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As Kohl's biographer, Dr Thomas Elsmann of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Bremen, Germany, has informed CELT, the English translator of this edition has not yet been identified, for the bulk of Kohl's correspondence for 1842 does not survive, and the publisher's archive in Dresden and Leipzig was destroyed in World War II. However, Dr Elsmann suggests it might have been either Henry George Bohn, or Charles Frederick Lascelles Wraxhall. Both were employed in translating other works of Kohl for London publishers Chapman and Hall. Another translation of this text into English is listed below. Again, CELT's sincere thanks are due to Dr Thomas Elsmann for kindly bringing it to our attention.
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Created: By J. G. Kohl resp. an unknown translator Date range: 1842 (original); 1844 (translation).
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Those who have been little at sea are always more anxious than they need be in an uproar of the elements. This was the case with my solitary fellow-passenger and myself, during the storm which assailed us on board her Majesty's mail-packet, whilst on her voyage from Anglesea to Dublin, on the night of the 22d September, 1842. Throughout the entire night we were expecting to hear our sailors call, as in Shakspere, ‘All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!’ But on awaking, towards morning, from a very restless and by no means pleasant slumber, which, in spite of sea-sickness, had stolen upon us, we perceived that the engine of our steamer was at rest, and that we were lying quietly at anchor in Kingstown harbour, on the coast of Ireland; a coast at which no one arrives in a more agreeable manner than that in which King Alonzo arrived at his enchanted island. For this Erin, this Isle of Saints, this Holy Isle, this Emerald Isle, as it is styled alike in the most ancient and modern times: this isle of fairies and witches—this isle of misery and quarrels, as it might be called at the present day—this land, infinitely rich in peculiarities unknown in the rest of Europe, may be fairly called, like Prospero's, an isle of wonders.
The Irish Sea, which separates England from Ireland, has been described, alike by ancient and modern writers, as particularly rough and stormy. Solinus1 expresses himself as follows: — ‘Mare quod Hiberniam et Britaniam interluit, undosum inquietumque, toto in anno non nisi paucis diebus est navigabile.’ (The sea which flows between Great Britain and Ireland is billowy and boisterous, so that it is navigable but for a few days in the whole year.) Giraldus agrees with him, for he says,
Many have doubted the peculiar boisterousness of the Irish Sea. But I am greatly inclined to concur with old Giraldus, partly because I both arrived in Ireland with a storm, and was borne back again on the wings of another; and partly, too, because the position of the sea is such as allows its restlessness to be explained from very natural causes. The oval island of Ireland lies with its greatest length opposed, on the west, to the Atlantic Ocean, from which tides rise twice every day, and rush towards the western coasts of Ireland, the southern coasts of England, and the north of Scotland. Driven back from Scotland, as well as from England, they here change their direction, and run from the south, through St. George's Channel, northwards into the Irish Sea, and also into the straits between Portpatrick and Belfast. Thus there arises many times every day a repeated warring of the waters, which, at the confluence of the two currents, causes a troubled sea. This roughness is of course particularly great in the narrower parts—in the north, between Portpatrick and Belfast; in the south, between St. David's in Wales and Carnsore Point in Ireland; and in the middle, between Anglesea and Dublin. Between these three points, said our sailors, it is seldom smooth.
The Bay of Dublin—though it may give but little joy to the mariner, being shallow and unprotected by nature, and exposed to every wind—presents a beautiful sight to the stranger, especially if he contemplates it on a cheerful morning, from the deck of a steamer in which he has passed a stormy night. The land, stretching out in two peninsulas, extends both its arms to meet him. In the southern hand it bears the harbour and town of Kingstown, and in the northern the harbour and town of Howth; while in the centre of its deep bosom it cherishes the capital itself, called Ballagh-Ath-Cliath by the ancient Irish (a name it bears even to the present day). By Ptolemeus it was erroneously called Eblana; and to all the non-Irish part of the world it is known by the name of Dublin.
On the left side, near Kingstown, lies the little island of Dalkey; and on the right, near Howth, the equally little island named Ireland's Eye. This name is characteristic: since it is here, in the middle of her eastern coast, that Ireland has opened
The old capital of Ireland, if such an expression may be used here, was Tara, in the interior of the country. Dublin is not the capital which the Irish have chosen for themselves, but that which the English have built and thrust upon them. Richard I. built a castle here first in 1204: where he also established the superior courts of justice, and fixed the seat of his chief governor of Ireland. From that period, demonstrations of favour and titles of magistrates, charters and corporations, public edifices, statues of kings, and Wellington testimonials, have poured upon this city, which grew ever greater, and more beautiful than London and Edinburgh; while in return, ever since that year, the loyal armed citizens of Dublin, under their provosts and lord mayors, and the English armies under their lords deputies, and lords lieutenant, and bishops' excommunications, and royal threats, have poured down upon the rest of Ireland, which thus, through the medium of Dublin, became every day more dependent and more English.2
We (my fellow-passenger and I) set our feet on shore in Kingstown close beside two illustrious footprints cut in the rock on the quay of this harbour; namely, the footprints of George IV., who, on his visit to Ireland in the year 1821, landed here, and to whose honour a monument was raised on the spot, while beside the monument the two footsteps were chiselled in the rock. I could never have believed that the art of flattery was so well understood in Great Britain. The footsteps of a king chiselled out on his visit! and columns raised to commemorate the event! Would it not lead one to imagine Ireland was some little island, far, far removed beyond the usual paths of men; perhaps one of the Orkney or Faroe isles—a perfect ‘out-of-the-way place’ as the English say—that the visit of her ruler should be deemed a remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten occurrence? And, in fact, when one considers that Ireland, although comparatively so near London, was never visited either by George III., George II., nor George I., nor by any one of her kings throughout the whole of the past century: nay, that no other English king ever before came to Ireland, except with arms in his hands, and when war, rebellion, or foreign enemies required his presence, one may justly say that Ireland looks like a little despised shallop, or a dismasted and conquered cutter, taken in tow by the line-of-battle-ship England.
Our Kings of Prussia often rejoice the various provinces of their kingdom with their visits. Lithuania alone they seldom visit. The Emperors of Russia are almost always travelling in the various countries of their empire, and show themselves, now in Moscow, now in St. Petersburgh, now in Odessa, now in Warsaw; to Siberia alone they rarely go—they send a friend there now and then. The Emperors of Austria, on their accession, receive homage in all their various provinces, and at other times also frequently show their gracious countenances to the various cities of their empire. To their Wallachian and Hungarian possessions alone they seldom go. But Ireland, this important third of the Trinity of the British Empire, like the Prussian Lithuania, the Russian Siberia, and the Austrian Wallachia, has been passed by on the left; and, on all English accessions to the throne, has had nothing to do but to waft her applause across the Channel, as well as she could with her wounded and manacled hands.
But even though a man be no king, yet in Ireland he attains a due share of honour as soon as he has set foot on shore. ‘Your honours,’ said a Dublin car-driver to us, ‘since 'tis yet very early, and the train from Kingstown to Dublin will not be ready to start this hour and a half to come, your honours couldn't do
Since the reasons were valid, we accepted this offer which honoured us so much, and set off for Dublin in a little coach, which, from its strange and comical appearance, seemed very inviting. It was a kind of four-cornered box, fixed upon two wheels, and provided with glasses in front. We crept into it from behind. Methinks I have seen pictures of such carriages in books of Chinese travels. The driver sits in front of this box, with his feet on the shafts. The shafts are not attached to the axle of the wheels, but to the box-carriage itself, and they are even fastened to it without any hinge. Behind the horse's tail is a little board on the shafts, like a tray. It is intended for the feet of the driver, but is regularly used by the horse at certain intervals for a very different purpose. This little board must appear to all who have travelled in Ireland to be a strange invention of Paddy's. Since the horse holds the carriage by the stiff shafts, it follows all his hopping motions, and one sits in the shaking equipage just as if it were tied on the horse's back. All Irish carriages, covered and not covered, whether used for the purposes of agriculture or for pleasure, are built upon this principle. The character of a people expresses itself in their inventions and the peculiarities of them.
In such an invention, then, we seated ourselves, and galloped and hopped with it along the shore of the bay of Dublin, till we at last drew up before our hotel, where our little equipage made the following manoeuvre. The driver ran the vehicle obliquely across the street, and then backed the horse till the wheels struck the curb-stone directly opposite the hall door; and now our little coach gave out from behind its entire contents, passengers and luggage, as a hen lays eggs.
Of all the three capitals of the three united kingdoms, Dublin is the youngest. Ptolemaeus, it is true, mentions this city; it is also true that no less than 25 Ostman (Danish) kings resided here from the 9th till the 12th century; and who knows how many kings of Leinster before? But the city, at that time, was a town as unknown to the rest of the world as the other capitals of the numerous Danish and Norwegian sea-kings, or those of the countless Irish sovereigns. Its houses were built of hurdles and clay, and its entire circumference was scarce an English mile. Nor did it attain any importance until the English viceroys took up their residence here; and even then its progress was, at first, slow and inconsiderable. It was not until
Dublin, whilst it is the second city of the United Kingdom, is at the same time one of the first and largest cities in Europe; for, in respect of number of inhabitants, it approaches St. Petersburgh, Moscow, and Vienna; rivals Berlin and Lisbon; and exceeds Brussels, Stockholm, Rome, Milan, or Pesth. But few of those capitals have so quickly raised themselves from comparative insignificance to so high a rank. In this respect, St. Petersburgh alone surpasses it.
Dublin is, in its exterior, an entirely English city. Except its miserably poor, filthy suburbs, and its lanes so thickly peopled with beggars, it possesses nothing which the great English cities do not also possess, and which it has not received from the other side of the Channel. The private houses of the wealthy are just as small, neat, unornamented, and precisely of the same cut and design, as private houses in all English towns. And the public buildings are just as rich in ornaments and columns, as full of rotundas, colonnades, and porticos, as the public buildings of English cities, like the houses of Pericles on the Acropolis of Athens. Beautiful moles and harbours—lighthouses, docks, and patent slips, such as are seen in Liverpool, London, and other English seaports. The sumptuous Custom-house—the Post-office, with columns of the Ionic order—the Four Courts, with columns of the Corinthian, ‘highly ornamental! remarkably beautiful! exceedingly fine!’ as the English say—are met with just as they are found in every English city. Moreover, there are just such wide streets, and wide convenient footways, as in London; just such charming green squares in the middle of the city as in the middle of English cities; except perhaps that the squares are something more beautiful, and the buildings something ‘more
Nelson's Pillar (a lofty, handsome column) stands in the middle of Sackville-street, the most splendid street in Dublin; whilst Wellington Testimonials and King George's Statues are as plentiful in this city as in English towns. Trinity College (the Dublin University) has its beautiful walled-in garden, like the Oxford colleges; and the Castle, the seat of the Viceroy, is a repetition of many similar castles to be found in England. You must not however imagine, because you are now in a Catholic country, that this its capital possesses anything peculiar in the way of old churches and cloisters, splendid Catholic cathedrals, or many-coloured chapels at the street corners. One remarks as little of Catholicism in Dublin as of Protestantism in Prague—just as little as in all the other towns of the British empire. Although in Ireland there are five Catholics for one Protestant, yet there is scarce a trace of the Catholics in the capital of the country. No processions, no monks, no priests, are to be seen in the streets. The Catholic buildings (here called merely ‘Catholic chapels’) set apart for the worship of God are very small and few in number, and concealed in I know-not what by-lanes of the city. Till the middle of the last century, the Irish Catholics could only hear mass within the walls of their own houses, and the religious wants of the poor were satisfied by some travelling priest, in some spacious stable, or ruined, uninhabited house. It was only in 1745 that they dared again to open some of their old chapels. Now, it is true, they have several, but, as I have said before, a stranger scarcely remarks them; whilst the twenty-two or twenty-three Episcopal churches (among which St. Patrick's, Christ Church, and the chapel of the Viceregal Castle are the most worthy of notice,) resemble the Protestant churches of the Established Church in England. The famed St. Patrick's, which is the most distinguished old ecclesiastical structure in Ireland, is, in its entire style of architecture, only the
As I had not braved a storm in her Majesty's mail-packet to find myself again in England, and as I came to see Ireland—national Ireland—which is not to be found in her great cities, I made but a short stay in the beautiful and (as it is called) ‘merry capital’ of the island. I resolved to make a tour through the West and South, and then return to Dublin, in order to prosecute my inquiries concerning matters characteristic of the country and generally interesting.
A person must now travel pretty far on the English railroads, and even cross over to Ireland, to see such old-world stage-coaches and stage-coach establishments as were in former days found in all parts of the land, and which have been so humorously described by English travellers. Such an establishment I saw for the first time, in Dublin, on the 26th of September, on which day I prepared to commence my journey into the interior of the country. The spectacle, at a first glance, was not calculated to give much pleasure. The numerous long printed bills which hang on the walls contain plain protests from the proprietors against the appeals of the passengers, and give notice that they will not be answerable for the loss or injury of property, nor even guarantee a seat once taken, should the passenger himself not look after it. Thus, in observing where and how his luggage is stowed, the traveller is kept in a state of perpetual terror, either for himself or his effects. It is in vain that he seeks where to sit most comfortably on the coach. In the inside, which is as narrow as a herring-barrel, he thinks himself in danger of suffocation; and on the outside, where nothing but a single slight iron rail, four inches high, separates him from an abyss of fifteen
I naturally chose an outside place, for there one can sit as if in an observatory, and at his ease survey the entire country, far and wide, right and left, before and behind; provided that he does not lose his head at setting out, and thus fortunately avoid the fate which threatens every British outside passenger, at the first step the horses take. The gateways of most posting establishments in the United Kingdom (and this again is a problem) are built so low, that the outside passengers would to a certainty leave their heads hanging on the architrave, if they did not attend to the warning of the guard, who in a loud voice directs them to stoop their heads. I think I have discovered the true explanation of this problem, namely, that the existence of outside passengers is of later date than the erection of most posting houses. Those were built at a time when the throng of travellers was not so great, and when the coachman only had to risk his neck; and since then, the owners of posting houses have not had
‘All right!’ at length cried the guard, as the clock struck six, or rather pointed to it; for in English towns the clocks which simply point the hour, and even those which, by means of illuminated dials, show the time by night, are much more numerous than those which, as in our cities, announce the hours in far-sounding tones from lofty towers. ‘All right!’ cried the guard. ‘Stoop your heads, gentlemen!’ We ducked, all sixteen of us, like a company of soldiers when a cannon-ball flies over their heads; and when we had again set ourselves to rights, and were in some degree at ease, we rolled from the city of Dublin into the county of the same name.
Our road led through the middle of Ireland, and its best-inhabited and most populous provinces, including the rich and level counties of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, and Longford; and the end of my journey was Edgeworthtown, a place to which I had been warmly invited by one whose name is so highly honoured and valued in Germany. I intended to remain there a short time, in order, if possible, to collect my thoughts, and prepare myself beforehand for the object I had in view. Every one, on arriving in a new country, finds himself, in relation to most matters, in the situation of one who suddenly enters a dark chamber. Many things he entirely overlooks, whilst others he views through a false medium, at least until his eyes have become somewhat accustomed to the new light, and to many peculiarities which in the first instance distract the attention. I do not, however, mean to say, that no one should venture to inform others with respect to a strange country, until he has altogether familiarized and naturalized himself, and learned to look on things precisely as a native inhabitant. On the contrary, the process of his familiarizing may be very characteristic of the land, for even his errors and mistakes may be induced by some national peculiarity.
The before-mentioned counties to the west of Dublin are the most fertile in Ireland, and the most famed for their fine crops; and the poor people in Clare, Kerry, and the other western pads of the island, look on those tracts as on a holy land. Meath! Westmeath! At a later period I learned to set a high value on these names: they sound almost as sweet as ‘meat;’ and this rhyme seems to suggest to one's mind a land flowing with true milk and honey. With the exception perhaps of Wexford, in the south, there are no parts in which so little land is untilled, or lies waste in morasses, rocks, and forests as in these counties. Here
But although it is thus in the West, it is not quite so bad here in the blessed East. Yet even these districts exhibit nothing which appears like, (I will not say well cultivated, but) cultivated lands. I form to myself the following idea of a well-cultivated country: the farms are all divided into handsome, regular, four-cornered fields, which are enclosed with hedges, ditches, and regularly planted trees, or marked by other boundaries and fences. Between those fields, which show neatness and order, lie the simple cottages of the peasantry, and the villages. The houses are not neglected, and the roofs are in good order; or at least
Of enclosures, walls, hedges, or of regular divisions of the fields, I could discover nothing worthy of the name, and of pretty gardens and fruit trees, or even flower beds for the girls, I found none. It was at first even difficult to distinguish the uncultivated from the cultivated grounds. Instead of cheerful farm-houses, I saw fallen huts and ruined cottages between the fields. As often as possible, wherever we stopped, I surveyed the interior of the houses, which excited my astonishment. I was now in the most highly praised provinces of Ireland, and on a well-frequented road, yet I found every where dwellings which bore traces of the most shocking ruin and neglect. How must it have appeared in more remote districts, and still farther from the road! Sometimes I had no occasion to get off the coach; for from my elevated seat I could perceive, through holes in the roofs, the interior of the dwellings we passed. The broken plates in the kitchen, the potato pot on the hearth, the damp straw bed in one corner, the pigsty in another—all this I could well distinguish through the open roof.
‘The landlords in Ireland,’ says Spenser, who wrote a book on Ireland 300 years ago, ‘take good care to make their poor tenants pay their rents; but they give them no help in building their houses, in tilling their fields, in improving their roads. Did they do this, they would themselves derive as much advantage from it as their tenants. But they leave every thing in the state in which chance has placed it, and let their tenants help themselves, and bear their miseries, as they best may.’ Spenser then draws a picture of the farm-houses of the Irish, which in his day bore a close resemblance to the huts of our times. In like manner, the landlords of the present day take almost all from the tenant, but will give him nothing in return. The Irish landlords are in this respect, it would seem, still worse than the great Polish and Russian proprietors; for they so far take an interest in the
The country is here a dead flat, without picturesque rocks or vallies, without castles or ruins; and, therefore, one of the most uninteresting parts of Ireland for the traveller, who misses not only the sight of beautiful scenery, but also those works of man's care and industry with which unadorned plains usually recompense him. Even the waters have a melancholy colouring. The Liffey, which we twice crossed, has, like most of the Irish rivers, a decided brown colour, caused by the numerous tributaries which it receives from the great ‘Bog of Allen,’ the most extensive turf-bog in Ireland. It is remarkable that this brown colour does not make the water dull and turbid; it appears to be rather a clear dye from the vegetable matter of the bogs, than the boggy filaments themselves; and a person may often see to the bottom of the deepest water. Brown is as much the colour of one half of Ireland as green is of the other, and therefore it may as truly be called the Smoke-Topaz3 Island, (its waters have sometimes precisely the colour of this stone,) as the Emerald Isle.
The famous Catholic College of Maynooth, the only one of the kind in Ireland, lay in our road, which became interesting and picturesque for the first time at Mullingar. This little town is known in Ireland in a proverb. People are wont to say, in reference to a matter of the occurrence of which there is little likelihood, ‘That will take place when the king comes to Mullingar.’ I do not clearly understand why Mullingar has been chosen for this proverb, since there are without doubt many places in Ireland far more neglected, and which it is much more improbable that the king should ever visit. Indeed, this proverb may shortly be put to shame, and many events unhoped for in Ireland be turned into certainty: for should the queen visit Ireland, she will certainly not fail to behold, first, the beauties of the county of Wicklow; and, secondly, the largest and fairest stream of
We left Lough Owel and Lough Iron on the left, Lough Deveragh on the right, and Lough Glyn again on the left, without much regret; for lakes in a plain, in which there are no rocks to be reflected in the waters, have in themselves as little beauty as a mirror which reflects no lovely face. Towards evening we arrived at Edgeworthtown, where we passed some agreeable days in a delightful circle.
Edgeworthtown is a cheerful little place, in the county of Longford, in the centre of Ireland, and has received its name from the Edgeworth family—a name which the amiable authoress, Maria Edgeworth, has made celebrated throughout the whole world. This family ‘came over’—that is, from England, whence almost the whole of the landed proprietary of Ireland derive their origin; and this expression they often use to inform each other, and strangers who may be their guests, at what time and on what occasion their family first came over. In England this ‘came over’ refers to the Continent—to Normandy—from whence so many English families derive their descent. The Edgeworths, then, came over in 1583, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They were previously established at Edgeworth, a gentleman's seat in Middlesex. In Ireland they became possessed of several considerable estates and castles, including Castle Crarallagh, Castle Lissard, and others. The village of Fairymount, which they also possess, has, in modern times, become well known throughout the world under a slight change of name. Fairymount, which derives its name from a hill in the neighbourhood, was afterward shortened into Firmount; and the Abbé Edgeworth, who attended Louis XVI. to the scaffold as his confessor, called himself Monsieur de Firmont, after this mount and village.
Besides this Abbé de Firmont, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and his daughter Maria, are well known to the world; the former by a series of little essays, nearly all of which treat of subjects in mechanics; and the latter by her so universally admired, pleasing, and talented tales, works on education, and juvenile works. As
Mr. Edgeworth wrote several works jointly with his daughter Maria; for instance, the Essay on Practical Education, and the humorous Essay on Irish Bulls. And now, I suppose, many of my German readers will expect from me a perfect picture of the life and habits of the amiable, cheerful, and talented authoress whom they esteem so highly, and that I should minutely describe the little spot near the window of the pretty library, her customary sitting-room, with the little writing-table, and all the comfortable and agreeable environments, in which the Moral Tales, the Popular Tales, Belinda, Leonora, Griselda, Castle Rackrent, Helen, and all her other charming works, were conceived and written. No doubt all this would be extremely interesting to many; but I feel so great an aversion to speak of those living persons who have received me under their roofs, that, adhering to my old rule, I will keep all this to myself, and entreat my readers to accompany me in my walks in the neighbourhood of Edgeworthtown, where they will probably find much that is generally characteristic of the country and of the people, with whom I am always fonder of employing myself than with personalities.
The Edgeworths have been long resident in the country—that is, they are not absentees, but live upon their property, attending to its improvement, and to the well-being of their dependents. Many other gentle and noble families who have property in the neighbourhood, (among others the Tuites,) also reside upon their estates. I had therefore the opportunity of here experiencing the remarkable effects of the presence and attention of a
Upon my many excursions into the country about Edgeworthtown, I saw farm-houses which were just as substantial and as stately as the best in England. Every thing was in the neatest and most perfect condition: the rooms were as comfortable as any one could desire, the stairs and the rooms were carpeted, and I was offered wine and refreshments. On the property of Mr. Tuite I visited a whole series of farm-houses which were all equally neat, and in as good order; each had sides of bacon hanging in the vestibule; the kitchen utensils all bright and shining, and the furniture and beds in the chambers all as excellent as in the houses of the wealthier peasants in Germany. The Tuite family, I was told, had resided on their property for more than three hundred years, had always managed it themselves, and the present possessor is a particularly zealous and active agriculturist. As it is extremely rare to see any thing like this in Ireland, it is therefore the more interesting. But the fact that it is sometimes to be seen shows it is possible, with care and loving kindness, to raise the Irish peasantry from their misery—an improvement which those who could best effect are usually least inclined to believe, whilst they attribute the entire blame to the want of order, the dirty and drunken habits, and the improvidence of the people. In the memoirs of her father, Miss Edgeworth gives a description of an intelligent landlord, animated by a wish to better the condition of his tenantry; a description which is at this moment very applicable and full of interest, since the relations of landlord and tenant have remained pretty much the same.
Farms which were originally sufficient for the support of a man and his family, have, in many cases, been divided from generation to generation, the father always giving a bit of land to each of his sons, to set them up in the world. This subdivision of farms is universally prevalent in Ireland, and is one of the many sources of her great poverty. Every one is anxious to possess a bit of ground to till for himself; and however praiseworthy this desire
With this progressive minuteness and subdivision of farms into smaller and smaller potato gardens for the poor peasants, the preservation of the estates of the landowners in their original size stands in sad contrast. For, since the landlords inherit their lands, not according to the custom of Ireland, but the old Norman feudal laws, the great mass of each estate descends to one individual. Had the law countenanced the division of property, the smaller landlords would by degrees have approached nearer to the farmers, and the division of estates would have set a limit to the division of farms. As matters were, and are, there is no country in Europe where the property of the peasant in the land he cultivates bears so small a proportion to that of the proprietor of the soil. In Russia, individuals possess vast tracts; but there the peasants also have extensive districts. In Ireland, there are estates as large as dukedoms in Thuringia, and farms, if one may apply this expression to a potato garden, scarcely as big as the piece of ground which an English gentleman sets apart for his rabbits in a corner of his park. In the county of Tipperary, out of 3400 farms, 280 are less than one acre, 1056 between one and five acres, and the remainder are above five acres.
The careful landlord should therefore do every thing to counteract this propensity of his tenant for a little potato garden of his own, which he can till without much exertion of mind or body; and, on the expiration of leases, by uniting several of the smaller farms, which are now scarcely capable of supporting their possessors, gradually introduce an able, active, and wealthy class of farmers. The provident and thrifty landlord will not (as in Ireland is unhappily too often the case, by reason of the general propensity to prodigality and extravagance,) be in want of ready money, and will not be therefore compelled to let his farms to
Another pernicious custom in Ireland is the letting the land in partnership, as it is called, often to whole villages, the members of the partnership being jointly and severally liable for the rent. These community-farms the good landlord will oppose, from the same motives which, in modern times, have operated in Germany and other countries, to dissolve and divide the commons of tillage and pasture grounds. Unfortunately this is still so much the case in many districts of Ireland, that, according to the report of Mr. Nicholls, one of the Poor-law Commissioners, the commons of pasture grounds are to be seen continually over-stocked with cattle, and the people are for ever disputing with each other as to who is entitled to send the greatest number of wretched animals to pasture there. If the piece of ground thus let in common is arable, they share it among themselves in little lots. But these divisions lead to continual quarrels and law-suits, each selfishly insisting on his right to some inch of miserable land, and each in continual fear of being overreached by his neighbour. In these divisions, should the land permit it, two roods of good ground, two of stony, and two of bog, are appropriated to each tenant; and for the sake of this small allotment, each one becomes responsible for the defalcations of the whole.
One of the greatest evils beneath which the Irish agricultural system groans, is the existence of middlemen. To this the good landlord will direct his attention. In order to avoid the trouble of a number of small tenants, and to receive the revenues of their estates (on which they never reside,) in one large sum, many landowners have introduced the custom of letting entire tracts of land together, to persons possessing some capital; these again let it in lots to others, either to the real tillers of the soil, or to other middlemen possessing less capital than themselves,
These are, no doubt, things unheard-of in the rest of Europe. But just as unheard-of things present themselves in their mode of agriculture, and the implements employed. There are localities where the people do not know how to form a threshing-floor, and where they use any hard spot of ground, or even a piece of a macadamized road, for that purpose. Even at the present day, cars with wheels without spokes, nay, cars without wheels, called ‘slide cars’ are in existence in some quarters.
