay. The view of Lota is charming; a fine rising lawn from the water, with noble spreading woods reaching on each side; the house a very pleasing front, with lawn shooting into the woods. The river forms a creek between two hills, one Lota, the other opening to another hill of inclosures well wooded. As the boat leaves the shore nothing can be finer than the view behind us; the back woods of Lota, the house and lawn, and the high bold inclosures towards Cork, form the finest shore imaginable, leading to Cork, the city appearing in full view, Dunkettle wooded inclosures, a fine sweep of hill, joining Mr. Hoare's at Factory Hill, whose woods have a beautiful effect. Dunkettle House almost lost in a wood. As we advance, the woods of Lota and Dunkettle unite in one fine mass. The sheet of water, the rising lawns, the house in the most beautiful situation imaginable, with more woods above it than lawns below it, the west shore of Loch Mahon, a very fine rising hill cut into inclosures but without wood, land-locked on every side with high
Dunkettle is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Ireland. It is a hill of some hundred acres
A St. Michael, &c., the subject confused, by Michelangelo. A St. Francis on wood, a large original of Guido. A St. Cecilia, original of Romanelli. An Assumption of the Virgin, by L. Carracci. A Quaker's meeting, of above fifty figures, by Egbert Hemskerk. A sea view and rock piece, by Vernet. A small flagellation, by Sebastian del Piombo. A Madonna and Child, small, by Rubens. The Crucifixion, many figures in miniature, excellent, though the master is unknown. An excellent copy of the famous Danae of Titian, at Monte Cavallo, near Naples, by Cioffi of Naples. Another of the Venus of Titian, at the Tribuna in Florence. Another of Venus blinding Cupid, by Titian, at the Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Another of great merit of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, by Stirn, a German, lately at Rome. Another of a Holy Family, from Raphael, of which there are said to be three originals, one at the king's palace in Naples, one in the Palais Royal in Paris, and the third in the collection of Lord Exeter, lately purchased at Rome. A portrait of Sir Patrick Trent, by Sir P. Lely. An excellent portrait of a person unknown, by Dahl.
September 17. To Castlemartyr, the seat of the Earl
From Rostellan to Lota, the seat of Frederick Rogers, Esq., I had before seen it in the highest perfection from the water going from Dunkettle to Cove, and from the grounds of Dunkettle. Mrs. Rogers was so obliging as to show me the back grounds, which are admirably wooded, and of a fine varied surface.
Got to Cork in the evening, and waited on the Dean, who received me with the most flattering attention. Cork is one of the most populous places I have
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Hides, at £1 each | £64,000 |
| Bay and woollen yarn | 294,000 |
| Butter, at 30s. per cwt. from 56s. to 72s. | 180,000 |
| Beef, at 20s. a barrel | 291,970 |
| Camlets, serges, &c | 40,000 |
| Candles | 34,220 |
| Soap | 20,000 |
| Tallow | 20,000 |
| Herrings, 18 to 35,000l. all their own | 21,000 |
| Glue, 20 to 25,000 | 22,000 |
| Pork | 64,000 |
| Wool to England | 14,000 |
| Small exports, Gottenburg herrings, horns, hoofs, &c., feather-beds, palliasses, feathers, &c | 35,000 |
| Total | £1,100,190 |
Average prices of the nineteen years on the custom books. All exports on those books are rated at the
Bullocks, 16,000 head, 32,000 barrels; 41,000 hogs, 20,000 barrels. Butter, 22,000 firkins of half a hundredweight each, both increase this year, the whole being
Export of woollen yarn from Cork, £300,000 a year in the Irish market. No wool smuggled, or at least very little. The wool comes to Cork, &c., and is delivered out to combers, who make it into balls. These balls
Prices.
Beef, 21s. per cwt., never so high by 2s. 6d.; pork, 30s., never higher than 18s. 6d., owing to the army demand. Slaughter dung, 8d. for a horse load. Country labourer, 6d.; about town, 10d. Milk, seven pints a penny. Coals, 3s. 8d. to 5s. a barrel, six of which make a ton. Eggs, four a penny.
Cork labourers. Cellar ones, twenty thousand; have 1s. 1d. a day, and as much bread, beef, and beer as they can eat and drink, and seven pounds of offals a week for their families. Rent for their house, 40s. Masons' and carpenters' labourers, 10d. a day. Sailors now £3 a month and provisions: before the American war, 28s. Porters and coal-heavers paid by the great. State of the poor people in general incomparably better off than they were twenty years ago. There are imported eighteen thousand barrels annually of Scotch herrings, at 18s. a barrel. The salt for the beef trade comes from Lisbon, St. Ube's, &c. The salt for the fish trade from Rochelle. For butter English and Irish.
Particulars of the woollen fabrics of the county of Cork received from a manufacturer. The woollen trade, serges and camlets, ratteens, friezes, druggets, and narrow cloths, the last they make to 10s. and 12s.
A very great manufacture of ratteens at Carrick-on-Suir; the bay worsted is for serges, shalloons, &c. Woollen yarn for coarse cloths, which latter have been lost for some years, owing to the high price of wool. The bay export has declined since 1770, which declension is owing to the high price of wool.
No wool smuggled, not even from Kerry; not a sloop's cargo in twenty years, the price too high; the declension has been considerable. For every eighty-six
From the Act of the last sessions of Great Britain for exporting woollen goods for the troops in the pay of Ireland, Mr. Abraham Lane, of Cork, established a new manufacture of army clothing for that purpose, which is the first at Cork, and pays £40 a week in labour only. Upon the whole there has been no increase of woollen manufacture within twenty years. Is clearly of opinion that many fabrics might be worked up here much cheaper than in France, of cloths that the French have beat the English out of; these are, particularly, broadcloths of one yard and half yard wide, from 3s. to 6s. 6d. a yard for the Levant trade. Friezes which are now supplied from Carcassone in Languedoc. Friezes, of twenty-four to twenty-seven inches, at 10d. to 13d. a yard. Flannels, twenty-seven to thirty-six, from 7d. to 14d. Serges of twenty-seven to thirty-six inches, at 7d. to 12d. a yard; these would work up the coarse wool. At Ballynasloe Fair, in July, £200,000 a year bought in wool. There is a manufactory of knit-stocking by the common women about Cork, for eight or ten miles around; the yarn from 12d. to 18d. a pair, and the worsted from 16d. to 20d., and earn from 12d. to 18d. a week. Besides their own consumption, great quantities are sent to the north of Ireland.
All the weavers in the country are confined to towns,
Rode to the mouth of Cork Harbour; the grounds about it are all fine, bold, and varied, but so bare of trees, that there is not a single view but what pains one in the want of wood. Rents of the tract south of the river Caragoline, from 5s. to 30s.; average, 10s. Not one man in five has a cow, but generally from one to four acres, upon which they have potatoes, and five or six sheep, which they milk, and spin their wool. Labour 5d. in winter, 6d. in summer; many of them for three months in the year live on potatoes and water, the rest of it they have a good deal of fish. But it is remarked, at Kinsale, that when sprats are most plentiful, diseases are most common. Rent for a mere cabin, 10s. Much paring and burning; paring twenty-eight men a day, sow wheat on it and then potatoes;
Before I quit the environs of Cork, I must remark that the country on the harbour I think preferable, in many respects, for a residence, to anything I have seen in Ireland. First, it is the most southerly part of the kingdom. Second, there are very great beauties of prospect. Third, by much the most animated, busy scene of shipping in all Ireland, and consequently, fourth, a ready price for every product. Fifth, great plenty of excellent fish and wild fowl. Sixth, the neighbourhood of a great city for objects of convenience.
September 25. Took the road to Nedeen, through the wildest region of mountains that I remember to have seen; it is a dreary but an interesting road. The various horrid, grotesque, and unusual forms in which the mountains rise and the rocks bulge; the immense height of some distant heads, which rear above all the nearer scenes, the torrents roaring in the vales, and breaking down the mountain sides, with here and there a wretched cabin, and a spot of culture yielding surprise to find human beings the inhabitants of such a scene of wildness, altogether keep the traveller's mind
Sir John Colthurst was so obliging as to send half a dozen labourers with me, to help my chaise up a mountain side, of which he gave a formidable account: in truth it deserved it. The road leads directly against a mountain ridge, and those who made it were so incredibly stupid, that they kept the straight line up the hill, instead of turning aside to the right to wind around a projection of it. The path of the road is worn by torrents into a channel, which is blocked up in places by huge fragments, so that it would be a horrid road on a level; but on a hill so steep, that the best path would be difficult to ascend—it may be supposed terrible: the labourers, two passing strangers, and my servant, could with difficulty get the chaise up. It is much to be regretted that the direction of the road is not changed, as all the rest from Cork to Nedeen is good enough. For a few miles towards the latter place the country is flat on the river Kenmare, much of it good, and under grass or corn. Passed Mr. Orpine's at Ardtilly, and another of the same name at Killowen.
