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Title: A Tour in Ireland
1776-1779
Author: Arthur Young
Editor: Henry Morley
Release Date: August 25, 2007 [eBook #22387]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TOUR IN IRELAND***
This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
A TOUR IN IRELAND.
1776-1779.
BY
ARTHUR YOUNG.
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1897.
INTRODUCTION.
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 pen. In 1768, a year before his
father's death, he had published "A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern
Counties of England and Wales," which found many readers.
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 joined to the power of
suggesting what may help the world.
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 pounds 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. My experience and knowledge had increased from
travelling and practice, but all was lost when exerted on such a spot."
He tried at one time to balance his farm losses by reporting for the
_Morning Post_, taking a seventeen-mile walk home to his farm every
Saturday night.
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 pounds
a year, Arthur Young had been about to experiment on the reclaiming of
four thousand acres of Yorkshire moorland. The Agricultural Board was
dissolved in 1816, four years before surveys of the agriculture of each
county were made for the Agricultural Board, Arthur Young himself
contributing surveys of Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire,
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Sussex.
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.
H. M.
A TOUR IN IRELAND.
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 in Ireland; it is elegant, cost forty thousand pounds, but
deserves a better situation. From everything I saw, I was struck with
all those appearances of wealth which the capital of a thriving community
may be supposed to exhibit. Happy if I find through the country in
diffused prosperity the right source of this splendour! The common
computation of inhabitants 200,000, but I should suppose exaggerated.
Others guessed the number 140,000 or 150,000.
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 pictures, particularly one by Rembrandt, of Judas throwing the
money on the floor, with a strong expression of guilt and remorse; the
whole group fine. In the same room is a portrait of Caesar Borgia, by
Titian. The library is a most elegant apartment of about forty by
thirty, and of such a height as to form a pleasing proportion; the light
is well managed, coming in from the cove of the ceiling, and has an
exceeding good effect; at one end is a pretty ante-room, with a fine copy
of the Venus de Medicis, and at the other two small rooms, one a cabinet
of pictures and antiquities, the other medals. In the collection also of
Robert Fitzgerald, Esq., in Merion Square, are several pieces which very
well deserve a traveller's attention; it was the best I saw in Dublin.
Before I quit that city I observe, on the houses in general, that what
they call their two-roomed ones are good and convenient. Mr. Latouche's,
in Stephen's Green, I was shown as a model of this sort, and I found it
well contrived, and finished elegantly. Drove to Lord Charlemont's villa
at Marino, near the city, where his lordship has formed a pleasing lawn,
margined in the higher part by a well-planted thriving shrubbery, and on
a rising ground a banqueting-room, which ranks very high among the most
beautiful edifices I have anywhere seen; it has much elegance, lightness,
and effect, and commands a fine prospect. The rising ground on which it
stands slopes off to an agreeable accompaniment of wood, beyond which on
one side is Dublin Harbour, which here has the appearance of a noble
river crowded with ships moving to and from the capital. On the other
side is a shore spotted with white buildings, and beyond it the hills of
Wicklow, presenting an outline extremely various. The other part of the
view (it would be more perfect if the city was planted out) is varied, in
some places nothing but wood, in others breaks of prospect. The lawn,
which is extensive, is new grass, and appears to be excellently laid
down, the herbage a fine crop of white clover (_trifolium repens_),
trefoil, rib-grass (_plantago lanceolata_), and other good plants.
Returned to Dublin, and made inquiries into other points, the prices of
provisions, etc. The expenses of a family in proportion to those of
London are, as five to eight.
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 night in the week, some of which are very elegant; but you
almost everywhere meet a company much too numerous for the size of the
apartments. They have two assemblies on the plan of those of London, in
Fishamble Street, and at the Rotunda; and two gentlemen's clubs, Anthry's
and Daly's, very well regulated: I heard some anecdotes of deep play at
the latter, though never to the excess common at London. An ill-judged
and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian Opera, which
existed but with scarcely any life for this one winter; of course they
could rise no higher than a comic one. _La Buona Figliuola_, _La
Frascatana_, and _Il Geloso in Cimento_, were repeatedly performed, or
rather murdered, except the parts of Sestini. The house was generally
empty, and miserably cold. So much knowledge of the state of a country
is gained by hearing the debates of a Parliament, that I often frequented
the gallery of the House of Commons. Since Mr. Flood has been silenced
with the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland, Mr. Daly, Mr. Grattan, Sir
William Osborn, and the prime serjeant Burgh, are reckoned high among the
Irish orators. I heard many very eloquent speeches, but I cannot say
they struck me like the exertion of the abilities of Irishmen in the
English House of Commons, owing perhaps to the reflection both on the
speaker and auditor, that the Attorney-General of England, with a dash of
his pen, can reverse, alter, or entirely do away the matured result of
all the eloquence, and all the abilities of this whole assembly. Before
I conclude with Dublin I shall only remark, that walking in the streets
there, from the narrowness and populousness of the principal
thoroughfares, as well as from the dirt and wretchedness of the canaille,
is a most uneasy and disgusting exercise.
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 most effectually drained in the covered
manner filled with stones. These works are well executed. The drains
are also made under the roads in all wet places, with lateral short ones
to take off the water instead of leaving it, as is common, to soak
against the causeway, which is an excellent method. Great use has been
made of limestone gravel in the improvements, the effect of which is so
considerable, that in several spots where it was laid on ten years ago,
the superiority of the grass is now similar to what one would expect from
a fresh dunging.
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 six; the banks well made, and planted with quicks; the borders dug
away, covered with lime till perfectly slacked, them mixed with dung and
carried into the fields, a practice which Mr. Marlay has found of very
great benefit.
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 shrubbery quits the river, and is made to lead
through some dressed ground that is pretty and cheerful.
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, etc. 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
consists of mild and gentle slopes, part steep banks of thick wood. In
another place they are formed into a large shrubbery, very elegantly laid
out, and dressed in the highest order, with a cottage, the scenery about
which is uncommonly pleasing: and farther on this vale takes a stronger
character, having a rocky bank on one side, and steep slopes scattered
irregularly, with wood on the other. On one of the most rising grounds
in the park is a tower, from the top of which the whole scenery is
beheld; the park spreads on every side in fine sheets of lawn, kept in
the highest order by eleven hundred sheep, scattered over with rich
plantations, and bounded by a large margin of wood, through which is a
riding.
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. Every cottage swarms with poultry, and
most of them have pigs.
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 ridings, which look upon several beautiful scenes formed by the
river, and take in the distant country, exhibiting the noblest views of
waving Cultinald hills, with the castle finely situated in the midst of
the planted domain, through which the Boyne winds its beautiful course.
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 command a bellyful; they have flax
enough for all their linen, most of them have a cow, and some two, and
spin wool enough for their clothes; all a pig, and numbers of poultry,
and in general the complete family of cows, calves, hogs, poultry, and
children pig together in the cabin; fuel they have in the utmost plenty.
Great numbers of families are also supported by the neighbouring lakes,
which abound prodigiously with fish. A child with a packthread and a
crooked pin will catch perch enough in an hour for the family to live on
the whole day, and his lordship has seen five hundred children fishing at
the same time, there being no tenaciousness in the proprietors of the
lands about a right to the fish. Besides perch, there is pike upwards of
five feet long, bream, tench, trout of ten pounds, and as red as salmon,
and fine eels. All these are favourable circumstances, and are very
conspicuous in the numerous and healthy families among them.
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, etc. 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 horse, and so many for a cow, are clear accounts
which a poor man can understand well, but farther it ought never to go;
and when he has worked out what he has of this sort, the rest of his work
ought punctually to be paid him every Saturday night. Another
circumstance mentioned was the excessive practice they have in general of
pilfering. They steal everything they can lay their hands on, and I
should remark, that this is an account which has been very generally
given me: all sorts of iron hinges, chains, locks, keys, etc.; gates will
be cut in pieces, and conveyed away in many places as fast as built;
trees as big as a man's body, and that would require ten men to move,
gone in a night. Lord Longford has had the new wheels of a car stolen as
soon as made. Good stones out of a wall will be taken for a fire-hearth,
etc., though a breach is made to get at them. In short, everything, and
even such as are apparently of no use to them; nor is it easy to catch
them, for they never carry their stolen goods home, but to some bog-hole.
Turnips are stolen by car-loads, and two acres of wheat plucked off in a
night. In short, their pilfering and stealing is a perfect nuisance.
How far it is owing to the oppression of laws aimed solely at the
religion of these people, how far to the conduct of the gentlemen and
farmers, and how far to the mischievous disposition of the people
themselves, it is impossible for a passing traveller to ascertain. I am
apt to believe that a better system of law and management would have good
effects. They are much worse treated than the poor in England, are
talked to in more opprobrious terms, and otherwise very much oppressed.
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
anywhere to be seen, and spreading to the eye a beautiful lawn of
undulating ground margined with wood. Single trees are scattered in some
places, and clumps in others; the general effect so pleasing, that were
there nothing further, the place would be beautiful, but the canvas is
admirably filled. Lake Ennel, many miles in length, and two or three
broad, flows beneath the windows. It is spotted with islets, a
promontory of rock fringed with trees shoots into it, and the whole is
bounded by distant hills. Greater and more magnificent scenes are often
met with, but nowhere a more beautiful or a more singular one.
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 Great Britain, I was
informed that nothing was so unpopular in Ireland as such an idea; and
that the great objection to it was increasing the number of absentees.
When it was in agitation, twenty peers and sixty commoners were talked of
to sit in the British Parliament, which would be the resident of eighty
of the best estates in Ireland. Going every year to England would, by
degrees, make them residents; they would educate their children there,
and in time become mere absentees: becoming so they would be unpopular,
others would be elected, who, treading in the same steps, would yield the
place still to others; and thus by degrees, a vast portion of the kingdom
now resident would be made absentees, which would, they think, be so
great a drain to Ireland, that a free trade would not repay it.
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 among them with
artificial ruins upon it, but the situation is not in unison with the
idea of a ruin, very rarely placed to effect, unless in retired and
melancholy spots.
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 Hasler's
on the opposite side of the river, finely situated, and Mr. Nicholson's
farm on this side, who has very extensive copses which line the river.
Coming in sight of Sir W. Fownes's, the scenery is striking; the road
mounts the side of the hill, and commands the river at the bottom of the
declivity, with groups of trees prettily scattered about, and the little
borough of Innisteague in a most picturesque situation, the whole bounded
by mountains. Cross the bridge, and going through the town, take a path
that leads to a small building in the woods, called Mount Sandford. It
is at the top of a rocky declivity almost perpendicular, but with brush
wood growing from the rocks. At the bottom is the river, which comes
from the right from behind a very bold hanging wood, that seems to unite
with the hill on the opposite shore. At this pass the river fills the
vale, but it widens by degrees, and presents various reaches, intermixed
with little tufts of trees. The bridge we passed over is half hid.
Innisteague is mixed with them, and its buildings backed by a larger
wood, give variety to the scene. Opposite to the point of view there are
some pretty enclosures, fringed with wood, and a line of cultivated
mountain sides, with their bare tops limit the whole.
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
acres, and hanging in one noble shade to the river, which flows at the
bottom of a winding glen. From the same hill in front it is seen in a
winding course for many miles through a great extent of enclosures,
bounded by mountains. As I advanced the views of the river Nore were
very fine, till I came to Ross, where from the hill before you go down to
the ferry is a noble scene of the Barrow, a vast river flowing through
bold shores. In some places trees on the bank half obscure it, in others
it opens in large reaches, the effect equally grand and beautiful. Ships
sailing up to the town, which is built on the side of a hill to the
water's edge, enliven the scene not a little. The water is very deep and
the navigation secure, so that ships of seven hundred tons may come up to
the town; but these noble harbours on the coast of Ireland are only
melancholy capabilities of commerce: it is languid and trifling. There
are only four or five brigs and sloops that belong to the place.
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. Conflans. That no foreign coin was ever seen among
them, though reports to the contrary were circulated; and in all the
evidence that was taken during ten or twelve years, in which time there
appeared a variety of informers, none was ever taken, whose testimony
could be relied on, that ever proved any foreign interposition. Those
very few who attempted to favour it, were of the most infamous and
perjured characters. All the rest, whose interest it was to make the
discovery, if they had known it, and who concealed nothing else,
pretended to no such knowledge. No foreign money appeared, no arms of
foreign construction, no presumptive proof whatever of such a connection.