The term for which leases are granted is also very important. Great numbers of Irish farmers are ‘tenants at will,’ i. e. they hold their farms only so long as it pleases their landlords to permit them, and can therefore have no great interest in the improvement of their lands, since they are never certain that they may not be turned out at a moment's notice. It is of course entirely at the option of the landlord to let his ground for as long or as short a period as he pleases. But the terms most used in
The Irish being so much behind in every thing, it has not of course occurred to any one to inquire by what step this object may be accomplished. Even the daring O'Connell, I believe, has not once thought or spoken of this. And it is the more remarkable, since it shows how far the cause of the agricultural population—the most important and first class of society, upon which rests the whole fabric of the state, as upon its base—has advanced in the other states of Europe beyond the condition of the Irish peasantry. In most of the civilized countries of Europe—in France by a revolution, in almost all the states of Germany by wise reforms—the nobility have been deprived of their old feudal rights over the oppressed and subjugated peasantry; and these, from serfs and slaves, have been turned into small free proprietors of the soil. Nay, even in Russia, within the last ten years, many introductory measures have been taken towards making the peasants more independent of their lords, and gradually to give them the ownership of the land which they till. In England and Ireland only, people have not ventured even to think on the question, whether it would not be very wise to grant the poor serfish Irish farmers the freehold of their soil; or, if this could not be effected without a revolution, at least to follow the example of Prussia, Saxony, &c., and by reforms and measures introductory to changing the tenants at will into hereditary possessors, to regulate and reduce the rents of these tenants by law, and then to permit, and finally to insist on the tenant's right to purchase his land; and by these means to form a class of free peasants and small independent landowners. No one has for a moment thought of inquiring, as has been done in France and
The titles by which the landed nobility in the various states of Europe hold their property and serfs, are of various kinds. Generally speaking, they are held by possession from time immemorial. Among the original inhabitants, individuals had raised themselves to power by cunning or bodily strength; and these, partly by just and legal treaties, and partly by force, gradually obtained their soil from others, and made them their dependents. In many countries, however, the peasants were deprived of their property and independence by conquest, and the partition of their country amongst the conquerors. Almost everywhere this period of conquest goes so far back into the times of gray antiquity, that the injustice to which they owe their titles is well-nigh wholly forgotten; nay, even the descendants of the unjust conquerors are, for the most part, long since dead and extinct, and new families have succeeded to their possessions by purchase, or other just titles. Could the original conquerors or their descendants be found, the state might justly say to them, ‘You possess your estates by an unjust title; we will therefore take them away from you, and restore them to the poor peasants from whom your forefathers wrested them.’ Prussia and other countries not only did this, but, since they could not distinguish the just possessors from the unjust, they treated both alike, and compelled them, willing or unwilling, with or without title, to resign their pernicious and foolish privileges, and to accept a certain moderate indemnity. What Prussia and other countries have done towards a nobility with much better titles, people in Ireland do not dare even to think of doing with respect to a nobility with the worst of all possible titles. Landowners growing as it were out of the people themselves, and possessing their estates from time immemorial, may be said not to exist in Ireland; for the old national-Irish nobles and landlords have, with a few exceptions, been completely destroyed. The most honourable and best title an Irish family can show is force and conquest. This force, however, almost never goes beyond the memory of man; for although in the time of
The conquest of Ireland, properly so called, was first completed by Elizabeth, and after her by Cromwell, which was in a measure once more repeated by William III. All these conquests, of comparatively modern date, were followed by the expulsion of the old immemorial proprietors from their estates, and the investiture of new lords and masters; so that fully nine-tenths of the soil are the property of families of English descent, almost all of whom can still point out the date when their ancestors obtained their forcible possession. I have said that force and conquest are the most honourable and best titles which the Irish landlords can show, for many obtained them by procuring confiscations in their favour, surreptitiously, by treachery and fraud. One can easily imagine by what villanies estates were acquired in a land where, for a long time, there existed a law by which a younger brother, on turning protestant, could deprive his elder brother, or a son his father, of his estates. And to these villanies, and frauds of their ancestors, most of the landowning families of Ireland can be proved to owe their estates. When lands are held by such titles as these, might not any reasonable government justly interpose, and, if it could not be accomplished without a revolution, yet at least by gradual reform, convert the poor tenants at will and leaseholders into freeholders, so that the suffering millions may not for ever live in misery for the advantage of a few oligarchs?
On one of our excursions to the farmers of Sunna, we found an old woman who understood Irish, and spoke very bad English. She said that in her youth, some fifty years ago, almost nothing else but Irish was spoken or understood here, in the centre of Ireland; but that many who understood it in their youth had now entirely forgotten it, and the children were no longer taught Irish. ‘There are but very few,’ she said, ‘who can even bless themselves in Irish.’ She told us the old Irish name of Edgeworthtown, but I have unfortunately forgotten it.
It is worthy of notice, that nearly throughout Ireland, even in the most Anglicized or Saxonized districts, the original names of the divisions of the country have been retained, and particularly those of the smallest divisions, called townships. This is the more remarkable, as many of them must sound very strange to the Saxon ear of Englishmen, such as Camliskbey, Agadonagh,
The nobility and gentry in this part of Ireland know nothing of the Irish language; nay, there are but few places where the landowners can converse in Irish with their peasantry. In the vicinity of Galway alone, the most completely national Irish town, do the gentry understand and sometimes speak the language. Here, too, the priests are bound to preach in Irish every Sunday. The best Irish scholars also dwell here; among these the most distinguished are Dr. M'Hale, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, and his Vicar-General, Dr. Loftus. The former is now publishing a translation of the Iliad in Irish—a language which, as it possesses numerous epic and elegiac poems, is certainly not a little suited for such a translation. The same scholar has also lately published an Irish version of the poems of Thomas Moore, which has been much praised.
Most of the farmers whom we visited had arms in their possession—guns, sabres, and bayonets. ‘We could not do without them,’ said they. With regard to the Peelers,4 a species of police force, armed like soldiers, and very numerous in every part of Ireland, they also said, ‘We could not do without them.’ These rich farmers express the same opinions as their landlords, and to a man stand on their side; for since, as middlemen, they often have their under-tenants, so also they have as much to apprehend from the peasantry as their landlords. Many conspiracies are constantly formed among the poor farmers and labourers; and as these conspiracies are said to be as plentiful as the grievances complained of, they must, indeed, be numberless. Almost every regulation which an Irish landlord adopts, even those which are for the advantage and comfort of the tenants
Numerous parties of poor Irish reapers and labourers passed through Edgeworthtown during my sojourn there, and excited compassion by their miserable appearance. On my way from Dublin I had already met with vast swarms of them, who all complained of the little they had earned in England. They were mostly of that class of labourers who wander every year chiefly from the western parts of Ireland, and principally from Connaught, in order to assist the rich English farmers in their harvest. The last year's harvest was very good, but there were so many unemployed hands to be hired at low wages in England, that the Irish emigrants found themselves badly off: hungry and in rags, they crossed over to England; and in the very same plight they came back, since they had scarcely earned enough to pay the expenses of the journey. The wanderings of the Irish labourers, backwards and forwards, between England and Ireland, take place every year as regularly as the migrations of birds of passage. As the price of labour is twice as much in England as in Ireland, (it is here between 6d. and 8d. per diem; there it varies between 1s. and 1s. 6d.) the poor Irish, who live on the cheapest food, are able to pay the expenses of their journey, and generally to bring back some small savings. These people are called ‘Irish harvesters.’ The period of these migrations is from June to October. In Donegal, Clare, Mayo, Connemara, and other quarters of this mountainous rocky province, each peasant has a little plot of ground; and as soon as they have ploughed their field and sown their seed, leaving their families behind, they set off towards the eastern ports—Dublin, Belfast, Dundalk, &c.,—in little parties, from whence they cross over to England and Scotland. Their own little harvest is, meanwhile, attended to by their wives; or, as every thing ripens slowly in the temperate climate of Ireland, and particularly in the mountains of western Connaught, they may be
In consequence of the cheapness and facility of the communication between England and Ireland, produced by steamers, these migrations are every year becoming more extensive. The Irish labourer, since he can cross over into England for a few shillings and in a few hours, is able to seek employment there with as much convenience as the English, and to take advantage of every favourable conjuncture. It is only when they have come from so great a distance as Connaught that it must often disappoint them bitterly to find themselves deceived in their expectations. It is the more affecting to see Paddy with a rueful look, since he is usually quite free from care, whilst all who returned across the Channel this year had care depicted in their countenances. Some of them complained that the riotous manufacturers had robbed them of all they possessed. They thought of their wives at home, who were anxiously looking out for their return with their earnings, and to whom they were now bringing no ‘harvest-money,’ to pay the rent and satisfy a few pressing wants. Their only hope was placed on their little potato garden, which this year promised a crop large enough at least to save them from starvation. How they got over the winter, with the ‘Driver,’ and with the middleman demanding the rent, Heaven only knows. Such wanderings of reapers I have seen in various countries of Europe, but none made so sad an impression on my mind as these Irish swarms— neither those who march from the heath-tracts and moors of northern Germany into the rich marshes of Holland; nor the poor Croats, Bohemians, and Styrians, who, for the same purpose, wander from Hungary, Bohemia, and Styria, towards the fertile lowlands of the Danube; nor those who, from the Alps, descend to the abundant plains of the Po; nor, in fine, the mowers, who, from the interior of Russia, yearly swarm to the uninhabited steppes of the south.
I visited, while at Edgeworthtown, a neighbouring bog, and here saw, for the first time, the various sorts and states of the Irish
The turf which is obtained from the dry bog, by simply cutting it with a turf-spade, or slane, is called ‘slane-turf,’ or ‘slane-peat,’ for it is as often called peat as turf in Ireland. The upper strata of the bog being less dense than the lower, they yield each a different sort of turf; and that obtained from the upper is called ‘brown-turf;’ that from the lower, ‘stone-turf.’ The turf obtained from the wet bog is called ‘hand-turf,’ because it is shaped with the hand. The process is as follows:—A place in the middle of the bog, to which there is a moderately dry and firm approach, is first selected, and pits are dug, in order to draw off a portion of the water from the spot in which they intend to work. The mud-like boggy substance is now shovelled up in heaps beside the pits, where it is mixed and worked up over again, and large troughs, called ‘lossels,’ are filled with the turf. These troughs are then drawn by ropes to some drier spot, where it is the women's business to work and shape it with their hands. They usually mould it into little pyramidal forms, pointed above and wide below, and then leave it to dry.
The bogs are thus at once a source of wealth and of poverty; for whilst they supply fuel, they at the same time cover much fertile soil, which they withhold from cultivation; they spoil the waters of the rivers, fill the entire atmosphere with a turfy smell, and infect the air with foul exhalations; are an impediment to traffic, and have long supplied a protection and a refuge to the thieves and robbers of Ireland, who, as Boate remarks, could not live without them. The exertions of the Irish should therefore be equally directed to the reasonable preservation and the reasonable draining of these bogs. All those which promise good fuel should be worked with economy; whilst all which are not of this description should be drained and cultivated. But hitherto neither the one nor the other has been done. An economical system of cutting turf has not been adopted, because the supply was deemed inexhaustible; whilst draining has been neglected, because the morasses were regarded as the best defences against conquest by the
I heard the people in this quarter speak much of the centre of Ireland; and a farmer one day led me to a great artificial mound, which he informed me the people look upon as that centre. This mound is called ‘The Moat of Lisserdowling.’ Although we were undoubtedly near the centre of the island, yet I feel certain that this hill is not that centre, which it would be somewhat difficult to determine. But I would like to know what gave rise to the idea among the people. The celebrated hill of Usneagh, mentioned by Thomas Moore, lies not far from here, in the neighbouring county of Westmeath. On its summit the boundaries of all the provinces of Ireland meet, and near it the old national conventions of Ireland were often held. The Moat of Lisserdowling is a circular, conically-pointed hill, about 40 feet high, and 500 feet in circumference. It stands in the middle of a plain, and is surrounded by arable land. At a distance from it of about 100 paces, and again of about 200, it is encircled by traces of not very deep trenches, and not very high walls. The mound itself is planted with trees and whitethorn bushes, so that it presents a stately appearance on the naked plain. On the summit it is flat, with a slight hollow in the centre, and covered all over with a beautiful green sward. In the centre of that indentation on the summit a few naked stones only were to be seen, as if mason-work
On the following day I made an excursion to a similar hill, called the ‘Monte-o'-Ward.’ It was also covered with old whitethorn bushes, and has a beautiful prospect from its summit. The embankments and trenches which surround it were not so completely separated from the hill as in the former case, but mingled with the hill itself. I afterwards saw a vast number of such mounds, with which Ireland is more thickly sown than England or Scotland. In Ireland people call them ‘moats,’ an English word meaning the ditch of a fortress; in Irish they are called ‘raths,’ which has the same meaning. With reference to the people by whom they are supposed to have been built, they are also called ‘Danes' mounts;’ for as, in Ireland, the destruction of every old work is attributed to Cromwell, so the erection of every ancient structure is ascribed to the Danes. The people are quite unanimous in saying that the Danish captains built these mounds for fortresses, in which they dwelt with their warriors, holding the whole country in subjection; and when the Danes were expelled, some Irish chieftain took possession of the deserted fortress. The learned are not so unanimous as the people. Some ascribe them to the Danes; others again—the patriotic Irish—agree with Thomas Moore, that they were the dwellings of the old Irish kings and chieftains, and that their erection belongs to a period in which towns were not yet known. In the north of
It is highly probable that all these hill-shaped structures, called Danes' mounts, raths, or moats, and which are widely diffused throughout Ireland, were built at very different periods, by different races, and for very different purposes. Not only did the Danes or Scandinavians erect artificial mounds, but, as it appears, all the nations of Europe, in the first period of their architecture. The whole of Southern Russia is filled with them. In Hungary, in European Turkey, and in Asia Minor, we find artificial hills, built of stone and earth; also in the north of Europe, in the Baltic countries, in Scandinavia, Denmark, and England; but in none of these countries are they so numerous as in Ireland. It is therefore probable that they were not built by the Danes, but were thrown up at a much more remote period by the ancient Irish themselves, for a variety of purposes. We know that mounds were erected for boundary-marks where provinces met, and also as monuments over the graves of heroes and chieftains. From these hills the ancient judges and legislators of the Irish proclaimed their decisions and laws to the people; on some of them their kings were anointed and crowned; and on others their national assemblies were held. The Druids also required sacred hills upon which to offer their sacrifices, and for this purpose artificial as well as natural hills were used. Finally, many may have been erected as fortresses. Hence, these hills, which the Irish are unanimous in calling fortresses, (raths, moats), were partly monuments, partly boundary-marks, partly political or religious structures, and, finally, partly fortresses. The original use of many is, however, quite unknown, and in fact remains an enigma yet to be solved. In the interior of several have been found little passages and cells, which are too small for storehouses, while they cannot have been tombs, since they have no resemblance to those in which bones have been found. Such as are like Lisserdowling, with a high pyramid in the centre of a low rampart, seem to be much more suited for a religious monument than for a fortress. For if intended as a fortress, would not the extraordinary labour bestowed in giving it a conical form have been more likely to be expended in increasing the height of the surrounding ramparts? As a fortress, it would be the strangest and most unsuitable in the world. The space on its summit is so small as scarcely to allow room for two huts; and if we suppose that it was intended as a place of safety for the women and children—the heart and citadel of the entire fortress—it must be confessed that no form worse adapted for that purpose
So much for the Danes' mounts and Irish moats. I will proceed with matters which may be of more general interest, and characteristic of the country and its inhabitants.
In the little Protestant church of Edgeworthtown I found a wooden gallery, which, as an inscription informed me, was erected sixty years ago, by a vicar of the place, and was open to the public at large, without distinction. The small space below was occupied almost entirely by the ‘pews’ of the wealthy, and left but little room for those who could not pay for them. This is also usually the case in the Protestant churches of England. The pews produce a considerable income, and have gradually become so numerous, that no place remains for the poor. Some well-meaning clergymen have often opposed this increase of pews, and many have, at their own expense, provided a place for the poor. I was told that it cost the clergyman I have mentioned much trouble to obtain the ‘act of vestry’ permitting him to erect his gallery. At the present day the Puseyites have raised a great opposition against the monopoly of pews, which it is to be hoped will be attended with beneficial consequences.
There are 800 Roman Catholics in Edgeworthtown, and 300 Protestants. Yet the latter do not progress so rapidly as the former, who have increased much in wealth and power, as well as in numbers, since the passing of the Emancipation Act. This remark, I was every where assured, applies to the whole of Ireland, where the Roman Catholics are now endeavouring to induce members of better families than was formerly the case to enter their priesthood.
I also visited the boys' and girls' schools at Edgeworthtown. The use of the Chinese-Mongolian-Russian reckoning-board was the most remarkable thing I found there. It was introduced
The farmers of the neighbourhood told me some interesting murder-stories, such as the following:—An Irishman was hired, probably by Ribbon-men or Peep-o'-day Boys, to murder a certain gentleman. Whilst in search of his victim, he was overtaken by a terrific storm. A gentleman found him unprotected and moaning on the road, and took him home in his carriage to his residence, where he sent him into the servants' hall to dry himself and obtain refreshment. When the man heard the name of his benefactor, he discovered that he was the gentleman whom he was employed to murder, and he accordingly returned without having perpetrated the deed. An associate who had received a similar commission for the destruction of another gentleman, proposed an exchange of victims. To this the murderer assented; and his conscience being thus freed from any scruple on the score of ingratitude, both assassins perpetrated their crimes.
At Edgeworthtown I saw some Italian poplars, which are somewhat rare in Ireland as well as in England, at least compared with some parts of Germany and France, where whole alleys and roads are planted with them. The bog-wood, too, which the Irish dig out of their morasses, and use for a variety of purposes, interested me much. At first it is somewhat soft and wet, but afterwards becomes hard as iron, and is then extensively used in their buildings and furniture. Some of it, however, retains so much softness and elasticity, that the people make ropes of it. The ropes they call ‘deal ropes,’ and a network is formed of them, on which they lay the bags of straw that compose their beds. Sometimes this bog-wood is made into furniture, particularly when it consists of oak or yew, in which
The slowness with which all kinds of grain ripens in Ireland was to me a matter of continual surprise. The winter corn is sown in November, and the spring corn in February; yet no one thinks of reaping wheat till the middle of September. Oats, which is the principal grain, are still later. Rye there is none. When the summer is cold and wet, the wheat is frequently not cut till the middle of October, and the oats in November. In the south of Germany, on the Rhine, rye is got in about the 22nd of July, and wheat, barley, and oats follow at short intervals. In Courland and Lithuania, countries that lie nearly under the same latitude with Ireland, (the 55th degree passes through Lithuania and the north of Ireland,) the harvest is gathered about the end of July or the beginning of August, though the summer corn is not sown till April, when the winter snow first leaves the ground. Thus, corn which ripens in three or four months in those countries, takes seven or eight months in Ireland.
While I was in the neighbourhood of Edgeworthtown, a little fair was held, which afforded me an opportunity of observing the conduct of the Irish market-people in selling their wares. Some of them, such as those who sold fruit, meat, and the like, sat beside their wares, and waited for purchasers; but those who sold knives, scissors, and innumerable other little articles, acted in a more mountebanklike manner than I had ever seen in any other country out of Great Britain. They had their wares arranged on a booth that moved on wheels, or on a cart turned into a booth, and ornamented with their goods. To one side of the cart was attached a kind of little gallery, on which the merchant stood, exhibiting some articles to the surrounding public, to whom he praised them in the manner of an Italian dealer in medicines, with extraordinary volubility of speech, accompanied with frequent jokes, not devoid of wit. He then named the price. The people laughed, and offered him a few pence. They then outbade each other till the offer seemed sufficient to the merchant, who all the time continued speaking in a loud
Neither at this fair, nor at any other in Ireland, did I see any gipseys. Indeed, I was every where told that there never had been any in the country. I have been unable to obtain any information on this subject from books on Ireland; for unfortunately authors too often forget to notice what is not in a country, and yet it is frequently as interesting to know this as to learn what is in it. Wonderful as it may seem that gipseys, who have found their way into every country of Europe, even into England, where they have spread themselves through the whole kingdom, should not have crossed over into Ireland, many Irishmen have assured me that it is the fact; and as Ireland is distinguished from all other countries by so many peculiarities, (as the absence of toads, serpents, and other venomous creatures, which are found in every other part of Europe,) I am inclined, a priori, to believe the fact. Perhaps some gipseys may have come over now and then; but finding a race almost as barbarous and wretched as themselves, they have turned back again, without spreading themselves through the country. Even the Romans, who once occupied all the rest of Europe, never went over to Ireland.
It is a fact equally remarkable, and not less strange, that there are no Jews in Ireland; at least there does not exist a single synagogue in the whole island, not even in Dublin, although it contains 270,000 inhabitants. Jews came to Ireland with Cromwell; and in 1746 there were 200 individuals, or 40 families, of that nation in Dublin, where they had a synagogue and a burial-ground; but this number, in 1821, had decreased to nine individuals! In this respect Ireland and Dublin probably stand alone in Europe. In England, and in Scotland also, gipseys and Jews are every where to be met with. Even in China there are Jews. In Ireland alone there are none. What a short distance we need travel to find the marvellous!
Having received the congratulations of all my valued friends in Edgeworthtown on the fine weather which seemed to smile upon my journey, I took my departure with regret from a place where I would gladly have lingered; and rolled on, through the centre of Ireland, towards that main artery of the land, the glorious Shannon, which, flowing from the north, pours its waters in a south-west direction. The usual method of travelling in Ireland, on those roads where no stage-coaches run, is on a jaunting-car. These jaunting-cars, or outside cars, as they are also called, are constructed on precisely the same plan as those we found in Dublin. They are two-wheeled, have a seat for two persons on each side, and are drawn by one horse. In the centre, between those two seats, is a recess for luggage, called ‘the well.’ The shafts are fixed to the body of the car, without any hinge; so that when the horse gallops, the comical and violent motion affords much pleasantry to some, whilst in others it produces something akin to sea-sickness. The cars are, of course, without covers; and since it is usually raining in Ireland, the traveller must not neglect to envelope himself and his effects in a waterproof of English invention. The horse, driver and all, are hired at the post-station, at the rate of sixpence per English mile, exactly one-half what is paid in England for a one-horse carriage. Since the horse, the oats which feed him, the plain wooden car, the obliging driver, and his food, which consists of bread and potatoes—in a word, all that you pay for—is produced in the country, this proportion of Irish to English prices probably extends to all the necessaries of life—that is, as one to two. To a traveller who desires to see the country, these cars are much to be recommended. They allow him the most delightful independence; and as he is bound to no particular route, he can go about the country
On one of the many lovely sunny days which even Ireland enjoyed in the autumn of 1842, I rolled away, in a conveyance such as I have described, towards the Shannon, in order, by means of this beautiful river, to pursue my travels in the south-west of the island. In this most central part of Ireland, from its eastern shores to the Shannon, there are no natural beauties to admire. The country is flat, and the attention is therefore more directed to man and his works. Alas! they can afford him no pleasure, for the former appears mostly in rags, and the latter are generally in ruins. Ruins should not be suffered in any country where order is prized. They should be removed, either because the materials of which they are composed might be applied in new, useful buildings, and the room which they occupy can be turned to a better use; or because, by their total downfall, they threaten the safety of men, and are besides disagreeable objects to look at. Ireland, however, is the first country in Europe for ruins; and here you have them from all periods of history, from the oldest times of the Phoenicians, down to the present day. Some of these ruins are supposed to be the remains of temples erected by fire-worshippers from the East;6 others are looked upon as Druidical remains, or castles of the old Celtic kings of the island. Portions of the churches built on the introduction of Christianity are numerous. The period of the Danish dominion has also bestowed on the land another extremely rich collection; and down to our own days each century, nay, every decade, has left its ruins here. For multitudes of dilapidated buildings are to be seen in every direction—of buildings that seem not only to have recently fallen into decay, but also to have been but recently built. During my journey I did not see a single village or town entirely free from such recent ruins. In many places we found whole rows of desolated and falling houses, standing side by side, in tens and
The painter is better off; for as there are multitudes of plants in Ireland, especially on the walls, Irish ruins are usually very picturesque. The most beautiful ivy climbs all over them; while wild roses, yews, beeches, and similar plants and trees, nestle every where between the walls. In some countries of Europe, as Livonia, Courland, and Poland, the ruins are almost entirely naked; but in green Ireland it is quite the reverse. Often have I seen the most wretched huts, mantled in a beautiful robe of full, rich ivy, worthy to clothe the ruined walls of a royal castle of by-gone days; and I am convinced that many a cabin is now made habitable only by the ivy, and would surely fall asunder if it were destroyed.
Another phenomenon, not less remarkable than the ruins, is the rags. As the Irishman inhabits his house as long as possible without giving it any repair, and then deserts it as soon as it has become wholly untenable; so he wears his clothes as long as a single thread of them will hold together, never giving the tailor an opportunity of earning a penny by repairing them. In other lands there are poor people enough, who, though rarely able to exchange their old clothes for new ones, yet do all they can to keep them in a wearable condition. Thus, in Russia, the peasants, forced by their climate, stitch patch upon patch over the holes of their old sheep-skins, and even the very poorest rarely exhibits his bare skin, which, in Ireland, is freely exposed even by persons far above the condition of beggars, and whose circumstances may be called comfortable. To wear the very coarsest clothes is in no country deemed disgraceful; but (except in Ireland, where a naked elbow or a bare arm seems to offend no one,) to appear in rags is no where allowed, save only to those whom the extreme of misery has plunged into such deep despair as to make them despise all sense of decency and feeling. The Irish rag-garments have something quite peculiar about them. Rags so completely rubbed away by
It is on Sundays only, and then amongst the more comfortable class of peasants, that the frieze-coat is to be seen in its complete
His head-dress also quite harmonizes with this dress-coat. It consists, not, as it ought to do, of a light waterproof cap, but of a most comical, miserable, and disfigured hat of felt or silk, which, Heaven alone knows how often! has been resolved by the rain to its original pulp, and then dried again. That the higher and independent classes should be content with a head-dress so unsuitable and inconvenient as our hat, and be prevented from laying it aside by fashion, is quite intelligible; but that among millions of the labouring classes so ridiculous an article of dress should remain in vogue for years is to me inconceivable, and irreconcilable with that sound common sense which is the peculiar characteristic of the masses. Paddy, however, arranges the thing after his own fashion, and in time makes the stiff hat pretty soft, and low like a cap. The brim he mostly turns up away from his face in front, and bends it down behind. The crown soon falls in; but as this is an important part, it is retained in its place by twine, until it will no longer hold together; and even after the crown is completely gone, and the hat has become, properly speaking, totally useless, Paddy still wears it for some years longer, merely for the sake of ornament. The very sight of such peasants at work in the fields or the farm-yards appears highly comical, for they look less like peasants than broken-down dancing-masters, who have been cruelly treated by Dame Fortune. I say comical, for even in his deepest misery Paddy has always so much that is whimsical about him, that one is often more disposed to laugh at than to weep for him.
Nothing presents a greater contrast to this tattered, poor, and
In front of most of the farm-houses that I passed I saw a couple of hawthorn bushes, clipped into crosses, pyramids, and other shapes, as is the fashion in England. All along the road too they were very common, and the trunks of some of them were extremely thick, and apparently of a much more advanced age than they are to be found in Germany. These thorn-bushes, when in spring they are laden with thousands of lovely white blossoms, are
Ballimahon, the second place at which we changed horses, is a little town, known throughout the surrounding country, like Lanesborough, and other places in the county of Longford, for its great egg-market. People are constantly to be seen with baskets on their heads, going about from cabin to cabin purchasing eggs, which they then take to the market, from whence they are shipped by the canal to Dublin, and from thence to England. Liverpool, and even London, are in a great measure supplied with Irish eggs.
Through narrow and crooked bye-ways, where ivy-mantled cabins, hawthorns, and numberless fields badly cultivated by rag-clothed Paddies, frequently met my view, I arrived at Athlone. All the principal towns of the first and second classes, as Dublin, Belfast, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Londonderry, &c., lie on the coast; the towns in the interior of the island are of the third class only. One of these is Athlone, which is almost in the very centre of the island, and seems, on this account, entitled to be the capital. Indeed, it was at one time contemplated to make it the seat of government; and it is at present the chief military station, from whence, in case of internal disturbances, or foreign invasion, any given point may be most speedily reached. It is fortified, and contains in its barracks troops of every description—artillery, cavalry, and infantry.
South of Athlone, we crossed a portion of the Bog of Allen. This great bog composes, under various names, a considerable part of the extensive plain which runs from east to west, from Dublin to Galway, dividing the island into two parts, a mountainous south and a mountainous north. Cultivation, and consumption of the turf, have already removed considerable portions of this morass; but the hollows and valleys are often entirely filled with it, and here and there are to be seen vast, wide tracts, covered with this fruitless bog, which generally presents the appearance of a reddish, unvaried, uniform surface. On its borders stand pretty clumps of trees, and the cultivated fields often come down close to the edge of the turf, as in Switzerland the flowery meadows extend to the very edge of the glaciers. From these bogs vast quantities of turf are sent to Limerick by the Shannon, and to Dublin by the canals; for, with the exception of the wealthy in the seaport towns, all the people of Ireland yet burn turf, which is more easily obtained from the surface of the ground than the hard stone-coal from the depths of the earth. The size and extent of the Irish coal-fields are yet unknown, they having hitherto been very imperfectly worked. When all the turf is consumed, the coal-fields will attract more attention; but although many districts already experience a scarcity of the ordinary fuel, some centuries must elapse before it is entirely exhausted. In the northern plains of Germany, where there are many turf-bogs, the people have a regular plan for reproducing the turf. They cut it in square holes of a certain size, in which the bog-water collects. In this water, marsh-plants spring up, and by their decay and deposits new layers of turf are gradually formed, which, after thirty or forty years, can be cut again. Thus they possess an inexhaustible source of profit and fuel. In Ireland they know nothing of this. The turf is always cut away, wherever nature has placed it, without any regard to its reproduction. Many villages already weep over their last sod of turf; and it is a melancholy sight to see, here and there behind the houses, very diminutive mounds of fuel, pared away all round, and which one can easily calculate will not last beyond a limited time.