Nedeen is a little town, very well situated, on the noble river Kenmare, where ships of one hundred and fifty tons may come up; there are but three or four
At Nedeen, Lord Shelburne had taken care to have me well informed by his people in that country, which belongs for the greatest part to himself, he has above one hundred and fifty thousand Irish acres in Kerry; the greatest part of the barony of Glanrought belongs to him, most of Dunkerron and Ivragh. The country is all a region of mountains, inclosed by a vale of flat land on the river; the mountains to the south come to the water's edge, with but few variations, the principal of which is Ardee, a farm of Lord Shelburne's: to the north of the river, the flat land is one-half to three-quarters of a mile broad. The mountains to the south reach to Bear-haven, and those to the north to Dingle Bay; the soil is extremely various; to the south of the river all are sandstones, and the hills loam, stone, gravel, and bog. To the north there is a slip of limestone land, from Kilgarvon to Cabbina-cush, that is six miles east of Nedeen, and three to the west, but is not more than a quarter of a mile broad, the rest, including the mountains, all sandstone. As to its rents, it is very difficult to tell what they are; for land is let by the plough-land and gineve, twelve gineves to the plough-land; but the latter denomination
Soon entered the wildest and most romantic country I had anywhere seen; a region of steep rocks and mountains which continued for nine or ten miles, till I came in view of Mucruss. There is something magnificently wild in this stupendous scenery, formed to impress the mind with a certain species of terror. All this tract has a rude and savage air, but parts of it are strikingly interesting; the mountains are bare and rocky, and of a great magnitude; the vales are rocky glens, where a mountain stream tumbles along the roughest bed imaginable, and receives many torrents, pouring from clefts, half overhung with shrubby wood; some of these streams are seen, and the roar of others heard, but hid by vast masses of rock. Immense fragments, torn from the precipices by storms and torrents, are tumbled in the wildest confusion, and seem to hang rather than rest upon projecting precipices. Upon some of these fragments of rock, perfectly detached from the soil, except by the side on which they lie, are beds of black turf, with luxuriant crops of heath, &c., which appeared very curious to me, having nowhere seen the like; and I observed very high in the mountains—much higher than any cultivation
From one of these heights I looked forward to the Lake of Killarney at a considerable distance, and backward to the river Kenmare; came in view of a small part of the upper lake, spotted with several islands, and surrounded by the most tremendous mountains that can be imagined, of an aspect savage and dreadful. From this scene of wild magnificence, I broke at once upon all the glories of Killarney; from an elevated point of view I looked down on a considerable part of the lake, which gave me a specimen of what I might expect. The water you command (which, however, is only a part of the lake) appears a basin of two or three miles round; to the left it is inclosed by the mountains you have passed, particularly by the Turk, whose outline is uncommonly noble, and joins a range of others, that form the most magnificent shore in the world: on the other side is a rising scenery of cultivated hills, and Lord Kenmare's park and woods; the end of the lake at your feet is formed by the root of Mangerton, on whose side the road leads. From hence I looked down on a pretty range of inclosures on the lake, and the woods and lawns of Mucruss, forming a large promontory of thick wood, shooting
Arrived at Mr. Herbert's at Mucruss, to whose friendly attention I owed my succeeding pleasure. There have been so many descriptions of Killarney written by gentlemen who have resided some time there, and seen it at every season, that for a passing traveller to attempt the like would be in vain; for this reason I shall give the mere journal of the remarks I made on the spot, in the order I viewed the lake.
September 27. Walked into Mr. Herbert's beautiful grounds, to Oroch's Hill, in the lawn that he has cleared from that profusion of stones which lie under the wall; the scene which this point commands is truly delicious; the house is on the edge of the lawn, by a wood which covers the whole peninsula, fringes the slope at your feet, and forms a beautiful shore to the lake. Tomys and Glená are vast mountainous
Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
This ruin is in the true style in which all such buildings should appear; there is not an intruding circumstance, the hand of dress has not touched it, melancholy is the impression which such scenes should kindle, and it is here raised most powerfully.From the abbey we passed to the terrace, a natural one of grass, on the very shore of the lake; it is irregular and winding; a wall of rocks broken into fantastic forms by the waves: on the other side a wood, consisting of all sorts of plants, which the climate can protect, and through which a variety of walks are traced. The view from this terrace consists of many parts of various characters, but in their different styles complete; the lake opens a spreading sheet of water, spotted by rocks and islands, all but one or two wooded; the outlines of them are sharp and distinct; nothing can be more smiling than this scene, soft and mild, a perfect contrast of beauty to the sublimity of
Returned to breakfast, and pursued Mr. Herbert's new road, which he has traced through the peninsula to Dynis Island, three miles in length; and it is carried in so judicious a manner through a great variety of ground, rocky woods, lawns, &c., that nothing can be more pleasing; it passes through a remarkable scene of rocks, which are covered with woods. From thence to the marble quarry, which Mr. Herbert is working, and where he gains variety of marbles, green, red, white, and brown, prettily veined; the quarry is a shore of rocks, which surround a bay of the lake, and forms a scene consisting of but few parts, but those strongly marked; the rocks are bold, and broken into slight caverns; they are fringed with
The road leads by a place where copper-mines were worked; many shafts appear; as much ore was raised as sold for twenty-five thousand pounds, but the works were laid aside, more from ignorance in the workmen than any defects in the mine.
Came to the opening on the great lake, which appears to advantage here, the town of Killarney on the north-east shore. Look full on the mountain Glená, which rises in very bold manner, the hanging woods spread half way, and are of great extent, and uncommonly beautiful. Two very pleasing scenes succeed; that to the left is a small bay, hemmed in by a neck of land in front; the immediate shore rocks, which are in a picturesque style, and crowned entirely with arbutus, and other wood; a pretty retired scene, where a variety of objects give no fatigue to the eye. The other is an admirable mixture of the beautiful and sublime: a bare rock of an almost regular figure projects from a headland into the lake, which, with much wood and highland, forms one side of the scene; the other is wood from a rising ground only; the lake open between, in a sheet of no great extent, but in
Mr. Herbert has built a handsome Gothic bridge, to unite the peninsula to the island of Brickeen, through the arch of which the waters of the north and south lake flow. It is a span of twenty-seven feet, and seventeen high, and over it the road leads to that island. From thence to Brickeen nearly finished, and it is to be thrown across a bottom into Dynis.
Returned by the northern path through a thick wood for some distance, and caught a very agreeable view of Ash Island, seen through an opening, inclosed on both sides with wood. Pursued the way from these grounds to Keelbeg, and viewed the bay of the Devil's Island, which is a beautiful one, inclosed by a shore, to the right of very noble rocks in ledges and other forms, crowned in a striking manner with wood; a little rocky islet rises in front; to the left the water opens, and Turk Mountain rises with that proud superiority which attends him in all these scenes.
The view of the promontory of Dindog, near this place, closes this part of the lake, and is indeed singularly beautiful. It is a large rock, which shoots far into the water, of a height sufficient to be interesting, in full relief, fringed with a scanty vegetation; the shore on which you stand bending to the right, as if to meet that rock, presents a circular shade of dark wood: Turk still the background, in a character of
September 28. Took boat on the lake, from the promontory of Dindog before mentioned. I had been under a million of apprehensions that I should see no more of Killarney; for it blew a furious storm all night, and in the morning the bosom of the lake heaved with agitation, exhibiting few marks but those of anger. After breakfast it cleared up, the clouds dispersed by degrees, the waves subsided, the sun shone out in all its splendour; every scene was gay, and no ideas but pleasure possessed the breast. With these emotions sallied forth, nor did they disappoint us.
Rowed under the rocky shore of Dindog, which is romantic to a great degree. The base, by the beating of the waves, is worn into caverns, so that the heads of the rocks project considerably beyond the base, and hang over in a manner which makes every part of it interesting. Following the coast, open marble quarry bay, the shore great fragments of rock tumbled about in the wildest manner.
The island of rocks against the copper-mine shore a remarkable group. The shore near Casemilan is of a
Pass the bridge, and cross to Dynis, an island Mr. Herbert has improved in the most agreeable manner, by cutting walks through it that command a variety of views. One of these paths on the banks of the channel to the upper lake is sketched with great taste; it is on one side walled with natural rocks, from clefts of which shoot a thousand fine arbutuses, that hang in a rich foliage of flowers and scarlet berries; a turf bench in a delicious spot; the scene close and sequestered, just enough to give every pleasing idea annexed to retirement.
Passing the bridge, by a rapid stream, came presently to the Eagle's Nest: having viewed this rock
Pass between the mountains called the Great Range, towards the upper lake. Here Turk, which has so long appeared with a figure perfectly interesting, is
Coleman's Eye, a narrow pass, opens a different scenery. Came to a region in which the beautiful and the great are mixed without offence. The islands are most of them thickly wooded. Oak Isle in particular rises on a pretty base, and is a most beautiful object: Macgillicuddy Reeks, with their broken points; Baum, with his perfect cone; the Purple Mountain, with his broad and more regular head; and Turk, having assumed a new and more interesting aspect, unite with the opposite hills, part of which have some wood left on them, to form a scene uncommonly striking. Here you look back on a very peculiar spot; it is a parcel of rocks which cross the lake, and form a gap that opens to distant water, the whole backed by Turk, in a style of the highest grandeur.
Come to Derry Currily, which is a great sweep of mountain, covered partly with wood, hanging in a very
Row to the cluster of the Seven Islands, a little archipelago; they rise very boldly from the water upon rocky bases, and are crowned in the most beautiful manner with wood, among which are a number of arbutuses; the channels among them opening to new scenes, and the great amphitheatre of rock and mountain that surround them unite to form a noble view.
Into the river, at the very end of the lake, which winds towards Macgillicuddy Reeks in fanciful meanders.
