Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
A Tour in Ireland, with general observations on the present state of that kingdom in 1776–78 (Author: Arthur Young)

entry 17

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.


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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


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of anything that could have been established. This edifice entirely at the Primate's expense. The church is erected of white stone, and having a tall spire makes a very agreeable object in a country where churches and spires do not abound—at least, such as are worth looking at. Three other churches the Primate has also built, and done considerable reparations to the cathedral.

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.


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This gentleman has made very great improvements in his domain. He has a lake at the bottom of a slight vale, and around are three walks, at a distance from each other; the centre one is the principal, and extends two miles. It is well conducted for leading to the most agreeable parts of the grounds, and for commanding views of Loch Neagh, and the distant country. There are several buildings, a temple, green-house, &c. The most beautiful scene is from a bench on a gently swelling hill, which rises almost on every side from the water. The wood, the water, and the green slopes, here unite to form a very pleasing landscape. Let me observe one thing much to his honour; he advances his tenants money for all the lime they choose, and takes payment in eight years with rent.

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


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earn; but in common a woman earns about threepence. For coarse linens they do not reckon the flax hurt by standing for seed. Their own flax is much better than the imported.

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


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wooded scene: you look down on a glen of wood, with a winding hill quite covered with it, and which breaks the view of a large bay. Over it appears the peninsula of Strangford, which consists of enclosures and wood. To the right the bay is bounded by a fine grove, which projects into it. A ship at anchor added much. The house well situated above several rising woods; the whole scene a fine one. I remarked in Lord Bangor's domains a fine field of turnips, but unhoed. There were some cabbages also.

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,


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and is ten broad. His royalties are great, containing the whole of Loch Neagh, which is, I suppose, the greatest of any subject in Europe. His eel fishery at Tome, and Port New, on the river Ban, lets for £500 a year; and all the fisheries are his to the leap at Coleraine. The estate is supposed to be £31,000 a year, the greatest at present in Ireland. Inishowen, in Donegal, is his, and is £11,000 of it. In Antrim, Lord Antrim's is the most extensive property, being four baronies, and one hundred and seventy-three thousand acres. The rent £8,000 a year, but re-let for £64,000 a year, by tenants that have perpetuities, perhaps the cruelest instance in the world of carelessness for the interests of posterity. The present lord's father granted those leases.

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.