The Irish call their turf-fields ‘bogs’, as the English call them ‘mosses’ or ‘moors.’ Bog is probably an old Celtic word, as it also appears in the French ‘bogue.’ The turf they call ‘peat.’
One of the most remarkable phenomena connected with these bogs is, that they develope themselves from their centres, and burst over their sides. The edges and sides often become dry, and form a kind of wall around the central mass, where, as it continues moist, the growth of the marsh-plants is greatest. The
Shannon Harbour, where we arrived in the evening, is a little place near the junction of the Grand Canal with the Shannon. As this canal goes direct to Dublin, and the Shannon is navigable from hence to Limerick, Shannon Harbour is the centre point of the traffic between those two cities. At present it consists only of a good hotel, and a row of stores alongside the canal, with an appendix of cabins for Irish labourers. A branch of the canal also leads towards Galway; so that Shannon Harbour, by reason of its central position, may yet become a place of some importance. At present this internal trade of Ireland is very inconsiderable. In the warehouses I saw little else beyond a large quantity of Galway oysters; and as these did not greatly interest me, I turned to the past, which lay near me in the shape of a ruined castle, once the abode of a celebrated Irish hero and leader against the English, of the name of Mac Oghlan, who possessed six castles in this neighbourhood. One of these we had already passed on the road. Although on the outside it appeared a perfect castle of the middle ages, and was completely covered with ivy, yet it is inhabited by its present proprietor, who seems to have converted it into a very comfortable dwelling. I have met with many instances in Ireland of old ruined castles, which are still partially inhabited.
Another lay about a mile and a half distant, and a young man accompanied me to show me the way. It was dusk when we reached it; and when I made a movement to leap over a ditch to go up to the castle, which was on the other side in the middle of a potato field, my guide remained behind. I desired him to follow me; but he shook his head, saying, he would rather wait upon the road until I returned. I soon discovered that the cause of his lingering behind was his fear of the ‘good people,’ of which the Irish are as much in dread as of the Evil One himself. I was, however, curious to see how far his fears went, and pretended to compel him to attend me to the castle, at the same time informing him that, unless he did so, I would not give him the shilling I had promised him. ‘Oh, I don't care about it!’ muttered he to himself. I therefore inspected the castle by myself, but it contained nothing but window-holes, fallen vaults, and loop-holes, without anything remarkable. Not far off stood a small house which had been pointed out to me at Shannon Harbour, and whose inhabitants I was told knew many traditions concerning the old castle. I now directed my steps thither, and called a woman whom I saw at the door. At first, she seemed to consider whether she should obey my call, and asked what I wanted; but when I approached her, she commenced shrieking and ran off at full speed across the fields, to a cabin at some distance. The direction in which I came through the potato field from the castle may have seemed rather suspicious to her, and my foreign accent may have completed her terrors. My guide I met again in Shannon Harbour. He had run without stopping all the way, and did not think himself safe till he was sitting in his mother's house, beside the turf fire. His mother scolded him, it is true; but who knows whether she would have gone to the castle herself! Wherever English civilization penetrates, there the ‘good people’ gradually disappear. It appears to me, however, that they disappear very slowly indeed; for in whatever part of Anglicized Ireland I happened to be abroad in the twilight, I have invariably found myself surrounded by crowds of ‘good people.’
Not far from Shannon Harbour, a few miles up the river, are the very interesting ruins called the ‘Seven Churches.’ This place is held sacred since the first introduction of Christianity. The ruins of the churches are situated near the beautiful bank of the river, and among them, it is said, are the graves of many Irish kings. I had opportunities, afterwards, of seeing many holy places of this kind, and will return to the subject.
As Shannon Harbour has its Mac Oghlan, so has every locality its famous hero, who once ruled the surrounding country as king
Even under Norman and Saxon family-names in Ireland, old Celtic races often lie hid: these families having, in times of persecution, laid aside their ancient national names, and assumed new Normanized or Saxonized appellations. Thus, the real old Irish name of the well-known family of Fitz-Patrick is ‘Mac Guillo Phatrick,’ i. e. the son of the servant of St. Patrick: the Irish ‘Mac’ being changed for the Norman ‘Fitz’ (fils, in French,) which also means a son. The old name, however, is always handed down from generation to generation by means of such expressions as ‘we are properly called so and so;’ and the people prefer calling these old families by their genuine ancient names.
I met, at Shannon Harbour, a member of one of these old Irish families; and as, notwithstanding their pride of extensive and celebrated ancestry, they are very social and communicative, we spent the evening very pleasantly in conversation. The most interesting communication of my friend was the plan of an estate, which, he said, his family had possessed for 1800 years, first as independent princes, and afterwards as vassals of the English under an altered name. On this territory, of perhaps forty English square miles, there are no less than eighteen old ruined castles, and two ruined towers—a ruin for every two square miles. If this might be taken as a standard for all Ireland, there must be in that country, since it contains 32,000 square miles, some 16,000 ruins of castles and towers; and perhaps this number is not much over the truth. My friend and his map were from Connemara—the Irish ‘highlands’—a wild, mountainous district in the western part of Connaught. He praised beyond measure the hospitality of the gentry of that country, particularly the O'Flahertys, which is the most extensive family there, and the descendants of the ancient kings or sovereigns. There the gentry live very ‘stylishly’, as my friend expressed himself, are extravagant, and give parties and banquets as in the olden times; for the Irish, especially in those western parts, are in general fond of show. Hence it is that their estates are so heavily mortgaged,
Connaught, and especially the mountainous Connemara, was the principal refuge of the old Celtic Irish, when driven by the English from the eastern parts of the island. It may therefore be compared with Wales, whither the ancient Britons were driven by the Saxons. The Irish language is most spoken in these western districts, and the English least understood. In the eastern parts of the island, therefore, ‘a western’ is almost synonymous with a barbarian, or a savage. Leinster, on whose borders we were now standing, is almost completely Anglicized, and only in some inconsiderable localities is the Irish the prevailing language of the people. It is the same with a great part of Munster, although there the Irish language is more frequently heard. The largest portion of Ulster has been Scotticized, yet Irish is still spoken in some districts. The greatest part of Connaught alone remains purely Irish. Leinster is the province of light, Connaught is yet in darkness: there is the greatest cultivation, and the paradisiacal land of Wicklow; here, the greatest poverty, barbarism, and superstition, and the wilds of Connemara. These differences are often observable in trifles: for instance, in Leinster, as in England, the common people eat the entrails of sheep, but never those of the swine; the latter, on the other hand, are eaten all through Connaught, according to the old Irish usage, but the former never. The inhabitants of Connaught, too, often call the people of Leinster ‘Saxons’; but this distinction is current in Ireland only, for in England they all indiscriminately pass for Irishmen, and a Saxon from Leinster is never considered an Englishman. He has, it is true, adopted the English language, and many English habits; but he has at the same time taken so much from the Irish, and has so invested himself with their original character, that the English proverb with respect to those Saxon Irish, ‘Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,’ contains a good deal of truth.
As between the population, so there is also, in the opinion of the natives, a remarkable difference in the climate of the East and the West, slight as their distance from each other may appear. The West is deemed far more rainy than the East, and in the mountains of Connemara it is said never to cease raining. Now since Ireland, as every body knows, is yet more foggy and rainy than England, while we North Germans justly decry the latter for its humidity, there seems to be a continued
The next morning we embarked in the steamboat which navigates the Shannon, by which river and its lakes we intended to proceed to Limerick.
The Shannon is the largest river in Ireland, and justly is it called by the people ‘The Royal Shannon,’ although a foreigner may deem the epithet hyperbolical, when he remembers the great continental rivers. But one must have travelled on this glorious stream, to be convinced that in rivers, as well as in kings, royal majesty does not depend on great length or extent. This much is certain, that, in the British Islands, there is no second stream, that, for length and breadth, and the charms of its banks, can be compared with the Shannon. From his birth he is vast and broad, for with mighty veins he springs from a lake, (Lough Allen,) and flows through the middle of Ireland, from north-east to south-west. Three times he again widens into a lake; first, in his upper territory, in the little Lough Boffin; then, farther down, into the larger Lough Ree; and, in the middle of his course, into the still larger Lough Derg. Below Limerick he once more spreads himself out like a lake; but as this extension continues to the ocean, this part of the river has received no particular name. The whole length of this beautiful piece of water, from its rise to the ocean, is 214 English miles. The greater portion of the Shannon runs through the central plain of Ireland, which divides the mountainous south from the mountainous
As the Shannon waters no less than thirteen of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, its navigability has been long an important question in that country. More than 100 years ago, it was believed, that, by an outlay of from 60,000l. to 80,000l., it would be possible to remove the obstacles to its navigation, including several banks of rocks and shallows which unfortunately crossed its bed in several places. The celebrated Lord Wentworth, Earl of Stafford, who was for a long time Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, first proposed a plan for this purpose, but it was never carried into effect. Several plans were afterwards projected in England, (where nearly all the speculations for the improvement of Ireland originate,) and some of these were partly executed. But the introduction of steam navigation, which has been so advantageously applied upon numerous other rivers, in overcoming the opposition of the currents, had had the most decisive effect on the navigation of the Shannon. A steam-navigation company has been formed; and although the works are not yet completed, twelve steamers are now employed upon the river, while fifteen years ago there was only one.
As there are no railroads in Ireland, except one or two small ones, which there seems no intention of extending, the canals are much used for travelling, and regular passage-boats traverse them in every direction. They are drawn like the trekschuiten in Holland, by horses, which proceed at a quick trot; and this mode of conveyance affords the traveller the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with the interesting people of Ireland.
It was on a delightful, clear, warm day that we embarked on the Shannon, which appeared as beautiful as any other river in the world. Flowing out of a lake, and having frequent opportunities of resting itself in wide basins, its water is extremely clear and lucent, and its movement is very equable and slow, except in a few places where there are rapids, which are avoided by means of canals. The banks, too, are agreeable and pleasing. Broad, fresh-green meadows stretch along its sides, and little hamlets alternate with charming country-seats, surrounded by their parks.
On board the steamboat were many packages from the Dublin circulating libraries, in which was contained spiritual food for the residents in the country; but our most remarkable freight was a few oxen and cows from Hamburgh, which had found their way hither by the operation of Sir Robert Peel's new tariff. This not a little alarmed the people, as Ireland had hitherto been always accustomed to export cattle of this description, and to receive money for them, instead of paying high prices for foreign animals. Immediately after the promulgation of this tariff, nothing was spoken of in England, but the cattle that were sure to be imported into the United Kingdom from Hamburgh, Holstein, Holland, Sweden, and even from Spain and Africa. But, as is sufficiently proved by the trifling importations which have taken place, all this was a mere invention of the newspapers, to excite the public against the tariff. With regard to the Hamburgh cattle, our own eyes bore witness to their importation; and when we consider the speculating spirit of the English, which extends itself to all the four quarters of the world, and attempts every thing, it is not improbable that Spanish and Swedish cattle will also be imported. These Hamburgh beasts, however, caused much anxiety to the Irish, whose chief source of income consists in the exportation of cattle. ‘Our woollen manufactures,’ said one to me, ‘that once flourished in Kilkenny, Dublin, and other places, have been destroyed by the English; our linen manufactures at Belfast and Drogheda are threatened with ruin; no branch of manufactures can rise among us, on account of the enormous privileges enjoyed by English industry; and now, if our farmers and graziers are to be made bankrupts, our prospects are totally destroyed.’ As the tariff was introduced by the English ministry chiefly for the advantage of the manufacturing districts, the indignation of the Irish was much increased against the English manufacturers, whom they regard as their greatest enemies. It is strange that these manufacturing towns give rise to so much angry feeling, which is not confined to Ireland, for whilst the Irish complain that their manufacturing industry is checked by the English, so do the English and Scotch complain that the Irish labourers, who throng the manufacturing towns, and work for less wages, destroy their market. Some connoisseurs stood around the Hamburgh cattle, and shaking their heads, gave it as their opinion, that if no better were imported, they could scarcely vie with the Irish cattle, be the tariff ever so low. ‘There is nothing kind about them; they are very coarse, but strong for working,’ Such was the opinion of a
Our party on board the steamer was divided into two—one silent, through conceit and etiquette; the other talkative and natural. The former paced up and down the quarter-deck, busied with itself; the latter sat chatting in the forecastle. After having in vain made some attempts to break the ice among the former, I preferred to join the latter, where I was soon successful, and became engaged in a conversation from which I derived much instructive and interesting information. A man from the ‘kingdom’ of Kerry, as the Irish call it, I suppose ‘par courtoisie’ took me under his especial protection. These Kerrymen are famous in Ireland for their great, though somewhat antiquated, learning. ‘Even the cow-boys and the poor farmers' sons know Latin there,’ is a common saying. My Kerryman was the son of a peasant; he was about thirty years of age, talkative, animated, and richly imaginative, like all the lower orders of the Irish. He narrated to me a multitude of stories and traditions, all of which unfortunately I did not understand, on account of his peculiar dialect. Of the Shannon, and the origin of its name, he told me one. There was long ago, he said, one Princess Seinin, the daughter of a King of Munster, and in beauty and virtue a queen among the daughters of the land. She was once bathing in a lonely part of the Shannon, when she was surprised by some men. Her delicate and virgin feelings were hereupon seized with such shame and horror, that she immediately sunk and disappeared beneath the waves. ‘Even before the blush of shame could rise into her cheeks, she disappeared beneath the waves,’ was the expression of the narrator, which was much applauded by the bystanders. In honour of her the Shannon received its name.
I was also told of an Irish king, who fell in with fairies and elves, with whom he lived a hundred years, and thought they were but two days. Among the old ruins at Shannon Harbour I had seen how much invisible spirits are feared by the Irish. Here upon the charming Shannon, in the fairest sunshine, I had now an opportunity of seeing with what zeal and interest they can talk of them by day: and I do not exaggerate, when I say that they put their heads together, and talked as eagerly as merchants on 'Change, when settling some important business. They call all fairies and unterrestrial spirits, the ‘good people.’ But there are also particular classes, as the Leprahauns, and the Lechrigauns. I asked what difference there was between the ‘good people’ and
In Germany, too, we speak of apparitions and the like; but in general it is only very indefinitely said that ‘people’ or that ‘somebody’ has seen them; and it is difficult to find any one who has beheld them with his own eyes. In Ireland, however, it is otherwise; for persons are to be met every where who have themselves experienced and seen them. ‘Your honour won't believe our stories about the fairies,’ said one of my companions to me, as I shook my head while he was telling one of his tales; ‘but I'd lay a wager there are many among us here who have experienced the most wonderful things, which sound almost incredible, but which one must believe because they are simple, indisputable facts. I will bring one to you in a moment.’ He took a man by the arm, who was standing near, and led him into the middle of the circle. ‘See, here is Tom Sullivan, the son of Patrick O'Sullivan, the son of Phelim Fad: he is my friend, and one of the best pipers in Kerry, though he was thirty years old before he touched the pipes. But it happened that as he was once wandering among the mountains he felt tired, and laid himself down and fell asleep, without knowing that the place was
‘You don't believe it, sir,’ said an old woman, who now joined in the conversation. ‘But haven't I seen the good people dancing on their meeting-ground with my own eyes, and heard their beautiful music with my own ears; and that, too, but a couple of days since, as my husband and I were coming from Galway, across, the bog near Ballinasloe, in the county of Roscommon. We were both tired, and lay down by the side of a well after we had taken
‘That is again a fact,’ remarked my Kerry friend. The English, who are great lovers of facts, have many ‘Books of Facts’ for their children; but I believe facts of this description are not to be found in them.
When a person has been listening for some time to these Irish fact-men, his fancy becomes so heated with their fairy tales that he cannot help occasionally feeling for his nose or chin, in order to satisfy himself of his corporeal existence. Paddy is, in this respect, one of the most believing fellows I have ever met with. The Irish have numbers of yet more beautiful and wonderful stories than those I have related, but I have only given those which I heard with my own ears from believing eye-witnesses, as being much more characteristic of the people than the most poetical legends, which are generally too highly finished by the decorating hand of the professional story-writer.
It is characteristic of the Irish to divide their fairies according to the counties into which the country is divided. Thus there are Tipperary fairies, and Donegal fairies, as well as Kerry or Limerick fairies, all of which have their fights and quarrels with, one another, as well as the human inhabitants of these counties. But in Tipperary there is a place where all the fairies of Ireland hold their meetings. Another striking characteristic of these fairies is, that they are quite as anxious to receive mortals into their service, as mortals are to make a mighty spirit subject to themselves. ‘They have always some in their service,’ my Kerry friend assured me; and little children they are particularly desirous of obtaining. Those which the fairies cast their eyes on grow sickly, and at last die, and then the fairies take and bring them up, and they grow big and beautiful, and at last become the most distinguished amongst them. But they are fondest of ‘red-haired children, and 'tis they are the most in danger.’
Though all this sounds poetical, yet it would surely be a great piece of good fortune for Paddy if English cultivation could drive
7
- Komm mit ängstlicher Beschwörung,
Nicht zurück an diesen Ort.
Grabe hier nicht mehr vergebens.
Tages Arbeit, Abend's Gäste,
Saure Wochen, frohe Feste,
Sei dein künftig Zauberwort.
But I must return to my ‘bred-and-born Kerry man,’ who was most eager to open his heart to me, and to entrust me with the secrets of his country. The fairies and their wonders employed us not more than that new wonder of the day, which now moves all Ireland—the temperance question. I mean the wonders which the Apostle of Temperance, Father Mathew, is said to have performed. With great attention I listened to the expressions of the people concerning this remarkable man, and especially to their various conceptions of the temperance question, and the opinions concerning Father Mathew held by the Protestants in the north of Ireland, and by the Catholics in the west and south.
The Protestants, on the one hand, look at the question quite soberly, simply, and reasonably. Temperance, they think, is an excellent and truly Christian virtue, and intemperance an immoral and pernicious vice. It is good to preach in favour of the one and against the other, and hail to the virtuous man who does so. It may also be proper to form societies to promote this useful object, in which, to set an example to our inferiors, we may refrain from the excessive use of intoxicating liquors. But as wine and other spirituous liquors do no injury when enjoyed in moderation, but may frequently be rather beneficial both to the
‘Father Mathew is a blessed man! The Almighty, glory be to his name! gave him the power which flows from him.’ Such were the expressions of my companions.
‘You mean,’ said I, ‘that he possesses a particular persuasive power of eloquence, a peculiar strength of conviction, and is in himself a beautiful virtuous example to imitate.’
‘No, no, it's not that. There is a particular grace in receiving the pledge from him, and in obtaining his blessing. There is something in it, sir, which you cannot so easily understand—a grace, a power that no one knows but he who has experienced it in himself. Hence, from his hands only can the true and effective 'pledge' be received. The vow one takes from the hands of other priests has not the same binding power.’
‘That is perfectly true, sir,’ said another, ‘for does he not cure even the most confirmed drunkards? And when they have taken the pledge, are they not the most faithful in abstinence, the very best of 'Temperance-men?' How, then, can this be, except with the particular and immediate co-operation of Heaven? Nay, does he not even cure the lame and the blind? and could we not give you a hundred instances, plain facts, how he has healed the lame and the blind even against their own wills? But Father Mathew is too modest to own he possesses this power: he denies that it is in him; but we know well he has it, for all that.’
Here we had hit upon another inexhaustible theme of conversation, which actually ended with the citing of many instances of
Engaged in conversations such as I have related we sailed down the beautiful clear Shannon, and passed the little town of Banagher, which is fortified—a rare sight in the United Kingdom, yet less rare in Ireland (threatened as she is both by internal and external foes,) than in England and Scotland. Farther down, we passed Redwood Castle on the right, and the beautiful meadows of Portumna on the left; at last the town of Portumna itself, and then we came to Lough Derg. The steamboat which had hitherto conveyed us had her paddles behind, on account of the narrowness of some of the canal passages; but on the broad lake we now entered, we were met by one of larger dimensions. We approached one another sweeping round in a semicircle, and then the two vessels lay side by side, and exchanged passengers. This little manoeuvre looked very pretty in the centre of the clear mirror-like lake.
Of the various lakes, which are strung like pearls on the silver thread of the Shannon, the two middle ones, Lough Ree, near Athlone, and Lough Bodarrig, are the least pleasing, as they lie in the central plain of the island, and are partly surrounded by bog-land. The shores of the northern half of Lough Derg are also quite flat and unpicturesque. But the upper lake, Lough Allen, is in the northern mountainous part of Ireland; and the southern half of Lough Derg, which is twenty-four miles long, is surrounded by a portion of the mountains of the south, and the charms of a beautiful and picturesque landscape. There are also the valleys of the mountains of Inchiquin, the Arra mountains, the Slievh Boughty, and the Slievh8 Bernagh, which here stretches its numerous arms far into the lake. Like all the Irish lakes, Lough Derg is filled with a number of little green islands, which give it a particularly attractive appearance. Small as these are, each one has its name, as Crow Island, Hare Island, Cow Island, &c. Many of them afford excellent pasturage.
The most celebrated of these islands is Innis-caltra (Innis Island), which is an ancient holy place, containing the ‘Seven Churches,’ and one of those pillar-like structures called ‘round towers,’ of which some account will be found in the sequel. We saw this island in the centre of a bay at the distance of a mile and a half, and by the aid of a telescope could distinctly perceive the most remarkable buildings. A dispute arose among the Irish as to whether the famed ‘St. Patrick's Purgatory’ was to be found on this island or on another in one of the northern lakes, but opinions were much divided on the subject. It may be that the people relate this tradition of several islands; but that the purgatory of the holy St. Patrick, once so famous through the half of Christendom, was situated in one of these little islands of Lough Derg, is acknowledged and satisfactorily proved by all Irish antiquarians. The people once imagined that here was to be found the suburbs of purgatory, or, in a word, the entrance to the lower world. St. Patrick, who converted the Irish to the Christian faith, is said to have obtained permission from God that the entrance to the lower world should be opened in Ireland itself, in order to convince unbelievers of the immortality of the soul, and of the punishments and sufferings the wicked must endure after death.
Boate, an old Irish writer, relates, that two monks formerly dwelt in the neighbourhood of the cavern which represented this entrance. Any one who came to the island with the intention of descending to the world below, was compelled to watch, fast, and pray for a considerable time, under the pretext of strengthening him for his perilous journey, but in reality to weaken him, and allow his imagination to overpower his judgment, for which purpose his mind was excited by all manner of wonderful tales. Thus prepared, he was lowered into the cave, which was immediately closed above. After the lapse of some hours he was drawn out again, half dead, and upon recovering failed not to intermix with the reality the monkish stories and his own dreamings, and thus related the most marvellous tales about the world below. In the reign of James II. the monks were driven from the place, and the dark cavern broken up.
This legend struck me as unusual, and at the same time extremely characteristic of the Irish. They are, I believe, the only Christian people who have discovered, here on earth, an entrance to purgatory and the lower regions; and it is extraordinary that they should not only have ventured to place it among themselves, in the middle of their own country, but that their faith was so firm, and their imagination so strong, that the jugglery of the
Like all Irish lakes, with the exception of the great Lough Neagh, Lough Derg is of a very irregular form, with a multitude of bays and creeks, and side branches. Its southern part narrows to a point, and at last ends abruptly in a little cul-de-sac. The mountains nearest the lake, Slievh Bernagh, Knockermaun, &c. are very beautiful, and covered with grass, trees, and houses. Somewhat farther off, towards the right, Mount Inchiquin, and to the left the Keeper, which is about 25,000 feet high, tower above them; while among these mountains the traveller perceives the famous Devil's Bite, a very strange and deep cut in the ridge of a mountain, the origin of which the Irish can explain in no other way than by a somewhat humorous attack made by the devil, who probably mistook the ridges for the back of a fat Irish pig. He, however, spat out the bite again, for there is to be found, somewhere in Ireland, a piece of a rock that exactly fits the aforesaid cut. At the very end of the cul-de-sac lies the little town of Killaloe.
One of the little glens on the right side of the lake is called Balley Valley, and the charming seat of the proprietor of the valley, which is situated in it, bears the same name. The last proprietor, an old man who had lived many years in this delightful corner, had lately died. The people told me how grieved he was at the approach of death; and that shortly before he died, when he felt his end drawing nigh, he caused himself to be rowed across to the other side of the lake, from whence he contemplated his property, the charming valley, the green leafy mountains, his beautifully situated house, which lay mirrored in the clear waters of the lake, which was all bathed in the warmest and most lovely sunshine of 1842. The natural charms and beauty of the surrounding country, which he had so long ruled as its owner, brought the tears into his eyes, and in despair he exclaimed: ‘O sweet Balley Valley! sweet Balley Valley! how can I leave thee!’ He then sank back on his seat, and once more he sighed, ‘O sweet Balley Valley! how can I leave thee!’ and passed away. Of a truth the earth has here such charms, particularly for an independent landowner, that such a sigh may be unavoidable in the hour of death. In such an hour one ought rather to wish he were a poor dweller in an Irish bog; for to him it must be much easier to exchange his black, swampy, charmless bit of ground, for the beauteous blue star-bespangled heaven.
Lough Derg, the boatmen told me, is from six to seven feet higher in winter than in summer, a very considerable increase for so large a piece of water. Although it lies under the same degree of latitude with the Prussian lakes, and the Curische Haff, which are frozen almost every winter, yet it is seldom entirely covered with ice, and is usually quite free from it. It is often frozen about the shores only, and the boatmen mentioned some severe winters in which the ice was ‘even four inches thick.’ It is forty years since the entire lake was frozen over so that carriages could drive across it.
A small steamer, which came alongside our vessel, was making its first experimental trip, and had on board some members of the Shannon Steam Navigation Company. It was built on a new plan, and consisted of two round boats shaped like cigars, and connected above by a common deck. The steam-engine was fixed upon deck, and the paddles struck the water quickly but not deeply. The people termed it ‘the cigar boat.’ The invention was highly extolled, and it was expected to float over the most shallow parts of the lakes and rivers. A dozen or two similar boats would be of great value upon the shallow and useless lakes of Germany.
Beyond Killaloe the rocks and rapids in the river again commence; and as the portion of the canal which is to avoid these unnavigable places was not yet completed, we had here the entertaining change of being transferred from the vessel, sack and pack, to a row of Irish cars, in which we proceeded to that part of the canal from whence the navigation to Limerick is uninterrupted. Our captain and his men galloped beside us on horseback, commanding and directing the procession. Having passed over some miles in this manner, we again embarked; but this time it was in a long canal-boat, drawn by a pair of horses. All this may appear somewhat wild and Irish, as such motley and changing modes of conveyance are no longer to be found in England. Our boat was divided into two parts. In the stern sat the passengers of quality, opposite each other, on two rows of seats; while in the forward part, on long benches, chatting and smoking, were squatted the Kerry and Tipperary men, and the temperance people—those who put faith in wonders, and feared fairies and spectres. I overcame my aversion to the rather uncleanly exterior of the latter, for the sake of the bud of the national Psyche, which in this class displays itself more unreservedly than among the former.
I have already mentioned the somewhat antiquated learning, even of the lower classes of the people of Kerry; and I now met
From the narrow canal we now once more entered the beautiful broad Shannon, and just as evening approached, were landed on the quay of the city of Limerick.
Limerick, the third city of Ireland, now contains nearly 75,000 inhabitants. Dublin is the first, with 270,000; and Cork the second, with 110,000 inhabitants. The trade of Limerick, like that of all Irish cities, has increased astonishingly during the last twenty years. The export trade is said to have trebled since 1820. In the year 1822 the exports amounted to 479,000l., in 1830 to 720,000l., in 1832 to 1,005,000l.; and in 1841, according to the official returns, the duties alone, paid on imported commodities, amounted to 246,000l., or about 1,700,000 Prussian thalers. The inhabitants are therefore full of hope that they will soon see their port, hitherto a third-class one, raised to the second rank. In the more modern part of the city the effect of these millions is extremely visible; for it is beautifully built, has fine, nay, one may say, with regard to their breadth, and the size of the houses, imposing streets, which are not equalled in the capital itself. St. George's-street may be compared with Sackville-street in Dublin. St. George is an English saint, and the whole of this modern part of the town is called ‘The English Town,’ and forms a most agreeable contrast with that portion which is known as ‘The Irish Town.’ Galway and other Irish cities are similarly divided into English and Irish towns. The Irish portions are full of dirt, disorder, and ruin; the English, on the contrary, are built entirely after the models of the best parts of London. The population of these two divisions live in a kind of opposition to each other.