Returned by a course somewhat different, through the Seven Islands, and back to the Eagle's Nest, viewing the scenes already mentioned in new positions. At that noble rock fired three cannon for the echo, which indeed is prodigious; the report does not consist of direct reverberations from one rock to another with a pause between, but has an exact resemblance to a peal of thunder rattling behind the rock, as if travelling the whole scenery we had viewed, and lost in the immensity of Macgillicuddy Reeks.
Returning through the bridge, turn to the left round Dynis Island, under the woods of Glená; open on the
Pass near to the wood of Glená, which here takes the appearance of one immense sweep hanging in the most beautiful manner imaginable, on the side of a vast mountain to a point, shooting into the great lake. A more glorious scene is not to be imagined. It is one deep mass of wood, composed of the richest shades perfectly dipping in the water, without rock or strand appearing, not a break in the whole. The eye passing upon the sheet of liquid silver some distance, to meet so entire a sweep of every tint that can compose one vast mass of green, hanging to such an extent as to fill not only the eye but the imagination, unites in the whole to form the most noble scene that is anywhere to be beheld.
Turn under the north shore of Mucruss; the lake here is one great expanse of water, bounded by the woods described, the islands of Innisfallen, Ross, &c., and the peninsula. The shore of Mucruss has a great variety; it is in some places rocky; huge masses tumbled from their base lie beneath, as in a chaos of ruin. Great caverns worn under them in a variety of strange forms; or else covered with woods of a variety of shades. Meet the point of Ardnagluggen (in English ‘where the water dashes on the rocks’) and come under Ornescope, a rocky headland of a most bold projection
Mucruss gardens presently open among the woods, and relieve the eye, almost fatigued with the immense objects upon which it has so long gazed; these softer scenes of lawn gently swelling among the shrubs and trees finished the second day.
September 29. Rode after breakfast to Mangerton Cascade and Drumarourk Hill, from which the view of Mucruss is uncommonly pleasing.
Pass the other hill, the view of which I described the 27th, and went to Colonel Huffy's monument, from whence the scene is different from the rest; the foreground is a gentle hill, intersected by hedges, forming several small lawns. There are some scattered trees and houses, with Mucruss Abbey half obscured by wood, the whole cheerful and backed by Turk. The lake is of a triangular form, Ross Island and Innisfallen its limits; the woods of Mucruss and the islands take a new position.
Returning, took a boat again towards Ross Isle, and as Mucruss retires from us, nothing can be more beautiful than the spots of lawn in the terrace opening in the wood; above it the green hills with clumps, and the whole finishing in the noble group of wood about the abbey, which here appears a deep shade, and so fine a finishing one, that not a tree should be touched.
Scenes that are great and commanding, from magnitude or wildness, should never be dressed; the rugged, and even the horrible, may add to the effect upon the mind: but in such as Innisfallen, a degree of dress, that is, cleanliness, is even necessary to beauty.
Row to Ross Castle, in order to coast that island; there is nothing peculiarly striking in it; return the same way around Innisfallen. In this little voyage
The shore of Innisfallen has much variety, but in general it is woody, and of the beautiful character which predominates in that island. One bay, at taking leave of it, is exceedingly pretty; it is a semicircular one, and in the centre there is a projecting knoll of wood within a bay; this is uncommon, and has an agreeable effect.
The near approach to Tomys exhibits a sweep of wood, so great in extent, and so rich in foliage, that no person can see without admiring it. The mountainous part above is soon excluded by the approach; wood alone is seen, and that in such a noble range as to be greatly striking; it just hollows into a bay, and in the centre of it is a chasm in the wood; this is a bed of a considerable stream, which forms O'Sullivan's cascade, to which all strangers are conducted, as one of the principal beauties of Killarney. Landed to the right of it, and walked under the thick shade of the wood, over a rocky declivity, close to the torrent stream, which breaks impetuously from rock to rock, with a roar that kindles expectation. The picture in your fancy will not exceed the reality; a great stream
The variations are best seen by rowing near the shore, when every stroke of the oar gives a new outline, and fresh tints to please the eye: but for one great impression, row about two miles from the shore of Glená; at that distance the inequalities in the surface are no longer seen, but the eye is filled with so immense a range of wood, crowned with a mountain in perfect unison with itself, that objects, whose character is that of beauty, are here, from their magnitude, truly magnificent, and attended with a most forcible expression.—Returned to Mucruss.
September 30. This morning I had dedicated to the ascent of Mangerton, but his head was so enshrouded in clouds, and the weather so bad, that I was forced to give up the scheme: Mr. Herbert has measured him with very accurate instruments, of which he has a great collection, and found his height eight hundred and thirty-five yards above the level of the sea. The Devil's Punch-bowl, from the description I had of it, must be the crater of an exhausted volcano: there are many signs of them about Killarney, particularly vast rocks on the sides of mountains, in streams, as if they had rolled from the top in one direction. Brown stone rocks are also sometimes found on lime-quarries, tossed thither perhaps in some vast eruption.
In my way from Killarney to Castle Island, rode into Lord Kenmare's park, from whence there is another beautiful view of the lake, different from many of the preceding; there is a broad margin of cultivated country at your feet, to lead the eye gradually in the lake, which exhibits her islands to this point more distinctly than to any other, and the backgrounds of the mountains of Glená and Tomys give a bold relief.
Upon the whole, Killarney, among the lakes that I have seen, can scarcely be said to have a rival. The extent of water in Loch Earne is much greater, the islands more numerous, and some scenes near Castle Caldwell of perhaps as great magnificence. The rocks
Before I quit it I have one other observation to make, which is relative to the want of accommodations and extravagant expense of strangers residing at Killarney. I speak it not at all feelingly, thanks to Mr. Herbert's hospitality, but from the accounts given me: the inns are miserable, and the lodgings little better. I am surprised somebody with a good capital does not procure a large well-built inn, to be erected on the immediate shore of the lake, in an agreeable situation, at a distance from the town; there are very few places where such a one would answer better; there ought to be numerous and good apartments. A large rendezvous-room for billiards, cards, dancing, music, &c., to which the company might resort when they chose it; an ordinary for those that like dining in public; boats of all sorts, nets for fishing, and as great a variety of amusements as could be collected, especially within doors; for the climate being very rainy, travellers wait with great impatience in a dirty
The state of the poor in the whole county of Kerry represented as exceedingly miserable, and owing to the conduct of men of property, who are apt to lay the blame on what they call land pirates, or men who offer the highest rent, and who, in order to pay this rent, must and do re-let all the cabin lands at an extravagant rise, which is assigning over all the cabins to be devoured by one farmer. The cottars on a farm cannot go from one to another, in order to find a good master, as in England; for all the country is in the same system, and no redress to be found. Such being the case, the farmers are enabled to charge the price of labour as low as they please, and rate the land as high as they like. This is an evil which oppresses them cruelly, and certainly has its origin in its landlords when they set their farms, setting all the cabins with
To the west of Tralee are the Mahagree Islands, famous for their corn products; they are rock and sand, stocked with rabbits; near them a sandy tract, twelve miles long, and one mile broad, to the north, with the mountains to the south, famous for the best wheat in Kerry; all under the plough.
Arriving at Ardfort, Lord Crosby, whose politeness I have every reason to remember, was so obliging as to carry me by one of the finest strands I ever rode upon, to view the mouth of the Shannon at Ballengary, the site of an old fort. It is a vast rock, separated from the country by a chasm of prodigious depth, through which the waves drive. The rocks of the coast here are in the boldest style, and hollowed by the furious Atlantic waves into caverns in which they roar. It
Ardfert is very near the sea, so near it that single trees or rows are cut in pieces with the wind, yet about Lord Glendour's house there are extensive plantations exceedingly flourishing, many fine ash and beech; about a beautiful Cistercian abbey, and a silver fir of forty-eight years' growth, of an immense height and size.
October 3. Left Ardfert, accompanying Lord Crosby to Listowel. Called in the way to view Lixnaw, the ancient seat of the Earls of Kerry, but deserted for ten years past, and now presents so melancholy a scene of desolation, that it shocked me to see it. Everything around lies in ruin, and the house itself is going fast off by thieving depredations of the neighbourhood. I was told a curious anecdote of this estate, which shows wonderfully the improvement of Ireland. The present Earl of Kerry's grandfather, Thomas, agreed to lease the whole estate for £1,500 a year to a
Proceeded to Woodford, Robert Fitzgerald's, Esq., passing Listowel Bridge; the vale leading to it is very fine, the river is broad, the lands high, and one side a very extensive hanging wood, opening on those of Woodford in a pleasing style.
Woodford is an agreeable scene; close to the house is a fine winding river under a bank of thick wood, with the view of an old castle hanging over it.
In 1765, Mr. Fitzgerald was travelling from Constantinople to Warsaw, and a waggon with his baggage heavily laden overset; the country people harnessed two buffaloes by the horns, in order to draw it over, which they did with ease. In some very instructive conversation I had with this gentleman on the subject of his travels, this circumstance particularly struck me.
October 4. From Woodford to Tarbat, the seat of Edward Leslie, Esq., through a country rather dreary, till it came upon Tarbat, which is so much the contrary that it appeared to the highest advantage; the house is on the edge of a beautiful lawn, with a thick margin of full grown wood, hanging on a steep bank
The state of the poor is something better than it was twenty years ago, particularly their clothing, cattle, and cabins. They live upon potatoes and milk; all have cows, and when they dry them, buy others. They also have butter, and most of them keep pigs, killing them for their own use. They have also herrings. They are in general in the cottar system, of paying for labour by assigning some land to each cabin. The country is greatly more populous than twenty years ago, and is now increasing; and if ever
Tithes are all annually valued by the proctors, and charged very high. There are on the Shannon about one hundred boats employed in bringing turf to Limerick from the coast of Kerry and Clare, and in fishing; the former carry from twenty to twenty-five tons, the latter from five to ten, and are navigated each by two men and a boy.