They began in Tipperary, and were owing to some inclosures of commons,
which they threw down, levelling the ditches, and were first known by the
name of Levellers. After that, they began with the tithe-proctors (who
are men that hire tithes of the rectors), and these proctors either
screwed the cottars up to the utmost shilling, or relet the tithes to
such as did it. It was a common practice with them to go in parties
about the country, swearing many to be true to them, and forcing them to
join by menaces, which they very often carried into execution. At last
they set up to be general redressers of grievances, punished all
obnoxious persons who advanced the value of lands, or hired farms over
their heads; and, having taken the administration of justice into their
hands, were not very exact in the distribution of it. Forced masters to
release their apprentices, carried off the daughters of rich farmers, and
ravished them into marriages, of which four instances happened in a
fortnight. They levied sums of money on the middling and lower farmers
in order to support their cause, by paying attorneys, etc., in defending
prosecutions against them; and many of them subsisted for some years
without work, supported by these contributions. Sometimes they committed
several considerable robberies, breaking into houses, and taking the
money, under pretence of redressing grievances. In the course of these
outrages they burnt several houses, and destroyed the whole substance of
men obnoxious to them. The barbarities they committed were shocking.
One of their usual punishments (and by no means the most severe) was
taking people out of their beds, carrying them naked in winter on
horseback for some distance, and burying them up to their chin in a hole
filled with briars, not forgetting to cut off their ears. In this manner
the evil existed for eight or ten years, during which time the gentlemen
of the country took some measures to quell them. Many of the magistrates
were active in apprehending them; but the want of evidence prevented
punishments, for many of those who even suffered by them had no spirit to
prosecute. The gentlemen of the country had frequent expeditions to
discover them in arms; but their intelligence was so uncommonly good by
their influence over the common people, that not one party that ever went
out in quest of them was successful. Government offered large rewards
for informations, which brought a few every year to the gallows, without
any radical cure for the evil. The reason why it was not more effective
was the necessity of any person that gave evidence against them quitting
their houses and country, or remaining exposed to their resentment. At
last their violence arose to a height which brought on their suppression.
The popish inhabitants of Ballyragget, six miles from Kilkenny, were the
first of the lower people who dared openly to associate against them;
they threatened destruction to the town, gave notice that they would
attack it, were as good as their word, came two hundred strong, drew up
before a house in which were fifteen armed men, and fired in at the
windows; the fifteen men handled their arms so well, that in a few rounds
they killed forty or fifty. They fled immediately, and ever after left
Ballyragget in peace: indeed, they have never been resisted at all
without showing a great want of both spirit and discipline. It should,
however, be observed, that they had but very few arms, those in bad
order, and no cartridges. Soon after this they attacked the house of Mr.
Power in Tipperary, the history of which is well known. His murder
spirited up the gentlemen to exert themselves in suppressing the evil,
especially in raising subscriptions to give private rewards to whoever
would give evidence or information concerning them. The private
distribution had much more effect than larger sums which required a
public declaration; and Government giving rewards to those who resisted
them, without having previously promised it, had likewise some effect.
Laws were passed for punishing all who assembled, and (what may have a
great effect) for recompensing, at the expense of the county or barony,
all persons who suffered by their outrages. In consequence of this
general exertion, above twenty were capitally convicted, and most of them
executed; and the gaols of this and the three neighbouring counties,
Carlow, Tipperary, and Queen's County, have many in them whose trials are
put off till next assizes, and against whom sufficient evidence for
conviction, it is supposed, will appear. Since this all has been quiet,
and no outrages have been committed: but before I quit the subject, it is
proper to remark that what coincided very much to abate the evil was the
fall in the price of lands which has taken place lately. This is
considerable, and has much lessened the evil of hiring farms over the
heads of one another; perhaps, also, the tithe-proctors have not been
quite so severe in their extortions: but this observation is by no means
general; for in many places tithes yet continue to be levied with all
those circumstances which originally raised the evil.
July 15. Leaving Courtown, took the Arklow road; passed a finely wooded
park of Mr. Ram's, and a various country with some good corn in it. Flat
lands by the coast let very high, and mountain at six or seven shillings
an acre, and some at eight shillings or ten shillings. Passed to
Wicklow, prettily situated on the sea, and from Newrybridge walked to see
Mr. Tye's, which is a neat farm, well wooded, with a river running
through the fields.
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 bare rocks to an immense height, hanging in a thousand
whimsical yet frightful forms, with vast fragments tumbled from them, and
lying in romantic confusion; the other a fine mountain side covered with
shrubby wood. This wild pass leads to the bottom of an amphitheatre of
mountain, which exhibits a very noble scenery. To the right is an
immense sweep of mountain completely wooded; taken as a single object it
is a most magnificent one, but its forms are picturesque in the highest
degree; great projections of hill, with glens behind all wooded, have a
noble effect. Every feature of the whole view is great, and unites to
form a scene of natural magnificence. From hence a riding is cut through
the hanging wood, which rises to a central spot, where the General has
cleared away the rubbish from under the wood, and made a beautiful waving
lawn with many oaks and hollies scattered about it: here he has built a
cottage, a pretty, whimsical oval room, from the windows of which are
three views, one of distant rich lands opening to the sea, one upon a
great mountain, and a third upon a part of the lawn. It is well placed,
and forms upon the whole a most agreeable retreat.
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 the road, a small gurgling
river almost by its side, and narrow slips of rocky and shrubby ground
which part them. In the front all escape seems denied by an immense
conical mountain, which rises out of the glen and seems to fill it up.
The scenery is of a most magnificent character. On the top of the ridge
to the right Mr. La Touche has a banqueting-room. Passing from this
sublime scene, the road leads through cheerful grounds all under corn,
rising and falling to the eye, and then to a vale of charming verdure
broken into inclosures, and bounded by two rocky mountains, distant
darker mountains filling up the scene in front. This whole ride is
interesting, for within a mile and a half of "Tinnyhinch" (the inn to
which I was directed), you come to a delicious view on the right: a small
vale opening to the sea, bounded by mountains, whose dark shade forms a
perfect contrast to the extreme beauty and lively verdure of the lower
scene, consisting of gently swelling lawns rising from each other, with
groups of trees between, and the whole so prettily scattered with white
farms, as to add every idea of cheerfulness. Kept on towards
Powerscourt, which presently came in view from the edge of a declivity.
You look full upon the house, which appears to be in the most beautiful
situation in the world, on the side of a mountain, half-way between its
bare top and an irriguous vale at its foot. In front, and spreading
among woods on either side, is a lawn whose surface is beautifully varied
in gentle declivities, hanging to a winding river.
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 gained by this detour
in my return to go to the Dargle, a beautiful view which I should
otherwise have lost. The road runs on the edge of a declivity, from
whence there is a most pleasing prospect of the river's course through
the vale and the wood of Powerscourt, which here appear in large masses
of dark shade, the whole bounded by mountains. Turn to the left into the
private road that leads to the Dargle, and presently it gives a specimen
of what is to be expected by a romantic glen of wood, where the high
lands almost lock into each other, and leave scarce a passage for the
river at bottom, which rages as if with difficulty forcing its way. It
is topped by a high mountain, and in front you catch a beautiful plat of
inclosures bounded by the sea. Enter the Dargle, which is the name of a
glen near a mile long, come presently to one of the finest ranges of wood
I have anywhere seen. It is a narrow glen or vale formed by the sides of
two opposite mountains; the whole thickly spread with oak wood. At the
bottom (and the depth is immense), it is narrowed to the mere channel of
the river, which rather tumbles from rock to rock than runs. The extent
of wood that hangs to the eye in every direction is great, the depth of
the precipice on which you stand immense, which with the roar of the
water at bottom forms a scene truly interesting. In less than a quarter
of a mile, the road passing through the wood leads to another point of
view to the right. It is the crown of a vast projecting rock, from which
you look down a precipice absolutely perpendicular, and many hundred feet
deep, upon the torrent at the bottom, which finds its noisy way over
large fragments of rock. The point of view is a great projection of the
mountain on this side, answered by a concave of the opposite, so that you
command the glen both to the right and left. It exhibits on both immense
sheets of forest, which have a most magnificent appearance. Beyond the
wood to the right, are some inclosures hanging on the side of a hill,
crowned by a mountain. I knew not how to leave so interesting a spot;
the impressions raised by it are strong. The solemnity of such an extent
of wood unbroken by any intervening objects, and the whole hanging over
declivities, is alone great; but to this the addition of a constant roar
of falling water, either quite hid, or so far below as to be seen but
obscurely, united to make those impressions stronger. No contradictory
emotions are raised; no ill-judged temples appear to enliven a scene that
is gloomy rather than gay. Falling or moving water is a lively object;
but this being obscure the noise operates differently. Following the
road a little further, there is another bold rocky projection from which
also there is a double view to the right and left. In front so immense a
sweep of hanging wood, that a nobler scene can hardly be imagined; the
river as before, at the bottom of the precipice, which is so steep and
the depth so great as to be quite fearful to look down. This horrid
precipice, the pointed bleak mountains in view, with the roar of the
water, all conspire to raise one great emotion of the sublime. You
advance scarcely twenty yards before a pretty scene opens to the left--a
distant landscape of inclosures, with a river winding between the hills
to the sea. Passing to the right, fresh scenes of wood appear; half-way
to the bottom, one different from the preceding is seen; you are almost
inclosed in wood, and look to the right through some low oaks on the
opposite bank of wood, with an edging of trees through which the sky is
seen, which, added to an uncommon elegance in the outline of the hill,
has a most pleasing effect. Winding down to a thatched bench on a rocky
point, you look upon an uncommon scene. Immediately beneath is a vast
chasm in the rock, which seems torn asunder to let the torrent through
that comes tumbling over a rocky bed far sunk into a channel embosomed in
wood. Above is a range of gloomy obscure woods, which half overshadow
it, and rising to a vast height, exclude every object. To the left the
water rolls away over broken rocks--a scene duly romantic. Followed the
path: it led me to the water's edge, at the bottom of the glen, where is
a new scene, in which not a single circumstance hurts the principal
character. In a hollow formed of rock and wood (every object excluded
but those and water) the torrent breaks forth from fragments of rock, and
tumbles through the chasm, rocks bulging over it as if ready to fall into
the channel and stop the impetuous water. The shade is so thick as to
exclude the heavens; all is retired and gloomy, a brown horror breathing
over the whole. It is a spot for melancholy to muse in.
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, etc., 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 is tufted with trees in the prettiest manner
imaginable; on the other side a rich scenery of wood, among which is Dr.
Norris's house. To the right, on a rising ground on the banks of the
river, is the obelisk, backed by a very bold declivity. Pursued the road
till near it, quitted my chaise, and walked to the foot of it. It is
founded on a rock which rises boldly from the river. It is a noble
pillar, and admirably placed. I seated myself on the opposite rock, and
indulged the emotions which, with a melancholy not unpleasing, filled my
bosom, while I reflected on the consequences that had sprung from the
victory here obtained. Liberty was then triumphant. May the virtues of
our posterity secure that prize which the bravery of their ancestors won!
Peace to the memory of the Prince to whom, whatever might be his
failings, we owed that day memorable in the annals of Europe!
Returned part of the way, and took the road to Cullen, where the Lord
Chief Baron Forster 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, and
the whole yielding a rent of not more than from three shillings to four
shillings an acre. Mr. Forster could not bear so barren a property, and
determined to attempt the improvement of an estate of five thousand acres
till then deemed irreclaimable. He encouraged the tenants by every
species of persuasion and expense, but they had so ill an opinion of the
land that he was forced to begin with two or three thousand acres in his
own hands; he did not, however, turn out the people, but kept them in to
see the effects of his operations.
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 romantic--on the side of a mountain, with fine wood hanging on every
side, with the lawn beautifully scattered with trees spreading into them,
and a pretty river winding through the vale, beautiful in itself, but
trebly so on information that before he fixed there it was all a wild
waste. Rents in Ravensdale ten shillings; mountain land two shillings
and sixpence to five shillings. Also large tracts rented by villages,
the cottars dividing it among themselves, and making the mountain common
for their cattle.