As the English have furnished all Irish cities with a clean and comfortable quarter, so the Irish, (who number 60,000 in Manchester, 50,000 in Glasgow, 40,000 in Liverpool, 25,000 in Birmingham, and 12,000 in Leeds, and of whom there are probably more than 100,000 in London,) have furnished most English towns with an appendix of a filthy and disorderly Helot-quarter. Such an Irish quarter as St. Giles's, in London, is to be found in every large English town. It is, therefore, no wonder that the English often complain of the Irish. The Irish, on the other hand, in all their complaints against the English, ought to
The fairest thing in Limerick, however, is the fair sex. ‘The Limerick lasses’ are as famous in Ireland as the ‘Lancashire witches’ and the Welch women are in England. It is worthy of remark that both these places so renowned for the beauty of their women, are situated in the west, and, indeed, in the more Celtic wests of both islands. Can it be that the greater mixture of the Saxon with the Celtic race has here produced this greater degree of beauty? In western and southern Ireland, Spanish blood, too, has been mixed with that of the people; and perhaps it is this admixture of southern fire with northern tenderness which has produced so beneficial a result. Or is it the neighbourhood of the ocean, breathing fresh breezes from the west, that is the cause of this phenomenon? Yet who can fathom all the mysteries which are to be found in the formation and rearing of beautiful women!
Leaning on the arm of an O'Rourke, the descendant of a royal race, I surveyed the town. It is well known that an O'Rourke was one of the most renowned of the Irish princes who at first favoured the conquest of Ireland by the English, and was afterwards deprived of his life by them. The family subsequently fell into decay, and there are now but very few of the name. It was Saturday evening; and therefore the shops of the pawnbrokers, which are always numerous in Irish towns, were full of life. We saw many of them as crowded as market-places on market-days. All this throng of people were redeeming their best clothes, in order to be well dressed on the Sunday; to this purpose a portion of their weekly wages was devoted, and the remainder of their earnings would probably be spent this very evening or the following day; so that on Monday the Sunday dress would without doubt be obliged to return to the pawnbroker. Thousands of poor people live in this way in Ireland,—during the week, in rags, hunger, and misery; on Sunday, in finery. Of
When first I arrived in an English town on a Saturday, I imagined that a riot had either lately taken place, or was on the point of breaking out; for the people in the streets, mostly the lower classes, are then crowded together in such dense masses, that one would suppose it required only a spark to fall among such inflammable matter to produce a general conflagration. Yet not only sparks, but even large torches, are seen lying quite harmlessly beside this inflammable material. Thus, at Limerick, on that very Saturday evening, I saw posted up on every gate, and beneath the lamps of the city, a proclamation by the friends of O'Connell to the Irish people, in the name of this great agitator, who was in a few days to make his appearance there, hold a meeting, and harangue them. Over it was printed, in large letters—
‘REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!’
‘Up, citizens and people of Limerick, and all Irishmen! Up for a separation from England! Up for your birthright of a separate parliament! The immortal (sic!) O'Connell will appear among you. He calls upon you. He requires your aid in Erin's cause. Be firm and united, and, like him, cease not to watch over the welfare of your native land, and to be ever active in our common, great, and patriotic cause!’
In this and still stronger language, the people were exhorted to unite, and, on the day of O'Connell's appearance, which was fixed beforehand, to assemble in numbers, provided with warm patriotism, and especially not to be sparing in their contributions to the tribute. The people stood around, reading this proclamation by the lamp-light, and having probably considered how many pence or shillings they could contribute, then went quietly home.
Some of them, however, followed an Irish piper, who, surrounded by hundreds of listeners, went through the streets, stopping now and then at the door of some respectable-looking house, and playing his old Celtic melodies. In general, notwithstanding the melancholy sadness that breathed through his minstrelsy, the doors remained closed against him. At length, however, one opened; a liveried servant made his appearance, the piper was called in, and the gaping multitude dispersed. The Irish pipers appear to me to be the most skilful in the world; and though, like my travelling acquaintance, they have not all learned their music from fairies, yet they know how to put as much sweetness as possible into this disagreeable instrument, and I believe they are often engaged to play at evening parties in the houses of the wealthy, especially those of the south of Ireland, who are celebrated for their skill.
The city of Limerick possesses many handsome buildings and elegant public institutions. Yet they are all, as well as the entire importance of the place, of modern origin, and resemble those which are to be seen in all Irish and English towns of the same class. Much more peculiar is its neighbour and sister, Galway, the capital of the wild Irish west, and a colony from Hesperia. This town has a look of remarkable antiquity, not elsewhere to be found in Ireland. A traveller who had been in Spain, describes it as entirely Spanish in its style of architecture. He found there the wide entrance-doors, (it is the English fashion to build them very small,) the broad steps, the arched door-ways of Cadiz and Malaga; whilst the grotesque architecture and ornamented window-piers (things strikingly wanting in most Irish and English private houses), carried back his imagination to the Moorish towns of Grenada and Valencia. The town has also quite a catholic and ecclesiastical air, with its monks, numerous churches, and convents, which are visited by believers every hour of the day. The population of the neighbourhood, too, which collects in the marketplace of the town, wears a very picturesque costume, (a thing of which there is no trace any where else in Ireland or England,) and appears in bright-coloured jackets and gowns. The political constitution of Galway displays as many antique singularities as its outward appearances. For ages the inhabitants have been divided into thirteen separate tribes, each having its peculiar privileges and name, such as Butkins, Burkes, Kirdeens, Blakes, &c. The antiquity, the interesting history, and the peculiarities of this town, some years ago induced a gentleman to devote himself to the study of these matters, and the result has been an excellent and circumstantial history of the community, and of the thirteen
Unfortunately I was unable to behold all these things with my own eyes; and I was also obliged to deny myself the pleasure of examining the condition of a colony of German peasants, established in the county of Limerick. An Irish lady informed me that they were driven out of the Palatinate in the beginning of the last century, and founded a few colonies here. They are still distinguished from the rest of the population by the name of ‘Palatinates.’ They possess the character of good husbandmen and honest people. ‘They are most respectable people,’ said a man with whom I conversed respecting them; ‘and besides, they are better off and more comfortable than their Irish neighbours.’ Hence it would appear that the Irish themselves, with more assiduity, industry, and energy, could also much improve their condition. It is an everlasting subject of controversy in Ireland, between the friends of the Irish and the adherents of the English, between the Celtomanes and the Anglomanes, whether the misery and the poverty of Ireland is attributable to the English and their tyranny alone, or in a still greater measure to the indolence and torpidity of the Irish character. These Germans, flourishing on the same soil, and under the same political relations, seem to decide this question not much in favour of the friends of the Celts. The Germans are not numerous in Ireland. In the southern cities, even in Dublin, there are very few. The greatest number ever in Ireland was probably in 1798, on the suppression of the rebellion; at which period some regiments of Hanoverian troops were in the country, and these I believe did not find much favour with the people, since they served as tools in the hands of the English.
The county of Clare extends to the west of Limerick. Between the wide, long mouth of the Shannon and the Atlantic Ocean it
Accompanied by an Irishman whom I joined in the hire of a car, I drove, on the following day, a beautiful Sunday morning, through the fertile part of the county, to visit a friend of mine who possesses an estate in the vicinity of Ennis. Our road led us at first along the Shannon, and then through the middle of a plain which is said to be the most fertile in Ireland. The aspect of the country is pleasing, and wherever there is a rising ground the traveller gets a view of the beautiful landscape, and a great part of the splendid Shannon and its islands. On the shore of the Shannon, and partly surrounded by water, is the rock Carrigogunal, celebrated for its fairies, who take pleasure in surprising mortals on the rock, and making them partake of their hospitality.
At no great distance from this spot the road passes Bunratty Castle, almost half of which stands on the road itself. It is covered with the most charming mantle of ivy, and we saw whole flocks of ravens take their flight from its walls. Farther on, we saw the celebrated Quin Abbey in the distance. ‘In short,’ said my companion, ‘you see that we do not want for ruins here in Ireland. The country was once divided among a multitude of petty chieftains, who dwelt in these castles, and were continually making war on one another. In fact, it was at that time here just as, I believe, it is now in your own country: it was the very prototype of your country.’ (This expression pleased him much, and he repeated it twice.) ‘Murder and assassination were then still more the order of the day than at present, and for the life of a nobleman forty shillings were paid, but for that of a peasant only six. This also is, I believe, an old German law. But you have no Milesian families in Germany? Is not that true? This is a descent on which we Irish alone may pride ourselves. It is something quite peculiar to belong to such a family, the members of which can live forty days without once taking food. This is the general belief of the people in Ireland. Look! there is a person who, though she is not of a royal race, can yet fast even longer than forty days. It is Norisheen, driver, is it not?’ ‘No doubt, your worship, who else should it be but Norisheen?’ exclaimed the driver in a cheerful tone.
‘See, sir, this Norisheen is a legislator: we might consult her
I beheld an old woman covered with rags, clinging to a wall beside a ruined cabin. She was busy repairing her turf-wall, for the Irish usually surround their cabins with high and thick walls of turf, which thus warms them twice, first, by protecting them from the wintry blasts, and, secondly, by burning on the hearth. If a wall happens to surround their yard, the turf is piled up on it, and thus a higher wall is raised. To such a turf-wall Norisheen clung, with a foot in one cleft and holding on by her hand in another—the luxury of a ladder, her establishment doubtless could not boast of—and was employed in arranging the pieces of turf on the wall. My companion and the driver called to her as we passed: ‘Norisheen! Norisheen!’ She turned round, and, still clinging to the wall, waved her right arm, as she replied with the same cry, ‘Norisheen! Norisheen!’
‘There's a woman that's learned for you!’ said the driver; ‘she knows the history of every family in Ireland, and even what passed here before the birth of Christ. And what's more, she'll prophesy the future for you, just as easily as the past. She knows every person in the country far and wide, and is herself well known to all the world here. They say she knows a great deal of Carrigogunal, and what takes place at times on that lonely rock.’
My companions then related to me, half in jest and half in earnest, so much that is wonderful of this woman, that I was afterwards sorry I had not made her acquaintance. I asked my companions whether they believed O'Connell knew Norisheen. ‘It was probable enough,’ they replied, ‘that O'Connell had heard of her; but that she of course knew O'Connell before his birth, because in the last century she had prophesied that such an O'Connell would come; and even now she daily speaks and prophesies about him. She is without doubt, even though she does not contribute to the rent, and receives no pay from him, one of his greatest helpers, for she plays many a trick for him; and I assure you it is of no small importance to O'Connell that the witches and fairies should think well of him.’ Ireland is full of old women of this description.
If, as I have said, the people wander about the streets on Saturday evening, after having received their week's wages, they are also again to be seen there in crowds on Sunday, but with an altered appearance, being now attired in their Sunday clothes, although on the look-out for employment. In every place through which we passed numbers of men stood in the market-places and near the churches, usually with their spades in their hands, waiting
The poor and ruinous aspect of Clare reminded me of the Lithuanian and Polish cities. Though it bears the name of the county, and lies at the mouth of the river Fergus, which is here navigable, it is not the chief town. The principal town is Ennis, some miles further up, which presents a much more orderly and thriving appearance. This town is chiefly remarkable for the extraordinary excitement which occurred there in 1828, on O'Connell's election, and which has almost made it famous in history. At that period the Irish dared not to elect Catholics as members of parliament. Nevertheless, O'Connell became a candidate for the county of Clare, and carried his election in spite of the extraordinary exertions of his adversaries. Being a Catholic, he was rejected by the parliament, but was, notwithstanding, three times re-chosen by the county. This produced a violent encounter between the opposing parties. The Irish people, instead of wishing to send Roman Catholics to parliament, DID so, and taught the English nation that the Catholics had plenty of adherents in Ireland. Thus the ice was broken on both sides; and the Clare election, which preceded the Emancipation Bill, and mainly contributed to its passing into a law, was therefore, in its consequences, the most important election in the history of Ireland. Ever since this event, Clare has been O'Connell's favourite county. It is also the favourite seat of a very celebrated Irish family, the O'Briens; for although O'Briens are to be met with all over Ireland, this is their proper home, and here there are hundreds of the name, and the old seats of all the most distinguished branches of this family. Here also is the beautiful pile, Drummolent Castle, which belongs to one of the most wealthy of the O'Briens; and here, too, once stood Kincora, the castle of the most celebrated of all the O'Briens, the great king Brian Boru, the pride not only of his race, but of his country. He lived about the year 1000, (1014,) and fought no fewer than fifty battles with the Danes, which are celebrated at the present day in the poems and traditions of the people. After him many O'Briens were kings of Munster. Now they are only members of parliament. As Clare has its O'Briens, so almost every other county has its great family, whose
Edenvale is one of the prettiest country-seats in the county of Clare; and its proprietor is an influential Protestant landowner, from whom I received, and accepted with pleasure, an invitation to spend some days in his Eden. The British, including the Irish, understand better than any other people how to select a site for a country house, and to encircle it with a little Eden: perhaps, therefore, this will be a sufficient inducement to my readers to accompany me thither, especially when I add that Edenvale has obtained some celebrity in Ireland for its charming situation. The house is situated upon the steep slope of a little glen, and is approached by a slight ascent from the Ennis road. In the bosom of the glen is a small oblong lake, in which its leafy shores are mirrored. I found my hospitable host in his garden, busied with his trees and flowers, and immediately set out with him to inspect his charming property.
The French and the Dutch drive almost every charm of wild, uncultivated nature from their gardens, in which nothing but art is to be seen. We Germans, on the contrary, have too much of this wildness in some of our country-seats. The English alone know best how to unite art and nature; and in their parks and ornamental grounds the grace and beauty of the former are better blended with the wild strength and magic charms of the latter, than in the landscape-gardening of any other nation.
The glen of Edenvale has two declivities or sides: the one is rugged, the other gently sloping to the lake. The former has been allowed to retain its original character, except that it is closely planted with the most beautiful forest trees, above which project steep cliffs, partly covered with the thickest ivy. Footpaths lead along the lake and over the rocks; and on a projecting cliff which juts out into the lake, is a little wooden hermitage. This wild part, as opposed to the garden, is called par excellence ‘the Glen.’ A portion of the Glen, which affords good pasture,
Such is the wild side of the valley. Opposite to it lies the cultivated side. First, the pretty dwelling-house, with its ‘pleasure grounds,’ as the English term those which immediately surround the mansion, the beautifully-kept grass plot, and the ‘shrubberies,’ through which serpentine walks meander. Further on, the gardens, properly so called, are seen—fruit, vegetable, and flower gardens— the latter displaying the most beautiful profusion of flowers on its several terraces, which run down close to the lake, while its many-coloured tints form a charming contrast with the simple green of the opposite side. Taken on the whole, landscape gardening has not attained such perfection in wild Ireland as in England; yet as the climate of this country is much more favourable to plants and trees, when, as is sometimes the case, Irish art does its best, Irish gardens far exceed those of England in beauty.
The chief charm of English gardens consists in their richness in evergreens, and of those the Irish have still more, as the climate of the latter is milder than that of the former. In the gardens of the north of France there is scarcely an evergreen to be met with, although many attempts have been made to introduce some of the species into that country; the holly, for instance, which is quite common in England and Ireland. The list of English evergreens comprises no fewer than thirty-six genera, many of which, as the holly, possess an almost infinite number of species. Those which are to be seen in almost every garden in great numbers, and in complete thickets, are many species of cistus, cytisus, lauristinus, juniper, ivy, lignum vitae, rhododendron, magnolia, cypress, cedar, the most beautiful hollies, laurels in the greatest abundance, (whole hedges and walls of them,) numerous evergreen oaks, roses, and jasmines. To these, in Ireland, is added the arbutus, (which here even grows wild,) and several others which do not flourish in England. These evergreens are found in every part of Ireland; and most of them, if not the whole, grow in the extreme north of the island, beyond the 55th degree of latitude, and beneath the parallels of the northern parts of Poland and Lithuania, where
The most remarkable thing I saw in this charming glen was an obscuration of the sun, towards evening, caused by an immense flock of rooks. Never, at any time of my life, have I seen so many birds collected together. It seemed as if all the twenty thousand ruins of Ireland had at once assembled and sent forth their troops of feathered inmates. The air appeared literally to be filled with them up to the stars. The cawing of these myriads occasioned an uproar in the lately so quiet glen, beyond any I had ever heard, and their droppings rained down like a shower of hail. Their number was beyond computation. At first I thought, as I have said, of the many castles of the old chieftains and of the Danes, who themselves have a rook in their national standard; but these castles are inhabited chiefly by owls and ‘Jack Daws,’ while the objects of my astonishment were rooks only. My friends at Edenvale assured me that this phenomenon was quite common, and that the glen was one of their chief gathering-places. I can only compare these flights of myriads upon myriads of rooks with what we read of the migrations and associations of the wild pigeons in America. After continuing their thousand-voiced concert for a considerable time, they gradually dispersed; and when the air was again cleared of them, I breathed more freely. These rooks generally build their nests about large farm-yards, in the neighbourhood of churchyards and old mansions; and these settlements are by the English termed ‘rookeries.’
For what purpose these birds collect in immense suffocating masses, is to me a riddle. Even in the very heart of London there are many well-known rookeries. Rook-shooting is one of the ‘rural sports’ of the English; and as all their sports are cultivated in the minutest details, ‘Jackson's patent steel crossbow’ is greatly recommended and used for this particular pastime. The English make of these birds the well-known rook-pies, which we do not envy them. The Irish do not eat them, and, when the numerous flocks are seen, will deridingly say to the foreigner, ‘the English soldiers here shoot them, and make pies of them.’ I know not why these birds are so numerous in Ireland. They feed partly on the wheat in the fields, and thus may be supposed to diminish the produce. At the same time, however, they devour the larvae of many insects which are injurious to the seed, and are therefore so far a benefit. It has been remarked that, on the destruction of extensive rookeries, certain larvae have so much increased as entirely to destroy the corn; and the failure of the grain-crops in Ireland, in 1747, is ascribed to this cause.
In England, where servants are always kept at a proper distance, they seldom display that impertinent familiarity which is so often met with in Ireland, and of which the coachman of my friend, a well-fed, good-humoured-looking fellow, who attended us through the stables and farm-buildings, was a striking instance. Although his master was present during the whole time, the servant never ceased talking, and he ever preceded his master, who followed silently and modestly behind us. ‘This stable we finished only last year,’ said the coachman to me. ‘It has given us a deal of trouble, for we had first to blow away the whole of that great rock. May it please your honour to remark how much we had to blast there. But we shall have a beautiful view when those trees there are felled. Look down there, your honour, all that are his dominions,’ continued he, pointing to his master. ‘In two months he'll have finished the new building he has begun.’ No English servant would have presumed thus to conduct himself towards his master, and yet these Irish servants are taken from a tenantry infinitely more dependent than the peasantry of England. There is, however, a great deal of familiarity in the character of the Irishman, which enables him readily to assume an equality with his superiors; and as with this familiarity he also unites wit and humour, he is enabled, like the fools of the middle ages, to take more liberties with his master. Despotism, too, has the effect of making its slaves insolent and forward. Domestic fools were kept only by the despots of the middle ages, but not by the Roman consuls, the presidents of America, or constitutional kings.
Whilst at Edenvale I heard of another old crone, named Consideen, to whom the people ascribed supernatural powers. During a short excursion into the country, I met her in a neighbour's house which I happened to enter. The cabin of this neighbour stood quite alone, on a desolate rocky hill, which formed a dismal contrast to the beautiful bushy glen. The old octogenarian dame sat leaning on a stick, by the turf fire of her friend. She told me she had often seen Death, supported upon two crutches, standing at the end of the meadow, when any one of her family was going to die. She knew for certain, too, that, old as she was, she was not to die yet a while, as Death would first come and give her notice.
There are few old women in Ireland who have not visions of some kind or other, in which they inflexibly and firmly believe. ‘Oh, if your honour could only hear these two women talking together,’ said my guide who had brought me to Consideen, ‘you'd then be astonished at the hundreds of beautiful stories they can tell; but you are strange to them now, and they have not the courage to speak out.’
I had been informed that in the same neighbourhood was a spot which the people regarded as a meeting-ground of the fairies; and after some entreaty I was conducted to the place. Passing across the rough rocky crown of the hill, we gained its extreme edge, where I found a round grass-plot, some two hundred paces in circumference, which, they said, was sacred to the ‘good people.’ I inquired whether they had themselves ever actually seen the fairies. ‘Very often, in whole troops,’ they replied. ‘However,’ remarked one, ‘I am always on my guard against them, for they once led me on a bad road, where I went astray, tumbled over something I took for the root of a tree, and broke my little finger.’
‘But,’ said I, ‘I cannot conceive why you call such folk, good people. If they treated me this way, I would call them bad people.’
‘That may be, your honour; but may be I annoyed them in some way or other, unknown to myself, and sure it was very good of them to break my little finger only; but I should not like to vex them by calling them what your honour calls them.’
‘See what a brain these people have!’ whispered my companion in my ear. Wondrous indeed are the contrasts and strange the thoughts which present themselves to the mind when standing on a bare, rocky, boggy fairy-haunted hill, with a few smoky turf-cabins sticking to it, and inhabited by a couple of old visionaries, whilst opposite to it is another hill, beautiful, flowery, bushy, park-like, with enlightened inhabitants.
On my return to Edenvale I visited some of the splendid mansions in its neighbourhood. They appeared to me not less spectral than that fairy-ground, for not a human being was to be found in them. The white window-blinds were drawn down, and all was still and silent as the grave. Their proprietors were ‘absentees’ in England, where they spend their Irish revenues. Such spectral deserted palaces are, alas! like the fairy-grounds and ruins, but too often to be seen in Ireland. The wealthy Protestant proprietors have a hundred reasons for not finding themselves at home among their poor Roman Catholic tenants. The wild and uncultivated country, which is not so easily remedied—the barbarism of the people, who sometimes make attempts on the lives of their landlords—the greater attractions of English society—the unfortunate division of the Irish community into a number of hostile parties—and perhaps a certain feeling of shame and remorse for the injustice of the legalized tyranny which the rich Irish landlords exercise over the poor;—all this may have driven many wealthy persons from the country, and produced the
The country which extends westward from Ennis and Edenvale is the dark side of the county of Clare—the wildest, poorest, and most unfruitful part of it. Two reasons induced me to travel through this wretched country. First, I had heard that the celebrated Father Mathew was expected at Kilrush, which is the most easterly town on the Shannon; and, secondly, in the neighbourhood of this town is one of the most beautiful of the ‘Round Towers’ of Ireland, and the ruins of the ‘Seven Churches,’ which I was anxious to see. The distance from Edenvale to Kilrush is about sixteen English miles; yet along this whole district,
The fields adjoining the cabins are in the most disorderly state, and evidently tilled in the most negligent manner; they are usually without any fences, so that the desolate turf-bog mixes with them, or they are only surrounded by walls, the stones of which have all tumbled down one over another. I remember that I once pitied the poor Lettes, in Livonia, because they possess dwellings formed merely of round tree-stumps, with the interstices stuffed with moss. I pitied them especially on account of their low doors, and their small windows, and glad would I have been to see their chimneys better constructed. How many melancholy reflections arose in my mind when I beheld their scanty, rude, and wretched household! Now, may Heaven forgive me for my ignorance! I might have spared myself all this, had I known, as I now do, that it has pleased God to lay far greater privations on another people. Since I have seen Ireland, I find that even the poorest of the Lettes, Esthonians, and Finlanders dwell and live very respectably; and that, in ninety cases out of a hundred, Paddy would think himself as well off as a king, if he were dressed, lodged, and fed like these people. To him who has seen Ireland, no mode of life, in any other part of Europe, however wretched, will seem
A log hut carefully stuffed with moss—what comfort! Paddy's house is usually built only of clay; and how? Why, one shovelful of earth heaped upon another, with some field stones mixed up in it, till the walls are sufficiently high. A house regularly roofed with straw or bark—how delightful! But Paddy covers his cabin only with sods taken from his bogs. Small windows in the walls, neatly fitted with glass panes, or even half-transparent bladder, or talc, as here and there in Wallachia, and in some parts of Russia—bladders, good heavens, what a luxury! Paddy has houses enough in which there is not even the semblance of a window, and only one single square hole in the front, which serves at once for window, chimney, house-door, and stable-door, since light, smoke, men, pigs, all pass in and out through this hole.
An intelligent French writer, De Beaumont, who has been in Ireland, and also among the North American Indians, assures us that the wants of these wild barbarians are in general better supplied than those of the poor Irish; and truly one might almost believe, that greater physical privations are endured by the Irish, than by the people of any other country, not only in Europe, but throughout the whole world. Indeed, look in whatever direction we may for a comparison, the Irishman stands alone, and his misery is without an equal. This can never be placed in too strong a light: for if it is true, that the misery of the Irishman is unique on this globe, every friend of humanity must feel himself called upon to devote his thoughts and his exertions to provide a remedy for the evil.
The Russian, it is true, is often the bondsman of a harder master than the Irishman; but his food and lodging are as good as he would wish, and there is no trace of Irish beggary about him. He feels happy in his bondage too, and is not, like the Irishman in his yearnings for freedom, continually biting his chains, or vainly attempting to break them. The Hungarians, also, do not belong to the nations which are most delicately lodged; but what good white bread does not the very lowest of them eat, and what wine does he not drink? Would the Hungarian for a moment believe that there are people enough in a Christian land who can afford to eat nothing but potatoes, day after day? The Servians and the Bosnians are reckoned among the poorest and most pitiable people of Europe, and the appearance of their villages is certainly not very inviting. But how well dressed these people are! If Paddy could only peep into a Servian dwelling, and see a Servian woman sitting there in her gala dress, and the men
The African negroes are naked, but they have a hot sun. The Irish are not only without clothes, but they have also a wet and cool climate, if not a cold one. The American Indians live sometimes wretchedly enough, but they know not a better state of existence; and then, as they are hunters, they obtain many a good joint of roast meat, and make themselves many a feast day in the year. Christmas-day is the Irishman's only festival throughout the whole year, for on every other day he eats nothing but potatoes. This is not living like a human being, to whom nature has given an appetite and a stomach for various kinds of food; but rather resembles those inferior animals which are appointed to be fed exclusively on one root, or one species of berry or plant.
As there are nations who go naked, but who have also a hot sun to keep them warm, so there are others who are slaves, but to whom this slavery has been necessary for their existence; others who are poor, but who wish for nothing else, since they know nothing better; and others, again, whom a famine sometimes
The estates indeed are by no means so extensive as in England. The largest are those of the Duke of Leinster and some other wealthy individuals, whose yearly income is from £50,000 to £70,000; the latter is the highest amount in Ireland; and we may assume the former as more common. Now if we take the wages of an Irish labourer to be, as at present, sixpence a day, and suppose that his wife earns in addition fourpence daily, and that upon this pittance they and their family can exist, we have, for the year of three hundred working-days, a total product of three thousand pence, or £12, as the income upon which a labourer's family must support life. A single individual, worth £50,000 a year, therefore consumes as much as four thousand poor families, who have constant work and feed themselves in the Irish manner. But if we calculate the days, many-numbered, of anxiety and care, on which no work is to be had—if we take these into account, the income of the poor Irishman, whose labour is his only means of support, must be still considerably lessened; and the proportion of four thousand to one, which poverty bears to wealth, will be much increased.
It is most discouraging to travel through one of these melancholy rocky, boggy districts, abounding only in ruins; whilst, whether you look to the past or the future, a more beautiful prospect or a more cheerful retrospect nowhere opens on the view. There is no trace that a better system of cultivation, a happier race, or a higher social condition of the population, has ever existed here. Every thing wears the aspect of a misery old as the world itself; and it causes an oppressive feeling to find that here nothing has ever been produced but rags from rags, rocks upon rocks, ruins upon ruins, morass upon morass, and beggars from beggars. One cannot even look into the future with pleasure. There was more
In the temperance movement, in Catholic emancipation, and in many other things, may be perceived some rays of light and some progress, which have already, here and there, produced a good effect on the poor man in his cabin; but so inconsiderable a portion of these beams has as yet penetrated through the murky atmosphere of the county of Clare, and into the melancholy hovels of its inhabitants, that I almost imagined this dawn did not yet exist for Ireland.