October 5. Passed through a very unentertaining country (except for a few miles on the bank of the Shannon) to Altavilla, but Mr. Bateman being from home, I was disappointed in getting an account of the palatines settled in his neighbourhood. Kept the road to Adair, where Mrs. Quin, with a politeness equalled only by her understanding, procured me every intelligence I wished for.
Palatines were settled here by the late Lord Southwell about seventy years ago.
They preserve some of their German customs, sleep between two beds. They appoint a burgomaster, to whom they appeal in case of all disputes;
Few places have so much wood about them as Adair; Mr. Quin has above one thousand acres in his hands, in which a large proportion is under wood. The deer park of four hundred acres is almost full of old oak and very fine thorns, of a great size; and about the house, the plantations are very extensive, of elm and other wood, but that thrives better than any other sort. I have nowhere seen finer than vast numbers here. There is a fine river runs under the house, and within view are no less than three ruins of Franciscan friaries, two of them remarkably beautiful, and one has most of the parts perfect, except the roof.
In Mr. Quin's house there are some very good pictures, particularly an Annunciation by Domenichino, which is a beautiful piece. It was brought lately from Italy by Mr. Quin, junior. The colours are rich and mellow, and the hairs of the heads inimitably pleasing; the group of angels at the top, to the left of the piece,
Castle Oliver is a place almost entirely of Mr. Oliver's creation; from a house, surrounded with cabins and rubbish, he has fixed it in a fine lawn, surrounded by good wood. The park he has very much improved on an excellent plan; by means of seven feet hurdles, he fences off part of it that wants to be cleaned or improved; these he cultivates, and leaves for grass, and then takes another spot, which is by much the best way of doing it. In the park is a glen, an English mile long, winding in a pleasing manner, with much wood hanging on the banks. Mr. Oliver has conducted a stream through this vale, and formed many little water-falls in an exceedingly good taste, chiefly overhung with wood, but in some places open with several little rills, trickling over stones down the slopes. A path winds through a large wood and along the brow of the glen; this path leads to a hermitage, a cave of rock, in a good taste, and to some benches,
In the house are several fine pictures, particularly five pieces by Seb. Ricci, Venus and Aeneas; Apollo and Pan; Venus and Achilles; and Pyrrhus and Andromache, by Lazzerini; and the Rape of the Lapithi by the Centaurs. The last is by much the finest, and is a very capital piece; the expression is strong, the figures are in bold relief, and the colouring good. Venus and Achilles is a pleasing picture; the continence of Scipio is well grouped, but Scipio, as in every picture I ever saw of him, has no expression. Indeed, chastity is in the countenance so passive a virtue as not to be at all suited to the genius of painting; the idea is rather that of insipidity, and accordingly Scipio's expression is generally insipid enough. Two fine pieces, by Lucca
October 9. Left Castle Oliver. Had I followed my inclination, my stay would have been much longer, for I found it equally the residence of entertainment and instruction. Passed through Kilfennan and Duntreleague, in my way to Tipperary. The road leads everywhere on the sides of the hills, so as to give a very distinct view of the lower grounds; the soil all the way is the same sort of sandy reddish loam I have already described, incomparable land for tillage: as I advanced it grew something lighter, and in many places free from gravel. Bullocks the stock all the way. Towards Tipperary I saw vast numbers of sheep, and many bullocks. All this line of country is part of the famous golden vale. To Thomas Town, where I was so unfortunate as not to find Mr. Matthew at home; the domain is one thousand five hundred English acres, so well planted that I could hardly believe myself in Ireland. There is a hill in the park from which the view of it, the country and the Galties, are striking.
October 12. To Lord de Montalt's, at Dundrum, a place which his lordship has ornamented in the modern style of improvement: the house was situated in the midst of all the regular exertions of the last age.
October 13. Leaving Dundrum, passed through Cashel, where is a rock and ruin on it, called the Rock of Cashel, supposed to be of the remotest antiquity. Towards Clonmel, the whole way through the same rich vein of red sandy loam I have so often mentioned: I examined it in several fields, and found it to be of an extraordinary fertility, and as fine turnip land as ever I saw. It is much under sheep; but towards Clonmel there is a great deal of tillage.
The first view of that town, backed by a high ridge of mountains, with a beautiful space near it of inclosures, fringed with a scattering of trees, was very pleasing. It is the best situated place in the county of Tipperary, on the Suir, which brings up boats of ten tons burthen. It appears to be a busy populous place, yet I was told that the manufacture of woollens is not considerable. It is noted for being the birthplace of the inimitable Sterne.
To Sir William Osborne's, three miles the other side Clonmel. From a character so remarkable for intelligence and precision, I could not fail of meeting
Twelve years ago he met with a hearty-looking fellow of forty, followed by a wife and six children in rags, who begged. Sir William questioned him upon the scandal of a man in full health and vigour, supporting himself in such a manner: the man said he could get no work: ‘Come along with me, I will show you a spot of land upon which I will build a cabin for you, and if you like it you shall fix there.’ The fellow followed Sir William, who was as good as his word: he built him a cabin, gave him five acres of a heathy mountain, lent him four pounds to stock with, and gave him, when he had prepared his ground, as much lime as he would come for. The fellow flourished; he went on gradually; repaid the four pounds, and presently became a happy little cottar: he has at present twelve acres under cultivation, and a stock in trade worth at least £80; his name is John Conory.
The success which attended this man in two or three years brought others who applied for land, and Sir William gave them as they applied. The mountain was under lease to a tenant, who valued it so little, that upon being reproached with not cultivating, or doing something with it, he assured Sir William that it was utterly impracticable to do anything with it, and
In this manner Sir William has fixed twenty-two families, who are all upon the improving hand, the meanest growing richer; and find themselves so well off, that no consideration will induce them to work for others, not even in harvest: their industry has no bounds; nor is the day long enough for the revolution of their incessant labour. Some of them bring turf to Clonmel, and Sir William has seen Conory returning loaded with soap ashes.
He found it difficult to persuade them to make a road to their village, but when they had once done it, he found none in getting cross roads to it, they found such benefit in the first. Sir William has continued to give whatever lime they come for: and they have desired one thousand barrels among them for the year 1766, which their landlord has accordingly contracted for with his lime-burner, at 11d. a barrel. Their houses have all been built at his expense, and done by contract at £6 each, after which they raise what little offices they want for themselves.
October 15. Left New Town, and keeping on the
Emigrations from this part of Ireland principally to Newfoundland: for a season they have £18 or £20 for their pay, and are maintained, but they do not bring home more than £7 to £11. Some of them stay and settle; three years ago there was an emigration of indented servants to North Carolina of three hundred, but they were stopped by contrary winds, &c. There had been something of this constantly, but not to that amount. The oppression which the poor people have most to complain of is the not having any tenures in their lands, by which means they are entirely subject to their employers.
Manufactures here are only woollens. Carrick is one of the greatest manufacturing towns in Ireland. Principally for ratteens, but of late they have got into broadcloths, all for home consumption; the manufacture increases, and is very nourishing. There are between three and four hundred people employed by it in Carrick and its neighbourhood.
Curraghmore is one of the finest places in Ireland, or indeed that I have anywhere seen. The house, which is large, is situated upon a rising ground, in a vale surrounded by very bold hills, which rise in a variety of
From hence the boundary plantation extends some miles to the west and north-west of the domain, forming a margin to the whole of different growths, having been planted, by degrees, from three to sixteen years. It is in general well grown, and the trees thriven exceedingly, particularly the oak, beech, larch, and firs. It is very well sketched, with much variety given to it.
Pass by the garden across the river which murmurs over a rocky bed, and follow the riding up a steep hill, covered with wood from some breaks, in which the house appears perfectly buried in a deep wood, and come out, after a considerable extent of ride, into the higher lawn, which commands a view of the scenery about the house; and from the brow of the hill the water, which is made to imitate a river, has a good effect, and throws a great air of cheerfulness over the scene, for from hence the declivity below it is hid. But the view, which is the most pleasing from hence, the finest at Curraghmore, and indeed one of the most striking that is anywhere to be seen, is that of the hanging wood to the right of the house, rising in so noble a sweep as perfectly to fill the eye, and leave the
Descending from hence through the roads, the riding crosses the river, and passes through the meadow which has such an effect in the preceding scene, from which also the view is very fine, and leads home through a continued and an extensive range of fine oak, partly on a declivity, at the bottom of which the river murmurs its broken course.
Besides this noble riding, there is a very agreeable walk runs immediately on the banks of the river, which is perfect in its style; it is a sequestered line of wood, so high on the declivities in some places, and so thick on the very edge in others, overspreading the river, that the character of the scene is gloom and melancholy, heightened by the noise of the water falling from stone to stone. There is a considerable variety in the banks of it, and in the figures and growth of the wood, but none that hurts the impression, which is well preserved throughout.