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 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. 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, etc. 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 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
recommendations but unfortunately he was on a sailing party to England;
walked through the woods, etc. 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 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
pounds a year. His estate extends from Drumbridge, near Lisburn, to
Larne, twenty miles in a right line, 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 pounds a year; and all the fisheries
are his to the leap at Coleraine. The estate is supposed to be 31,000
pounds a year, the greatest at present in Ireland. Inishowen, in
Donegal, is his, and is 11,000 pounds 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 pounds a year, but re-let
for 64,000 pounds a year, by tenants that have perpetuities, perhaps the
cruellest 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 pounds 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 pounds 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; the soil a stiff clay;
lets at old rents 10s., new one 18s., the town parks of that place 30s.
to 70s., ten miles round it 10s. to 20s., average 13s. A great deal of
flax sown, every countryman having a little, always on potato land, and
one ploughing: they usually sow each family a bushel of seed. Those who
have no land pay the farmers 20s. rent for the land a bushel of seed
sows, and always on potato land. They plant many more potatoes than they
eat, to supply the market at Belfast; manure for them with all their
dung, and some of them mix dung, earth, and lime, and this is found to do
better. There is much alabaster near the town, which is used for stucco
plaster; sells from 1 pound 1s. to 25s. a ton.
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
than any they could undertake. All the way to Antrim lands let, at an
average, at 8s. The linen manufacture spreads over the whole country,
consequently the farms are very small, being nothing but patches for the
convenience of weavers.
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 so often treated, that nothing I could say could be new. When two
bits of these basalts are rubbed together quick, they emit a considerable
scent like burnt leather. The scenery of the Causeway, nor of the
adjacent mountains, is very magnificent, though the cliffs are bold; but
for a considerable distance there is a strong disposition in the rocks to
run into pentagonal cylinders, and even at a bridge by Mr. Lesly's is a
rock in which the same disposition is plainly visible. I believe the
Causeway would have struck me more if I had not seen the prints of
Staffa.
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 pounds a year. From the sea to the rock above Coleraine, where the
weirs are built, belongs to the London companies; the greatest part of
the rest to Lord Donegal. The eel fisheries let at 1,000 pounds a year,
and the salmon fisheries at Coleraine at 1,000 pounds. The eels make
periodical voyages, as the salmon, but instead of spawning in the fresh
water, they go to the sea to spawn, and the young fry return against the
stream; to enable them to do which with greater ease at the leap straw
ropes are hung in the water for them. When they return to sea they are
taken. Many of them weigh nine or ten pounds. The young salmon are
called _grawls_, and grow at a rate which I should suppose scarce any
fish commonly known equals; for within the year some of them will come to
sixteen and eighteen pounds, but in general ten or twelve pounds. Such
as escape the first year's fishery are salmon; and at two years old will
generally weigh twenty to twenty-five pounds. This year's fishery has
proved the greatest that ever was known, and they had the largest haul,
taking 1,452 salmon at one drag of one net. In the year 1758 they had
882, which was the next greatest haul. I had the pleasure of seeing 370
drawn in at once. They have this year taken 400 tons of fish; 200 sold
fresh at a penny and three-halfpence a pound, and two hundred salted, at
18 pounds and 20 pounds per ton, which are sent to London, Spain, and
Italy. The fishery employs eighty men, and the expenses in general are
calculated to equal the rent.
The linen manufacture is very general about Coleraine, coarse ten-hundred
linen. It is carried to Dublin in cars, one hundred and ten miles, at
5s. per cwt. in summer, and 7s. 6d. in winter.
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 among them. They want nothing
but more wood, and are beautiful without it. Afterwards likewise to the
left they rise in various outlines, and die away insensibly into one
another. When the road leads to a full view of the bay of Donegal, these
smiling spots, above which the proud mountains rear their heads, are
numerous, the hillocks of almost regular circular forms. They are very
pleasing from form, verdure, and the water breaking in their vales.
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 pounds 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 grew 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 a noble view. Come to Belleek, a little village with one
of the finest water-falls I remember anywhere to have seen; viewed it
from the bridge. The river in a very broad sheet comes from behind some
wood, and breaks over a bed of rocks, not perpendicular, but shelving in
various directions, and foams away under the arches, after which it grows
more silent and gives a beautiful bend under a rock crowned by a fine
bank of wood. Reached Castle Caldwell at night, where Sir James Caldwell
received me with a politeness and cordiality that will make me long
remember it with pleasure.
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 many islands
which rise boldly from the lake; the water breaks in straits between
them, and forms a scene extremely picturesque. On the other side the
lake stretches behind wood in a strait which forms Belleisle. Lord Ross
has made walks round the island, from which there is a considerable
variety of prospect. A temple is built on a gentle hill, commanding the
view of the wooded islands above-mentioned, but the most pleasing
prospect of them is coming out from the grotto. They appear in an
uncommon beauty; two seem to join, and the water which flows between
takes the appearance of a fine bay, projecting deep into a dark wood:
nothing can be more beautiful. The park hill rises above them, and the
whole is backed with mountains. The home scene at your feet also is
pretty; a lawn scattered with trees that forms the margin of the lake,
closing gradually in a thick wood of tall trees, above the tops of which
is a distant view of Cultiegh mountain, which is there seen in its
proudest solemnity.
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, but cruel, stubborn, barbarous
truth. It is so all over Cavan.
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,
etc. 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, etc., 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, etc., 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 possession of a considerable estate in
Sligo, which is the remains of great possessions they had in that
country. He is one of the few descendants of the Milesian race.
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 wood, which admits not a gleam of
light, a contrast to the silver bosom of the lake. Church Island is at a
greater distance; this is also a clump, and rises boldly. Rock Island is
of wood; it opens in the centre and shows a lawn with a building on it.
It is impossible to imagine a more pleasing and cheerful scene. Passed
the chapel to Smithfield Hill, which is a fine rising ground, quite
surrounded with plantations. From hence the view is changed; here the
promontory appears very bold, and over its neck you see another wooded
island in a most picturesque situation. Nothing can be more picturesque
than Rock Island, its ruin overhung with ivy. The other islands assume
fresh and varied outlines, and form upon the whole one of the most
luxuriant scenes I have met with.
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. Crossed an immense
mountainy bog, where I stopped and made inquiries; found that it was ten
miles long, and three and a half over, containing thirty-five square
miles; that limestone quarries were around and in it, and limestone
gravel in many places to be found, and used in the lands that join it.
In addition to this I may add that there is a great road crossing it.
Thirty-five miles are twenty-two thousand four hundred acres. What an
immense field of improvement! Nothing would be easier than to drain it
(vast tracts of land have such a fall), that not a drop of water could
remain. These hilly bogs are extremely different from any I have seen in
England. In the moors in the north the hills and mountains are all
covered with heath, like the Irish bogs, but they are of various soils,
gravel, shingle, moor, etc., and boggy only in spots, but the Irish bog
hills are all pure bog to a great depth without the least variation of
soil; and the bog being of a hilly form, is a proof that it is a growing
vegetable mass, and not owing merely to stagnant water. Sir Laurence
Dundass is the principal proprietor of this.
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:--
"Twenty years ago the late Lord Shelburne came to Ballymoat, a wild
uncultivated region without industry or civility, and the people all
Roman Catholics, without an atom of a manufacture, not even spinning. In
order to change this state of things, his lordship contracted with people
in the north to bring Protestant weavers and establish a manufactory, as
the only means of making the change he wished. This was done, but
falling into the hands of rascals he lost 5,000 pounds by the business,
with only seventeen Protestant families and twenty-six or twenty-seven
looms established for it. Upon his death Lady Shelburne wished to carry
his scheme into execution, and to do it gave much encouragement to Mr.
Wakefield, the great Irish factor in London, by granting advantageous
leases under the contract of building and colonising by weavers from the
north, and carrying on the manufactory. He found about twenty looms
working upon their own account, and made a considerable progress in this
for five years, raising several buildings, cottages for the weavers, and
was going on as well as the variety of his business would admit,
employing sixty looms. He then died, when a stand was made to all the
works for a year, in which everything went much to ruin. Lady Shelburne
then employed a new manager to carry on the manufacture upon his own
account, giving him very profitable grants of lands to encourage him to
do it with spirit. He continued for five years, employing sixty looms
also, but his circumstances failing, a fresh stop was put to the work.
"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, etc., 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
linen, and done every part of the business with his own hands. As he
determined to have the works complete, he took Mr. Stansfield the
engineer, so well known for his improved saw-mills, into his pay. He
sent him over to Ballymoat in the winter of 1774, in order to erect the
machinery of a bleach mill upon the very best construction; he went to
all the great mills in the north of Ireland to inspect them, to remark
their deficiencies, that they might be improved in the mills he intended
to erect. This knowledge being gained, the work was begun, and as water
was necessary, a great basin was formed by a dam across a valley, by
which means thirty-four acres were floated, to serve as a reservoir for
dry seasons, to secure plenty at all times."
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 Galway,
that that county, from entering it in the road to Tuam till leaving it
to-day, has been, upon the whole, inferior to most of the parts I have
travelled in Ireland in point of beauty: there are not mountains of a
magnitude to make the view striking. It is perfectly free from woods,
and even trees, except about gentlemen's houses, nor has it a variety in
its face. I do not, however, speak without exception; I passed some
tracts which are cheerful. Drumoland has a pleasing variety of grounds
about the house; it stands on a hill gently rising from a lake of
twenty-four acres, in the middle of a noble wood of oak, ash, poplar,
etc.; three beautiful hills rise above, over which the plantations spread
in a varied manner; and these hills command very fine views of the great
rivers Fergus and Shannon at their junction, being each of them a league
wide.
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 has a noble outline in the bold mountains of Tipperary, Cork,
Limerick, and Kerry. The whole view magnificent.
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
pound 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, tobacco, wines, coals, bark, salt,
etc. The customs and excise, about sixteen years ago, amounted to 16,000
pounds, at present 32,000 pounds, and rather more four or five years ago.
Whole revenue 1751 16,000 pounds
" " 1775 51,000 pounds
_Revenue of the Port of Limerick. Year ending_
March 25, 1759 20,494 pounds
" 1760 29,197
" 1761 20,727
" 1762 20,650
" 1763 20,525
" 1764 32,635
" 1765 31,099
_Com. Jour_., vol. xiv., p. 71.
_Price of Provisions_.
Wheat, 1s. 1d. a stone Wild ducks, 20d. to 2s. a couple.
Barley and oats, 5.75d. to 6d. Teal, 10d. a couple.
Scotch coals, 18s.; Whitehaven, Plover, 6d. a couple.
20s.
A boat-load of turf, 20 tons, Widgeon, 10d. ditto.
45s.
Salmon, three-halfpence. Hares, 1s. each, commonly sold all
year.
Trout, 2d., very fine, per lb. Woodcocks, 20d. to 2s. 2d. a brace.
Eels, 2d. a pound. Oysters, 4d. to 1s. a 100.
Rabbits, 8d. a couple. Lobsters, 1s. to 1s. 6d., if good.
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 Limerick is computed at
thirty-two thousand; it is exceedingly populous for the size, the chief
street quite crowded; many sedan chairs in town, and some hackney
chaises. Assemblies the year round, in a new assembly-house built for
the purpose, and plays and concerts common.
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 pounds a year:
l. s. d. l. s. d.
A footman 4 4 0 to 6 6 0
A professed 6 6 0
woman-cook
A house-maid 3 0 0
A kitchen-maid 2 0 0
A butler 10 0 0 to 12 0 0
A barrel of beef or pork, 200lb. 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 jacoboea_) buried the cows. The first hill of Castle Oliver
interesting. After rising a mountain so high that no one could think of
any house, you come in view of a vale, quite filled with fine woods,
fields margined with trees, and hedge plantations climbing up the
mountains. Having engaged myself to Mr. Oliver, to return from Killarney
by his house, as he was confined to Limerick by the assizes, I shall omit
saying anything of it at present.
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 lands, scattered with inclosures, woods, seats,
etc., with every cheerful circumstance of lively commerce, have
altogether a great effect. Advancing to Passage the shores are various,
and the scenery enlivened by fourscore sail of large ships; the little
port of Passage at the water's edge, with the hills rising boldly above
it. The channel narrows between the great island and the hills of
Passage. The shores bold, and the ships scattered about them, with the
inclosures hanging behind the masts and yards picturesque. Passing the
straits a new basin of the harbour opens, surrounded with high lands.
Monkstown Castle on the hill to the right, and the grounds of
Ballybricken, a beautiful intermixed scene of wood and lawn. The high
shore of the harbour's mouth opens gradually. The whole scene is
land-locked. The first view of Haulbowline Island and Spike Island, high
rocky lands, with the channel opening to Cove, where are a fleet of ships
at anchor, and Rostellan, Lord Inchiquin's house, backed with hills, a
scenery that wants nothing but the accompaniment of wood. The view of
Ballybricken changes; it now appears to be unfortunately cut into right
lines. Arrived at the ship at Cove; in the evening returned, leaving Mr.