The walls of the little inns at which we stopped to change horses were generally placarded with numerous government proclamations, offering rewards for the discovery of criminals. Fifty pounds were offered for the discovery of the persons who attacked and murdered Farmer So-and-so, on the 15th of May; thirty pounds for information concerning the persons who burned a mill
In passing a field I saw what I imagined to be a figure, such as in Germany is dressed up and placed in the gardens, or beanfields, &c., to scare away the birds. The rags and shreds were fluttering in the wind; the tattered hat was set on the spot where the head should be; I fancied I saw the sticks which were to represent the legs, and the entire object was standing stiff in the field. All at once, however, it began to move, and came towards us begging for alms. I now perceived that a head was really there, and that the sticks were real legs; and I immediately thought of the celebrated apparition, which was once exhibited in England under the name of the Living Skeleton, and which was literally composed of nothing but skin, sinews, and bones, the muscles and all trace of fat having entirely vanished. This Living Skeleton also came from Ireland; and perhaps the eternal hunger and distress of this people more frequently produce such morbid phenomena.
We carried with us the letter-bags for those villages and seats which lay adjacent to our line of road. At every stage a similar pitiable scarecrow presented himself with a letter-bag, which he strove at times to protect from the wet, by so arranging the rags which danced about him, that a portion of them covered the bag. What a contrast to the fellows who, in Saxony and Prussia, are entrusted with the not unimportant business of forwarding the letters of the public from village to village!
During the entire journey of sixteen miles our carriage was the only one I saw, except an innumerable multitude of two-wheeled cars, drawn by donkeys, which slowly crept along the road, taking home the winter's supply of fuel, accompanied by Paddies in a continually changing rag-metamorphosis. Although, probably, not one in a hundred of those who look like beggars actually beg, yet abundance of those who make a trade of mendicancy are every where to be seen. In these wild and poor western regions, how ever, they are perhaps somewhat less numerous than elsewhere,
A very frequent spectacle on the road is a little moveable box upon wheels, in which dwells some miserably poor involuntary Diogenes, with a glowing, smoking piece of turf usually lying near him. The hucksters and market women have always a similar bit of burning turf beside them on the pavement, at which they occasionally warm their fingers and light their pipes, and sometimes share it with others in a neighbourly manner.
A couple of very small lakes formed the only feature of variety in our journey. These were covered with a species of wild duck, called ‘Puffins’ by the Irish. It was formerly very difficult to shoot these ducks, on account of their rapid disappearance beneath the water; but the introduction of percussion guns has rendered the feat more easy of accomplishment, and the birds are consequently now becoming scarcer.11
To a mere pleasure-hunting traveller in this desert, I can readily imagine that a couple of hours would appear like a hundred years, or exactly the reverse of Paddy's stories of the fairy country, in which a hundred years seem but two hours. The Irish, in common with all depressed nations, have their dreams of a fairy-land of wonderful beauty, and the man who drove me the last stage to Kilrush was full of them. Whilst we were rolling down the hills in the twilight, and drawing nigh the little town, he told me of a king who was carried by a fairy lady into that charming land, where he led a splendid and delightful life, till one day he wished himself back on the earth, among men. The fairies then gave him a magic horse, at the same time warning him, as he valued his eternal youth, not to touch the ground with his foot, although he might gallop about the earth on the horse as long as he pleased. He had already spent two hundred years among the fairies, by whose enchantment his youth and strength had been preserved; but on touching the earth this spell would be instantly broken. The king rode forth on the earth, and was greatly rejoiced at again saluting this dear old mother of all mankind. Approaching his own palace, where he had once been used to command, and riding up the court-yard, he saw there another king, ordering arrangements which were not pleasing to him; whereupon he forgot himself for an instant, and, with a
I am convinced that a diligent collector could find matter enough in Ireland for more than a thousand-and-one nights, and that an Irish Scheherazade could by her tales preserve her life as long as the Arabian did with hers. It is surprising that so little is known throughout Europe of the treasures of Irish popular poetry. Don Quixote and Gil Blas have acquired universal celebrity as tales of Spanish adventurers and enthusiasts; and it is inconceivable why similar tales of Irish adventurers and enthusiasts have not been produced, since there are so many of them actually to be found in Ireland; and as Paddy, as an English colonist or emigrant, often wanders over the whole world, the subject would seem to be inexhaustible.
As O'Connell has always his tail of followers about him in Ireland, so likewise is the traveller in that country attended by a similar tail, wherever he goes. Should he visit any thing remarkable, twelve Ciceroni accompany his steps instead of one. Does he roll along the high road in a carriage, he is followed by a tail of children and beggars. And when he enters a village, this tail is farther increased by the innkeepers and their servants. In short, in Ireland all stars are magnified into comets. As I entered Kilrush, at least twenty adults and twice as many children ran after our car—some to beg, others to recommend particular inns, and others from curiosity, but still more for the mere sport of the thing. Some even obtrusively seated themselves on the car; and with this little triumphal procession I entered Kilrush.
Kilrush is a little seaport town, and, like all Irish seaports, has fewer ruins, and a more fresh and agreeable aspect, than the towns of the interior. It enjoys some trade on the Shannon. Having quartered myself with an old sailor who had fought under Lord Nelson, and who keeps the only tolerable inn here, I hastened to the place prepared for the reception of Father Mathew.
In every town in Ireland, the temperance societies have
The cause of temperance has no where more adherents than in Ireland; nay, it has actually originated here, and here also it has its strong-hold. Almost every Irishman wears the temperance medal, and no less than five millions (this number I have from his own mouth,) are said to have taken the pledge from Father Mathew. The Apostle of Temperance has given to this society its peculiar sanctity and dignity, and hence the Irish themselves acknowledge no other. ‘Our temperance society is the only genuine one,’ said my guide: ‘elsewhere, in America for instance, there were temperance societies previous to ours, but they are not of the right sort. They hav'n't generally adopted total abstinence, and they break the pledge very often. With us it is quite the contrary. When Father Mathew has once laid his hands on a man's head, and blessed him, and hung the medal around his neck, he is dedicated to temperance for his entire life: from that moment he hates all intoxicating liquors, and can no longer endure those who are given to drinking. So great is the effect of the blessing of our Apostle of Temperance.’
The Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland, though, at first, they beheld with jealousy the movement originated by the exertions of a simple monk, have allowed themselves to be borne along by the stream; nay, have even partially placed themselves at its head; and the entire matter has thus assumed a catholic-religious character. Every mighty movement in a nation, and every widely-branching
Garlands and wreaths of flowers encircled the banners and the hall. A large table, in the form of a horseshoe, stood in the middle of the room; and long boards, laid on blocks of wood and barrels, served as seats. At the top of the horseshoe two arm-chairs were placed—one for Father Mathew, and the other for the principal Catholic priest of the town, who was to preside at the meeting. Behind these arm-chairs, on the wall, was suspended a gigantic cornucopia, from which a number of shamrocks were represented as falling,—another allusion to Irish nationality. On side tables stood vast numbers of teacups, and large piles of bread and butter; for at all the festive meetings of the temperance men, tea is the only drink, and bread and butter their only food. In London, the temperance tea-houses are very numerous; and in many of the towns and villages of England and Ireland, where a beer-jug or a whisky bottle was once displayed, a teapot and a few cups and saucers are now to be seen in the window.
My friend having still many arrangements to complete, I returned to the street. The night was pitchy dark, and two dim tallow candles, fixed upon the door-posts, threw a weak flickering gleam upon the crowd that was assembled outside the hall. The people were shouting one to another; and I heard some say that Father Mathew had already arrived; that a deputation of the principal temperance men had gone to meet him with music, and conducted him in; that he had alighted at the priest's, to refresh himself a little after his journey, and would shortly make his appearance. The contemplation of this scene produced something like a religious effect on my mind, and I thought of those scenes in the history of the Apostles, in which they describe their journeys, and the little towns they visited.
Father Mathew founded the Irish Temperance Society on the 10th of April, 1838, since which time he has been constantly
Suddenly arose the cry, ‘He comes! he comes!’ and I heard at the other end of the street a burst of that most horrible—(this term I ought not to use, since the instruments were blown in so estimable a cause)—music, with which the temperance men open all their public meetings and processions. All the temperance associations have taken music into their especial service, and at their own expense have formed bands, which accompany their processions and enliven their soirées. At times they go in procession through the towns and their environs, and on these occasions, which generally occupy the whole day, all the adherents of the cause are invited. These excursions, for which in London steam-boats are frequently hired, are undertaken partly to promote suitable and beneficial temperance pleasures, and partly to show themselves to the public, for all which purposes the temperance bands may be requisite. In the Irish towns, however, it is also usual for these bands to promenade the streets on Sunday evenings. This is probably done to denote their existence, as well as to advance the cause, and stimulate the zeal of their adherents. But I must confess that my ear was not so attuned as to find any soothing harmony in their music; and were all their trumpets, clarionets, cornets-à-piston, and drums, blown and beat at random, I do not believe the discord could be much greater. It is a pity that better taste is not united with such a cause.
At the cry of ‘He comes! he comes!’ I betook myself to my place, and seated myself at the end of a bench near my teacup, which had been kindly placed exactly opposite Father Mathew. All the other friends of temperance, young men, old men, women, and girls, also took their places. Young persons composed the majority of our assemblage.
He came—the great man, the Apostle of Temperance, who, after O'Connell, may be deemed the most prominent character in Ireland, since the great phenomenon of five millions of people joining hands in a noble cause is to be looked upon as entirely his work. As O'Connell rules the entire repeal association, and stands at the head of all repealers like a dictator, so the temperance cause almost entirely depends upon Father Mathew, who guides the whole vast association, and exercises a controlling influence
In the year 1838, some Quakers, struck by the misery produced among the lower classes by drunkenness, resolved to found a temperance society in Cork; but their efforts proving unsuccessful, they begged Father Mathew to devote his talents and his powers
It may be doubted whether history furnishes an example of so great a moral revolution, accomplished in so short a time, and whether any man ever so quickly obtained so great and bright a name as Father Mathew. In point of fact, there is something altogether unparalleled in the Irish Temperance Society. We have, indeed, often beheld old, decayed political fabrics tumbled down in a short time; we have even sometimes seen religious systems and principles of belief quickly vanish; but not till they had been previously undermined and warred against for centuries. Such sudden revolutions and rapid reformations were in these cases merely the visible and manifested effects of causes which had been long at work, although their operation was silent and unseen. But where is to be found a similar example of a people, wholly without preparation, without previous instruction, rising unanimously at the call of a single individual, in the very plenitude of their vices, (for the Irish were the greatest and most habitual drunkards in the world,)12 contending against itself, against its own passions, (not against the privileged classes, or its powerful priesthood,) tearing up sweet old habits by the roots, and confining itself to strict and rigorous abstinence! Here is an entire people doing what, in the middle ages, but a few pious monks were able to accomplish! How hard it is to fulfil that saying of Christ, that we should put off the old man and put on the new! Yet here we see the wonderful phenomenon of five millions of men fulfilling this command in one particular. They have put off an old man, worn out with diseases which have hitherto resisted the medicine of every physician, and have suddenly put on a new, vigorous, abstinent, and sober man.
In all reforms and revolutions there have ever been thousands of men who derived some accession of wealth or territory by the change. In Luther's reformation many princes took a willing
All classes seemed thus to be interested in opposing the progress of temperance, and the cause had to struggle against the strong
As to the means by which the temperance movement was created and kept in motion, they were nearly similar to those by which all theories, principles, and parties are promulgated and extended in Great Britain. I have already mentioned that the teetotallers, like the Chartists and other political societies, have their public demonstrations, their great processions, their numerous meetings, and festive parties. On these occasions speeches are listened to, frequently interspersed with noise, tumult, and tasteless music; and it has often occurred to me, that the intemperate zeal with which the British people advocate the principles which they have once adopted, (not excepting even temperance
Nor are the motives by which individuals are induced to enter the temperance societies all alike pure and disinterested. I have already mentioned that the Irish beggars sometimes adorn themselves with the medal, because they know that it gives them a better chance of receiving alms. Many of the upper classes are said to have taken the pledge merely to set an example to their inferiors, and in the hope that sober tenants will be better able to pay their rents than drunkards. Many have also joined the societies as an excuse for their niggardliness and avarice; for many niggards think themselves extremely fortunate in having found in temperance an excellent and praiseworthy pretext to conceal their avarice and spare their guineas. These now give their families and guests water instead of wine, and tea instead of punch; and since temperance has become the order of the day in Ireland, nobody dares to grumble at the substitution. Others have been led, as I before
All these things are, I repeat, extremely natural and not to be avoided; for not only are they based in the nature of man, and would therefore show themselves any where, but they are also a portion of the Irish character, and unavoidable in Ireland; whilst in other countries they either display themselves in a different manner, or not at all. In Germany, the temperance cause would take quite a different course, and very different means would be made use of for its advancement. There, teetotalism could hardly succeed: it would not be taken up with the same religious, almost fanatical, enthusiasm; few would be found to hang the medal round their necks; and the tumultuous meetings and soirées would not take the same shape. In a word, German temperance would assume a completely different physiognomy. So much is connected with the diffusion of temperance, that one may almost safely predict from its adoption a complete reform of the whole social condition of the Irish, since it chiefly aims at the infusing into the people a taste for a description of pleasure and enjoyments widely differing from those they formerly enjoyed in the whisky-shops.
As temperance tea-parties, such as that which I attended, are now almost daily given in all places in England and Ireland, it may be interesting to my readers to learn how it was conducted. The chairman opened the meeting by congratulating himself and this little town on its being deemed worthy of a visit from the great Apostle of Temperance. As often as he mentioned Father Mathew he bowed reverentially to him, designating him as ‘the great Apostle of Temperance,’ ‘the great god-gifted man,’ and by other equally high-flown titles. I thought of Christ, who, when his disciples praised him, said that no one was good but God in heaven; and I fancied that Father Mathew, who repudiates the miracles which the people ascribe to him, should likewise have disclaimed the gross flatteries which the orator uttered in his presence. Such a course would unquestionably add greatly to his other merits. But pompous and exaggerated expressions are so generally characteristic of the Irish, that incense of this nature, sprinkled upon him by his friends, may perhaps be necessary to maintain his reputation and influence with the people. (I forgot to mention that on his entering the room the band struck up the
Father Mathew then rose, and expressed his joy at finding himself again in Kilrush, and at seeing assembled around him so many of those who on his first visit had taken the pledge, and were still faithful to their vow. He then detailed (amid the continual cheers of the meeting, and ceaseless cries of ‘hear! hear!’) the most recent results of their great cause. In particular he gave an account of his last journey across the Channel to Glasgow, where, he said, no fewer than 80,000 persons of all religious persuasions assembled to meet him, and where he had shaken hands with thousands upon thousands: and though he was but a powerless straw on the great stream of temperance, he was received in Glasgow as if he were an angel come down from heaven (ipsissima verba). There are in Glasgow alone 50,000 Irish, and to these his visit must indeed have been particularly acceptable.
Father Mathew's eloquence is one of those endowments for which he is particularly admired. In point of fact, he possesses a sonorous voice, and, what is much more important, a glowing enthusiasm, and a firm conviction of the success of the cause. He occasionally hesitates, and even stammers. After he has been speaking for some time quite fluently and rapidly, he seems all at once unable to find some suitable word, or to express an idea sufficiently quick. His speech stops short, his tongue no longer obeys him, the construction of his sentences becomes entangled, his thoughts grow confused, he stops for a moment, he grows red, his regularly beautiful countenance becomes even distorted, he begins to make some convulsive efforts, and to help out his meaning with some movements of his hands, till at length the knot is suddenly unloosed, the thoughts again begin to flow, the new idea is born, the tongue again recovers its volubility, and the speech rushes along, sonorous and copious as before. I believe that this stopping and hesitation, which might seem to be a defect in an orator, often increases the interest with which Father Mathew is listened to. It is said that Alexander the Great, though a handsome man, had a stiff wry neck; and this, as Plutarch informs us, all his courtiers imitated, because in him they found it particularly interesting. When the figure or the language is generally beautiful, sundry little defects and irregularities only render this beauty still more interesting; and this, I believe, is the case with the occasional hesitation of Father Mathew. At first I imagined he was a little affected in this respect but I afterwards found it was a natural defect.
Father Mathew has a very pretty and delicate hand, and dresses well, almost elegantly. He usually wears a fine black great-coat, and his linen is dazzlingly white. There is something particularly distinguished and gentlemanlike in his entire person and appearance, which is the more remarkable, as he has ever been a man, of the people, has laboured and spoken for the humble and poor alone, and is beloved by them especially. Men of the people not unfrequently endeavour to increase their popularity by an affectation of cynicism, of which O'Connell is an instance, there being nothing elegant or gentlemanlike either in his person or appearance.
Father Mathew concluded his address amid universal and long-continued applause, the noise being equally as great as when he first entered the room. The people clapped their hands, stamped their feet, shouted, whistled, and the tumult was still farther swelled by the noise of the trumpets. A corpulent old man, one of the leading personages of the society, from whose brow the tea he had drunk was rolling down in big drops of perspiration, (Theeschweißtropfen,) continually waved his handkerchief, exclaiming, ‘Again! again!’ at the same time looking at Father Mathew with a sort of triumphant air, in order to read in his countenance an expression of joy and satisfaction. All this seems to be an indispensable appendage to temperance in Ireland.
In the intervals between the speeches the band in the gallery played Irish or English national melodies, but without the least regard to time, although the leader kept beating it most diligently. In the meantime we emptied cup after cup, and conversation became general around the table. On each of the cups and plates there was a portrait of Father Mathew, in the act of giving his blessing and the medal to the people—another addition to my list of overstrained Irish flatteries.
I asked Father Mathew whether he had any intention of extending his labours beyond Ireland and Scotland. He replied that he had long thought of visiting some parts of Germany in particular, but had hitherto been deterred by his ignorance of the language, which he feared would prove the greatest obstacle to his success. As an inspired apostle of temperance, he would be of use in almost every country, especially if he took the field against all kinds of intemperance. But to qualify him for this, the gift of tongues must descend upon him, as it did upon the Apostles of the New Testament; and I do not think it probable that he will ever extend his mission beyond his own island, and those towns of England in which his countrymen are most numerous. He will always find ample employment at home in keeping alive and regulating
In some of the intervals old Irish melodies were sung by the young people. Many of these were very beautiful; for although, in the early ages, Ireland was but little esteemed among the other nations of Europe, she has received from those remote periods, melodies more enchanting and exquisite than are to be found any where else in the world. At this meeting, as in all British festivities, there was no lack of toasts, prefaced by long speeches. The toast proposed with the most elaborate speech, though by no means received with the greatest enthusiasm, was ‘The Irish Clergy.’
At the commencement of the proceedings, Father Mathew had cautioned the speakers to refrain from all political allusions. ‘The only question which occupied them,’ he said, ‘was the cause of temperance, and the slightest allusions to religious and political differences (which they, as temperance men, ought to consider as not existing at all,) should be totally avoided.’ This admonition, however, was disregarded by one of the speakers, who alluded to O'Connell and his exertions in a manner that could not fail to be displeasing to every one who was not a partisan of this tribune of the people. ‘Order! order!’ exclaimed Father Mathew to this individual, with a commanding voice. This was, properly speaking, the duty of the chairman; but as he neglected it, Father Mathew immediately grasped the reins; and the quick and zealous manner in which he did so, and the promptness with
Towards midnight, after innumerable speeches and replies, toasts and counter-toasts, Father Mathew left the meeting. The tables and teapots were now removed, and a merry dance commenced, which must have continued some hours, as it was morning when I heard the temperance band playing their melodies through the street as they returned home.
At nine o'clock on the following morning, Father Mathew was again at his post. This time, however, the scene of his labours was the church, where he read mass, and then distributed temperance medals to some hundreds of persons who presented themselves for that purpose. This medal is a round piece of pewter, about the size of a five-franc piece. Upon it are stamped the words of the pledge, which are to the effect, that the holder will abstain from all intoxicating liquors, and do all in his power to dissuade others from using them. Some persons, as I have said, wear them constantly as a kind of amulet. They frequently hang them round the necks of their children, who are admitted into the society long before they know any thing of intoxicating liquors, evidently for the same reason that the Russians and other nations cause the sacrament to be administered to their children, before they know any thing of its signification. The wealthy have silver medals, which they wear on festive occasions. Along with this medal each person receives a paper, a sort of diploma, or certificate of admission into the society. In Ireland this medal is called ‘the pledge,’ and to ‘take the pledge’ means the same as to become a member of the society. On the other hand, ‘to break the pledge’ means to break the vow, and again return to intemperance. This of course is frequently the case, and it is not unusual to hear expressions of regret that so many have broken the pledge. Nor is this surprising. On the contrary, it is a wonder that so many millions conscientiously and faithfully confine themselves within the narrow bounds to which the temperance pledge confines them. It often happens that individuals come to Father Mathew with repentant confessions, return him their broken pledge, and entreat him to administer it once more. This he usually does, after inflicting on them some slight ecclesiastical punishment for breaking their vow. Frequently, too, people give him back the pledge, and entreat him entirely to release them from their vow, which circumstances make it impossible for them to keep. Thus, some
There are numbers, also, who have manifold ways of evading their vow. Many, I was informed, allege that they only pledged themselves not to drink intoxicating liquors in any wine, beer, or whisky shop, but that they may fill their glass in the house and drink it in the street. Such cases may occur, but they are, I have little doubt, extremely rare. Father Mathew himself related to me a strange case of an old colonel, who was much tormented by the gout. He had not personally taken the pledge, but two of his sons were teetotallers. He sometimes used to resolve, probably when he was suffering from his disorder, to devote himself to temperance. At such times he would borrow a medal from one of his sons, and wear it as an amulet to counteract his wish for intoxicating liquors. But no sooner had the gout disappeared, than his love for the bottle again returned, and the medal was forthwith restored to his son. As long, however, as he wore it, he strictly refrained from drinking a single drop; and his conduct in the matter may be regarded as not a little characteristic of the manner in which the Irish frequently appreciate both the medal and the pledge.
A circumstance which I will now mention ought not to be passed over in silence. For every medal which Father Mathew distributes he receives thirteen pence. This is confessedly more than the actual cost of the medal, which is probably obtained for a very small part of that sum. But assuming that it costs one-half, and that Father Mathew (as, according to his own account, is the case,) has distributed five millions of medals, these have produced him a clear gain of 2,500,000 shillings, or more than £100,000. It is, however, universally asserted that the motives by which Father Mathew is influenced, are too noble and elevated to permit him to apply to his own private use any portion of the vast sums which he has thus received, and that the whole amount is devoted to purposes of general utility. He makes frequent gifts of £50, £60, or £80 to charitable institutions, and every where privately assists the poor. He is also building a handsome and costly church in Cork for which, it is true, he makes special collections, but on
The chief object of the Irish Temperance Society may be expressed in two words, ‘total abstinence’—perfect, unlimited, and unconditional renunciation of all intoxicating liquors. There are some temperance societies which only require abstinence from whisky, and permit the use of other less pernicious liquors, as beer, wine, &c., and only forbid excess and intoxication. The Irish, especially Father Mathew, contend that this degree of abstinence is insufficient, at least for Ireland; since, if any avenue to the bottle were left, the whole broad path to intoxication would again be speedily opened, and a relapse to drunkenness the all too frequent consequence. They therefore devote themselves to ‘total abstinence,’ or, as they designate it in one word, to ‘teetotalism,’ and call themselves ‘teetotallers,’ in contradistinction to other temperance people. At first I imagined that this strange title had something to do with tea, and meant nothing but tea. ‘Teetotal’ is, however, an old Irish word in general use, which signifies entirely, as, ‘he is teetotally ruined.’
Rejoicing in the good fortune which had given me an opportunity of seeing so closely the great Apostle of Teetotalism, ‘the gifted divine,’ ‘the God-gifted,’ as he is also called, and with silent wishes for his future success, and a long life, I left the little town of Kilrush. Whether this reformation, so victoriously commenced, will continue and prosper, may perhaps be doubted; but
On the other hand, if we consider the temperance cause itself, there is no doubt that at this moment it restrains the greatest part of the nation within salutary bounds, and has kept it there for four years. This space of time is long enough to make the people feel and acknowledge the many advantages of their altered mode of
The leisure hours which the drunkard passed in a state of brutal insensibility, the temperance man spends in reading. Since he thus gains time and taste for the cultivation of his mind, he will pay more attention to the education of his children, and thus the civilization of the people will be improved. The drunkard is the most helpless being in the world, and always dependant upon others. Hence it is quite usual for those who wish to make others their dependants, to accustom them to the use of intoxicating liquors. The sober man alone is capable of governing himself, and a feeling of independence will arise among the hitherto deeply subjected Irish. They will be raised in their own esteem, and consequently in that of others. Intelligence and knowledge, which are also power, and the acquisition of property, which produces greater independence, will increase that desire for freedom which is inseparable from a manly character, and ultimately produce a freer political constitution. Much of what O'Connell, at the head of his Helots, now fiercely and vainly demands, mast be granted to a sober, intelligent, thriving, and freedom-loving people.
Still greater than any kind of knowledge, and still stronger than all good or bad resolves, is the power of habit. Should Father Mathew survive, and retain his activity and his influence, until the Irish are led by temperance to adopt other manners and habits, and consequently to change their national character, the battle will then be gained, and success secured for ever. The body can so accustom itself to water as no longer to be able to do without it, and no longer wish to touch intoxicating liquors. Five millions of people are at this moment employed (by suddenly interrupting the progress of their old customs, and adopting those which are entirely new,) in thoroughly changing their inclinations and dispositions, in making themselves quite new beings. They are becoming acquainted with feelings of the existence of which they had before no idea; they have invented new pleasures and social joys, which did not, for them, previously exist; in a word, the threads of better and improved habits have been spun, and the
It is curious that Christianity also spread through Ireland with a rapidity similar to that which has marked the progress of temperance. It burst forth, says Thomas Moore, on receiving the first beam of the apostolic light, and, with the sudden maturity of a northern summer, at once covered the entire land with fruits and blossoms. The foundation of this phenomenon Moore finds in the versatility which is peculiar to the Irishman, in the ease with which he submits to new impulses and influences, and which form so prominent a feature in his character. Christianity, notwithstanding the rapidity of its adoption, has now existed fourteen hundred years in Ireland. This, then, is a good omen for temperance. The former, however, had this advantage, that heathenism was exterminated in all the countries around, and that the Irish retained their Christianity in common with the entire world. But the vineyards, distilleries, and breweries will not be rooted out of the neighbouring countries in a similar manner.