October 17. Accompanied Lord Tyrone to Waterford; made some inquiries into the state of their trade, but found it difficult, from the method in which the custom-house books are kept, to get the details I wished; but in the year following, having the pleasure of a long visit at Ballycanvan, the seat of Cornelius Bolton, Esq., his son, the member for the city, procured me every information I could wish, and that in so liberal and polite a manner, that it would not be easy to express the obligations I am under to both. In general, I was informed that the trade of the place had increased considerably in ten years, both the exports and imports—the exports of the products of pasturage, full one-third in twelve years. That the staple trade of the place is the Newfoundland trade. This is very much increased; there is more of it here than anywhere. The number of people who go as passengers in the Newfoundland ships is amazing: from sixty to eighty ships, and from three thousand to five thousand annually. They come from most parts of Ireland, from Cork, Kerry, &c. Experienced men will get eighteen to twenty-five pounds for the season, from March to November. A man who never went will have five to seven pounds and his passage, and others rise to twenty pounds; the passage out they get, but pay home two pounds. An industrious man in a year will bring home twelve to sixteen pounds with him, and some more. A great point for them is to be able to carry
There is a foundry at Waterford for pots, kettles, weights, and all common utensils; and a manufactory by Messrs. King and Tegent of anvils to anchors, twenty hundredweight, &c., which employs forty hands. Smiths earn from 6s. to 24s. a week. Nailers from 10s. to 12s. And another less considerable. There are two sugar-houses, and many salt-houses. The salt is boiled over lime-kilns.
There is a fishery upon the coast of Waterford, for a great variety of fish, herrings particularly, in the mouth of Waterford Harbour, and two years ago in such quantities there, that the tides left the ditches full of them. There are some premium boats both
The butter trade of Waterford has increased greatly for seven years past; it comes from Waterford principally, but much from Carlow; for it comes from twenty miles beyond Carlow, for sixpence per hundred. From the 1st of January, 1774, to the 1st of January, 1775, there were exported fifty-nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-six casks of butter, each, on an average, one hundredweight, at the mean price of 50s. Revenue of Waterford, 1751, £17,000; 1776, £52,000. The slaughter trade has increased, but not so much as the butter. Price of butter now at Waterford, 58s.; twenty years' average, 42s. Beef now to 25s.; average, twenty years, 10s. to 18s. Pork, now 30s.; average, twenty years, 16s. to 22s. Eighty sail of ships now belonging to the port, twenty years ago not thirty. They pay to the captains of ship of two hundred tons £5 a month; the mate £3 10s. Ten men at 40s., five years ago only 27s. Building ships, £10 a ton. Wear and tear of such a ship, £20 a month. Ship provisions, 20s. a month.
The new church in this city is a very beautiful one; the body of it is in the same style exactly as that of Belfast, already described: the total length one hundred and seventy feet, the breadth fifty-eight. The length of the body of the church ninety-two, the height forty; breadth between the pillars, twenty-six. The aisle
From Waterford to Passage, and got my chaise and horses on board the Countess of Tyrone packet, in full expectation of sailing immediately, as the wind was fair, but I soon found the difference of these private vessels and the Post-Office packets at Holyhead and Dublin. When the wind was fair the tide was foul; and when the tide was with them the wind would not do. In English, there was not a complement of passengers, and so I had the agreeableness of waiting with my horses in the hold, by way of rest, after a journey of above one thousand five hundred miles.
October 18. After a beastly night passed on shipboard, and finding no signs of departure, walked to Ballycanvan, the seat of Cornelius Bolton, Esq.; rode with Mr. Bolton, jun., to Faithleghill, which commands one of the finest views I have seen in Ireland. There is a rock on the top of a hill which has a very bold view on every side down on a great extent of country, much of which is grass inclosures of a good verdure. This hill is the centre of a circle of about ten miles diameter, beyond which higher lands rise, which, after spreading to a great extent, have on every side a background of mountain: in a northerly direction Mount Leinster, between Wexford and Wicklow, twenty-six miles off, rises in several heads far above the clouds. A little to the right of this, Sliakeiltha (i.e., ‘the woody mountain’), at a less distance, is a fine object. To the left, Tory Hill, only five miles, in a regular form, varies
Two years after this account was written I again visited this enchanting hill, and walked to it, day after day, from Ballycanvan, and with increasing pleasure. Mr. Bolton, jun., has, since I was there before, inclosed forty acres on the top and steep slope to the water, and begun to plant them. This will be a prodigious addition; for the slope forming the bold shore for a considerable space, and having projections from which the wood will all be seen in the gentle hollows of the hill, the effect will be amazingly fine. Walks and a riding are tracing out, which will command fresh beauties at every step. The spots from which a variety of beautiful views are seen are numerous. All the way from Ballycanvan to Faithleg, the whole, to the amount of one thousand two hundred acres, is the property of Mr. Bolton.
Farms about Ballycanvan, Waterford, &c., are generally small, from twenty and thirty to five hundred acres, generally about two hundred and fifty. All above two hundred acres are in general dairies; some of the dairy ones rise very high. The soil is a reddish stony or slaty gravel, dry, except low lands, which are clay or turf. Rents vary much—about the town very high, from £5 5s. to £9, but at the distance
The poor people spin their own flax, but not more, and a few of them wool for themselves. Their food is potatoes and milk; but they have a considerable assistance from fish, particularly herrings; part of the year they have also barley, oaten, and rye bread. They are incomparably better off in every respect than twenty years ago. Their increase about Ballycanvan is very great, and tillage all over this neighbourhood is increased. The rent of a cabin 10s.; an acre with it 20s. The grass of a cow a few years ago 20s., now 25s. or 30s.
An exceeding good practice here in making their fences is, they plant the quick on the side of the bank in the common manner, and then, instead of the dead hedge we use in England on the top of the bank, they plant a row of old thorns, two or three feet high, which readily grow, and form at once a most excellent fence. Their way also of taking in sand-banks from the river deserves notice. They stake down a row of furzes at low water, laying stones on them to the height of one or two feet; these retain the mud, which every tide brings in, so as to fill up all within the furze as high as their tops. I remarked, on the strand, that a few boatloads of stones laid carelessly had had this
Among the poor people the fishermen are in much the best circumstances. The fishery is considerable; Waterford and its harbour have fifty boats each, from eight to twelve tons, six men on an average to each, but to one of six tons five men go. A boat of eight tons costs £40; one of twelve, £60. To each boat there is a train of nets of six pair, which costs from £4 4s. to £6 6s.; tan them with bark. Their only net fishery is that of herrings, which is commonly carried on by shares. The division of the fish is, first, one-fourth for the boat; and then the men and nets divide the rest, the latter reckoned as three men. They reckon ten maze of herrings an indifferent night's work; when there is a good take, forty maze have been taken, twenty a good night; the price per maze from 1s. to 7s., average 5s. Their take in 1775, the greatest they have known, when they had more than they could dispose of, and the whole town and country stunk of them, they retailed them thirty-two for a penny; 1773 and 1774 good years. They barrelled many, but in general there is an import of Swedish. Besides the common articles I have registered, the following are: pigeons, 1s. a couple; a hare, 1s.; partridges, 9d.; turbots, fine ones, 4s. to 10s.; soles a pair, large, 1s. 6d
A very extraordinary circumstance I was told—that within five or six years there has been much hay carried from Waterford to Norway, in the Norway ships that bring deals. As hay is dear here, it proves a most backward state of husbandry in that northerly region, since the neighbourhood of sea-ports to which this hay can alone go is generally the best improved in all countries.
October 19, the wind being fair, took my leave of Mr. Bolton, and went back to the ship. Met with a fresh scene of provoking delays, so that it was the next morning, October 20, at eight o'clock, before we sailed, and then it was not wind, but a cargo of passengers that spread our sails. Twelve or fourteen hours are not an uncommon passage, but such was our luck that, after being in sight of the lights on the Smalls, we were by contrary winds blown opposite to Arklow sands. A violent gale arose, which presently blew a storm that lasted thirty-six hours, in which, under a reefed mainsail, the ship drifted up and down wearing in order to keep clear of the coasts.
No wonder this appeared to me, a fresh-water sailor, as a storm, when the oldest men on board reckoned it a violent one. The wind blew in furious gusts; the waves ran very high; the cabin windows
It is much to be wished that there were some means of being secure of packets sailing regularly, instead of waiting till there is such a number of passengers as satisfies the owner and captain. With the Post-Office packets there is this satisfaction, and a great one it is. The contrary conduct is so perfectly detestable that I should suppose the scheme of Waterford ones can never succeed.
Two years after, having been assured this conveyance was put on a new footing, I ventured to try it again, but was mortified to find that the Tyrone, the only one that could take a chaise or horses (the Countess being laid up), was repairing, but would sail in five days. I waited, and received assurance after assurance that she would be ready on such a day, and then on another. In a word, I waited twenty-four days before I sailed. Moderately speaking, I could by Dublin have reached Turin or Milan as soon as I did
| Item | Cost in £ s. d. |
|---|---|
| A four-wheel chaise | 3 30 |
| Three horses | 3 3 0 |
| Self | 1 1 0 |
| Two servants | 1 1 0 |
| Custom-house at Waterford, hay, oats, &c. | 2 1 7 |
| Ditto at Pembroke and Hubberston | 3 0 0 |
| Sailors, boats, and sundry small charges | 1 15 5 |
| Total | £15 5 0 |
1777. Upon a second journey to Ireland this year, I took the opportunity of going from Dublin to Mitchelstown, by a route through the central part of the kingdom, which I had not before sufficiently viewed.