Jefferys and family on board for a voyage to Havre, in their way to
Paris.
Dunkettle is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Ireland. It
is a hill of some hundred acres broken into a great variety of ground by
gentle declivities, with everywhere an undulating outline and the whole
varied by a considerable quantity of wood, which in some places is thick
enough to take the appearance of close groves, in others spreads into
scattered thickets and a variety of single groups. This hill, or rather
cluster of hills, is surrounded on one side by a reach of Cork Harbour,
over which it looks in the most advantageous manner; and on the other by
an irriguous vale, through which flows the river Glanmire; the opposite
shore of that river has every variety that can unite to form pleasing
landscapes for the views from Dunkettle grounds; in some places narrow
glens, the bottoms of which are quite filled with water, and the steep
banks covered with thick woods that spread a deep shade; in others the
vale opens to form the site of a pretty cheerful village, overhung by
hill and wood: here the shore rises gradually into large inclosures,
which spread over the hills, stretching beyond each other; and there the
vale melts again into a milder variety of fields. A hill thus situated,
and consisting in itself of so much variety of surface, must necessarily
command many pleasing views. To enjoy these to the better advantage, Mr.
Trent (than whom no one has a better taste, both to discover and describe
the beauties of natural scenes) is making a walk around the whole, which
is to bend to the inequalities of the ground, so as to take the principal
points in view. The whole is so beautiful, that if I were to make the
regular detour, the description might be too minute; but there are some
points which gave me so much pleasure that I know not how to avoid
recommending to others that travel this way to taste the same
satisfaction. From the upper part of the orchard you look down a part of
the river, where it opens into a regular basin, one corner stretching up
to Cork, lost behind the hill of Lota, the lawn of which breaks on the
swelling hills among the woods; the house obscured, and therefore seeming
a part of your home scene; the losing the river behind the beautiful
projection of Lota is more pleasing than can be expressed. The other
reach, leading to the harbour's mouth, is half hidden by the trees, which
margin the foot of the hill on which you stand; in front a noble range of
cultivated hills, the inclosures broken by slight spots of wood, and
prettily varied with houses, without being so crowded as to take off the
rural effect. The scene is not only beautiful in those common
circumstances which form a landscape, but is alive with the cheerfulness
of ships and boats perpetually moving. Upon the whole, it is one of the
most luxuriant prospects I have anywhere seen. Leaving the orchard, pass
on the brow of a hill which forms the bank of the river of Glanmire,
commanding the opposite woods of Lota in all their beauty. Rise to the
top of the high hill which joins the deer park, and exhibits a scene
equally extensive and beautiful; you look down on a vale which winds
almost around at your feet, finishing to the left in Cork river, which
here takes the appearance of a lake, bounded by wood and hills, and sunk
in the bottom of a vale, in a style which painting cannot imitate; the
opposite hills of Lota, wood, and lawn, seem formed as objects for this
point of view: at your feet a hill rises out of the vale, with higher
ones around it, the margins scattered wood; to the right, towards
Riverstown, a vale; the whole backed by cultivated hills to Kallahan's
field. Milder scenes follow: a bird's-eye view of a small vale sunk at
your feet, through which the river flows; a bridge of several arches
unites two parts of a beautiful village, the meadow grounds of which rise
gently, a varied surface of wood and lawn, to the hills of Riverstown,
the whole surrounded by delicious sweeps of cultivated hills. To the
left a wooded glen rising from the vale to the horizon, the scenery
sequestered, but pleasing; the oak wood which hangs on the deer-park
hills, an addition. Down to the brow of the hill, where it hangs over
the river, a picturesque interesting spot. The inclosures of the
opposite bank hang beautifully to the eye, and the wooded glen winds up
the hill. Returning to the house I was conducted to the hill, where the
grounds slope off to the river of Cork, which opens to view in noble
reaches of a magnitude that fills the eye and the imagination; a whole
country of a character truly magnificent, and behind the winding vale
which leads between a series of hills to Glanmire.
Pictures at Dunkettle.
A St. Michael, etc., the subject confused, by Michael Angelo. 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 of Shannon, one of
the most distinguished improvers in Ireland; in whom I found the most
earnest desire to give me every species of information, with a knowledge
and ability which enabled him to do it most effectually. Passed through
Middleton, a well-built place, which belongs to the noble lord to whom it
gives title. Castlemartyr is an old house, but much added to by the
present earl; he has built, besides other rooms, a dining one thirty-two
feet long by twenty-two broad, and a drawing one, the best rooms I have
seen in Ireland, a double cube of twenty-five feet, being fifty long,
twenty-five broad, and twenty-five high. The grounds about the house are
very well laid out; much wood well grown, considerable lawns, a river
made to wind through them in a beautiful manner, an old castle so
perfectly covered with ivy as to be a picturesque object. A winding walk
leads for a considerable distance along the banks of this river, and
presents several pleasing landscapes.
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 ever been in; it was market-day, and I could scarce drive through
the streets, they were so amazingly thronged: on the other days the
number is very great. I should suppose it must resemble a Dutch town,
for there are many canals in the streets, with quays before the houses.
The best built part is Morrison's Island, which promises well; the old
part of the town is very close and dirty. As to its commerce, the
following particulars I owe to Robert Gordon, Esq., the surveyor-general:
_Average of Nineteen Years' Export, ending March_ 24, 1773.
Hides, at 1 pounds each 64,000 pounds
Bay and woollen yarn 294,000
Butter, at 30s. per cwt. from 56s. to 180,000
72s.
Beef, at 20s. a barrel 291,970
Camlets, serges, etc. 40,000
Candles 34,220
Soap 20,000
Tallow 20,000
Herrings, 18 to 35,000l. all their 21,000
own
Glue 20 to 25,000 22,000
Pork 64,000
Wool to England 14,000
Small exports, Gottenburg herrings, 35,000
horns, hoofs, etc., feather-beds,
palliasses, feathers, etc.
1,100,190
Average prices of the nineteen years on the custom books. All exports on
those books are rated at the value of the reign of Charles II.; but the
imports have always 10 per cent. on the sworn price added to them.
Seventy to eighty sail of ships belong to Cork. Average of ships that
entered that port in those nineteen years, eight hundred and seventy-two
per annum. The number of people at Cork mustered by the clergy by
hearth-money, and by the number of houses, payments to minister, average
of the three, sixty-seven thousand souls, if taken before the 1st of
September, after that twenty thousand increased. There are seven hundred
coopers in the town. Barrels all of oak or beech, all from America: the
latter for herrings, now from Gottenburg and Norway. The excise of Cork
now no more than in Charles the Second's reign. Ridiculous!
Cork old duties, in 1751, 62,000 pounds
produced
Now the same 140,000
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
240,000 firkins of butter,
120,000 barrels of beef.
Export of woollen yarn from Cork, 300,000 pounds a year in the Irish
market. No wool smuggled, or at least very little. The wool comes to
Cork, etc., and is delivered out to combers, who make it into balls.
These balls are bought up by the French agents at a vast price, and
exported; but even this does not amount to 40,000 pounds a year.
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 pounds 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, etc. 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 yard;
if they might export to 8s. they are very clear that they could get a
great trade for the woollen manufactures of Cork. The wool comes from
Galway and Roscommon, combed here by combers, who earn 8s. to 10s. a
week, into balls of twenty-four ounces, which is spun into worsteds of
twelve skeins to the ball, and exported to Yarmouth for Norwich; the
export price, 30 pounds a pack to 33 pounds, never before so high;
average of them, 26 pounds to 30 pounds. Some they work up at home into
serges, stuffs, and camlets; the serges at 12d. a yard, thirty-four
inches wide; the stuffs sixteen inches, at 18d., the camlets at 9.5d. to
13d.; the spinners at 9d. a ball, one in a week; or a ball and half 12d.
a week, and attend the family besides; this is done most in Waterford and
Kerry, particularly near Killarney; the weavers earn 1s. a day on an
average. Full three-fourths of the wool is exported in yarn, and only
one-fourth worth worked up. Half the wool of Ireland is combed in the
county of Cork.
A very great manufacture of ratteens at Carrick-on-Suir; the bay worsted
is for serges, shalloons, etc. 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 packs that are exported, a licence from the Lord
Lieutenant, for which 20 pounds is paid.
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 pounds 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 pounds 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, have no land, but
small gardens. Bandle, or narrow linen, for home consumption, is made in
the western part of the county. Generally speaking, the circumstances of
all the manufacturing poor are better than they were twenty years ago.
The manufactures have not declined, though the exportation has, owing to
the increased home consumptions. Bandon was once the seat of the stuff,
camlet, and shag manufacture, but has in seven years declined above
three-fourths. Have changed it for the manufacture of coarse green
linens, for the London market, from 6d. to 9d. a yard, twenty-seven
inches wide; but the number of manufactures in general much lessened.
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; get great crops. The soil a sharp, stony land; no
limestone south of the above river. Manure for potatoes, with sea-weed,
for 26s., which gives good crops, but lasts only one year. Sea-sand much
used; no shells in it. Farms rise to two or three hundred acres, but are
hired in partnership.
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 in an agitation and suspense. These rocks and mountains
are many of them no otherwise improvable than by planting, for which,
however, they are exceedingly well adapted.
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 good houses. Lord Shelburne, to whom the place belongs,
has built one for his agent. There is a vale of good land, which is here
from a mile and a half to a mile broad; and to the north and south, great
ridges of mountains said to be full of mines.
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 is not of any particular quantity, for no two plough-lands
are the same. The size of farms is various, from forty acres to one
thousand; less quantities go with cabins, and some farms are taken by
labourers in partnership.
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,
etc., which appeared very curious to me, having nowhere seen the like;
and I observed very high in the mountains--much higher than any
cultivation is at present, on the right hand--flat and cleared spaces of
good grass among the ridges of rock, which had probably been cultivated,
and proved that these mountains were not incapable from climate of being
applied to useful purposes.
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 far into the
lake. The most active fancy can sketch nothing in addition. Islands of
wood beyond seem to join it, and reaches of the lake, breaking partly
between, give the most lively intermixture of water; six or seven isles
and islets form an accompaniment: some are rocky, but with a slight
vegetation, others contain groups of trees, and the whole thrown into
forms, which would furnish new ideas to a painter. Farther is a chain of
wooded islands, which also appear to join the mainland, with an offspring
of lesser ones scattered around.
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 Glena are vast mountainous masses
of incredible magnificence, the outline soft and easy in its swells,
whereas those above the eagle's nest are of so broken and abrupt an
outline, that nothing can be imagined more savage, an aspect horrid and
sublime, that gives all the impressions to be wished to astonish rather
than please the mind. The Turk exhibits noble features, and Mangerton's
huge body rises above the whole. The cultivated tracts towards Killarney
form a shore in contrast to the terrific scenes I have just mentioned;
the distant boundary of the lake, a vast ridge of distant blue mountains
towards Dingle. From hence entered the garden, and viewed Mucruss Abbey,
one of the most interesting scenes I ever saw; it is the ruin of a
considerable abbey, built in Henry VI.'s time, and so entire, that if it
were more so, though the building would be more perfect, the ruin would
be less pleasing; it is half obscured in the shade of some venerable ash
trees; ivy has given the picturesque circumstance, which that plant alone
can confer, while the broken walls and ruined turrets throw over it
"The last mournful graces of decay;"
heaps of skulls and bones scattered about, with nettles, briars, and
weeds sprouting in tufts from the loose stones, all unite to raise those
melancholy impressions, which are the merit of such scenes, and which can
scarcely anywhere be felt more completely. The cloisters form a dismal
area, in the centre of which grows the most prodigious yew-tree I ever
beheld, in one great stem, two feet diameter, and fourteen feet high,
from whence a vast head of branches spreads on every side, so as to
perform a perfect canopy to the whole space. I looked for its fit
inhabitant; it is a spot where
"The moping owl doth to the moon complain."
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 the mountains
which form the shore: these rise in an outline, so varied, and at the
same time so magnificent, that nothing greater can be imagined; Tomys and
Glena exhibit an immensity in point of magnitude, but from a large
hanging wood on the slope, and from the smoothness of the general
surface, it has nothing savage, whereas the mountains above and near the
eagle's nest are of the most broken outlines; the declivities are bulging
rocks, of immense size, which seem to impend in horrid forms over the
lake, and where an opening among them is caught, others of the same rude
character rear their threatening heads. From different parts of the
terrace these scenes are viewed in numberless varieties.
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, etc., 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
scattered trees, and from many parts of them wood shoots in that romantic
manner so common at Killarney. Full in front Turk Mountain rises with
the proudest outline, in that abrupt magnificence which fills up the
whole space before one, and closes the scene.