Figures speak a very simple language. I shall therefore conclude this subject by allowing figures to speak for the cause of Father Mathew; as these clearly prove how much the consumption of spirituous liquors has decreased in Ireland since he made his appearance. In 1833, the quantity of malt used for making beer, whisky, &c., was 1,970,000 bushels. From this year there was a constant increase till 1836, when it amounted to 2,511,000 bushels. Since 1836 there has been a constant decrease, till, in 1840, it was only 1,600,000 bushels, or little more than half the quantity of 1836. The spirit duty amounted
Compare with this the following sums for England and Scotland:—
| Year | England | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duty on British Spirits | 1838 | £2,520,000 | £1,437,428 |
| ditto | 1839 | £2,552,628 | £1,488,000 |
| ditto | 1840 | £2,628,200 | £1,541,300 |
| Import Duty on Wine | 1838 | £1,590,000 | £121,004 |
| ditto | 1839 | £1,612,000 | £121,713 |
| ditto | 1840 | £1,580,000 | £130,126 |
Scotland affords the most remarkable, and at the same time the most melancholy example, of increased intemperance. In that country the consumption of malt has increased, in thirty years, from 784,000 to 4,309,000 bushels, or six-fold. In Ireland, during the same period, the consumption diminished from 3,033,000 bushels in 1810, to 1,604,000 in 1840; and even in England, the increase was only from 23,541,000 bushels in 1810, to 34,000,000 in 1840—a quantity which does not exhibit any great increase of intemperance, since the increase of population must have been in nearly the same ratio. If we compare this consumption of malt with the population of the three kingdoms, it appears that, in 1840,
Kilrush is situated on a small bay of the Shannon. In part of this bay are two little islands, in the middle of the river, which is here from four to five miles in breadth. One of these islands is the famed Scattery Island, on which are the ruins of ‘The Seven Churches,’ and in the midst of them a round tower in good preservation. Having determined closely to inspect these monuments, I therefore intrusted myself and my portmanteau to a little row-boat, which was also to take me over to the county of Kerry. I seated myself at the helm, and a couple of able rowers, whom I had hired the evening before, undertook the propulsion of the little vessel. The morning was perfectly calm and warm, but the sun, as we pushed off from the shore, was obscured by a yellow fog, which concealed from my view the island towards which we steered, and even of the broad Shannon we saw little more than what danced and sparkled about our boat and our oars. The fog was of a dun yellow colour, and was spread along the water, which also seemed to be converted into vapour, as it reflected nothing but fog. Sometimes a tiny wave flashed in the distance, but as quickly disappeared, as if the eye of a Nereid had glanced out from beneath her veil as she swam past, and been hastily withdrawn. After rowing for some time, the fog cleared off, and the little green island lay before us with its ruined churches, amidst which the lofty column of the Round Tower first presented
These ‘Round Towers,’ as they are called, are the most interesting antiquities to be found in Ireland. Whenever I came into the neighbourhood of one, I lost no time in observing it closely. Like all travellers in this country, and all Irishmen themselves, I felt myself infected with a decided passion for round towers, and whenever I heard of one in the neighbourhood, I lost no time in carefully inspecting it. But as few of my own countrymen can have any idea of the nature of this passion, a short introductory notice of these ancient structures may not be deemed out of place.
These towers are round, and built of large stones; when seen from a distance, they look more like strong lofty columns than towers, being nearly of the same diameter from the base to the very summit. At present, indeed, their height varies, some of them being more or less in a state of ruin; but those that remain entire, (which is the case with the majority,) are all of nearly the same height, thickness, and structure, and as like each other as the obelisks of Egypt. They are generally from 100 to 120 feet high, and are from 40 to 50 feet in circumference, with a diameter of from twelve to sixteen, which is very small when compared with their great height. Their walls are strong and thick at the base, but gradually become thinner towards the top. They are hollow within, and have no exterior opening except a narrow door-way about eight or ten feet from the ground, and near the top some narrow little window-holes, usually four in number, and generally facing the four cardinal points, north, south, east, and west. These peculiar buildings are found scattered every where throughout Ireland. Sometimes they stand on lonely islands, or on the bank of a river; sometimes in the middle of a plain; and again in the retired nook of a remote valley. Their number is computed at 118;14 of which fifteen are wholly perfect and uninjured, whilst of thirty-six, little more than foundations now remain. Nothing could be less characteristic of these buildings than the name ‘Round Towers,’ for all towers are more or less round. Some writers call them ‘Pillar Temples’, but the propriety of this name is disputed by others, who affirm that they never can have been destined for, or
These towers are almost exclusively peculiar to Ireland, no buildings of a similar character being found throughout the rest of Europe, except in Scotland, where there are said to be two or three of them, which were most probably built by Irish colonists. In the distant East, however, we find edifices of the same construction and of similar dimensions; and the first thing that strikes the traveller, on seeing an Irish pillar-tower, is its resemblance to the minaret of the Mohamedans. There being no authentic records which show the period at which these towers were erected, whilst every thing denotes that they must have been built in very remote antiquity, innumerable theories and hypotheses have been formed respecting them; and although the truth has not yet been elucidated, the falseness and absurdity of many of these theories is very apparent. For instance, those learned personages who assert that these towers were built by the Danes, seem to have forgotten that they are found in parts of Ireland where the Danes never had any possessions, as in Donegal, and the more remote counties of Connaught; and they must also have shut their eyes to the fact that the Danes never built such towers in England, nor even in their own country. That they were not built by the Anglo-Normans, who succeeded the Danes, is equally certain, because no record of the fact is to be found, nor any traces of similar structures in the native land of the Anglo-Normans. Since, therefore, it is evident that these towers were erected long before the English or the Danish period, it is extremely probable that they were built either by the natives of the country, or by colonists from the East, where similar buildings are alone to be found. Popular opinion in Ireland has decided in favour of the latter; and the general tradition, which has descended from the most ancient times to the present day, is that they were built by the Phoenicians. The learned, in propounding their theories, are accustomed to place too much reliance upon written records, which they deem alone authentic, and generally either allow little weight to tradition, or seem to forget that the memory of a people is for thousands of years often more correct than books, and that traditions thus transmitted are equally indestructible as monuments of stone or brans. Ireland, standing alone in the ocean, and at fifteen times a greater distance from most parts of continental Europe than England, had, at the time she was partially conquered
Not less various are the opinions concerning their object, and some of them are equally absurd. On account of their great height, some have fancied that they were intended as watchtowers, and that a chain of telegraphs was thus formed throughout the whole island. Ridiculous as this opinion may appear, it is very general. Most of these towers, however, are on low ground, in valleys, or on lonely islands, from whence little of the surrounding country could be seen, and therefore little or nothing could be communicated. The slightest reflection would show the absurdity of such an idea. Others, again, contend that they are fortresses of the Christian era, to which the elders and priests withdrew with the treasure of their churches, when the country was threatened with hostilities. But I cannot believe that men could have been foolish enough to build hollow pillars for fortresses. Their great height would not only render their defence difficult, but afford facilities for attacking and destroying them. Those who crept into the narrow space must have been compelled to stand upon each other's heads, and their only means of defending themselves was through four small holes, 80 or 100 feet above the ground, at which they were to stand with their bows, till the enemy approached near enough to be attacked. I have been informed that a work is now in preparation to prove that these
There are many opinions of a similar nature, but none of them coincide with the popular tradition, which assigns these temples to the fire-worshippers who accompanied the Phoenicians to Erin. Every Irishman acquainted with the ancient legends of his fatherland, when speaking of these towers, talks of ‘sun and fire-worshippers,’ and asserts that this belief has been handed down from generation to generation. Thomas Moore, and a few more of the learned, are inclined to rely upon this tradition, because the ‘Pyreas’15 of the Ghebirs are said exactly to resemble the Irish round towers, and also because it is proved that fire-worship was once the prevailing religion in Ireland. As the towers are almost devoid of light inside, we may readily believe that they served for the preservation of the sacred flame, which may have looked adorable enough in the darkness. The reason for placing the entrance so far from the ground is sufficiently obvious, when it is considered that the fire was holy, and therefore was not accessible to every one. It has been objected, that if the towers were erected for this purpose, there was no necessity for building them so high; but in reply to this it may be alleged that the fire was probably kept in the upper portion of the tower, near the four little windows, and that the priests brought it down from thence, symbolically
Christian symbols have been found on some of these towers; for instance, on the summit of one at Swords, in the county of Dublin, is a small stone cross. Others bear the image of the Virgin: but these things are very rare, and have doubtless been added in modern times, as it is probable that many have been occasionally used for bell-towers, places of refuge, and various other purposes for which they were not originally designed. That ruined or even perfect churches and burial-places should be found adjoining these towers is not extraordinary; for it is an universal phenomenon that a place once held sacred by a people, remains so always, even though their religion may have been changed. The spots on which most of our old Christian churches now stand were previously occupied by heathen temples, and most of the old mosques in Turkey were once Christian churches.
Generally speaking, the churches found in the neighbourhood of a round tower are seven in number. This has been explained by the supposition that prior to the introduction of Roman Catholic Christianity from France into Ireland, by St. Patrick, an older Christianity had existed in the country. Some are of opinion that this ante-Patrician Christianity was likewise Roman Catholic; but others deny it, and suppose that it was introduced neither from Italy nor France, but direct from Greece. The tradition goes so far as to assert that the Apostle James himself was the first to preach the gospel in Ireland.16 This Christianity, it is said, had nothing to do with Rome, but was solely regulated according to the rites of the Eastern Oecumenic Synods; and on this supposition the numerous ‘Seven Churches’ which stand together, are said to allude to the seven famous oecumenic churches of the East. The supporters of this opinion, it may be remarked, are chiefly Protestants; and, as the matter is somewhat probable, here is
The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, maintain that Irish Christianity was Roman Catholic from the very first. Thus the differences in opinion of these two parties extend even to matters which lie deep-buried in the bosom of the past.
At length we landed from our little boat on Scattery Island, called, as I was told, Inniscattery. ‘It is a very old ancient place,’ said one of the boatmen, as he carried me on his back through the water, for we had chosen as a landing-place a long piece of strand, upon which the retreating tide had left about one foot of water. This pleonasm of ‘old ancient’ might be said of many places in Ireland, where old and oldest ruins lie side by side.
Some saint, or one of the first preachers or apostles of Irish Christianity, is generally said to have lived and died at each of the holy places in Ireland called ‘Seven Churches.’ Here it is St. Senanus, whose grave is shown in one of the ruined churches. I have already mentioned, in speaking of the Shannon, the legend of a Princess Seinin, but others allege that it is from this St. Senanus that the river derives its name. Thomas Moore has written a poem on this Senanus, in which the saint refuses to permit a beautiful maiden to land on this island. One only of these ruined churches is still used as a burying-place, and I could not ascertain why the other six are not devoted to the same purpose. The body is conveyed from the mainland in one small boat, while the mourners follow in others, and compose the most interesting and peculiar funerals I ever heard of. I saw many very fresh tombstones, new and polished, with inscriptions in gold, and they looked peculiar and poetical enough on the lonely island. Among them were the graves of some captains of ships, who could scarcely have found a more appropriate resting-place than an island at the mouth of a river, from whence there is a view at the same time of the ocean and the land. On the gravestone of one of them were chiselled the emblems of the passion—a sponge, a nail, a cross, a sword, a spear, &c. Will the time come when antiquaries will dispute about such stones, and the meaning of their hieroglyphics?
I am not aware of any other country in Europe which can boast of such interesting burial-grounds and such picturesque grave-monuments as those which are met with in Ireland. This arises partly from the abundance of ivy and other graceful evergreens with which they are generally fringed, and partly from the custom, which still prevails, of burying the dead amid ruins, which are
Some of the seven churches on Scattery Island have almost entirely disappeared; but three of the number yet remain in tolerable preservation, and are covered with ivy. Over the middle window of the one nearest to the round tower is to be seen a strange face, sculptured in stone. Strangely enough, it has the stiff, mask-like features of the Egyptian statues, even their projecting ears, and has evidently been broken away from some other building, and built into this. In the opposite wall of the same church is a stone on which traces of an old inscription are yet distinctly visible.
The pillar-tower stands a little to one side. Although no longer perfect, it is one of the most picturesque in Ireland; it has been struck by lightning, and split from top to bottom, so that a long and broad cleft runs down through the entire wall. On the south side it is covered with plants and mosses; on the northern and western sides, as my boatmen informed me, the growth of plants is prevented by the violent winds. Lightning and vegetation are the worst foes of the round towers; and when we consider how much lightning must have flashed around them during the space of 2000 years, it is astonishing that they have not all been long since overturned. I have already said that the round towers rise like columns, with an equal thickness from the base to the summit; but this must not be taken literally. Nearly all of them appear to diminish a very little as they ascend; and the walls, according to a very correct architectural principle, become somewhat thinner towards the top. This indicates any thing but a rude and inexperienced people.
All the island, except the burial-ground, is pasturage. On the highest part of it is a battery, which commands the mouth of the Shannon. There are no less than six similar batteries and forts on various points of the coast, about the entrance of this river, whilst at the mouth of the Thames there is not one. The English are compelled to erect strong defences on the Irish coasts, because they are England's weakest side.
On leaving Scattery Island, which afforded me so much antiquarian pleasure, the tide and the stream were both against us, so that we had enough to do to manage our boat. Steering is a lordly and kingly employment, even in so tiny a bark. Although, as in my case, you may have advisers whispering into your ear how you are to steer, it is still a noble business to hold the helm in your grasp, and to feel that you possess the power of directing the boat now
The Shannon here presents a grand spectacle, its mouth being about forty miles long and varying from three to eight miles in breadth. As the ocean now contributes more to its waters than the river itself, it ought, properly speaking, to be called an arm of the sea; but this would be contrary to Irish geography, which assumes that the river still exists here. The fog had entirely cleared off, and the brightest sunshine illuminated the whole broad expanse of water. Except our little fragile bark, we saw nothing in motion. No ship passed in or out; and, without having received a good wish from any one on our voyage, we arrived towards mid-day at the opposite shore. As it was ebb tide, and there was not enough of water in the harbour, the men ran their boat on the mud, and we took our luggage on our shoulders. When it was too late, I discovered that, with as little trouble and time as it cost me to reach Tarbert, (which is only an insignificant seaport,) I might have visited one of the wonders of the world, the caverns of Ballybunion, which are situated on the southern shore of the mouth of the Shannon, and are said to extend from the surface of the sea, for more than a mile into the land. Ireland is rich in remarkable caverns, with the knowledge of which the scientific world is by no means surfeited.
From Tarbert I continued my journey on one of those strange cars which, in Ireland, run from town to town, and are the usual means of public conveyance. They are built on the same principle as the ‘jaunting-cars’ already mentioned, and the two-wheeled mail-cars, except that they have four wheels, and are often drawn by four horses. The seats at the sides are long, and hold eight
On our car were Erinnachs, Albinnachs, and Sassonachs— natives of Ireland, Scotland, and England. The English are seldom met in Ireland, at least much less frequently than the Irish in England. Those who wish to earn money say, ‘Ireland is a poor place.’ No reapers, no helpers, no porters, can make any thing there, for Ireland has too many unemployed poor of its own. The rich have Ireland still more en dépit, for they say, ‘It is a disturbed country, and such an out-of-the-way place.’ They are not sure of their lives there, and even were personal safety less in jeopardy, it must be extremely unpleasant to be every where surrounded by such a cloud of beggars. In other respects abundant sources of enjoyment might be found; but as it is, the Englishmen most frequently met with in Ireland are the travellers for commercial and manufacturing houses.
Although, as I have said, we could see but one side of the country, there was every where ample materials for observation. In one village through which we passed, part of the somewhat long house, of one of the inhabitants had fallen down, most probably from its original instability. The owner was busily employed, in repairing it; but being either too lazy or too poor to restore the whole, he had cut away that portion which had fallen, and was now building up a new wall in the middle of it; thus
In Ireland the women smoke, as well as the men. In the towns the market women usually sit smoking at their stalls. Their pipes are short, and made of clay, like those which are used by the common people in England, the Netherlands, the north of France, and even in Paris. The bowls are extremely small, and the tobacco, which is spun into ropes about the thickness of a finger, is bought by the inch or the yard. A small piece is cut off, sufficient to fill the little bowl, and the pipe is then lighted by holding to it a lump of turf, which is always kept burning near at hand. Sometimes, when the ground is wet, a large potato is placed under the turf, as a sort of pedestal, by which means not only is the turf kept dry, but the potato is gradually roasted, at least on one side.
The people here all speak English, although Irish is more generally spoken in Kerry than any where else. I was informed that in the remote villages alone were persons to be found who understood no English. This is still partly the case in Clare, where, as I should have before remarked, the inhabitants call every stranger who passes through the country, ‘burnocks.’ ‘Burnocks, ha'penny!’ cry the little children after him; the word ‘ha'penny’ being the only English they appear to understand. ‘The English that we speak is only a home-English,’ said a Kerryman to me; ‘we do not learn it grammatically, but still we have many high-bred men here, even among the shepherds on the mountains, who know Latin as well as a priest.’ I have already mentioned these learned ‘high-bred’ Kerrymen; and as I was now in their country, I was curious to ascertain the extent of their much-praised education. I had every where heard of shepherds, herdsmen, and ploughmen who could read and speak Latin; but the only instances of this scholarship which I met with were two men, who pretended to understand Latin, and in proof of their learning repeated a couple of corrupt Latin expressions,
‘They do not even understand English in this part of the country,’ said my neighbour on the car. In the western parts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, this is a common phrase, indicating the rude barbarism of the people. The English language is here the basis and root of all civilisation, and all are anxious to learn it, as by its use the facilities of general intercourse are much enlarged, whilst the Irish is of use only among the poor inhabitants of the remote districts. In like manner in France, in speaking of the uncultivated Basques among the Pyrenees, or of the people of the Vosges mountains, it is usual to say, ‘they do not even understand French.’ So also in Bohemia, Galicia, Courland, and Livonia, a knowledge of German is considered a proof of superior education.
An Irish ‘hedge-school’ which I visited—one in the pure old national style—enabled me to observe the mode by which, in these remote parts of Ireland, the light of intellectual cultivation is transmitted. It was, in truth, a touching sight. The schoolhouse was a mud-hovel, covered with green sods, without windows or any other comforts. The little pupils, wrapped up as well as their rags would cover them, sat beside the low open door, towards which they were all holding their books, in order to obtain a portion of the scanty light it admitted. Some of the younger ones were sitting or lying on the floor; behind these, others wore seated, on a couple of benches formed of loose boards; and behind these again stood some taller children, also holding their books towards the light between the heads of the front rank. The master, dressed in the national costume already described, was seated in the midst of the crowd. In a sketch-book of Ireland this would be an essential picture, and I regret that I had not a Daguerreotype with me to perpetuate the scene. Outside, before the door, lay as many pieces of turf as there were scholars within, for each one had brought a piece with him as a fee or gratuity for the schoolmaster. The latter, as I entered the narrow door, rose from a barrel, and saluted me in a friendly manner: ‘Indeed, I am
Our car did not proceed further than Listowel, and as I intended to pass the night at Tralee, I was obliged to look out for some other means of conveyance to that place. Two gentlemen, who, like myself, were on a pilgrimage to the beauties of Killarney, joined me in the hire of a one-horse car; and whilst we were standing before the inn waiting for our equipage, some of us threw the ends of the cigars we had been smoking into the street. ‘Would not some of those poor Irish standing around us here be—’ thought I; but, quicker than my thought, two of them had already rushed towards the cigar stumps, and after a scrambling fight, each bore off a portion, which he carefully concealed among his rags.
‘All these people are temperance men,’ said our landlord, ‘and strict ones too. All this country is one of the strictest temperance parts in Ireland, and very few have broken the pledge here.’ This man represented himself as well acquainted with Father Mathew, of whom he related a remarkable anecdote. When a schoolboy, he said, Father Mathew was expelled from college on account of his too frequent enjoyment of spirits, the whisky-bottle having been repeatedly found under his bed. It is probable that the impression produced by this incident may have had great influence in rendering him so great and zealous an opponent of intemperance; and if the anecdote be true, it is anything but discreditable to Father Mathew, whose conversion does him rather the greater honour. How often has it happened that those who had formerly been the greatest sceptics have become the most zealous believers, like St. Paul, the persecutor of Christians, and subsequently the great converter of the heathen.
We had scarcely left the town when an accident occurred which is by no means rare with these cars, when the harness is not
Being thus compelled to continue our journey on foot, we placed our luggage under guard, and dispatched our driver with the horse in search of ropes and thongs whereby the car and its two wheels might be restored to a serviceable condition. The country near Listowel will amply repay a pedestrian; but as he proceeds farther on, he must not place too much reliance in the romantic shading of his map. These maps of Ireland always display the most interesting tints to represent lofty mountains, round hills, steep cliffs, and gentle slopes; in short, a variety of extremely seductive landscape; but this shading is, in general, very deceptive, for the mountains are bare from top to bottom, of a dark monotonous colour, and nearly all covered with turf, as was also the whole of the low ground between the mouth of the Shannon and Tralee Bay. Yet in the midst of this abundance, I saw many villages and families suffering from want of turf, and in the county of Cork its scarcity is said to be already generally felt. As
The clouds unfortunately turn their least beautiful sides towards the earth, and hence it is that a cloud-covered firmament seems so uniform and disagreeable. Had we that evening been able to raise ourselves above the clouds, we should doubtless have seen them beaming with light, and tinged with the most beautiful colours; but as it was, we beheld nothing but gray clouds piled upon each other, and we were not sorry, as night was setting in, and gradually changing this gray hue into a perfect black, to find ourselves in Tralee, where the warm glow of a cheerful fire in some measure restored our spirits.
We dined here on chickens, with bacon and ham, roast beef, Cheshire cheese, and celery, besides half-raw potatoes and watery cabbage, the usual fare in English and Irish inns, and which were far more excellent than one could have expected in such a remote place. There were four of us, and our conversation was such as usually passes in Great Britain between persons who are but slightly acquainted. ‘May I trouble you for a bit of beef?’ ‘I will trouble you for a little bacon?’ ‘Shall I send you some chicken?’ ‘Have you any choice—the wing or the breast?’ ‘May I have the pleasure of taking wine with you?’ ‘I shall be very happy.’ ‘I'll trouble you for a potato.’ ‘Here they are! Any more?’ Such was the common-place civility which unceasingly played across the table. When one listens to it for the first time, it sounds very pretty, stately, and ceremonious; but on a frequent repetition it appears excessively tedious and absurd.
Opposite to our inn was a house, in which, for that evening, a play had been announced, under the title of ‘The Two Murderers.’ I went in honour of Herr von Sourcrouthagen, ‘a German Baron,’ who was one of the dramatis personae; but unfortunately the baron was painted with too little talent and spirit to induce me to remain longer than the first act. It was not so much an exaggerated, as a bad imitation of the German baron; yet the stage gave me a contribution to my chapter on Irish rags.
An English fire, in an open hearth, reconciles one to everything, and banishes the recollection of bad weather, tedious conversation, and absurd plays. I therefore seated myself beside the genial flame, and taking up the map of Ireland, contemplated the form, and in particular the outline of the coasts, of this new land in which I found myself, and through the interior of which I intended yet to roam for some days.
I never beheld the beauteous golden stars of heaven with more angry eyes than on the morning of the fifth of October, as, equipped for my journey, I stood alone and undisturbed in the street of Tralee, whilst minute after minute elapsed without the arrival of the mail-coach, which was here to ‘pick me up,’ and convey me to Killarney. At last I looked at my watch, and then discovered, to my great annoyance, that the careless waiter had driven me out of bed and into my boots, out of the sheets into my travelling cloak, at four instead of six o'clock. The God of Sleep was now too far gone to be recalled. I therefore left my luggage in the coach-office, with a request that it might be transferred to the coach on its arrival, and wandered forth on foot, to pass the time and be ‘picked up’ on the road. It was a beautiful October morning, and as the stars looked down so friendly on me, in despite of my vexation, I at length became reconciled to them, and in the society of these thousands of beautiful worlds, I plodded along my lonely road into the county of Kerry.
It has been remarked that the hours previous to the dawn of morning, when every one is buried in the deepest sleep, are those most favourable to the robber. But numerous as murders and personal offences are in Ireland, the wanderer has seldom any thing to fear, certainly much less than in Italy, Spain, and some other countries. The Irish are a restless and rebellious people, but not a nation of banditti. Their state of bondage affords too good a reason for the former, whilst their hospitality is a sufficient security against the latter. Personal offences are therefore seldom connected with plunder, but are, in general, the result rather of revenge and hatred, arising from personal quarrels and injuries. Inglis, in his work on Ireland, states that out of 199 criminal cases which were tried at the Kerry quarter sessions, 10 only were for larceny, whilst 74 were cases of riotous assemblies, 34 of rescue, and 47 of personal assaults. It must also be remembered that the county of Kerry belongs to the ‘less disturbed counties,’ as the English call them. Assaults, resistance to the lawful authorities, and riotous assemblies—these are the principal crimes of the Irish.
As yet I had been unable to form any notion of the aspect of the country south of Tralee, in which I was wandering; and when at last the sun began to rise, the landscape presented the appearance of a great sea, in which the tops of a number of black mountains represented islands. The whole of the plain was enveloped in a dense white fog; but as the summits of the hills remained clear, I could reckon them whenever I came on a rising ground. When the mail-coach at length picked me up, we soon worked through this stratum of mist, as the Russian peasants in winter work their way through the snow; but I can give little account of the country through which we passed in this way, until we came to the far-famed Killarney, the aim and goal of many who wander
Thomas Moore's poems have certainly contributed much to the celebrity of many places in Ireland, as well as the patriotic Irish Penny Magazine, and those English ‘sight-seers’ who are ever hunting after novelties.
- Through Erin's isle,
To sport awhile.
Formerly it was the higher and wealthy classes of England only who travelled, and as these were wont to despise all that was to be seen at home, they usually resorted to the celebrated scenes of foreign lands. But now, such is the increasing love of travel, and the facility and cheapness of communication, that many classes of society who were formerly, like the glebae adscripti, rooted to the soil, or only
Killarney (like Tralee, Tarbert, and many other little towns in the south of Ireland, which have but recently acquired any importance, and must have been miserable-looking places thirty years ago,) is a neatly-built town, and contains several excellent hotels, which furnish every possible assistance and convenience for visiting the lakes and their environs. I arrived at breakfast time, and associated myself with an English officer who was about to visit the lakes, having arrived from I know not what barrack or
The lakes lie in a crescent around the foot of the highest group of mountains in Kerry, called Macgillicuddy's Reeks. There are two principal lakes,—a large upper and a small lower one. Killarney lies on the former. In order to vary the journey, and to see as much as possible of the surrounding country, it is customary to hire at the same time a car, a boat, and a pair of saddle-horses. The boat goes up the lakes, and awaits the traveller in a little harbour of the upper lake; the horses are sent forward to a mountain pass which cuts through the Reeks, and is called the Gap of Dunloe. This the traveller reaches by driving round the end of the lower lake, and a few miles further to this Gap. He then mounts his pony, and rides across the mountain, on the other side of which he arrives at the extreme end of the upper lake, where he takes to his boat and descends the lakes to the point from whence he started. From Killarney, which lies on the level shore of the lake, one sees the mountains towering up on the opposite side like a dark wall, and mirrored in the calm clear lake that washes their feet. Wherever the hedges, fences, and walls did not impede our view, we enjoyed charming glimpses of this scene. Along the flat shore of the lake is the Race-course of Killarney, which I mention only to show that, in Ireland, even such little places as this have their racing-grounds. A horse-race here, beside the picturesque lakes, must produce an effect extremely interesting.
In the villages through which we passed, we again saw the little boys running to school, each with his slate and primer under one arm, and his sod of turf for the schoolmaster under the other.
The Gap of Dunloe, which we at length reached, is a wild pass through the mountains, like many others in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It lies between Macgillicuddy's Reeks and the mountains Tormes and Glenaa, which, properly speaking, are part of the former. Macgillicuddy's Reeks are said to be the most lofty mountains in Ireland. Their highest point is called Gurrane Tual, and is 3404 English feet above the level of the sea. Snowdon, in England, is somewhat higher, being 3571 feet. Ben Nevis, in Scotland, rises to 4370 feet, and is said to be the highest in the United Kingdom. Macgillicuddy's Reeks stand like a row of gigantic haycocks, and each has its separate name. ‘Reek’ is probably derived from the German ‘Recken,’ which primarily signifies any thing heaped up to a great height, and is specially applied to heaps of hay, called ‘hay-ricks’ in England. This Macgillicuddy is said to have been a great lord and landowner.
We mounted our steeds at the mouth of the pass, and trotted forward. Above our heads soared a pair of eagles, which even the best-mounted rider must ever look up to with envy. The Kerry horses, like all horses of a mountainous country, are small, but sagacious, cautious, and hardy. Their harness, for want of leather, flax, or any better material, is composed of straw, and is the poorest I ever met with. Straw ropes are used every where throughout Ireland, and it is very usual to see one tied round the leg of a pig, as it is driven to market. In other countries straw ropes are also occasionally used, but I never before saw an entire harness of plaited straw; and what is more remarkable is, that it was not a mere makeshift, or the whim of an individual, but the general custom throughout the whole west of Ireland.