Left Dublin the 24th of September, and taking the road to Naas, I was again struck with the great population of the country, the cabins being so much poorer in the vicinity of the capital than in the more distant parts of the kingdom.
To Kildare, crossing the Curragh, so famous for its turf. It is a sheep-walk of above four thousand English acres, forming a more beautiful lawn than the hand of art ever made. Nothing can exceed the extreme softness of the turf, which is of a verdure that charms the eye, and highly set off by the gentle inequality of surface. The soil is a fine dry loam on a stony bottom; it is fed by many large flocks, turned on it by the occupiers of the adjacent farms, who alone have the right, and pay very great rents on that account. It is the only considerable common in the kingdom. The sheep yield very little wool, not more than 3lb. per fleece, but of a very fine quality.
From Furness to Shaen Castle, in the Queen's County, Dean Coote's; but as the husbandry, &c., of this neighbourhood is already registered, I have only to observe that Mr. Coote was so kind as to show me the improved grounds of Dawson's Court, the seat of Lord Carlow, which I had not seen before. The principal beauties of the place are the well-grown and extensive plantations, which form a shade not often met with in Ireland. There is in the backgrounds a lake well accompanied with wood, broken by several
From Shaen Castle to Gloster, in the King's County, the seat of John Lloyd, Esq., member for that county, to whose attention I owe the following particulars, in which he took every means to have me well and accurately informed. But first let me observe that I was much pleased to remark, all the way from Naas quite to Rosscrea, that the country was amongst the finest I had seen in Ireland, and consequently that I was fortunate in having an opportunity of seeing it after the involuntary omission of last year. The cabins, though many of them are very bad, yet are better than in some other counties, and chimneys generally a part of them. The people, too, have no very miserable appearance; the breed of cattle and sheep good, and the hogs much the best I have anywhere seen in Ireland. Turf is everywhere at hand, and in plenty;
The Shannon adds not a little to the convenience and agreeableness of a residence so near it. Besides affording these sorts of wild-fowl, the quantity and size of its fish are amazing: pikes swarm in it, and rise in weight to fifty pounds. In the little flat spaces on its banks are small but deep lochs, which are covered in winter and in floods. When the river withdraws, it leaves plenty of fish in them, which are caught to put into stews. Mr. Holmes has a small one before his door at Johnstown, with a little stream which feeds it. A trowling-rod here gets you a bite in a moment, of a pike from twenty to forty pounds. I ate of one of twenty-seven pounds so taken. I had also the pleasure of seeing a fisherman bring three trout, weighing fourteen pounds, and sell them for sixpence-halfpenny a piece. A couple of boats lying at anchor, with lines
Dancing is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler, and the pay is sixpence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education. Weddings are always celebrated with much dancing, and a Sunday rarely passes without a dance. There are very few among them who will not, after a hard day's work, gladly walk seven miles to have a dance. John is not so lively, but then a hard day's work with him is certainly a different affair from what it is with Paddy. Other branches of education are likewise much attended to, every child of the poorest family learning to read, write, and cast accounts.
There is a very ancient custom here, for a number of country neighbours among the poor people to fix upon
In the hills above Derry are some very fine slate quarries, that employ sixty men. The quarrymen are paid 3s. a thousand for the slates, and the labourers 5d. a day. They are very fine, and sent by the Shannon to
Mr. Head has a practice in his fences which deserves universal imitation; it is planting trees for gate-posts. Stone piers are expensive, and always tumbling down; trees are beautiful, and never want repairing. Within fifteen years this gentleman has improved Derry so much, that those who had only seen it before would find it almost a new creation. He has built a handsome stone house, on the slope of a hill rising from the Shannon, and backed by some fine woods, which unite with many old hedges well planted to form a woodland scene beautiful in the contrast to the bright expanse of the noble river below. The declivity on which these woods are finishes in a mountain, which rises above the whole. The Shannon gives a bend around the adjoining lands, so as to be seen from the house both to the west and north, the lawn falling gradually to a margin of wood on the shore, which varies the outline. The river is two miles broad, and on the opposite shore cultivated inclosures rise in some places almost to the mountain top, which is very bold.
It is a very singular demesne; a stripe of very beautiful ground, reaching two miles along the banks of the river, which forms his fence on one side, with a wall on the other. There is so much wood as to render
October 7. Took my leave of Mr. Head, after passing four days very agreeably. Through Killaloe, over the Shannon, a very long bridge of many arches; went out of the road to see a fall of that river at Castle Connel, where there is such an accompaniment of wood as to form a very pleasing scenery. The river takes a very rapid rocky course around a projecting rock, on which a gentleman has built a summer-house, and formed a terrace: it is a striking spot. To Limerick. Laid at Bennis's, the first inn we had slept in from Dublin. God preserve us this journey from another!
It is not uncommon, especially in mountainous countries, to find objects that much deserve the attention of travellers entirely neglected by them. There
But the commanding region of the Galtees deserves more attention. Those who are fond of scenes in which Nature reigns in all her wild magnificence should visit this stupendous chain. It consists of many vast mountains, thrown together in an assemblage of the most interesting features, from the boldness and height of the declivities, freedom of outline, and variety of parts, filling a space of about six miles by three or four. Galtymore is the highest point, and rises like the lord and father of the surrounding progeny. From the top you look down upon a great extent of mountain, which shelves away from him to the south, east, and west: but to the north the ridge is almost a perpendicular declivity. On that side the
A little to the west of this proud summit, below it in a very extraordinary hollow, is a circular lake of two acres, reported to be unfathomable. The descriptions which I have read of the craters of exhausted volcanoes leave very little doubt of this being one; and the conical regularity of the summit of Galtymore speaks the same language. East of this respectable hill, to use Sir William Hamilton's language, is a declivity of about one-quarter of a mile, and there Galtybeg rises in a yet more regular cone; and between the two hills is another lake, which from its position seems to have been once the crater which threw up Galtybeg, as the first mentioned was the origin of Galtymore. Beyond
Nor are these immense outlines the whole of what is to be seen in this great range of mountains. Every glen has its beauties: there is a considerable mountain river, or rather torrent, in every one of them; but the greatest are the Funcheon, between Sefang and Galtymore; the Limestone river, between Galtymore and Round Hill, and the Grouse river, between Coolegarranroe and Mr. O'Callaghan's mountain; these present to the eye, for a tract of about three miles, every variety that rock, water, and mountain can give, thrown into all the fantastic forms which art may attempt in ornamented grounds, but always fails in. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the water, when not discoloured by rain; its lucid transparency shows, at considerable depths, every pebble no bigger than a pin, every rocky basin alive with trout and eels, that play and dash among the rocks as if endowed with that native vigour which animates, in a superior degree, every inhabitant of the mountains, from the bounding red deer and the soaring eagle down even to the fishes of the brook. Every five minutes you have a water-fall in these glens, which in any other region would stop every traveller to admire it. Sometimes the vale takes a gentle declivity, and presents to the eye at one stroke twenty or thirty falls, which render the scenery all alive with motion; the rocks are
In the western glen is the finest cascade in all the Galtees. There are two falls, with a basin in the rock between, but from some points of view they appear one: the rock over which the water tumbles is about sixty feet high. A good line in which to view these objects is either to take the Killarney and Mallow road to Mitchelstown and from thence by Lord Kingsborough's new one to Skeheenrinky, there to take one of the glens to Galtybeg and Galtymore, and return to Mitchelstown by the Wolf's Track, Temple Hill, and the Waterfall; or, if the Cork road is travelling, to make Dobbin's inn, at Ballyporeen, the head-quarters, and view them from thence.
Having heard much of the beauties of a part of the Queen's County I had not before seen, I took that line of country in my way on a journey to Dublin.
From Mitchelstown to Cashel, the road leads as far as Galbally in the route already travelled from Cullen. Towards Cashel the country is various. The only objects deserving attention are the plantations of Thomastown, the seat of Francis Mathew, Esq.; they consist chiefly of hedgerow trees in double and treble rows, are well grown, and of such extent as to form an
Rows of trees are planted, but their heads all cut off, I suppose from their not thriving, being planted too old. Immediately on leaving these planted avenues, enter a row of eight or ten new cabins, at a distance from each other, which appear to be a new undertaking, the land about them all pared and burnt, and the ashes in heaps.
Enter a fine planted country, with much corn and good thriving quick hedges for many miles. The road leads through a large wood, which joins Lord Ashbrook's plantations, whose house is situated in the midst of more wood than almost any one I have seen in Ireland. Pass Durrow; the country for two or three
Cross a great bog, within sight of Lord de Vesci's plantations. The road leads over it, being drained for that purpose by deep cuts on either side. I should apprehend this bog to be among the most improvable in the country. Slept at Ballyroan, at an inn kept by three animals who call themselves women; met with more impertinence than at any other in Ireland. It is an execrable hole. In three or four miles pass Sir John Parnel's, prettily situated in a neatly dressed lawn, with much wood about it, and a lake quite alive with wild fowl.
Pass Monstereven, and cross directly a large bog, drained and partly improved; but all of it bearing grass, and seems in a state that might easily be reduced to rich meadow, with only a dressing of lime. Here I got again into the road I had travelled before.
I must in general remark, that from near Urlingford to Dawson Court, near Monstereven, which is completely across the Queen's County, is a line of above thirty English miles, and is for that extent by much the most improved of any I have seen in Ireland. It is generally well planted, has many woods, and not consisting of patches of plantation just by gentlemen's houses, but spreading over the whole face of the country, so as to give it the richness of an English woodland scene. What a country would Ireland be had the inhabitants of the rest of it improved the whole like this!