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
Glena, 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 front is the hanging wood of Glena,
which appears in full glory.
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 great sublimity, and Mangerton's loftier summit, but less
interesting outline, a part of the scenery. These views, with others of
less moment, are connected by a succession of lawns breaking among the
wood, pleasing the eye with lively verdure, and relieving it from the
fatigue of the stupendous mountain scenes.
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 different nature; it is wood in some
places, in unbroken masses down to the water's edge, in others divided
from it by smaller tracts of rock. Come to a beautiful land-locked bay,
surrounded by a woody shore, which, opening in places, shows other woods
more retired. Tomys is here viewed in a unity of form, which gives it an
air of great magnificence. Turk was obscured by the sun shining
immediately above him, and, casting a stream of burning light on the
water, displayed an effect to describe which the pencil of a Claude alone
would be equal. Turn out of the bay, and gain a full view of the Eagle's
Nest, the mountains above it, and Glena; they form a perfect contrast;
the first are rugged, but Glena mild. Here the shore is a continued
wood.
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 from places where it appears only a part of
an object much greater than itself, I had conceived an idea that it did
not deserve the applause given it, but upon coming near I was much
surprised; the approach is wonderfully fine, the river leads directly to
its foot, and does not give the turn till immediately under, by which
means the view is much more grand than it could otherwise be; it is
nearly perpendicular, and rises in such full majesty, with so bold an
outline, and such projecting masses in its centre, that the magnificence
of the object is complete. The lower part is covered with wood, and
scattered trees climb almost to the top, which (if trees can be amiss in
Ireland) rather weaken the impression raised by this noble rock. This
part is a hanging wood, or an object whose character is perfect beauty;
but the upper scene, the broken outline, rugged sides, and bulging
masses, all are sublime, and so powerful, that sublimity is the general
impression of the whole, by overpowering the idea of beauty raised by the
wood. This immense height of the mountains of Killarney may be estimated
by this rock; from any distant place that commands it, it appears the
lowest crag of a vast chain, and of no account; but on a close approach
it is found to command a very different respect.
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 become, from a different position, an unmeaning lump.
The rest of the mountains, as you pass, assume a varied appearance, and
are of a prodigious magnitude. The scenery in this channel is great and
wild in all its features; wood is very scarce; vast rocks seem tossed in
confusion through the narrow vale, which is opened among the mountains
for the river to pass. Its banks are rocks in a hundred forms; the
mountain-sides are everywhere scattered with them. There is not a
circumstance but is in unison with the wild grandeur of the scene.
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 noble manner, but part cut down, much of it
mangled, and the rest inhabited by coopers, boat-builders, carpenters,
and turners, a sacrilegious tribe, who have turned the Dryads from their
ancient habitations. The cascade here is a fine one; but passed quickly
from hence to scenes unmixed with pain.
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 Glena; open on the cultivated country beyond the town of
Killarney, and come gradually in sight of Innisfallen and Ross Island.
Pass near to the wood of Glena, 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, etc., 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 hanging many yards over its base, with an old
weather-beaten yew growing from a little bracket of rock, from which the
spot is called Ornescope, or yew broom.
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. Rowed to the east point of Ross, which is well
wooded; turn to the south coast. Doubling the point, the most beautiful
shore of that island appears; it is the well-wooded environs of a bay,
except a small opening to the castle; the woods are in deep shades, and
rise on the regular slopes of a high range of rocky coast. The part in
front of Filekilly point rises in the middle, and sinks towards each end.
The woods of Tomys here appear uncommonly fine. Open Innisfallen, which
is composed at this distance of the most various shades, within a broken
outline, entirely different from the other islands, groups of different
masses rising in irregular tufts, and joined by lower trees. No pencil
could mix a happier assemblage. Land near a miserable room, where
travellers dine. Of the isle of Innisfallen, it is paying no great
compliment to say it is the most beautiful in the king's dominions, and
perhaps in Europe. It contains twenty acres of land, and has every
variety that the range of beauty, unmixed with the sublime, can give.
The general feature is that of wood; the surface undulates into swelling
hills, and sinks into little vales; the slopes are in every direction,
the declivities die gently away, forming those slight inequalities which
are the greatest beauty of dressed grounds. The little valleys let in
views of the surrounding lake between the hills, while the swells break
the regular outline of the water, and give to the whole an agreeable
confusion. The wood has all the variety into which nature has thrown the
surface; in some parts it is so thick as to appear impenetrable, and
secludes all farther view; in others, it breaks into tufts of tall
timber, under which cattle feed. Here they open, as if to offer to the
spectator the view of the naked lawn; in others close, as if purposely to
forbid a more prying examination. Trees of large size and commanding
figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the
branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on one side
the lake glitters among the trees, and on the other a thick gloom dwells
in the recesses of the wood. The figure of the island renders one part a
beautiful object to another; for the coast being broken and indented,
forms bays surrounded either with rock or wood: slight promontories shoot
into the lake, whose rocky edges are crowned with wood. These are the
great features of Innisfallen; the slighter touches are full of beauties
easily imagined by the reader. Every circumstance of the wood, the
water, the rocks, and lawn, are characteristic, and have a beauty in the
assemblage from mere disposition. I must, however, observe that this
delicious retreat is not kept as one could wish.
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. I have spoken of lawn, but
I should observe that expression indicates what it ought to be rather
than what it is. It is very rich grass, poached by oxen and cows, the
only inhabitants of the island. No spectator of taste but will regret
the open grounds not being drained with hollow cuts; the ruggedness of
the surface levelled, and the grass kept close shaven by many sheep
instead of beasts. The bushes and briars, where they have encroached on
what ought to be lawn, cleared away; some parts of the isle more opened;
in a word no ornaments given, for the scene wants them not, but
obstructions cleared, ruggedness smoothed, and the whole cleaned. This
is what ought to be done; as to what might be made of the island, if its
noble proprietor (Lord Kenmare) had an inclination, it admits of being
converted into a terrestrial paradise; lawning with the intermixture of
other shrubs and wood, and a little dress, would make it an example of
what ornamented grounds might be, but which not one in a thousand is.
Take the island, however, as it is, with its few imperfections, and where
are we to find such another? What a delicious retreat! an emperor could
not bestow such a one as Innisfallen; with a cottage, a few cows, and a
swarm of poultry, is it possible that happiness should refuse to be a
guest here?
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 Ross is one of the most beautiful of the
wooded ones in the lake; it seems to unite with Innisfallen, and projects
into the water in thick woods one beyond another. In the middle of the
channel a large rock, and from the other shore a little promontory of a
few scattered trees; the whole scene pleasing.
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 bursts from the deep bosom of a wooded glen, hollowed into a
retired recess of rocks and trees, itself a most pleasing and romantic
spot, were there not a drop of water: the first fall is many feet
perpendicularly over a rock; to the eye it immediately makes another, the
basin into which it pours being concealed; from this basin it forces
itself impetuously between two rocks. This second fall is also of a
considerable height; but the lower one, the third, is the most
considerable; it issues in the same manner from a basin hid from the
point of view. These basins being large, there appears a space of
several yards between each fall, which adds much to the picturesque
scenery; the whole is within an arch of wood, that hangs over it; the
quantity of water is so considerable, as to make an almost deafening
noise, and uniting with the torrent below, where the fragments of rock
are large and numerous, throw an air of grandeur over the whole. It is
about seventy feet high. Coast from hence the woody shores of Tomys and
Glena; they are upon the whole much the most beautiful ones I have
anywhere seen; Glena woods having more oak, and some arbutuses, are the
finer and deeper shades; Tomys has a great quantity of birch, whose
foliage is not so luxuriant. The reader may figure to himself what these
woods are, when he is informed that they fill an unbroken extent of six
miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth,
all hanging on the sides of two vast mountains, and coming down with a
full robe of rich luxuriance to the very water's edge. The acclivity of
these hills is such, that every tree appears full to the eye. The
variety of the ground is great; in some places great swells in the
mountain-side, with corresponding hollows, present concave and convex
masses; in others, considerable ridges of land and rock rise from the
sweep, and offer to the astonished eye yet other varieties of shade.
Smaller mountains rise regularly from the immense bosom of the larger,
and hold forth their sylvan heads, backed by yet higher woods. To give
all the varieties of this immense scenery of forest is impossible. Above
the whole is a prodigious mass of mountain, of a gently swelling outline
and soft appearance, varying as the sun or clouds change their position,
but never becoming rugged or threatening to the eye.
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 Glena; 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 Glena 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 at Keswick are more sublime,
and other lakes may have circumstances in which they are superior; but
when we consider the prodigious woods of Killarney, the immensity of the
mountains, the uncommon beauty of the promontory of Mucruss and the Isle
of Innisfallen, the character of the islands, the singular circumstance
of the arbutus, and the uncommon echoes, it will appear, upon the whole,
to be in reality superior to all comparison.
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, etc., 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 common inn, which they would not do if they were in the midst of
such accommodations as they meet with at an English spa. But above all,
the prices of everything, from a room and a dinner to a barge and a band
of music, to be reasonable, and hung up in every part of the house. The
resort of strangers to Killarney would then be much increased, and their
stay would be greatly prolonged; they would not view it post-haste, and
fly away the first moment to avoid dirt and imposition. A man with a
good capital and some ingenuity would, I think, make a fortune by fixing
here upon such principles.
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 them,
instead of keeping them tenants to themselves. The oppression is, the
farmer valuing the labour of the poor at fourpence or fivepence a day,
and paying that in land rated much above its value. Owing to this the
poor are depressed; they live upon potatoes and sour milk, and the
poorest of them only salt and water to them, with now and then a herring.
Their milk is bought; for very few keep cows, scarce any pigs, but a few
poultry. Their circumstances are incomparably worse than they were
twenty years ago; for they had all cows, but then they wore no linen: all
now have a little flax. To these evils have been owing emigrations,
which have been considerable.
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 Ardfert, 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 was a dead calm, yet the swell
was so heavy, that the great waves rolled in and broke upon the rocks
with such violence as to raise an immense foam, and give one an idea of
what a storm would be; but fancy rarely falls short in her pictures. The
view of the Shannon is exceedingly noble; it is eight miles over, the
mouth formed by two headlands of very high and bold cliffs, and the reach
of the river in view very extensive; it is an immense scenery: perhaps
the noblest mouth of a river in Europe.
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
pounds a year to a Mr. Collis for ever, but the bargain went off upon a
dispute whether the money should be paid at Cork or Dublin. Those very
lands are now let at 20,000 pounds a year. There is yet a good deal of
wood, particularly a fine ash grove, planted by the present Earl of
Shelburne's father.
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 to the Shannon, so that the river is seen from
the house over the tops of this wood, which being of a broken irregular
outline has an effect very striking and uncommon; the river is two or
three miles broad here, and the opposite coast forms a promontory which
has from Tarbat exactly the appearance of a large island. To the east,
the river swells into a triangular lake, with a reach opening at the
distant corner of it to Limerick. The union of wood, water, and lawn
forms upon the whole a very fine scene; the river is very magnificent.
From the hill on the coast above the island, the lawn and wood appear
also to great advantage. But the finest point of view is from the higher
hill on the other side of the house, which looking down on all these
scenes, they appear as a beautiful ornament to the Shannon, which spreads
forth its proud course from two to nine miles wide, surrounded by
highlands; a scenery truly magnificent.
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 so many cabins were built by a gradual increase, tenants would be
found for them. A cabin and five acres of land will let for 4 pounds a
year. The industrious cottar, with two, three, or four acres, would be
exceedingly glad to have his time to himself, and have such an annual
addition of land as he was able to manage, paying a fair rent for it;
none would decline it but the idle and worthless.
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; and
they yet preserve their language, but that is declining. They are very
industrious, and in consequence are much happier and better fed, clothed,
and lodged than the Irish peasants. We must not, however, conclude from
hence that all is owing to this; their being independent farmers, and
having leases, are circumstances which will create industry. Their crops
are much better than those of their neighbours. There are three villages
of them, about seventy families in all. For some time after they settled
they fed upon sour-crout, but by degrees left it off, and took to
potatoes; but now subsist upon them and butter and milk, but with a great
deal of oat bread, and some of wheat, some meat and fowls, of which they
raise many. They have all offices to their houses, that is, stables and
cow-houses, and a lodge for their ploughs, etc. They keep their cows in
the house in winter, feeding them upon hay and oat straw. They are
remarkable for the goodness and cleanliness of their houses. The women
are very industrious, reap the corn, plough the ground sometimes, and do
whatever work may be going on; they also spin, and make their children do
the same. Their wheat is much better than any in the country, insomuch
that they get a better price than anybody else. Their industry goes so
far, that jocular reports of its excess are spread. In a very pinching
season, one of them yoked his wife against a horse, and went in that
manner to work, and finished a journey at plough. The industry of the
women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who cannot
be persuaded, on any consideration, even to make hay, it not being the
custom of the country, yet they bind corn, and do other works more
laborious. Mrs. Quin, who is ever attentive to introduce whatever can
contribute to their welfare and happiness, offered many premiums to
induce them to make hay, of hats, cloaks, stockings, etc. etc., but all
would not do.