The rocks on each side of the Gap certainly rise to the height of 1500 feet. At some parts the pass itself is wider than at others; and, including its windings, it is from three to four miles long, and rich in the wildest scenery. The colour of the rocks contributes not a little to this wildness, as, being covered with turf-mould, they often look perfectly black. The hollows of all these mountains are deeply covered with bog-stuff, which also lies upon their summits, although not in such great masses; whilst every point of rock or ledge of stone, every little landing-place and crevice, is completely filled with it. I would not believe this until I climbed some of the rocks and took from the chinks small pieces of turf which had received and retained the form of the rock. One would almost imagine that the bog-stuff floated in the air, and was deposited on the walls of rock, or that a turfy bog sauce had been poured over the whole group of mountains, and flowed down into every crevice and hole, to the very lowest valley. Whence comes it that on these mountains all decaying vegetable matter is changed into bog-stuff—a change which never takes place elsewhere? I was informed by the mountaineers who accompanied us, that the turf was much more plentiful, and the strata much thicker, on the north than on the south side of the Reeks. Here and there a mass of bog seems to have been washed off by the rains, and carried to some distance, until its progress was arrested by projecting rocks; whilst in other
The chief inhabitants of these rocks are goats and their herdsmen; and their principal enemies the eagle and fox, which lie in wait for the young kids. Formerly there was also the wolf, which remained in these wilds longer than in any other part of the United Kingdom. The last Irish wolf is said to have been shot on Macgillicuddy's Reeks about the year 1700. The last in Scotland was shot in 1680, at Lochaber, in the Highlands; and in England wolves survived longest in Yorkshire, where they were numerous about the year 1300, in the reign of Edward I. The extermination of the wolf may therefore be said to mark the gradual march of civilization in the three kingdoms, Scotland following England, and Ireland again following Scotland. The goats remain here, in a half wild state, throughout both winter and summer, and the herdsmen do not trouble themselves much about them. Once a year they are collected together, and those which are in the best condition being selected from the flock, the remainder are again allowed to go at large. The owners are well satisfied if, on these occasions, out of fifty goats they find forty: the remaining ten either having died a natural death, been destroyed by the eagles and foxes, or perished in some other way among the rocks.
A small river runs down the Gap of Dunloe, over the rocks, and in the middle of the valley spreads out into a large basin, forming a couple of little lakes, which now presented a remarkable appearance. Their water communicates to the rocks over which it flows a dark colour, as black as ink; and as all waters are generally lowest in October, and the October of 1842 was remarkably dry, the lakes were now almost drained, and their rocky basin, on the lofty edge of which we rode, looked like a gigantic empty ink-bottle. The banks, the huge rocks that had fallen from above, all were stained black; so that, had there been fire, instead of a little water, at the bottom, it would have required no great stretch of imagination to fancy that we were looking down into the black gorge of hell. The entire upper part of the Gap of Dunloe is therefore appropriately named ‘The Dark Valley;’ and ‘Blackstones’,
Looking upwards from the Gap, in every nook and cleft we observed piles of turf collected by the herdsmen, which is brought down in winter. In many of these clefts also the celebrated ‘mountain dew’ was formerly distilled, and there is little doubt that even at the present day it is sometimes furtively made here. This spirit possesses in a high degree that flavour of turf to which both the Irish and Scotch are so much attached in whisky; and the Kerry ‘mountain dew’ is the most choice description of whisky in Ireland. The appellation would, however, in my opinion, be much more suitably applied to the fine rich goats' milk we obtained in a little hut in the neighbourhood of these lakes, and which was also a dew that descended from the mountains. This hut lay at the foot of the rocky saddle in the middle of the pass, which is the highest spot of the whole ridge of mountains. The passion for rounded rocks has become so great in England, since Agassiz published his theory of glaciers, that large masses of this description have been dragged into their provincial museums. It was impossible for us to remain longer on horseback, when we beheld this entire ridge strewed with rocks rounded in the most remarkable manner. It seemed as if they had been continually rolled backwards and forwards for time immemorial; and as it is impossible that they can ever have been raised from the bowels of the earth in their present form, by what external agency have they been thus polished at some later period? Has it been by the action of the wind, or of water, or by a coating of ice, now sliding this way, and now that? The snow sometimes lies on the Reeks till May, but in general it disappears before the end of April. The little lakes in the Gap of Dunloe, like the larger ones of Killarney, are never frozen.
Descending this ridge by half rocky half boggy paths, we looked down into another desolate, wild, and desert valley, called Kumiduff. The little lakes it contained looked as black as those above described; the rocks were of the usual turfy colour; and the little wretched huts here and there scattered through it could only be recognized by the blue smoke rising from them. How much more pleasing would their appearance have been, had they been surrounded by gardens, trees, and cultivated fields? In all these wild glens the inhabitants still speak Erse only, and the cry of the grouse is heard in the rocky clefts.
We now descended to the upper lake, where our boat awaited us. These lakes possess the peculiarity, that, while they lie in this wilderness of rocks, they are surrounded partly with
In reading some of the exaggerated English accounts of these lakes, one would almost imagine that the authors had been sailing on some enchanted piece of water. Thus, one of the best-known writers on Ireland, in describing the wild, mountainous scenery in the neighbourhood of Killarney, says—‘Here Nature assumes her roughest and most terrific attire, to astonish the gazing spectator, who, lost amid wonder and surprise, thinks he treads enchanted ground, and while he knows not to which side he shall first direct his attention, can hardly believe that the scenes he sees around him are not the effects of delusion, or the airy phantoms of the brain, called into momentary existence by the creative powers of a fervid imagination.’ Here is a rare piece of bombast and nonsense; and if it is applicable to the lakes of Killarney, what is to be said of others which are still more charming? Nature is, indeed, almost every where beautiful and charming beyond the power of description, and no language can ever pourtray her lovely and multifarious charms as they are in the reality; but in describing the beauties of a country, we ought always to speak comparatively, and remember that there are an infinite number of other delightful spots on the earth, to all of which we do injustice by our overstrained praise of one. Besides, these general eulogies of ‘enchanted ground,’ of ‘airy phantoms,’ and other ‘delusions’ of ‘fervid imaginations,’ describe simply nothing. Nature is beautiful in her stony, woody, earthy, reality, and there is no necessity for lifting her, by a lie, into the realm, of phantasmagoria. We should rather endeavour, by an enumeration of individual features,
A black streak or border, about two yards (Ellen) in breadth, which every where surrounded the little islands and the rocky shores of the upper lake, denoted the height at which the water had stood during the summer. Immediately above this black streak, and in most striking contrast with it, there also appeared another which was perfectly white, and was caused by a multitude of the light gray mosses we had already seen on the rocks of the Gap of Dunloe. Above this, again, there came a bright yellow streak, produced by the blossoms of the furze, which is here very abundant, and seems to have a strong affinity for the boggy soil with which the islands and rocks of Killarney are covered. Last of all, above the yellow, appeared the beautiful foliage of the oak and the arbutus, the latter of which forms a prominent and very celebrated charm of the environs of Killarney, for they grow wild in the south of Ireland only, although not in such numbers, nor so beautiful, as on our German lakes and islands. Yet in Killarney are to be seen, their thick stems winding upwards between the rocks, and clinging to the cliffs, some of the most beautiful specimens of this noble tree. The visitor who arrives at Killarney in the autumn is most to be envied, as the foliage of all the trees that surround the lakes is then most beautiful, and displays the most manifold variety of colour. As, in addition to this many-hued autumnal foliage, we also enjoyed very fine weather, we were doubly to be envied, for rainy weather is the usual, and, as I was informed, the almost daily lot of Killarney.
Most of the islands of these lakes rise above the water like whales, with their round ridges; and as the English are a maritime people, they have given them the names of marine monsters. One which lies like a great ship of the line, is called ‘the man-of-war,’ and some smaller ones at its side, ‘jolly-boats.’ Several of these islets produce nothing but turf and weeds, and did not once remind us of Isola Madre, and Isola Bella, the far-famed isles of the Lago Maggiore.
The projecting cliffs of Glenaa Mountain sometimes run out, steep, high, and commanding, into the middle of the lake, especially one termed the ‘Eagles' Rock,’ upon which a pair of eagles have for many years built their nest. The people regularly take the young of these poor birds from the nest, and sell them to this or that Marquis for four or five pounds. There are other eagles' nests in the neighbourhood; and a great many young eagles are every year exported from hence to England. Two of our boatmen,
Horace Vernet can know nothing of this eagle's nest at Killarney, otherwise he would assuredly have chosen it as the subject of an interesting picture. I will therefore here faithfully describe the scene from nature, as I saw it through a telescope from our boat, as accurately as if I were standing close before it. The nest is built of old and young twigs, and rests upon the little platform of a projecting rock. Underneath it is a perpendicular cliff, several hundred feet in depth, and far below gleams the sparkling brown crystal water of the lake. Above it the cliff is equally steep. Suspended by an old knotted rope, held somewhere by invisible hands, there hovers over this abyss a human being, naturally the most helpless of creatures, but whose covetousness renders him more daring, and furnishes him with more artificial versatility, than is possessed by any other animal. He has planted one foot on the ledge of rock, and is bending down, partly to protect himself from the attacks of the old eagle, partly to make himself completely master of its young, one of which he has already grasped by the throat. With his right hand he is making a cut at the parent bird which has approached him with the greatest boldness; the feathers of the poor bird are flying around;—it is the mother. She bites the bright blade with her crooked beak, and the strokes of her wings whizz close to the pallid man, who gazes at her with terror depicted in his countenance. The male eagle has prudently retired beyond the sweep of the blow; and one of the young, which has hopped out of the nest, is helplessly piping and wheezing on the edge of the rock. Such extraordinary and exciting situations as are here presented would, I think, be amply sufficient to arouse the imagination of a painter, and furnish materials for a highly-effective picture, which might beset, as for a
Such is the mode by which, for many long years, this old pair of eagles have been deprived of their young. One of our men asserted that he had for twenty years assisted in this robbery, and he also assured me that during the whole period the nest was occupied by the same birds, as the various pairs of eagles were easily distinguished. This pair is deemed the oldest in the entire country, for the feathers of both are exceedingly faded. After they have been robbed of their young they generally scream and flutter around their nest day and night for three or four days, and sometimes longer, flying to and fro in search of their offspring. It is surprising that the parents have never changed their nest, instead of continuing to lay and hatch their eggs in the same place. The young are usually two, but sometimes one only. These facts, attested as they were by several witnesses, seemed to me worthy of preservation. The faithful love of this old pair, returning every spring, and their sorrow returning every summer, for twenty years, is, indeed, a touching reflection. It is said that whenever a tamed eagle regains his liberty and returns to the mountains, he is invariably attacked and destroyed by the wild ones. It is also worthy of remark that eagles generally prefer hares to goats, either because they relish the hare better, or that the goats, by keeping together, are more able to defend their young. The male and female birds usually hunt together, and having by their joint exertions driven their prey into a wild, rocky region, the one then flies beneath and the other above him, so that, should the hare escape the lower, he must fall into the talons of the upper eagle.
Passing through a narrow, rapid channel, overshadowed by beautiful trees, and spanned by the half-fallen arches of a bridge, after some hours' labour we arrived at Turk Lake. Here and there we disembarked on the shore of an island, to admire a fine old tree, or to prove an echo; and when at length we entered the large lake by another narrow passage, we all landed, and spread our mid-day meal beneath an arbutus tree. The cold meat, the ale, the mountain dew, all tasted deliciously, and no stinted portion was allotted to our rowers. They thankfully accepted the meat, but, as they were all temperance men, the liquids were respectfully yet firmly declined. We urged them at least to partake of our ale, but they would not taste a drop of it, and procured water from the lake to wash down their bread and meat. I inquired whether they did not regret, since it was so cold on the lakes, that their vow did not permit them to refresh themselves
As on the upper lake we had been entertained by the eagles, the arbutus, and the islets with their yellow, white, and black streaks, so here, on this lower one, the famed knight O'Donaghue, and the legends respecting him, furnished us with amusement. This O'Donaghue was a powerful knight or king, who some ages ago resided in a splendid castle that now stands in ruins on the shore; his character and his deeds, however, were so extraordinary that they are indelibly stamped on the memories of the people, and he is consequently the hero of many a legend. Among the motley forms of the islands of this lake, which have all something peculiar and striking in their appearance, they still discover many of his domestic conveniences. Thus one rock is called ‘O'Donaghue's Pigeon-house.’ An island, which contains a large subterranean vault, is termed ‘O'Donaghue's Prison.’ This cave it was once possible to enter, but it is now filled with bog-stuff. But the strangest rock is that named ‘O'Donaghue's Library,’ which consists of a number of thin small strata of stones, divided into fragments, and thrown upon each other in layers, so as actually to resemble a quantity of books, tumbling down in confusion, ‘Even the Holy Bible is above there,’ said one of our rowers, as, in passing the spot, he pointed to one of the thickest stones, which lay on the top, and bore a sufficiently striking similarity to a large book. ‘And that's his Lexicon,’ said another, ‘and a multitude of hard words there is in it.’ Several of these islands have ruins upon them, but it is difficult to determine whether many of them are the artificial work of man or the effects of nature, just as one is occasionally doubtful whether he is listening to legendary tales or to authentic history.
Even at the present day it is sometimes said that O'Donaghue
The most extensive, and at the same time the most interesting island of this larger lake, is Innisfallen. It is entirely covered with choice old trees, which are planted as in a park, with wide spaces between them, and beneath them the cattle and sheep find the richest pasture. There are some oaks, but the majority are old lordly ash trees. Here also I saw the largest hollies I ever beheld, one being twelve feet in circumference, with mighty and far-spreading branches, like an oak. After having seen the little sickly hollies which are preserved with so much trouble in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the traveller knows how to appreciate those he finds in Ireland. The one I have above mentioned was also peculiar, inasmuch as its leaves were alternately thorny and smooth. One of the mighty ash trees had been prostrated by a storm in the preceding winter, and in its fall had separated from the rest of the rock a huge block of stone, not less than twenty feet in circumference, which it had embraced with its roots, and which it still held fast in its prostrate situation. The ruins of a former abbey, various grottoes, thickets of evergreens, and other pleasing and interesting objects, also assist in adorning this island, which Moore has celebrated in one of his lays—
- Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well!
May calm and sunshine long be thine;
How fair thou art let others tell,
While but to feel how fair be mine.
After a water excursion of at least fourteen miles, we landed at the ruins of Ross Castle which lies on the shore of the lake, not
Having requested our rowers to furnish us with copies of some of the pretty songs they had sung on the lake, in the evening they commenced their task; but although they assured us that while at school they had become adepts in the difficult art of penmanship, yet we could as little decipher the sheets filled with writing which they brought us, as if they had been old Druidical runes, and the pretty songs were therefore uncaught fishes for us.
From six to eight days are requisite properly to enjoy all the charms of the neighbourhood of Killarney, and thoroughly to inspect its entire scenery. Then the picturesque ruins of some neighbouring castles must be visited, or the high mountain of Mangerton must be climbed, and the finger dipped into the little lake on its summit, to he convinced of the truth of the report, that, in summer as in winter, its waters are always icy cold, on which account, as well as from its round form, it is called by the people ‘The Devil's Punch-bowl.’ But this minute survey is incompatible with the arrangements of one who, like myself, intends to travel over the whole of Europe. On the following morning, therefore, I was again on the road, in order to proceed to Cork by the route of Kenmare and Bantry. As the mail-car
The mail-car having arrived, I proceeded on my way. Mangerton lay towering and clear before us, and over its summit there hovered a little cloud like a pillar of smoke. ‘In fact, sir, it looks exactly as if the devil was brewing his morning's drop in his punch-bowl there,’ said the driver as he arranged my seat. ‘He doesn't yet belong to the temperance society; for, as you see, to vex us temperance men, he uses a punch-bowl every day which would shame all the big-bellied teapots in Ireland together.’ ‘Surely,’ I replied, ‘there must be some difference between him and we mortals; but let him brew his punch, provided no rain comes out of his bowl on us to-day.’
As the first part of the road to Kenmare runs along the shore of the lakes, we had now almost a repetition of our boating excursion of yesterday; but as we were usually at an elevation above the water, the views and prospects were somewhat different. The road, which afterwards runs in many windings, over Turk Mountain, has been only recently formed, and passes through one of the most desolate and wildest regions in the west of Ireland, which for thousands of years before our time had only been traversed by those little mountain horses with straw bridles. Such a road could scarcely ever have been made by the poor Celtic inhabitants of this mountain country; and we shall soon have an opportunity of showing that they are not entirely insensible to the advantages it affords them. This is one of the benefits which Ireland derives, not from herself, but at the expense of England. But the Irish are unwilling to recognize as benefits all the advantages which spring from better roads, as, for instance, the new police stations, which are always erected upon them, and which render them in some respects similar to the patrol roads the Austrians are forming through the semi-barbarous countries of their military frontier.
The police station, which lay on our road, and at which we stopped, was a new, neat, spacious building. At a short distance it appeared like a little strong castle; and the natives may probably look upon it as a fort Uri in miniature, to keep them in awe. It lay at the highest part of the mountain, just where the road again begins to descend. All round was a wilderness, and reminded me of the military stations so often picturesquely situated in the wild regions of the Austrian frontier. The house contained eight men of the constabulary force, as it is called, and which is a military-armed police, now extended over the whole of Ireland, for the prevention of crime, the discovery and apprehension of criminals, the protection of property, and the preservation of the peace. It consists of 8000 men, classified and disciplined in the same manner as soldiers. They are commanded by inspectors-general, provincial inspectors, district inspectors, and other subordinate officers, and are distributed throughout the entire country in little bodies of from five to eight men. They are armed with carbines and swords, and also use their bayonets as daggers. They differ from the soldiers in their uniform alone, which is somewhat less ornamented and of a dark green colour. This police force is, therefore, properly a military garrison, though under another name. (The English constables carry no arms, but only a short, round baton.) Since the strongest men, and those only of the most unblemished characters, are admitted into this force, and then distributed into every corner of the land, they possess an extremely
Everybody knows that ‘the most disturbed of all the counties of Ireland’ is Tipperary, where there is a police station every three or four miles. The men receive excellent pay, twelve shillings a week each. I have somewhere read that these constables are mostly Englishmen; but from the inquiries which I made, I have no doubt but there are as many, if not still more, Irishmen among them. Even in the London police there are more Irish than English, for the latter are not over partial to this service.
So much is perpetually heard in Ireland of counties more or less disturbed, that the stranger is at first disposed to imagine that a rebellion must lately have broken out, but he gradually discovers that this is the continued and usual state of this wretched land. Riots, party-fights, murders through revenge, are every where more or less the order of the day; and we in Germany have not the slightest idea of a country in which the whole population is, in a certain measure, every moment disposed for rebellion, and seems to be involved in a universal conspiracy. Since the conquest of Ireland by the English, this has been the usual state of the country, which now and then (hitherto about every fifty years,) bursts into a preconcerted and bloody rising. I believe the entire history of modern civilized Europe cannot furnish any thing similar.
The Kerry mountains and valleys present only one wild and desolate waste, every where of a dark, smutty colour. As our car hovered far above on the heights, we could no where discover a tree, except here and there a few stunted birches, far down in the lonely valleys; and these my neighbour on the car—a cockney, who had issued forth on his first tour in search of the picturesque, and was now luxuriating among the natural beauties of Ireland—pronounced to be ‘wild plum-trees,’ as he had heard that they were very numerous on the mountains of Ireland. Little lakes
In the midst of this wilderness the road branches off to Derrynane Abbey, the country-seat and summer residence of the greatest man in Ireland—Daniel O'Connell. This mansion lies on the extreme point of a peninsula, close to the Atlantic Ocean; and in its neighbourhood are the estates and residences of his sons and relatives. A few miles distant, in the little town of Cahirsiveen, the house in which O'Connell was born is yet standing. It is a small dilapidated building, in a little hollow valley near the highroad. The O'Connells are an old Irish race, and many of them still possess extensive estates. But Daniel O'Connell, and his branch of the family, were originally poor, and they only hold their lands here as middlemen from the great head landlords. The origin of these middlemen I have already explained. Derrynane is one of those numerous abbeys which, since the time of Henry VIII. and of Cromwell, have become the seats of noble families, both in England and Ireland. O'Connell's hospitality is celebrated throughout the country, and when he is resident at the abbey, it is the gathering-place of many strangers. Even his political opponents have sometimes been compelled to assist in increasing his fame in this respect.
Some months ago, the carriage in which were travelling two, elderly ladies and a young gentleman, members of a well-known high Tory family, broke down, late in the evening, on one of the narrow roads of the wild country in the neighbourhood of Derrynane. As the servants declared they could not repair the damage, so as to enable the carriage to proceed, the party were compelled to make their way on foot, as best they could, through the wind and rain of a November night, towards a house which, by the lights in its windows, they perceived was fortunately at no great distance. Whilst proceeding thither, they were met by the servants of the house, whom the hospitable proprietor, on the first intimation of the accident, had sent to their assistance. ‘Our master,’ said they, ‘begs that you will do him the honour to make use of his house as long as it may be pleasing to you.’ ‘We are very much obliged to your master for his kindness; in fact, we were in no little despair at being surprised by such a mishap in this wilderness. What is your master's name?’ ‘Our
By those who are acquainted with his domestic life, O'Connell is much praised for abstaining from all political subjects when surrounded by his guests. On such occasions, any topic of conversation is by him preferred to politics. This is a rule generally observed by most political leaders and party-men in England, the internal politics of their country being entirely banished from the domestic circle. In France, on the contrary, whether in the salons, at soirées, or in family circles, politics are always discussed con amore.
Unfortunately, the great man had departed from Derrynane a few days before my visit to the neighbourhood, so that I was deprived of the opportunity, of which I should otherwise have availed myself, of paying him a visit in his mountain retreat.
At length we descended the hills and arrived at Kenmare, from whence, across an arm of the sea, a free prospect of the Atlantic Ocean opened on our view. On these occasions the Irish are accustomed to say: ‘From here, westwards in a straight line, there is no other land till you come to America!’ The Irish
Kenmare River, on which the little town of the same name is situated, is one of the most singular rivers in the world. Originally a small mountain stream, it is joined near the town by various tributaries, each only a few miles long, and then suddenly becomes an English mile in breadth; from this point it flows towards the ocean with a gradually increasing breadth of three, four, and five miles. Yet nature is not to blame for this monstrosity, but the geography invented by the Irish, which calls that a river which ought to have been designated Kenmare Bay.
The town of Kenmare is the property of the Earl of Kenmare, to whom Killarney also entirely belongs. Most of the Irish towns are the property, not of those who inhabit them, but of some great landowners. Thus Tralee belongs to a family named Denny, and Waterford to the Marquis of Waterford. Nay, even Belfast, a city with 60,000 inhabitants, belongs almost entirely to the Marquis of Donegal. The Earl of Kenmare is one of the titles of the Marquis of Lansdowne, a distinguished man in England, and one of the benefactors of Ireland. His extensive estates in Kerry, many of which we passed, are every where marked by improved husbandry, and increased prosperity and comfort of the tenantry.
At Kenmare is the only suspension bridge that Ireland possesses. The peninsula on the other side of the river is just as wild a country as that through which we had passed. One group of the mountains which form this peninsula is called the Glanerought Mountains, and another is named the Hungry Hills. I am ignorant of the meaning of the first name, but the latter is really very
The furze is the principal plant that grows in the clefts and chinks of the rocks, and its yellow blossoms now marked out several patches in the dark vallies, whilst through its bushes flitted pretty little birds, to which it afforded but poor lodging. These wilds have certainly never been more thickly inhabited, nor better cultivated, than at present; nor is it probable they will be for a long time to come. Irish patriots talk of the beautiful thick woods with which their island was once covered; but the arguments which they adduce to prove this appear to rest upon some very undefined accounts and expressions of a few old writers. Small islands, like Madeira, might indeed be suddenly deprived of their timber by improvident management; but that a forest of the extent of Ireland could be so thoroughly destroyed, as to vanish from the soil, with its full-grown old trees, its roots, and its perpetuating seeds, and leave not a trace behind, seems to me more than could be accomplished in the course of many centuries, even though the inhabitants, like those of Ireland, lived in perpetual savage strife and devastating hostility. That Ireland formerly had more wood than she now has, is proved by the large trunks of trees which are frequently found in the bogs; but I must protest against the endless beautiful groves which are said to have covered these very regions of rock.
The green potato-fields were here again most charming; and equally charming were the new school-houses, which have been erected here and there in these wastes. The road itself is also quite a new work, still more so than that of Killarney, having, I believe, only been completed a year and a half. Extraordinary difficulties had to be overcome in its formation: rocks were every where to be blasted, and at the highest point it was requisite to bore a tunnel through the mountain. Besides this, a multitude of other new roads have either been completed or are now in progress in Ireland, some of which are truly wonderful.
Thus far I had been the sole occupant of one entire cushioned side of the mail-car; and I was therefore well pleased that it occurred to a woman, who was also crossing the mountain, to jump up and seat herself beside me. She was a Sullivan—a name which is as common in this part of Kerry as O'Brien is in Clare, or Blennerhasset in Tralee. The inferior members of the clan are usually called simply Sullivan, but the higher ranks O'Sullivan. Another family equally numerous here is the M'Carthys; and the woman informed me that there were few people in Kerry who were not in some way related either to the one or the other. Her own father was a Sullivan, and her mother a M'Carthy. She was smoking, and had a piece of lighted turf in her hand, which she was conveying to her husband, who was at work in a potato-garden among the rocks. Twice, when I looked at her, she immediately offered me her pipe, which I was unpolite enough to decline. To offer a pipe, and gratefully to accept it, has ever been a customary trait of Irish politeness. I would like to know how it comes, that not only in Ireland, but almost through the whole world, so much politeness is connected with this stinking tobacco. With most savages the pipe of peace is customary! A pipe is the first civility offered to a visitor in Turkey; and in Paris the cigar-case is not only placed upon the table, but is the first mark of politeness that friend offers to friend, or the host to his guest; and generally throughout the whole of civilized Europe, those are deemed very unpolite by whom this ceremony is neglected! This custom is still more observed with tobacco in that form in which it shows itself in our snuff-shops. When in Europe a person presents his snuff-box to the friend who sits beside him, the act has precisely the same meaning as when the pipe of peace goes round in the wigwam of the savage. Peace is concluded, people consider themselves friends, and converse more freely with each other. Other things we do not offer so regularly. The pipe, which soothes the mind, puts people in good humour, stops the mouth of the angry and the ‘prise contenance,’ and infuses so much mildness, alone enjoys this privilege.
At the top of the mountain Mrs. Sullivan alighted, and climbed away through the rocks, with her piece of burning turf in her hand, the smoke of which enabled me to trace her course for some time. So usual is it for the Irish labourer to have a piece of ignited turf lying beside him in the field, that wherever you find the one you may be sure the other is not far distant.
After passing through an endless variety of blasted rocks and broken stones, we at length arrived at that portion of the road where its makers, tired of winding backwards and forwards, had
Numerous beautiful trees, in which some pretty country-seats are embosomed, enrich the valleys of Glengariff; and the bay on which the little village lies, is studded with islands like the lakes of Killarney. These islands have exactly the same peculiarities as those of Killarney, being covered with bog-stuff, furze-bushes, and occasional thickets; and as they are of all sizes, the bay appears as if it were full of great whales.
This is the renowned Bantry Bay, so spacious, so deep, so sheltered on every side, and so calm, that all the fleets in the world might here ride at anchor in perfect safety. It was in this bay that the French attempted to land towards the close of the last century; here also, according to Moore, the Colonists from Spain landed upwards of a thousand years before; and it was probably to this bay that the Phoenicians resorted in times of yore. Irish writers, who believe in a colonization from Spain, find many points of similarity between this western extremity of Ireland and Gallicia, the opposite north-western extremity of Spain, and are of opinion that a constant and direct communication by sea formerly existed between the Bay of Corunna and Bantry Bay. According to the old traditions cited by Moore, the Spaniards sailed over in so short a time, that, in order to render it credible, it is also necessary to suppose that a stronger current must at that period have set between these two points than is now known to prevail in any part of the world.