To judge of Ireland by the conversation one sometimes hears in England, it would be supposed that one-half of it was covered with bogs, and the other with mountains filled with Irish ready to fly at the sight of a civilised being. There are people who will smile when they hear that, in proportion to the size of the two countries, Ireland is more cultivated than England, having much less waste land of all sorts. Of uncultivated mountains there are no such tracts as are found in our four northern counties, and the North
The circumstance which strikes me as the greatest singularity of Ireland is the rockiness of the soil, which should seem at first sight against that degree of fertility; but the contrary is the fact. Stone is so general, that I have great reason to believe the whole island is one vast rock of different strata and kinds rising out of the sea. I have rarely heard of any great depths being sunk without meeting with it. In general it appears on the surface in every part of the kingdom; the flattest and most fertile parts, as Limerick, Tipperary, and Meath, have it at no great
Of the great advantages resulting from the general plenty of limestone and limestone gravel, and the nature of the bogs, I shall have occasion to speak more particularly hereafter.
The rockiness of the soil in Ireland is so universal that it predominates in every sort. One cannot use with propriety the terms clay, loam, sand, &c.; it must be a stony clay, a stony loam, a gravelly sand. Clay, especially the yellow, is much talked of in Ireland, but it is for want of proper discrimination. I have once or twice seen almost a pure clay upon the surface, but it is extremely rare. The true yellow clay is usually found in a thin stratum under the surface mould, and over a rock; harsh, tenacious, stony, strong loams, difficult to work, are not uncommon: but they are quite different from English clays.
Friable, sandy loams, dry but fertile, are very
Sand which is so common in England, and yet more common through Spain, France, Germany, and Poland, quite from Gibraltar to Petersburg, is nowhere met with in Ireland, except for narrow slips of hillocks, upon the sea coast. Nor did I ever meet with or hear of a chalky soil.
The bogs, of which foreigners have heard so much, are very extensive in Ireland; that of Allen extends eighty miles, and is computed to contain three hundred thousand acres. There are others also, very extensive, and smaller ones scattered over the whole kingdom; but these are not in general more than are wanted for fuel. When I come to speak of the improvement of waste lands, I shall describe them particularly.
Besides the great fertility of the soil, there are other circumstances which come within my sphere to mention. Few countries can be better watered by large and beautiful rivers; and it is remarkable that by much the finest parts of the kingdom are on the banks of these rivers. Witness the Suir, Blackwater, the Liffey, the Boyne, the Nore, the Barrow, and part of the Shannon, they wash a scenery that can hardly be
The mountains of Ireland give to travelling that interesting variety which a flat country can never abound with. And, at the same time, they are not in such number as to confer the usual character of poverty which attends them. I was either upon or very near the most considerable in the kingdom. Mangerton, and the Reeks, in Kerry; the Galties in Cork; those of Mourne in Down; Crow Patrick, and Nephin in Mayo, these are the principal in Ireland, and they are of a character, in height and sublimity, which should render them the objects of every traveller's attention.
Relative to the climate of Ireland, a short residence cannot enable a man to speak much from his own experience; the observations I have made myself confirm the idea of its being vastly wetter than England; from the 20th of June to the 20th of October I kept a register, and there were, in one hundred and twenty-two days, seventy-five of rain, and very many of them incessant and heavy. I have examined similar registers I kept in England, and can find no year that even approaches to such a moisture as this. But there is a register of an accurate diary published which compares London and Cork. The result is, that the quantity at the latter place was double to that at London. See Smith's History of Cork.
From the information I received, I have reason to believe that the rainy season sets in usually about the first of July and continues very wet till September or October, when there is usually a dry fine season of a month or six weeks. I resided in the county of Cork, &c., from October till March, and found the winter much more soft and mild than ever I experienced one in England. I was also a whole summer there (1778), and it is fair to mention that it was as fine a one as ever I knew in England, though by no means so hot. I think hardly so wet as very many I have known in England. The tops of the Galty mountains exhibited the only snow we saw; and as to frosts, they were so slight and rare that I believe myrtles, and yet tenderer plants, would have survived without any covering. But when I say that the winter was not remarkable for being wet, I do not mean that we had a dry atmosphere. The inches of rain which fell in the winter I speak of would not mark the moisture of the climate. As many inches will fall in a single tropical shower as in a whole year in England. See Mitchel's Present State of Great Britain and North America. But if the clouds presently disperse, and a bright sun shines, the air may soon be dry. The worst circumstance of the climate of Ireland is the constant moisture without rain. Wet a piece of leather, and lay it in a room where there is neither sun nor fire, and it will not in summer even be dry in a month. I have known
Before I conclude this article of the common labouring poor in Ireland, I must observe, that their happiness depends not merely upon the payment of their labour, their clothes, or their food; the subordination of the lower classes, degenerating into oppression, is not to be overlooked. The poor in all countries, and under all governments, are both paid and fed, yet there is an infinite difference between them in different ones. This inquiry will by no means turn out so favourable as the preceding articles. It must be very apparent to every traveller through that country, that
A landlord in Ireland can scarcely invent an order which a servant, labourer, or cottar dares to refuse to execute. Nothing satisfies him but an unlimited submission. Disrespect, or anything tending towards sauciness, he may punish with his cane or his horsewhip with the most perfect security; a poor man would have his bones broke if he offered to lift his hands in his own defence. Knocking-down is spoken of in the country in a manner that makes an Englishman stare. Landlords of consequence have assured me that many of their cottars would think themselves honoured by having their wives and daughters sent for to the bed of their master; a mark of slavery that proves the oppression under which such people must live. Nay, I have heard anecdotes of the lives of people being made free with without any apprehension of the justice of a jury. But let it not be imagined that this is common; formerly it happened every day, but law gains ground. It must strike the most careless traveller to see whole strings of cars whipped into a ditch by a gentleman's footman to make way for his
The colours of this picture are not charged. To assert that all these cases are common would be an exaggeration, but to say that an unfeeling landlord will do all this with impunity, is to keep strictly to truth: and what is liberty but a farce and a jest, if its blessings are received as the favour of kindness and humanity, instead of being the inheritance of right?
Consequences have flowed from these oppressions which ought long ago to have put a stop to them. In
A better treatment of the poor in Ireland is a very material point of the welfare of the whole British Empire. Events may happen which may convince us fatally of this truth; if not, oppression must have broken all the spirit and resentment of men. By what policy the Government of England can for so many years have permitted such an absurd system to be matured in Ireland is beyond the power of plain sense to discover.
Before the American war broke out, the Irish and Scotch emigrations were a constant subject of conversation in England, and occasioned much discourse even in parliament. The common observation was,
The spirit of emigration in Ireland appeared to be confined to two circumstances, the Presbyterian religion, and the linen manufacture. I heard of very few emigrants except among manufacturers of that persuasion. The Catholics never went; they seem not only tied to the country, but almost to the parish in which their ancestors lived. As to the emigration in the north it was an error in England to suppose it a novelty which arose with the increase in rents. The contrary was the fact; it had subsisted perhaps forty years, insomuch that at the ports of Belfast, Derry, &c., the passenger trade, as they called it, had long been a regular branch of commerce, which employed several ships, and consisted in carrying people to America. The increasing population of the country made it an increasing trade, but when the linen trade was low, the passenger trade was always high. At the time of Lord Donegall's letting his estate in the north, the linen business suffered a temporary decline, which sent great numbers to America, and gave rise to
It is the misfortune of all manufactures worked for a foreign market to be upon an insecure footing; periods of declension will come, and when in consequence of them great numbers of people are out of employment, the best circumstance is their enlisting in the army or navy, and it is the common result; but unfortunately the manufacture in Ireland (of which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter) is not confined as it ought to be to towns, but spreads into all cabins of the country. Being half farmers, half manufacturers, they have too much property in cattle, &c., to enlist when idle; if they convert it into cash it will enable them to pay their passage to America, an alternative always chosen in preference to the military life. The consequence is, that they must live without work till their substance is quite consumed before they will enlist. Men who are in such a situation that from various causes they cannot work, and won't enlist, should emigrate; if they stay at home they must
For a country, so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so much the start of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly. But from this commendation the turnpikes in general must be excluded; they are as bad as the bye-roads are admirable. It is a common complaint that the tolls of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that disgrace the kingdom.
The following is the system on which the cross-roads are made. Any person wishing to make or mend a road has it measured by two persons, who swear to the measurement before a justice of the peace. It is described as leading from one market-town to another (it matters not in what direction), that it will be a public good, and that it will require such a sum per perch of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same. A certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold), with the blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons called overseers, one of whom is usually the person applying for the road, the
This vote of approbation, without any further form, enables the person who applied for the presentment immediately to construct or repair the road in question, which he must do at his own expense; he must finish it by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the county to pay him, which is done immediately. In like manner are bridges, houses of correction, gaols, &c. &c., built and repaired. If a bridge over a river which parts two counties, half is done by one and the other half by the other county.
The expense of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the plough land, and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very unequal
The juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road which amounts to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch, so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments. By the Act of Parliament, all presentment-roads must be twenty-one feet wide at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of it formed with stone or gravel.