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, is very natural. It is a piece of
great merit. The companion is a Magdalen; the expression of melancholy,
or rather misery, remarkably strong. There is a gloom in the whole in
full unison with the subject. There are, besides these, some others
inferior, yet of merit, and two very good portraits of Lord Dartry (Mrs.
Quin's brother), and of Mr. Quin, junior, by Pompeio Battoni. A piece in
an uncommon style, done on oak, of Esther and Ahasuerus; the colours
tawdry, but the grouping attitudes and effect pleasing.
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, from which the views of the water and wood are in
the sequestered style they ought to be. One of these little views, which
catches several falls under the arch of the bridge, is one of the
prettiest touches of the kind I have seen. The vale beneath the house,
when viewed from the higher grounds, is pleasing; it is very well wooded,
there being many inclosures, surrounded by pine trees, and a thick fine
mass of wood rises from them up the mountain-side, makes a very good
figure, and would be better, had not Mr. Oliver's father cut it into
vistas for shooting. Upon the whole, the place is highly improved, and
when the mountains are planted, in which Mr. Oliver is making a
considerable progress, it will be magnificent.
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
Jordano, Hercules and Anteus; Samson Killing the Lion: both dark and
horrid, but they are highly finished and striking. Six heads of old men,
by Nagori, excellent; and four young women, in the character of the
seasons.
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. Parterres,
parapets of earth, straight walks, knots and clipped hedges, all which he
has thrown down, with an infinite number of hedges and ditches, filled up
ponds, etc., and opened one very noble lawn around him, scattered
negligently over with trees, and cleared the course of a choked-up river,
so that it flows at present in a winding course through the grounds.
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 information of the most valuable kind. This gentleman has
made a mountain improvement which demands particular attention, being
upon a principle very different from common ones.
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
pounds; 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 offered it to him without any deduction of rent. Upon this
mountain he fixed them; gave them terms as they came determinable with
the lease of the farm, so that every one that came in succession had
shorter and shorter tenures; yet are they so desirous of settling, that
they come at present, though only two years remain for a term.
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
pounds each, after which they raise what little offices they want for
themselves.
October 15. Left New Town, and keeping on the banks of the Suir, passed
through Carrick to Curraghmore, the seat of the Earl of Tyrone. This
line of country, in point of soil, inferior to what I have of late gone
through: so that I consider the rich country to end at Clonmel.
Emigrations from this part of Ireland principally to Newfoundland: for a
season they have 18 or 20 pounds for their pay, and are maintained, but
they do not bring home more than 7 to 11 pounds. 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,
etc. 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 flourishing. 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 forms and offer to the eye, in rising through the grounds, very noble
and striking scenes. These hills are exceedingly varied, so that the
detour of the place is very pleasing. In order to see it to advantage, I
would advise a traveller to take the ride which Lord Tyrone carried me.
Passed through the deer-park wood of old oaks, spread over the side of a
bold hill, and of such an extent, that the scene is a truly forest one,
without any other boundary in view than what the stems of trees offer
from mere extent, retiring one behind another till they thicken so much
to the eye, under the shade of their spreading tops, as to form a distant
wall of wood. This is a sort of scene not common in Ireland; it is a
great extent alone that will give it. From this hill enter an evergreen
plantation, a scene which winds up the deer-park hill, and opens on to
the brow of it, which commands a most noble view indeed. The lawns round
the house appear at one's feet, at the bottom of a great declivity of
wood, almost everywhere surrounded by plantations. The hills on the
opposite side of the vale against the house consist of a large lawn in
the centre of the two woods, that to the right of an immense extent,
which waves over a mountain-side in the finest manner imaginable, and
lead the eye to the scenery on the left, which is a beautiful vale of
rich inclosures, of several miles extent, with the Suir making one great
reach through it, and a bold bend just before it enters a gap in the
hills towards Waterford, and winds behind them; to the right you look
over a large plain, backed by the great Cummeragh Mountains. For a
distinct extent of view, the parts of which are all of a commanding
magnitude, and a variety equal to the number, very few prospects are
finer than this.
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 fancy scarce anything to wish: at the bottom is a small semicircular
lawn, around which flows the river, under the immediate shade of very
noble oaks. The whole wood rises boldly from the bottom, tree above
tree, to a vast height, of large oak. The masses of shade are but tints
of one colour; it is not chequered with a variety. There is a majestic
simplicity, a unity in the whole, which is attended with an uncommon
impression, and such as none but the most magnificent scenes can raise.
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, etc. 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
out all their slops, for everything there is exceedingly dear, one or two
hundred per cent. dearer than they can get them at home. They are not
allowed to take out any woollen goods but for their own use. The ships
go loaded with pork, beef, butter, and some salt; and bring home
passengers, or get freights where they can; sometimes rum. The Waterford
pork comes principally from the barony of Iverk, in Kilkenny, where they
fatten great numbers of large hogs; for many weeks together they kill
here three to four thousand a week, the price fifty shillings to four
pounds each; goes chiefly to Newfoundland. One was killed in Mr.
Penrose's cellar that weighed five hundredweight and a quarter, and
measured from the nose to the end of the tail nine feet four inches.
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, etc., 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 here and at Dungarvan, but
the quantity of herrings barrelled is not considerable.
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 pounds; 1776, 52,000 pounds. 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
pounds a month; the mate 3 pounds 10s. Ten men at 40s., five years ago
only 27s. Building ships, 10 pounds a ton. Wear and tear of such a
ship, 20 pounds 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 (which I do not remember at Belfast)
is fifty-eight by forty-five. A room on one side the steeple, space for
the bishop's court, twenty-four by eighteen; on the other side, a room of
the same size for the vestry; and twenty-eight feet square left for a
steeple when their funds will permit. The whole is light and beautiful.
It was built by subscription, and there is a fine organ bespoke at
London. But the finest object in this city is the quay, which is
unrivalled by any I have seen. It is an English mile long; the buildings
on it are only common houses, but the river is near a mile over, flows up
to the town in one noble reach, and the opposite shore a bold hill, which
rises immediately from the water to a height that renders the whole
magnificent. This is scattered with some wood, and divided into pastures
of a beautiful verdure by hedges. I crossed the water, in order to walk
up the rocks on the top of this hill. In one place, over against
Bilberry quarry, you look immediately down on the river, which flows in
noble reaches from Granny Castle on the right past Cromwell's rock, the
shores on both sides quite steep, especially the rock of Bilberry. You
look over the whole town, which here appears in a triangular form.
Besides the city the Cummeragh mountains, Slein-a-man, etc., come in
view. Kilmacow river falls into the Suir, after flowing through a large
extent of well-planted country. This is the finest view about the city.
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 the outline. To the east, there is the Long Mountain, eighteen
miles distant, and several lesser Wexford hills. To the south-east, the
Saltees. To the south, the ocean, and the Colines about the bay of
Tramore. To the west, Monavollagh rises two thousand one hundred and
sixty feet above the level of the sea, eighteen miles off, being part of
the great range of the Cummeragh mountains: and to the north-west
Slein-a-man, at the distance of twenty-four miles; so that the outline is
everywhere bold and distinct, though distant. These circumstances would
alone form a great view, but the water part of it, which fills up the
canvas, is in a much superior style. The great river Suir takes a
winding course from the city of Waterford, through a rich country,
hanging on the sides of hills to its banks, and, dividing into a double
channel, forms the lesser island, both of which courses you command
distinctly. United, it makes a bold reach under the hill on which you
stand, and there receives the noble tribute of the united waters of the
Barrow and Nore in two great channels, which form the larger island.
Enlarged by such an accession of water, it winds round the hill in a
bending course, of the freest and most graceful outline, everywhere from
one to three miles across, with bold shores that give a sharp outline to
its course to the ocean. Twenty sail of ships at Passage gave animation
to the scene. Upon the whole, the boldness of the mountain outline, the
variety of the grounds, the vast extent of river, with the declivity to
it from the point of view, altogether form so unrivalled a scenery, every
object so commanding, that the general want of wood is almost forgotten.
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, etc., 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 pounds 5s. to 9 pounds, but at the distance of
a few miles towards Passage, etc., they are from 20s. to 40s., and some
higher, but the country in general does not rise so high, usually 10s. to
20s. for dairying land.
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 effect, for within them I measured
twelve inches deep of rich blue mud left behind them, the same as they
use in manuring, full of shells, and effervesced strongly with vinegar.
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 pounds; one
of twelve, 60 pounds. To each boat there is a train of nets of six pair,
which costs from 4 pounds 4s. to 6 pounds 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 to 1s.; lobsters, 3d. each; oysters, 6s. per hundred;
rabbits, 1s. to 1s. 4d. a couple; cod, 1s. each, large; salmon, 1.25d. to
2d.
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 burst open, and the sea
pouring in set everything afloat, and among the rest a poor lady, who had
spread her bed on the floor. We had, however, the satisfaction to find,
by trying the pumps every watch, that the ship made little water. I had
more time to attend these circumstances than the rest of the passengers,
being the only one in seven who escaped without being sick. It pleased
God to preserve us, but we did not cast anchor in Milford Haven till
Tuesday morning, the 22nd, at one o'clock.
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 Milford in this conveyance. All this time the
papers had constant advertisements of the _Tyrone_ sailing regularly,
instead of letting the public know that she was under a repair. Her
owner seems to be a fair and worthy man; he will therefore probably give
up the scheme entirely, unless assisted by the corporation with at least
four ships more, to sail regularly with or without passengers. At
present it is a general disappointment. I was fortunate in Mr. Bolton's
acquaintance, passing my time very agreeably at his hospitable mansion;
but those who, in such a case, should find a Waterford inn their
resource, would curse the _Tyrone_, and set off for Dublin. The expenses
of this passage are higher than those from Dublin to Holyhead: I paid--
l. s. d.
A four-wheel chaise 3 3 0
Three horses 3 3 0
Self 1 1 0
Two servants 1 1 0
Custom-house at Waterford, hay, oats, etc. 2 1 7
Ditto at Pembroke and Hubberston 3 0 0
Sailors, boats, and sundry small charges 1 15 5
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, etc., 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 islands that are covered with underwood, and an ornamented walk
passing on the banks which leads from the house. This lake is in the
season perfectly alive with wild-fowl. Near it is a very beautiful spot,
which commands a view of both woods and water; a situation either for a
house or a temple. Mr. Dawson is adding to the plantations, an
employment of all others the most meritorious in Ireland. Another work,
scarcely less so, was the erecting a large handsome inn, wherein the same
gentleman intends establishing a person who shall be able to supply
travellers post with either chaises or horses.
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; yet are the bogs not
so general as to affect the beauty of the country, which is very great in
many tracts, with a scattering of wood, which makes it pleasing. Shaen
Castle stands in the midst of a very fine tract. From Mountrath to
Gloster, Mr. Lloyd's, I could have imagined myself in a very pleasing
part of England. The country breaks into a variety of inequalities of
hill and dale; it is all well inclosed with fine hedges; there is a
plenty of wood, not so monopolised as in many parts of the kingdom by
here and there a solitary seat, but spread over the whole face of the
prospect: look which way you will, it is cultivated and cheerful.
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 extended from one to the other, and hooks in plenty from them, have
been known to catch an incredible quantity of trout. Colonel Prittie, in
one morning, caught four stone odd pounds, thirty-two trout. In general
they rise from three to nine pounds. Perch swarm; they appeared in the
Shannon for the first time about ten years ago, in such plenty that the
poor lived on them. Bream of six pounds; eels very plentiful. There are
many gillaroos in the river; one of twelve pounds weight was sent to Mr.
Jenkinson. Upon the whole, these circumstances, with the pleasure of
shooting and boating on the river, added to the glorious view it yields,
and which is enough at any time to cheer the mind, render this
neighbourhood one of the most enviable situations to live in that I have
seen in Ireland. The face of the country gives every circumstance of
beauty. From Killodeernan Hill, behind the new house building by Mr.
