Rev. Daniel A. Beaufort's Tour of Kerry, 1788

Daniel Augustus Beaufort (1739–1821),See Dict. of Nat. Biog. under 'Beaufort, Daniel Augustus'. was the son of Daniel Cornelis de Beaufort, a French Huguenot clergyman who settled in London in the 1720s. He subsequently entered the Church of England, serving as rector of East Barnet where his son, Daniel Augustus, was born. Going to Ireland with the viceroy Lord Harrington in 1747, Beaufort senior became successively rector of Navan, provost of Tuam and finally, rector of Clonenagh, Co. Laois, which post he held until his death in 1788.

Daniel Augustus was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he had conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He took orders, and in succession to his father was rector of Navan (1765–1818). In 1790 he was presented by John Foster, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, to the vicarage of Collon, Co. Louth, where he built a new church and remained until his death. He married Mary, daughter and co-heiress of William Waller of Allenstown, Co. Meath. His elder son, William Louis Beaufort (1771–1849), whose name features in the diary below, became a Church of Ireland clergyman. His younger son was Sir Francis Beaufort (1774–1857), rear admiral and distinguished hydrographer. His daughter Frances became in 1798 the fourth wife of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and the stepmother of the authoress Maria Edgeworth.

Beaufort was a man of many parts. He was prominently involved in the foundation of Sunday schools and in the preparation of elementary educational texts. He is credited, moreover, with a large measure of responsibility for the foundation of the Royal Irish Academy. He is, however, best remembered as a geographer, his most important work being his civil and ecclesiastical map of Ireland which, with an accompanying memoir, was published in 1792D.A. Beaufort, Memoirs of a man of Ireland ... containing a short account of its present state, civil and ecclesiastical (Dublin 1792). Several later editions appeared. under the patronage of the lord lieutenant, the Marquis of Buckingham. This was considered a valuable contribution to geographical studies of the day, though it is worth noting that the eminent antiquarian John O' Donovan commented scathingly on what he considered its shortcomings, particularly with regard to placenames.

Beaufort intended by on-the-spot observation to remove the defects of existing maps, and his tour of Kerry, which was only part of a much more extensive itinerary of the entire country, was undertaken with this aim in view. He seems, in fact, to have been a compulsive traveller and diarist. Between 1764 and 1810 he undertook, besides several Irish tours, similar journeyings through the Low Countries, England and Wales. His wife Mary and daughter Louisa, who accompanied him on several of his peregrinations, (his wife was with him in Kerry in 1788 and again in 1810), also kept some travel diaries of their own. The originals of many of these were acquired some twenty years ago by Trinity College, Dublin.

It may be noted that in addition to his travel diaries Beaufort also kept extensive journals of a more personal nature. The originals of these are today in the Huntington Library of San Marino, California, though microfilm copies are available in Trinity College, Dublin. In addition, the National Library of Ireland holds a quantity of Beaufort correspondence,NLI Mss 8778–8783 including letters to Daniel Augustus from his future wife and various acquaintances, and also correspondence of his daughters, Harriet and Louisa, and his son William.

Beaufort's diary of his tour of Kerry in 1788 is contained in TCD Mss 4029–30, which also outline the more extensive tour of Ireland which he undertook between 3 July and 17 September of that year. This led him through parts of the north and west to Co. Clare, and thence, via Mallow and Millstreet, Co. Cork, to Killarney. After leaving Kerry via Bantry, he traversed several other parts of Co. Cork, before eventually returning to Dublin. This would seem to have been his first and only systematic tour of Kerry, though he revisited the county, and in 1810 updated some of the earlier entries in his diary.

Beaufort was clearly a methodical and disciplined observer. At the commencement of his journal for 1788 he sets out an elaborate series of objectives which he hoped to achieve in the course of his tour. He proposed to obtain information on a wide range of subjects, including such diverse topics as the quality of the soil in each locality, state of the poor, details of antiquities in anybody's possession, condition of the corporate boroughs, traditions of the antient Irish, and names of the Church of Ireland clergy in each parish. Given the limited time and resources at his disposal and his evident lack of contacts outside the rather narrow ambit of Ascendancy Ireland, such a programme would seem to have been somewhat ambitious. A reading even of the Kerry portion of his diary, however, shows that he achieved some degree of success with regard to all his objectives and his diary provides, in fact, many valuable insights into social and economic conditions in the Kerry of his day. Considering the primitive state of the Irish roads at this period, and the often unsavoury condition of available accommodation, one can only marvel at the hardihood and enterprising spirit displayed by such an intrepid inquirer.

A few points should be noted concerning the text. Beaufort's frequent abbreviations of words and, on occasion, entire sentences, have been silently expanded. Where, however, his abbreviations give rise to doubt this is clearly indicated. His occasional arbitrary switches from past to present tense have, where appropriate, been silently amended, and in a few places the order of his sentences has been changed to provide a more logical sequence. In addition, some repetitive or inconsequential material has been silently suppressed. The manuscript includes some marginal notes dated 1810 and a few which are undated. In the case of most of these undated notes it is possible from an examination of the original manuscript to distinguish those which are contemporaneous with the main text from later entries. The former have been silently incorporated at the appropriate points in the main body of the text; the latter are clearly indicated in the footnotes. Finally, the page references of the original manuscript have been incorporated in square brackets in the printed text.