As the power of the grand jury extends in this manner to the cutting new roads where none ever were before, as well as to the repairing and widening old ones, exclusive, however, of parks, gardens, &c., it was necessary to put a restriction against the wanton expense of it. Any presentment may be traversed that is opposed, by denying the allegations of the certificate; this is sure of delaying it until another assizes, and in the meantime persons are appointed to view the line of road demanded, and report on the necessity or hardship of the case. The payment of the money may also be traversed after the certificate of its being laid out; for if any person views and finds it a manifest imposition
At first, roads, in common with bridges, were paid out of the general treasure of the county, but by a subsequent act the road tax is now on baronies; each barony pays for its own roads. By another act juries were enabled to grant presentments of narrow mountain roads, at two shillings and sixpence a perch. By another, they were empowered to grant presentments of footpaths, by the side of roads, at one shilling a perch. By a very late act, they are also enabled to contract at three-halfpence per perch per annum from the first making of a road, for keeping it in repair, which before could not be done without a fresh presentment. Arthur King, Esq., of Moniva, whose agriculture is described in the preceding minutes, and who at that time represented the county of Galway, was the worthy citizen who first brought this excellent measure into parliament: Ireland, and every
Upon the imperfections of the Irish system I have only to remark, that juries should, in some cases, be more ready than they are to grant these presentments. In general, they are extremely liberal, but sometimes they take silly freaks of giving none, or very few. Experience having proved, from the general goodness of the roads, that abuses cannot be very great, they should go on with spirit to perfect the great work throughout the kingdom; and as a check upon those who lay out the money, it might perhaps be advisable to print county maps of the presentment roads, with corresponding lists and tables of the names of all persons who have obtained presentments, the sums they received, and for what roads. These should be given freely by the jurymen, to all their acquaintance, that every man might know, to whose carelessness or jobbing the public was indebted for bad roads, when
At 11,042,642 acres in the kingdom, £140,000 a year amounts to just threepence an acre for the whole territory: a very trifling tax for such an improvement, and which almost ranks in public ease and benefit with that of the post-office.
Quid leges sine moribus, vanae proficiunt?’’
Horace, III, 24.
It is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish remarks upon a country to sit down, cooly in his closet and write a satire on the inhabitants. Severity of that sort must be enlivened with an uncommon share of wit and ridicule, to please. Where very gross absurdities are found, it is fair and manly to note them; but to enter into character and disposition is generally uncandid, since there are no people but might be better than they are found, and none but have virtues which deserve attention, at least as much as their failings; for these reasons this section would not have found a place in my observations, had not some persons, of much more flippancy than wisdom, given very gross misrepresentations of the Irish nation. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I take up the pen on the present occasion; as a much longer residence there
There are three races of people in Ireland, so distinct as to strike the least attentive traveller: these are the Spanish which are found in Kerry, and a part of Limerick and Cork, tall and thin, but well made, a long visage, dark eyes, and long black lank hair. The time is not remote when the Spaniards had a kind of settlement on the coast of Kerry, which seemed to be overlooked by government. There were many of them in Queen Elizabeth's reign, nor were they entirely driven out till the time of Cromwell. There is an island of Valentia on that coast, with various other names, certainly Spanish. The Scotch race is in the north, where are to be found the feature which are supposed to mark that people, their accent and many of their customs. In a district near Dublin, but more particularly in the baronies of Bargie and Forth in the county of Wexford, the Saxon tongue is spoken without any mixture of the Irish, and the people have a variety of customs mentioned in the minutes, which distinguish them from their neighbours. The rest of the kingdom is made up of mongrels. The Milesian race of Irish, which may be called native, are scattered over the kingdom, but chiefly found in Connaught and Munster; a few considerable families, whose genealogy
The only divisions which a traveller, who passed through the kingdom without making any residence could make, would be into people of considerable fortune and mob. The intermediate division of the scale, so numerous and respectable in England, would hardly attract the least notice in Ireland. A residence in the kingdom convinces one, however, that there is another class in general of small fortune—country gentlemen and renters of land. The manners, habits, and customs of people of considerable fortune are much the same everywhere, at least there is very little difference between England and Ireland, it is among the common people one must look for those traits by which we discriminate a national character. The circumstances which struck me most in the common Irish were, vivacity and a great and eloquent volubility of speech; one would think they could take snuff and talk without tiring till doomsday. They are infinitely more cheerful and
Some degree of education is also general, hedge
If from the lowest class we rise to the highest, all there is gaiety, pleasure, luxury, and extravagance; the town life at Dublin is formed on the model of that of London. Every night in the winter there is a ball or a party, where the polite circle meet, not to enjoy but to sweat each other; a great crowd crammed into twenty feet square gives a zest to the agréments of small talk and whist. There are four or five houses large enough to receive a company commodiously, but the rest are so small as to make parties detestable. There is however an agreeable society in Dublin, in which a man of large fortune will not find his time heavy. The style of living may be guessed from the fortunes of the resident nobility and great commoners; there are about thirty that possess incomes from seven to twenty thousand pounds a year. The court has nothing remarkable or splendid in it, but varies very
In the country their life has some circumstances which are not commonly seen in England. Large tracts of land are kept in hand by everybody to supply the deficiencies of markets; this gives such a plenty, that, united with the lowness of taxes and prices, one would suppose it difficult for them to spend their incomes, if Dublin in the winter did not lend assistance. Let it be considered that the prices of meat are much lower than in England; poultry only a fourth of the price; wild fowl and fish in vastly greater plenty; rum and brandy not half the price; coffee, tea, and wines far cheaper; labour not above a third; servants' wages upon an average thirty per cent cheaper. That taxes are inconsiderable, for there is no land-tax, no poor-rates, no window tax, no candle or soap tax, only half a wheel-tax, no servants' tax, and a variety of other articles heavily burdened in England, but not in Ireland. Considering all this, one would think they could not spend their incomes; they do contrive it, however. In this business they are assisted by two customs that have an admirable tendency to it, great numbers of horses and servants.
In England such extensive demesnes would be parks around the seats for beauty as much as use, but it is not so in Ireland; the words deer-park and demesne
Another circumstance to be remarked in the country life is the miserableness of many of their houses; there are men of five thousand a year in Ireland, who live in habitations that a man of seven hundred a year in England would disdain; an air of neatness, order, dress, and propreté, is wanting to a surprising degree around the mansion; even new and excellent houses have often nothing of this about them. But the badness
The tables of people of fortune are very plentifully spread; many elegantly, differing in nothing from those of England. I think I remarked that venison wants the flavour it has with us, probably for the same reason, that the produce of rich parks is never equal to that of poor ones; the moisture of the climate, and the richness of the soil, give fat but not flavour. Another reason is the smallness of the parks, a man who has three or four thousand acres in his hands, has not perhaps above three or four hundred in his deer-park, and range is a great point for good venison. Nor do I think that garden vegetables have the flavour found in those of England, certainly owing to the climate; green peas I found everywhere perfectly insipid, and lettuce, &c., not good. Claret is the common wine of all tables, and so much inferior to what is drank in England, that it does not appear to be the same wine; but their port is incomparable, so much better than the English, as to prove, if proof was wanting, the abominable
Duelling was once carried to an excess, which was a real reproach and scandal to the kingdom; it of course proceeded from excessive drinking; as the cause has disappeared, the effect has nearly followed; not however, entirely, for it is yet far more common among people of fashion than in England. Of all practices, a man who felt for the honour of his country would wish soonest to banish this, for there is not one favourable conclusion to be drawn from it: as to courage, nobody can question that of a polite and enlightened nation, entitled to a share of the reputation of the age; but it implies uncivilised manners, an ignorance of those forms which govern polite societies, or else a brutal drunkenness; the latter is no longer the cause or the pretence. As to the former, they would place the national character so backward, would take from it so much of its pretence to civilisation, elegance and politeness of manners, that no true Irishman would be pleased with the imputation. Certain it is, that none are so captious as those who think themselves neglected or despised; and none are so ready to believe themselves either one or the other as persons unused to
There is another point of manners somewhat connected with the present subject, which partly induced me to place a motto at the head of this section. It is the conduct of juries; the criminal law of Ireland is the same as that of England, but in the execution it is
Let me, however, conclude what I have to observe on the conduct of the principal people residing in Ireland, that there are great numbers among them who are as liberal in all their ideas as any people in Europe; that they have seen the errors which have given an ill character to the manners of their country, and done everything that example could effect to produce a change: that that happy change has been partly effected, and is effecting every hour, insomuch that a man may go into a vast variety of families which he will find actuated by no other principles than those of the most cultivated politeness, and the most liberal urbanity.
But I must now come to another class of people, to whose conduct it is almost entirely owing that the character of the nation has not that lustre abroad, which I dare assert it will soon very generally merit: this is the class of little country gentlemen; tenants, who drink their claret by means of profit rents; jobbers in farms; bucks; your fellows with round hats, edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the evening, and fight the next morning. I shall not dwell on a subject so perfectly disagreeable, but remark that these are the men among whom drinking, wrangling, quarrelling, fighting, ravishing, &c. &c. are found as in their native soil; once to a degree that made them
That character is upon the whole respectable: it would be unfair to attribute to the nation at large the vices and follies of only one class of individuals. Those persons from whom it is candid to take a general estimate do credit to their country. That they are a people learned, lively, and ingenious, the admirable authors they have produced will be an eternal monument; witness their Swift, Sterne, Congreve, Boyle, Berkeley, Steele, Farquhar, Southerne, and Goldsmith. Their talent for eloquence is felt, and acknowledged in the parliaments of both the kingdoms.