Holmes, the whole is seen to great advantage. The spreading part of the
Shannon, called Loch Derg, is commanded distinctly for many miles. It is
in two grand divisions of great variety: that to the north is a reach of
five miles leading to Portumna. The whole hither shore a scenery of
hills, checkered by enclosures and little woods, and retiring from the
eye into a rich distant prospect. The woods of Doras, belonging to Lord
Clanricarde, form a part of the opposite shore, and the river itself
presents an island of one hundred and twenty acres. Inclining to the
left, a vale of rough ground, with an old castle in it, is backed by a
bold hill, which intercepts the river there, and then the great reach of
fifteen miles, the bay of Sheriff, spreads to the eye, with a
magnificence not a little added to by the boundary, a sharp outline of
the county of Clare mountains, between which and the Duharrow hills the
Shannon finds its way. These hills lead the eye still more to the left,
till the Keeper meets it, presenting a very beautiful outline that sinks
into other ranges of hill, uniting with the Devil's Bit. The home
scenery of the grounds, woods, hills, and lake of Johnstown, is
beautiful.
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 some young woman that ought, as they
think, to be married. They also agree upon a young fellow as a proper
husband for her. This determined, they send to the fair one's cabin to
inform her that on the Sunday following "she is to be horsed," that is,
carried on men's backs. She must then provide whisky and cider for a
treat, as all will pay her a visit after mass for a hurling match. As
soon as she is horsed, the hurling begins, in which the young fellow
appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company fixed on him.
If he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to the girl; but if
another is victorious, he as certainly loses her, for she is the prize of
the victor. These trials are not always finished in one Sunday; they
take sometimes two or three, and the common expression when they are over
is, that "such a girl was goaled." Sometimes one barony hurls against
another, but a marriageable girl is always the prize. Hurling is a sort
of cricket, but instead of throwing the ball in order to knock down a
wicket, the aim is to pass it through a bent stick, the end stuck in the
ground. In these matches they perform such feats of activity as ought to
evidence the food they live on to be far from deficient in nourishment.
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
distant parts of the kingdom; the price at the quarry 6s. a thousand, and
at the shore 6s. 8d. Four hundred thousand slates are raised to pay the
rent only, from which some estimate may be made of the quantity.
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
it very pleasing; adding to every day by planting all the fences made or
repaired. From several little hills, which rise in different parts of
it, extensive views of the river are commanded quite to Portumna; but
these are much eclipsed by that from the top of the hill above the slate
quarry. From thence you see the river for at least forty miles, from
Portumna to twenty miles beyond Limerick. It has the appearance of a
fine basin, two miles over, into which three great rivers lead, being the
north and south course and the Bay of Sheriff. The reaches of it one
beyond another to Portumna are fine. At the foot of the mountain Mr.
Head's demesne extends in a shore of rich woodland.
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 are a few instances of this upon Lord Kingsborough's estate, in the
neighbourhood of Mitchelstown. The first I shall mention is a cave at
Skeheenrinky, on the road between Cahir and that place. The opening to
it is a cleft of rock in a limestone hill, so narrow as to be difficult
to get into it. I descended by a ladder of about twenty steps, and then
found myself in a vault of a hundred feet long, and fifty or sixty high.
A small hole on the left leads from this a winding course of I believe
not less than half an Irish mile, exhibiting a variety that struck me
much. In some places the cavity in the rock is so large that when well
lighted up by candles (not flambeaux; Lord Kingsborough once showed it me
with them, and we found their smoke troublesome) it takes the appearance
of a vaulted cathedral, supported by massy columns. The walls, ceiling,
floor, and pillars, are by turns composed of every fantastic form; and
often of very beautiful incrustations of spar, some of which glitters so
much that it seems powdered with diamonds; and in others the ceiling is
formed of that sort which has so near a resemblance to a cauliflower.
The spar formed into columns by the dropping of water has taken some very
regular forms; but others are different, folded in plaits of light
drapery, which hang from their support in a very pleasing manner. The
angles of the walls seem fringed with icicles. One very long branch of
the cave, which turns to the north, is in some places so narrow and low,
that one crawls into it, when it suddenly breaks into large vaulted
spaces, in a thousand forms. The spar in all this cave is very
brilliant, and almost equal to Bristol stone. For several hundred yards
in the larger branch there is a deep water at the bottom of the declivity
to the right, which the common people call the river. A part of the way
is over a sort of potter's clay, which moulds into any form, and is of a
brown colour; a very different soil from any in the neighbouring country.
I have seen the famous cave in the Peak, but think it very much inferior
to this; and Lord Kingsborough, who has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in
Burgundy, says that it is not to be compared with it.
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 famous golden vale of Limerick and Tipperary spreads a
rich level to the eye, bounded by the mountains of Clare, King's and
Queen's Counties, with the course of the Shannon, for many miles below
Limerick. To the south you look over alternate ridges of mountains,
which rise one beyond another, till in a clear day the eye meets the
ocean near Dungarvan. The mountains of Waterford and Knockmealdown fill
up the space to the south-east. The western is the most extensive view;
for nothing stops the eye till Mangerton and Macgillicuddy Reeks point
out the spot where Killarney's lake calls for a farther excursion. The
prospect extends into eight counties--Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick,
Clare, Queen's, Tipperary, King's.
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 the
former hill is a third lake, and east of that another hill; I was told of
a fourth, with another corresponding mountain. It is only the mere
summits of these mountains which rise above the lakes. Speaking of them
below, they may be said to be on the tops of the hills. They are all of
them at the bottom of an almost regularly circular hollow. On the side
next the mountain-top are walls of perpendicular rocks, in regular
strata, and some of them piled on each other, with an appearance of art
rather than nature. In these rocks the eagles, which are seen in numbers
on the Galtees, have their nests. Supposing the mountains to be of
volcanic origin, and these lakes the craters, of which I have not a
doubt, they are objects of the greatest curiosity, for there is an
unusual regularity in every considerable summit having its corresponding
crater. But without this circumstance, the scenery is interesting in a
very great degree. The mountain summits, which are often wrapped in the
clouds, at other times exhibit the freest outline; the immense scooped
hollows which sink at your feet, declivities of so vast a depth as to
give one terror to look down; with the unusual forms of the lower region
of hills, particularly Bull Hill, and Round Hill, each a mile over, yet
rising out of circular vales, with the regularity of semi-globes, unite
upon the whole to exhibit a scenery to the eye in which the parts are of
a magnitude so commanding, a character so interesting, and a variety so
striking, that they well deserve to be examined by every curious
traveller.
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 tossed about in the wildest confusion, and the torrent bursts by
turns from above, beneath, and under them; while the background is always
filled up with the mountains which stretch around.
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 uncommon woodland scene in Ireland. Found the widow
Holland's inn, at Cashel, clean and very civil. Take the road to
Urlingford. The rich sheep pastures, part of the famous golden vale,
reach between three and four miles from Cashel to the great bog by Botany
Hill, noted for producing a greater variety of plants than common. That
bog is separated by only small tracts of land from the string of bogs
which extend through the Queen's County, from the great bog of Allen; it
is here of considerable extent, and exceedingly improvable. Then enter a
low marshy bad country, which grows worse after passing the sixty-sixth
milestone, and successive bogs in it. Breakfast at Johnstown, a regular
village on a slight eminence, built by Mr. Hayley. It is near the spa of
Ballyspellin.
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 miles continues all inclosed with fine quick
hedges, is beautiful, and has some resemblance to the best parts of
Essex. Sir Robert Staple's improvements join this fine tract. They are
completed in a most perfect manner, the hedges well grown, cut, and in
such excellent order that I can scarcely believe myself to be in Ireland.
His gates are all of iron. These sylvan scenes continue through other
seats, beautifully situated amidst gentle declivities of the finest
verdure, full-grown woods, excellent hedges, and a pretty river winding
by the house. The whole environs of several would be admired in the best
parts of England.
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!
PART II.
SECTION I.--Soil, Face of the Country, and Climate.
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 Riding of Yorkshire, with the eastern line of
Lancaster, nearly down to the Peak of Derby, which form an extent of
above a hundred miles of waste. The most considerable of this sort in
Ireland are in Kerry, Galway, and Mayo, and some in Sligo and Donegal.
But all these together will not make the quantity we have in the four
northern counties; the valleys in the Irish mountains are also more
inhabited, I think, than those of England, except where there are mines,
and consequently some sort of cultivation creeping up the sides. Natural
fertility, acre for acre over the two kingdoms, is certainly in favour of
Ireland; of this I believe there can scarcely be a doubt entertained,
when it is considered that some of the more beautiful, and even best
cultivated counties in England, owe almost everything to the capital,
art, and industry of the inhabitants.
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 depth, almost as much as the more barren ones. May we not
recognise in this the hand of bounteous Providence, which has given
perhaps the most stony soil in Europe to the moistest climate in it? If
as much rain fell upon the clays of England (a soil very rarely met with
in Ireland, and never without much stone) as falls upon the rocks of her
sister island, those lands could not be cultivated. But the rocks are
here clothed with verdure; those of limestone, with only a thin covering
of mould, have the softest and most beautiful turf imaginable.
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,
etc.; 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 common, and they form the
best soils in the kingdom for tillage and sheep. Tipperary and Roscommon
abound particularly in them. The most fertile of all are the bullock
pastures of Limerick, and the banks of the Shannon in Clare, called the
Corcasses. These are a mellow, putrid, friable loam.
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
exceeded. From the rockiness of the country, however, there are few of
them that have not obstructions, which are great impediments to inland
navigation.
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, etc., 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 gentlemen in
Ireland deny their climate being moister than England, but if they have
eyes let them open them, and see the verdure that clothes their rocks,
and compare it with ours in England--where rocky soils are of a russet
brown however sweet the food for sheep. Does not their island lie more
exposed to the great Atlantic; and does not the west wind blow
three-fourths of a year? If there was another island yet more westward,
would not the climate of Ireland be improved? Such persons speak equally
against fact, reason, and philosophy. That the moisture of a climate
does not depend on the quantity of rain that falls, but on the powers of
aerial evaporation, Dr. Dobson has clearly proved. "Phil. Trans." vol.
lxvii., part i., p. 244.
Oppression.
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 the labouring poor are treated with harshness, and are in
all respects so little considered that their want of importance seems a
perfect contrast to their situation in England, of which country,
comparatively speaking, they reign the sovereigns. The age has improved
so much in humanity, that even the poor Irish have experienced its
influence, and are every day treated better and better; but still the
remnant of the old manners, the abominable distinction of religion,
united with the oppressive conduct of the little country gentlemen, or
rather vermin of the kingdom, who never were out of it, altogether bear
still very heavy on the poor people, and subject them to situations more
mortifying than we ever behold in England. The landlord of an Irish
estate, inhabited by Roman Catholics, is a sort of despot who yields
obedience, in whatever concerns the poor, to no law but that of his will.
To discover what the liberty of the people is, we must live among them,
and not look for it in the statutes of the realm: the language of written
law may be that of liberty, but the situation of the poor may speak no
language but that of slavery. There is too much of this contradiction in
Ireland; a long series of oppressions, aided by many very ill-judged
laws, have brought landlords into a habit of exerting a very lofty
superiority, and their vassals into that of an almost unlimited
submission: speaking a language that is despised, professing a religion
that is abhorred and being disarmed, the poor find themselves in many
cases slaves even in the bosom of written liberty. Landlords that have
resided much abroad are usually humane in their ideas, but the habit of
tyranny naturally contracts the mind, so that even in this polished age
there are instances of a severe carriage towards the poor, which is quite
unknown in England.
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 carriage; if they are overturned
or broken in pieces, no matter, it is taken in patience; were they to
complain they would perhaps be horsewhipped. The execution of the laws
lies very much in the hands of justices of the peace, many of whom are
drawn from the most illiberal class in the kingdom. If a poor man lodges
a complaint against a gentleman, or any animal that chooses to call
itself a gentleman, and the justice issues out a summons for his
appearance, it is a fixed affront, and he will infallibly be called out.
Where manners are in conspiracy against law, to whom are the oppressed
people to have recourse? It is a fact, that a poor man having a contest
with a gentleman, must--but I am talking nonsense, they know their
situation too well to think of it; they can have no defence, but by means
of protection from one gentleman against another, who probably protects
his vassal as he would the sheep he intends to eat.
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 England we have heard much of White-boys,
Steel-boys, Oak-boys, Peep-of-day-boys, etc. But these various
insurgents are not to be confounded, for they are very different. The
proper distinction in the discontents of the people is into Protestant
and Catholic. All but the White-boys were among the manufacturing
Protestants in the north: the White-boys Catholic labourers in the south.
From the best intelligence I could gain, the riots of the manufacturers
had no other foundation but such variations in the manufacture as all
fabrics experience, and which they had themselves known and submitted to
before. The case, however, was different with the White-boys, who being
labouring Catholics met with all those oppressions I have described, and
would probably have continued in full submission had not very severe
treatment in respect of tithes, united with a great speculative rise of
rent about the same time, blown up the flame of resistance; the atrocious
acts they were guilty of made them the object of general indignation;
acts were passed for their punishment, which seemed calculated for the
meridian of Barbary. This arose to such a height that by one they were
to be hanged under circumstances without the common formalities of a
trial, which, though repealed the following session, marks the spirit of
punishment; while others remain yet the law of the land, that would if
executed tend more to raise than quell an insurrection. From all which
it is manifest that the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a radical
cure from overlooking the real cause of the disease, which in fact lay in
themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the gallows. Let them
change their own conduct entirely, and the poor will not long riot.
Treat them like men who ought to be as free as yourselves. Put an end to
that system of religious persecution which for seventy years has divided
the kingdom against itself; in these two circumstances lies the cure of
insurrection; perform them completely, and you will have an affectionate
poor, instead of oppressed and discontented vassals.
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.
Emigrations.
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, that if they
were not stopped, those countries would be ruined, and they were
generally attributed to a great rise of rents. Upon going over to
Ireland I determined to omit no opportunities of discovering the cause
and extent of this emigration, and my information, as may be seen in the
minutes of the journey, was very regular. I have only a few general
remarks to make on it here.
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, etc., 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 Donegan
letting his estate in the north, the linen business suffered a temporary
decline, which sent great numbers to America, and gave rise to the error
that it was occasioned by the increase of his rents. The fact, however,
was otherwise, for great numbers of those who went from his lands
actually sold those leases for considerable sums, the hardship of which
was supposed to have driven them to America. Some emigration, therefore,
always existed, and its increase depended on the fluctuations of linen;
but as to the effect there was as much error in the conclusions drawn in
England as before in the cause.
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, etc.,
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 remain
a burthen upon the community. Emigration should not, therefore, be
condemned in states so ill-governed as to possess many people willing to
work, but without employment.
SECTION II.--Roads, Cars.
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 other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the
work, which overseer swears also before the justice the truth of the
valuation. The certificate thus prepared is given by any person to some
one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the
spring. When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets
on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all
put to the vote, whether to be granted or not. If rejected, they are
torn in pieces and no further notice taken; if granted, they are put on
the file.
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, etc. etc., 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 tax. In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one
shilling per acre, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is
from threepence to sixpence per acre, and amounts of late years through
the whole kingdom to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.
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, etc., 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 and job, he has that power to delay payment until the cause is
cleared up and proved. But this traverse is not common. Any persons are
eligible for asking presentments; but it is usually done only by resident
gentlemen, agents, clergy, or respectable tenantry. It follows
necessarily, that every person is desirous of making the roads leading to
his own house, and that private interest alone is considered in it, which
I have heard objected to the measure; but this I must own appears to me
the great merit of it. Whenever individuals act for the public alone,
the public is very badly served; but when the pursuit of their own
interest is the way to benefit the public, then is the public good sure
to be promoted; such is the case of presentment of roads: for a few years
the good roads were all found leading from houses like rays from a
centre, with a surrounding space, without any communication; but every
year brought the remedy, until in a short time, those rays pointing from
so many centres met, and then the communication was complete. The
original Act passed but seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all
parts of the kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable
to travel upon wheels by a map; I will go here; I will go there; I could
trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate, and everywhere I
found beautiful roads without break or hindrance, to enable me to realise
my design. What a figure would a person make in England, who should
attempt to move in that manner, where the roads, as Dr. Burn has well
observed, are almost in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary.
In a few years there will not be a piece of bad road except turnpikes in
all Ireland. The money raised for this first and most important of all
national purposes, is expended among the people who pay it, employs
themselves and their teams, encourages their agriculture, and facilitates
so greatly the improvement of waste lands, that it ought always to be
considered as the first step to any undertaking of that sort.
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 traveller that ever visits it ought, to
the latest time, to revere the memory of such a distinguished benefactor
to the public. Before that time the roads, like those of England,
remained impassable, under the miserable police of the six days' labour.
Similar good effects would here flow from adopting the measure, which
would ease the kingdom of a great burthen in its public effects
absolutely contemptible; and the tax here, as in Ireland, ought to be so
laid, as to be borne by the tenant whose business it is at present to
repair.
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 they had paid for good ones. Such a
practice would certainly deter many.
At 11,042,642 acres in the kingdom, 140,000 pounds 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.
SECTION III.--Manners and Customs.
Quid leges sine moribus,
Vana proficiunt!
It is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish
remarks upon a country to sit down coolly 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 enables me to exhibit a very different picture; in doing
this, I shall be free to remark, wherein I think the conduct of certain
classes may have given rise to general and consequently injurious
condemnation.
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 is undoubted,
remain, but none of them with considerable possessions except the
O'Briens and Mr. O'Neil; the former have near twenty thousand pounds a
year in the family, the latter half as much, the remnant of a property
once his ancestors, which now forms six or seven of the greatest estates
in the kingdom. O'Hara and M'Dermot are great names in Connaught, and
O'Donnohue a considerable one in Kerry; but I heard of a family of
O'Drischal's in Cork, who claim an origin prior in Ireland to any of the
Milesian race.
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 lively than
anything we commonly see in England, having nothing of that incivility of
sullen silence with which so many Englishmen seem to wrap themselves up,
as if retiring within their own importance. Lazy to an excess at work,
but so spiritedly active at play, that at hurling, which is the cricket
of savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility. Their love of
society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their
hospitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too
much merit to be forgotten. Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty
repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will
be universal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable
in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion
of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them to betray the
secret or person of a man, though an oppressor, whose property they would
plunder without ceremony. Hard drinkers and quarrelsome; great liars,
but civil, submissive, and obedient. Dancing is so universal among them,
that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars
pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families. Besides the Irish
jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and
country-dances are taught; and I even heard some talk of cotillions
coming in.
Some degree of education is also general, hedge schools, as they are
called, (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have seen many a
ditch full of scholars,) are everywhere to be met with where reading and
writing are taught; schools are also common for men; I have seen a dozen
great fellows at school, and was told they were educating with an
intention of being priests. Many strokes in their character are
evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppression under which they live.
If they are as great thieves and liars as they are reported, it is
certainly owing to this cause.
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
_agrements_ 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 much, according to the
private fortune or liberality of disposition in the lord lieutenant.
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 are to be distinguished; there are great demesnes without any
parks, but a want of taste, too common in Ireland, is having a deer-park
at a distance from the house; the residence surrounded by walls, or
hedges, or cabins; and the lawn inclosure scattered with animals of
various sorts, perhaps three miles off. The small quantity of corn
proportioned to the total acres, shows how little tillage is attended to
even by those who are the best able to carry it on; and the column of
turnips proves in the clearest manner what the progress of improvement is
in that kingdom. The number of horses may almost be esteemed a satire
upon common sense; were they well fed enough to be useful, they would not
be so numerous, but I have found a good hack for a common ride scarce in
a house where there were a hundred. Upon an average, the horses in
gentlemen's stables throughout the kingdom are not fed half so well as
they are in England by men of equal fortune; yet the number makes the
expense of them very heavy.
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
_proprete_, is wanting to a surprising degree around the mansion; even
new and excellent houses have often nothing of this about them. But the
badness of the houses is remedying every hour throughout the whole
kingdom, for the number of new ones just built, or building, is
prodigiously great. I should suppose there were not ten dwellings in the
kingdom thirty years ago that were fit for an English pig to live in.
Gardens were equally bad, but now they are running into the contrary
extreme, and wall in five, six, ten, and even twenty Irish acres for a
garden, but generally double or treble what is necessary.
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, etc., not good. Claret
is the common wine of all tables, and so much inferior to what is drunk
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 adulterations it must undergo with us.
Drinking and duelling are two charges which have long been alleged
against the gentlemen of Ireland, but the change of manners which has
taken place in that kingdom is not generally known in England.
Drunkenness ought no longer to be a reproach, for at every table I was at
in Ireland I saw a perfect freedom reign, every person drank just as
little as they pleased, nor have I ever been asked to drink a single
glass more than I had an inclination for; I may go farther and assert
that hard drinking is very rare among people of fortune; yet it is
certain that they sit much longer at table than in England. I was much
surprised at first going over to find no summons to coffee, the company
often sitting till eight, nine, or ten o'clock before they went to the
ladies. If a gentleman likes tea or coffee, he retires without saying
anything; a stranger of rank may propose it to the master of the house,
who from custom contrary to that of England, will not stir till he
receives such a hint, as they think it would imply a desire to save their
wine. If the gentlemen were generally desirous of tea, I take it for
granted they would have it, but their slighting is one inconvenience to
such as desire it, not knowing when it is provided, conversation may
carry them beyond the time, and then if they do trifle over the coffee it
will certainly be cold. There is a want of attention in this, which the
ladies should remedy, if they will not break the old custom and send to
the gentlemen, which is what they ought to do, they certainly should have
a salver fresh. I must, however, remark, that at the politest tables,
which are those of people who have resided much out of Ireland, this
point is conducted exactly as it is in England.
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 good company.
Captious people, therefore, who are ready to take an affront, must
inevitably have been accustomed to ill company, unless there should be
something uncommonly crooked in their natural dispositions, which is not
to be supposed. Let every man that fights his one, two, three, or
half-a-dozen duels, receive it as a maxim, that every one he adds to the
number is but an additional proof of his being ill-educated, and having
vitiated his manners by the contagion of bad company; who is it that can
reckon the most numerous rencontres? who but the bucks, bloods,
landjobbers, and little drunken country gentlemen? Ought not people of
fashion to blush at a practice which will very soon be the distinction
only of the most contemptible of the people? the point of honour will and
must remain for the decision of certain affronts, but it will rarely be
had recourse to in polite, sensible, and well-bred company. The practice
among real gentlemen in Ireland every day declining is a strong proof
that a knowledge of the world corrects the old manners, and consequently
its having ever been prevalent was owing to the causes to which I have
attributed it.
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 so different as
scarcely to be known. I believe it is a fact, at least I have been
assured so, that no man was ever hanged in Ireland for killing another in
a duel: the security is such that nobody ever thought of removing out of
the way of justice, yet there have been deaths of that sort, which had no
more to do with honour than stabbing in the dark. I believe Ireland is
the only country in Europe, I am sure it is the only part of the British
dominions, where associations among men of fortune are necessary for
apprehending ravishers. It is scarcely credible how many young women
have even of late years been ravished, and carried off in order (as they
generally have fortunes) to gain to appearance a voluntary marriage.
These actions, it is true, are not committed by the class I am
considering at present; but they are tried by them, and acquitted. I
think there has been only one man executed for that crime, which is so
common as to occasion the associations I mentioned; it is to this supine
execution of the law that such enormities are owing. Another
circumstance which has the effect of screening all sorts of offenders, is
men of fortune protecting them, and making interest for their acquittal,
which is attended with a variety of evil consequences. I heard it
boasted in the county of Fermanagh, that there had not been a man hanged
in it for two-and-twenty years; all I concluded from this was, that there
had been many a jury who deserved it richly.
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, etc. etc. are
found as in their native soil; once to a degree that made them a pest of
society; they are growing better, but even now, one or two of them got by
accident (where they have no business) into better company are sufficient
very much to derange the pleasures that result from a liberal
conversation. A new spirit; new fashions; new modes of politeness
exhibited by the higher ranks are imitated by the lower, which will, it
is to be hoped, put an end to this race of beings; and either drive their
sons and cousins into the army or navy, or sink them into plain farmers
like those we have in England, where it is common to see men with much
greater property without pretending to be gentlemen. I repeat it from
the intelligence I received, that even this class are very different from
what they were twenty years ago, and improve so fast that the time will
soon come when the national character will not be degraded by any set.
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. Our own service both by sea and land, as well as that
(unfortunately for us) of the principal monarchies of Europe, speak their
steady and determined courage. Every unprejudiced traveller who visits
them will be as much pleased with their cheerfulness, as obliged by their
hospitality; and will find them a brave, polite, and liberal people.
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