The views of the bay from our mountain roads were charming; and equally so were those from the road around the bay, into which several little rivers flow, while several arms of the sea stretch into the land. These we crossed by ivy-mantled bridges. The little islands, between which the barks of the fishermen were sailing backwards and forwards, were also exceedingly pleasing. Some of the steep promontories which jutted out into the sea were covered with potato-gardens to the very summits, whilst others were equally covered with turf. In a little creek we found a boat laden with oysters, which are very plentiful on the western coasts of Ireland; and for sixpence we obtained such an abundant supply of them, that some of our party ate too many, and were consequently very much indisposed on their arrival in Bantry. Apropos of oysters: whenever I ate oysters in Ireland, a story was always told me respecting a certain gentleman who, being recommended by his physician to take a few oysters before dinner, in order to sharpen his appetite, afterwards complained to the doctor that although he devoured a hundred every day before dinner, he did not find his appetite a bit better than before! As this story was invariably told every time I ate oysters I cannot attribute it
Bantry is a pretty little town, and methinks all towns that lie upon the sea are generally pretty. Ruin, dilapidation, sluggishness, poverty, disorder, and filth are less met with on the sea-coast than in the interior of countries. The sea is in its very nature refreshing, inciting, enlivening, and beneficial. The town is situated on a small handsome bay which branches off from the large one. Bantry was at one time celebrated for its fisheries, but the fishermen, like many others in Europe, now complain that the fish is no longer so abundant, either because it has greatly diminished in quantity, or taken another direction. When we every where hear these lamentations over the diminished productiveness of fisheries of every description, from the herring to the whale, it is natural to inquire whence it has arisen, and also whether it is not probable that, eventually, we shall have no fish to eat except such as we can breed and fatten in our ponds. Our fishermen are themselves destroying our fish not less effectually than our sportsmen are destroying our game, the waters being much freer to every one than the land, and the fish being much less protected in the breeding season than the feathered race. Whilst, however, the taking of fish is diminishing, that of sea-sand is on the increase. Formerly, only a few boats were employed in this branch of commerce, but now the number of little barks which fish up the coral sand on the sand banks amounts to some hundreds, so that even a new quay, at which we saw them lying in a long row, has been built for their use alone. The increased exertions for the improvement and extension of Irish agriculture is the cause of the great prosperity of this trade.
Even here there is no scarcity of beggars or of rags, as we found when we arrived at the fish-market, which is a walled-in court, surrounded by fish-stands. Scarcely had my companions and I entered it than we were accosted by twenty or thirty
The town belongs to the Earl of Bantry, whose son, Lord Bearhaven, takes his title from one of the islands in the bay, called Bear Island. Their lordships were both absent, although they do not belong to the regular class of absentees, but generally reside here on their charming domains. We therefore availed ourselves of this opportunity to walk along the shore, and visit their family seat, which is near the town, and is called Bantry Castle. The housekeeper at first refused to admit us, as his lordship was very particular about his house, and besides, the castle was all papered up. This served to increase my curiosity still more, for I had never yet seen an entire castle wrapped in paper. But having removed the scruples of the housekeeper, and obtained an entrance, we actually found every thing inside, from top to bottom, carefully enveloped in paper—in the large sheets of the Cork Constitution, the most extensively-circulated newspaper in the south of Ireland. The door-handles, nay, the entire doors, the bannisters, all the chairs and tables, the chandeliers, the hangings of the walls, all were thus preserved from the dust or the sun. Even a metal figure of St. Patrick himself, and a multitude of old metal dishes, which were hanging from the wall beside and around him, were intrusted to the conservative care of the Cork Constitution. I could not refrain from inspecting these antique dishes somewhat closely, in spite of the paper, for the housekeeper said they were old Spanish articles. The castle, though all very ancient, yet wanted nothing of modern elegance and comfort; for the English alone understand how to unite comfort with antiquity.
My travelling companion from Killarney to Cork, with whom I passed the evening in Bantry over a glass of whisky punch, was a gentleman from Londonderry, who was taking advantage of this beautiful autumn to make a tour of pleasure through the entire of his native isle. He related to me a very remarkable case of temperance, of which the servant who now attended him was the hero, and who, though a quick and dexterous fellow, had formerly been an incorrigible drunkard. He had often reproved him for this vice, punished him, diminished his wages, even promised to reward him if he would keep himself sober for a certain time; but all this was of no avail. As he was for ever relapsing from a brief
My companion also informed me that he had recently attended the great fair of Donegal, where nearly 10,000 people met together. Formerly, faction-fights, quarrels, and drunkenness were here the order of the day; but on this occasion he did not see a single drunken person, nor one quarrel. It appeared to him like a magical metamorphosis.
As my friend, somewhat fatigued by his journey, retired early to rest, I strolled out, late in the evening, along the strand. Whilst thus occupied, something moved past me; and by the rays of light which beamed from the window of a neighbouring house, I was enabled to perceive the strange attire of flowers which,
The Irish are a very religious people, and have all kinds of pretty pious wishes always at hand, with which they salute each other. Thus, if they pass by labourers at work in a field, they say, ‘God bless your work!’ to which the answer is, ‘Save you
When one creeps into an Irish hut, the usual salutation is ‘God save you all!’ and the answer is, ‘God save you kindly!’ Those who now thus replied to our salutation were the sister of Mary Sullivan and her half-grown daughter, who were both sitting at a turf fire boiling the potatoes, with her little son and little daughter, who were lying beside the pig, eating a half-boiled potato which they had taken from the pot. Their father was not at home, for he had been some days on the water, taking up sand. There came, however, another voice, I knew not from what corner of the house, nor did I know what it meant; only it seemed no ‘God save you kindly!’ I therefore inquired from whence the moaning proceeded. ‘It is my eldest son, your honour; he is weak in the understanding, thanks be to the great God! He often moans thus the livelong day.’
The hut was lighted partly by the fire, and partly by a lamp
‘He has been so from his birth, your honour,’ said his mother; ‘and we have been obliged to support him for twenty years, without his being able to do the least thing for us.’ It occurred to me that the poor creature might not therefore be well treated, as it is not uncommon for poor people to neglect those who cannot help to increase their earnings.
‘And yet you love him?’ inquired I of his poor mother.
‘Love him? Indeed I do, your honour! Why shouldn't I love him? Isn't he my son, my own flesh and blood, God bless him! Eh, mavourneen, look up!’ said she to her unfortunate son, while she carefully raised him, supported his head on her arm, and stroked his crippled hand: ‘I am the only one, sir,’ she continued, ‘who understands his language properly. He is always longing for me, and it seems I am the only one he loves. 'Tis I give him his potatoes every morning, and, when I have it, stirabout and milk. You see he has a better bed than any of us. Mavourneen! don't groan so, my darling!’ She smoothed his pillow and laid down his head, which he had again turned away from us.
This woman's affection for her son caused many thoughts to arise in my mind. It appeared to me that as not only the mental but in some measure the corporeal development of her child had remained almost stationary from his birth, so, in like manner, his mother loved him now with the same tenderness, intensity, and indulgence as when, twenty years ago, he was a suckling. She still fed him as she did then; she coaxed and caressed the youth of twenty years of age as she did the infant of a month. Nay, for twenty years she would have kept him at her breast, were it not physically impossible. When we think of the circumstances of
Mary Sullivan, the old aunt, had meanwhile hung her flower-wreathed hat on the wall, and also laid aside other parts of her costume. She then took from her pocket some potatoes and a fish, which had probably been made a present to her; the former she placed on that corner of the fire which she seemed to consider as her own, and the fish she suspended over it by a wire. She next took out her pipe and began to smoke. She told me, in answer to my inquiry, that her smoking cost her at least a halfpenny a day, or upwards of fifteen shillings a year, exclusive of the many little fragile clay pipes which she must use in that time. This was no inconsiderable sum for a beggar-woman; and as in Ireland a large piece of bread can be purchased for a halfpenny, it is to be wished that another Father Mathew may arise, to wean the poor Irishwomen from tobacco, and induce them to expend in bread, for themselves and their children, what they now lay out on this useless weed.
Tenderness and hospitality are qualities generally possessed by the Irish. All classes are likewise much at their ease in their intercourse with strangers; and in this respect the higher ranks resemble the Parisians. In many countries, when a stranger visits the huts of the poor, he must undergo a long and scrutinizing stare before they feel comfortable in his presence. With the Irish it is quite the reverse. Poor and half-naked though they may be, such accommodation as they have is instantly offered to their well-dressed visitor without embarrassment; and though they never forget to address him politely, as ‘your honour,’ they always appear to consider him—what he really is— their equal.
When I took my leave of the Sullivans, more than one ‘God speed ye!’ accompanied me to the door, with the most sincere thanks for the honour I had done them by my visit, and for the sympathy which I had shown for the unfortunate brother and son, The two little ones had in the meantime lighted a couple of dry splinters of wood for torches, and accompanied me over their
The next morning, although it was not yet day, another crowd of beggars surrounded our travelling car. Hunger drives these poor people to their daily melancholy work before the dawn. I did not, however, discover amongst them Mary Sullivan's flower-decorated hat. Perhaps she is better off, as she lives with her sister, and can sleep and smoke somewhat longer than others of her profession. Among these beggars was an old man, more than usually miserable in appearance, who was pushed about in a little car. His weak, whining voice constantly joined the din of the rest in a melancholy song, which consisted of these words: ‘Hundred and five years old! Blind and weak, and a hundred and five years old!’ His miserable appearance gained the victory over the rest, and he received the little we were able to bestow. As I was getting up on the car, I perceived that the little boy who pushed on the old man's car, shook him, and informed him that a gentleman had thrown something into it. ‘God bless him! long life to him! God save his honour! God carry him home!’ These good wishes, which this old living century murmured out in a trembling voice, accompanied us on our journey.
These blessings were the only thing worthy of remark on our entire journey from Bantry to Cork, a distance of about fifty miles, and through a somewhat desolate and uninteresting country, not much better cultivated than Kerry, and devoid of the interesting variety which the mountains and valleys and steep precipices there afford. It is in a mountainous country alone that a wilderness can be at all attractive, and a plain can only please when it is highly cultivated. The single exception to this on our whole route was the little town of Bandon, situated on the Bandon river, and whose environs are well planted with trees, and adorned with neat country-seats. Bandon, I was told, is as famous in the
The next best thing on this road, after the blessings of the beggars, is the cheapness of travelling upon it. The charge for these fifty miles is only three shillings and sixpence, being less than a penny a mile; while from Killarney to Bantry, which is but half that distance, we had to pay double the amount. The latter road, being, as I have said, only recently opened, the intercourse was not yet very great, and there was no opposition coach; while between Bantry and Cork there was ‘a great opposition.’ Here two rival cars had been established, and were mutually endeavouring to exceed one another in speed and cheapness. This opposition, however, had only existed about two years, and previous to that time the proprietor of the single car that travelled the road charged double and treble the present fares. Thus, even in its remotest parts, Ireland is every day deriving greater benefits, and becoming more animated, by the speculating and enterprising spirit of the English.
The principal proprietor and chief improver of cars, throughout the whole of Ireland, is an Italian named Bianconi, whose extensive enterprises entitle him to particular notice, especially as he is one of the rare instances in which a foreigner has beaten the English in speculation within their own territories. This remarkable man, by whose horses and cars one can now travel through the greater part of Ireland, came over here a little Italian boy, like many who are to be found in all the towns of the United Kingdom, to make a livelihood either by selling plaster images, or playing a barrel-organ. As he was a frugal and industrious lad, his images produced him some money, which he expended in other wares. His stock soon became so extensive, that he was no longer able to drag about his goods on his own back, as heretofore: he therefore purchased a donkey and a cart, such as are quite common in Ireland. The donkey, however, was not sufficiently quick for him, so he eventually bought a horse; and as he did not require its constant use, and had no idea of feeding it for nothing, he occasionally let out the animal to others for money and fair words. He now found that the hiring of his horse brought him more money in the end than the sale of his little wares: he
Mr. Bianconi has also had small maps of Ireland engraved, on which the various roads travelled by his cars are distinctly marked; and artists have been further employed in dignifying his enterprises by engraving a series of well-executed copper-plates, entitled ‘The Bianconi Cars,’ prints from which are to be seen all over Ireland. In one is represented the loading of one of these strange carriages, and the travellers taking their seats; in the second, their arrival at one of the Bianconi inns; in the third, the passengers are overtaken by a storm; in the fourth, the four horses, with their lengthy appendage of carriage, luggage, and passengers, are spiritedly galloping up a hill; in the fifth, the horses are being changed in the midst of a landscape of heath and bog, whilst the passengers are jumping off their seats to obtain exercise or refreshment; and in others similar characteristic incidents are pourtrayed.
‘Which is the road to Kerry?’ exclaimed my companion in a jeering tone to some Kerrymen who met us near Cork, their little horses guided by long straw bridles, and adorned with coarsely-plaited
It is said the Kerry people are learned, but poor, and somewhat boorish in their manners; the Limerick people handsome and polite; and the Dublin people extremely complaisant and hospitable, and the most refined of all the Irish. ‘And what are the Cork people?’ inquired I of my travelling companion, who was giving me all this information at the Commercial Hotel, where we had alighted. ‘Rather sharp!’ replied he; ‘they like to make merry at other people's expense, and are distinguished from all the other natives of Ireland by their peculiar and witty mockery. They are quick at remarking the weak sides of others, and often mercilessly persecute them with delicate yet cutting sarcasms.’ ‘Have the Cork people themselves, then, no weak side?’ ‘Oh yes!’——But while my friend was meditating a suitable reply, there burst forth beneath our window one of those most frightful attempts at music which the temperance bands, who march through the streets of Cork in the evening, are in the habit of making; and as it was Saturday night, they were followed by so many persons, that I clearly perceived that one of the weak sides of the CorkCork people must be some where in the region of their ears, since, were it otherwise, their police would not suffer the ears of the entire public to be annoyed by sounds more detestable than even the catterwauling of cats.
The following day, on visiting the picture exhibition of this good city, I imagined that I had discovered another of the weak sides of the Cork people, in a neighbourhood not very remote from their eyes, since upon the various pieces of canvas which were here exposed to view, so many displeasing forms and colours were brought together, that their want of harmony annoyed me almost as much as the music of the evening before. As, however, I had come to this exhibition not to criticise the works of the Cork artists, nor to delight myself with perfect creations of art, but to
The painters of every country, especially at present, when tableaux de genre are so much the order of the day, represent in their pictures so much that is descriptive of their nation, of the geography and the climate of their country, and so much that is characteristic of the manners and habits of its people, that any one who has made these his study must every where use picture galleries as one of the chief sources from whence to draw his information, and should not despise even the most insignificant exhibitions. Thus, at the Cork exhibition were displayed the busts of the Mayor of Cork, of last year's Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daniel O'Connell, and of Father Mathew. Then there was an emigration scene, of poor Irish leaving their beloved Erin for America; besides various Irish fishermen, and several views of wild mountains and turf-bogs. The best thing a painter can do is to represent the scenes and incidents of his own country, for in them men of the slightest talent may be certain they have a subject they understand, and that they will produce a picture which, if it is at all tolerable, possesses the merit of being a copy of something, and therefore likely to be of some use to the world. Even the greatest genius can, perhaps, only produce a masterpiece when he remains within the horizon of his nationality, and can only attain extraordinary excellence by embodying in his pictures the national scenes or national habits characteristic of his country. The greatest painters, like the greatest poets, have ever been eminently patriotic, and their best creations have invariably sprung from the inmost depths of their own souls, and illustrate the life of their nation or the nature of their fatherland.
But the chief strength of Cork lies in other things than the fine arts. This city is well known as the principal port for the exportation of the raw produce of the whole south of Ireland. I therefore hastened to the store-houses of the town—to the slaughter-houses, packing-cellars, and to its butter weigh-house, salting establishments, &c., in order to acquire information respecting those particular branches of industry in which the greater part of the population is employed.
In the neighbourhood of Cork are some of the greatest dairies in Ireland. Kerry, and other cattle-grazing districts, are also not very distant; so that here the largest quantities of butter, bacon, hams, meat, and cattle are brought together. In the same manner, the principal export of Dublin is grain, the produce of the arable districts by which it is surrounded. Butter is one of the chief
At the cellars of the provision merchants are to be seen immense quantities of ‘life stores’. Masses of hams and sides of bacon are arranged in long rows, like octavo and folio volumes. In the suburbs are extensive slaughter-houses for pigs, in which thousands of the inmates of the Irish cabins and rent-payers yearly lay down their lives. I would like to know with what feelings hungry Paddy studies these folios of bacon! It is lamentable to think that the poor Irishman must hand over to others such vast quantities of what he himself so much stands in need. Ireland is to the English, in some measure, what Sicily was to the Romans, and is to the Neapolitans at the present day. That lovely island was always, in like manner, tyrannized over and plundered by Italy. Were Paddy only a little more industrious, he could, I am certain, keep a flitch in his own chimney for festive days. As it is, however, he must first become a soldier of her Majesty, and sail away thousands of miles after the bacon he has fattened in his cabin, and then, in the East or West Indies, he may perchance be allowed to partake of it, as large quantities of provisions are made up in Cork for troops on foreign service.
Very interesting in this town are the establishments of those merchants who deal in fresh provisions, which they know how to preserve in their original freshness by some peculiar process of their own. These merchants are called ‘preserved fresh provision merchants.’ This branch of trade has been established in Ireland within the last twenty years, and has lately been considerably extended. Things of this kind can only be seen in Great Britain, because it is the only country which has so great an interest in being able to send all kinds of provision to every
The perfection which this art has attained is best proved by the testimony which Captain Ross has presented to this establishment. He certifies that in the year 1824 he bought here various cases of vegetables for his north-western expedition. Many of these remained in the stranded ship Fury till August, 1833, nine years afterwards, when they were again found and opened; and although during this time they had been exposed to all the injurious influences of that northern climate—in winter to a cold 52 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit, and in summer to a heat 80 degrees above zero—yet all the cases were found uninjured, and their contents in a state of perfect preservation, and fit for use.
Every thing connected with this branch of trade is remarkably complete. Thus, for instance, a quantity of cases are in readiness, each of which contains as much cream as is requisite for twelve cups, and others for twenty-four or thirty-six cups. The captain of a ship who wishes to supply himself here, has therefore only to state the number of his officers or passengers, to be provided with cases containing exactly the portions required for his daily consumption. Thus he wastes nothing, and even more regular economy is practicable than if there were cows on board. In like manner, the portions of meat and vegetables in each case are suited for a certain number of persons; and there is this further advantage, that most of the articles are already cooked, and both trouble and fire are alike saved. Sauces and soups, of every possible kind, prepared after the best rules of cookery, are also packed up in the same way, so that it is only necessary to give the article to the nearest sailor to warm, and
The quays of Cork present much that is interesting in the shipping of all these varieties of merchandize, especially the embarkation of the live stock, pigs, oxen, cows, &c. The shipping of the pigs is the most amusing, and hundreds of the idle strollers of Cork stand looking on, delighted with the scene. It is an inexhaustible source of entertainment to behold this humorous Paddy, this ‘queer fellow’ as he calls himself, who makes so much noise in whatever occupation he may be engaged, and who, as a ‘ready-witted’ Cork lady said to me, ‘is always allowed to say every thing twice,’—this talking, shrieking, gesticulating Irishman, bidding farewell to his ‘rent-payers,’ and busied about them there for the last time, and at last hoisting them into the ship which is to waft them away from Erin's soil. One ship is being laden with firkins of butter for foreign lands, where Ireland must be thought one of the richest countries in the world, or she would not export these whole cargoes of fat. Another is receiving sacks of flour, and the poor porters are almost sinking beneath a load of bread-stuff, of which not a morsel will fall to their share. A third is being provided with ships' biscuits, which have been baked in the great ‘steam-mill bakeries’ of Cork, dried and prepared to keep for years. Strange it is that this poor hungry Ireland, in which so many actually die of hunger every year, and in whose bills of mortality and hospital books ‘starvation’ is as regular a heading as any other cause of death;—strange it is, I say, that this country should, above all things, be destined to feed so many strangers to her soil.
During my stroll about these quays, I saw lying at them three of the quickest of English steamboats—the Princess Royal, the Prince of Wales, and the Fire-King. The Princess Royal is generally allowed to be the swiftest of all the steamboats which ply between the British Isles. On an average, including good and bad weather, she proceeds at the rate of twelve miles and a half an hour. The Prince of Wales was once considered the quickest, but its speed is now exceeded by the Princess Royal by two minutes in six and thirty miles. I am here speaking of sea-boats only, for on the Thames there are steamboats which can make twenty miles an hour. The Princess Royal is a beautiful vessel, and her saloons and cabins are fitted up quite in rococo style. She has now taken her station in Cork, and aids in bringing Ireland into closer connexion with England. All the vessels in this trade must, above all things, be constructed for animal passengers, and accordingly this elegant Princess has on her deck peculiar arrangements for
One of my most interesting and instructive visits in Cork was to the county gaol built here some years ago, both for debtors and criminals. The governors of English prisons are liberally instructed at all times to give every information to strangers respecting their arrangements; and the promptitude with which they answer the inquiries of all foreigners is deserving of high praise: they appear to have no secrets whatsoever. To the visitor who is properly introduced, their books are opened; he is not only permitted, but invited, to put any questions he pleases to the prisoners; and he is supplied with books, documents, and papers, from which he can derive farther information more at his leisure. The most gratifying information I gained from the papers lent to me in Cork, in so friendly a manner, was the extraordinary decrease of crime in Ireland since the first year of the temperance movement; and as I think this great phenomenon cannot be too generally known, I will here state the facts which appear to prove it.
The total number of criminals of all kinds brought to trial in Ireland, was—
In 1839 there were 1300 criminals sentenced to transportation, and in 1841 only 900; but at the present day sentence of transportation is less frequently passed, and still less frequently is it carried into effect.
Even in Tipperary, which is the most turbulent and disturbed county in Ireland, crime has evidently diminished. The population of Tipperary is only one-eighteenth part of the whole of Ireland. Therefore, as the total number of cases of riot in all Ireland in 1839 was 3409, the relative proportion for Tipperary, if its population had not been more turbulent than that of the others, would have been 200, instead of which, there were in that year 685 riots, or nearly 3 1/2 times as much as the mean proportion. In the same year, 81 out of 286, or nearly one-third of all the murders in Ireland, were perpetrated in this remarkable county, whilst the correct proportion would have been 16 only. Hence it appears that the people in Tipperary are five times as murderous as the Irish in general.
I was informed by the governor of the prison that a still further improvement was perceptible in 1842, there being only 65 criminals brought to trial in Cork at the July assizes of that year, the smallest number ever known.
When the criminal statistics of England are compared with those of Ireland, the former appear to evident disadvantage, crime having increased in England, during the same period, in nearly the same proportion that it has decreased in Ireland. Thus, in England—
Still, notwithstanding this, the number of indictments is, in Ireland, undeniably greater than in England, in proportion to the population. In 1841, Ireland contained eight millions of inhabitants, of whom about 20,000 (or 1 in 400,) were indicted; whilst
The proportion of murders in England to those in Ireland is particularly remarkable. In England, the number of murders or attempts to murder were—
The most frightful feature in the criminal statistics of Great Britain is the great number of juvenile and neglected offenders which every where fill the prisons. In the last few years, out of 100 prisoners, there were always about eight under sixteen years old; and in 1839, in Ireland, seven were convicted of murder and manslaughter under sixteen years of age. It must also be remembered that the laws are more severe against young persons in England than in our country. It is, however, an exceedingly lamentable truth, that the number of youthful offenders in Ireland has by no means decreased in the same ratio as the total number of criminals; it has rather remained remarkably stationary; nay, in some branches it has even increased. For instance, the number of criminals in Ireland under sixteen years old, was—
This is easily reconcilable with my remarks respecting temperance, which would naturally have a less powerful effect on children,
An important act of parliament (7th George IV.), passed in 1824, has produced a reform of the gaols of the United Kingdom; and since that time a number of healthy and well-arranged prisons have been erected in various parts of England. Previous to this there were, of course, tolerable gaols in most of the large cities; but in the small towns, and in the interior of the country, they resembled dismal caverns, and were called by the people in general ‘black holes.’ A frightful description of those places of confinement was laid before the House of Lords in 1819, but all these are now swept away by ‘the prison act,’ as it is termed. In place of the black holes, in which offenders were kept in safe custody, previous to their removal to the county gaol, small prisons, called bridewells, in which the offenders remain until the county assizes are held, are now generally used. In the county of Cork no fewer than seventeen of these bridewells have been erected within the last
The Cork county Gaol is a large and handsome building, and is appropriated for debtors as well as for criminals. There are ‘master debtors,’ who support themselves, and ‘pauper debtors,’ who are supported at the public expense. In these enlightened modern times, it is strange that people have not yet learned better logic, than to compel the man whose only offence is that he cannot pay his debts, and who has nothing whatever in common with criminals, to become their companion. It is also an evident injustice to the poor debtor to thrust him through the same gate with malefactors, and into a place which entails upon him so much disgrace. Formerly the insane were also confined there; in fine, all who on any account were required to be kept in custody. As the necessity for a distinction between lunatics and criminals has at length become apparent, the debtors may probably hereafter be also separated.
A captain of the navy, who some years since was governor here, has introduced into this prison many improvements, which are deserving of notice, and may perhaps be thought worthy of imitation elsewhere. In the first place, instead of beds he introduced hammocks, as being that description of sleeping accommodation which unites the most perfect cleanliness with the greatest saving of room. He next invented dining-tables without legs, which are lowered from the ceiling by very simple machinery, and drawn up again when no longer required for use. Thus they completely disappear, and leave the dining-room quite unencumbered. For seats in those eating-rooms they have round, smooth blocks of wood, painted black. These seats are not unsightly; and whilst they are indestructible, they may also be piled up in a corner without ceremony, and without taking up much room.
The entire prison is built of iron and stone; and as Paddy's dwelling is usually constructed of earth or mud, it may be said, without exaggeration, that for the commission of a wicked crime an Irishman is removed from a hole to a palace. His diet is also, in general, very much improved; for while he remained at home, with unimpeached honour, he had only watery potatoes; but as an offender in prison, he receives daily two pounds of bread and an allowance of milk along with it. It would, indeed, be difficult
Another interesting institution in Cork is the fever hospital, which is one of the best in Ireland, and boasts that the mortality of its inmates is less than in any other similar establishment in the United Kingdom. No fewer than from 1500 to 2000 patients are annually received into this hospital. There is a fever hospital in the principal town of almost every Irish county, and sometimes one in the smaller towns also. Dublin, it is well known, has the largest and best in the world. Fever patients, who are so very numerous in Ireland, are by the rules alone admissible into those hospitals, yet other patients are also occasionally received. In 1839, out of 1970 patients in the Cork fever hospital, 1856 were fever cases, and the remainder people affected with other diseases. Fevers of all kinds, especially nervous, and above all that worst description of them, the typhus, are every where prevalent in Ireland. Typhus is so common here, that when fever simply is
Misery, want, bad food, scarcity of fuel, and the moist climate, are probably the original causes of this disease. The records of the Cork fever hospital inform us that the greatest number of patients is received in April and May, and in November and December. The former are the months in which the distress of the poor in Ireland is at its greatest height; and the latter months are those in which the greatest quantity of rain falls. It is also remarked that in years of extreme wetness or scarcity the typhus fever is most prevalent. The increased humidity of a year works not only directly on the constitution, but also increases disease indirectly, by preventing the preparation and drying of the turf, and increasing the price of this necessary article so much that it is unattainable by the poor. How often does it happen, in Ireland, that they are compelled to break up and burn their tables, bedsteads, and other furniture, to procure a little warmth!
The inhabitants of the little Irish island which forms the renowned Cape Clear, suffered so much from a scarcity of fuel in 1839, that they came together and cast lots, which first, and which second and third, should tear down his cabin in order to warm the dwellings of the others with its materials. But the fever-plague was only increased by this proceeding; for as they were all crowded together in narrow rooms, and admitted no fresh air into their houses, the infection spread with still greater violence. Besides, in wet and cold years the poor are often compelled to mend the roofs of their houses with the straw which they had destined for their beds; and on these occasions, instead of fresh straw, they have to sleep upon old, or most probably upon none at all. All the misery that a wet year thus produces in Ireland (and on account of the peculiar nature of the country, it produces more than with us,) tends to increase typhus, and to fill the fever hospitals. Whilst other lands always wish for rain, Ireland generally longs for dry weather: the ground retains so much moisture that a dry year is never injurious. The potatoes then turn out best, and the turf is most easily made; and turf and potatoes are here the foundation of all earthly happiness, and even of existence itself, the true ‘nervus omnium verum,’ as money is in other lands.
Cork, like most towns in Ireland, has its barracks, which stand on a hill in the suburbs of the city. These barracks are more interesting than usual, as Cork is one of those harbours in which troops are embarked and provisioned for the colonies, and where they also disembark on their return home. The usual period of foreign service is three years, after which, for ten years, the regiments are continually changing their quarters throughout the entire kingdom—Ireland, Scotland, and England—when they are again shipped for the colonies, where also they are frequently moved from one place to another. When it is considered how long, according to this system, the troops must be maintained and supported unprofitably on the wide waves of the ocean, it is evident that on this account alone the English army must be one of the most expensive in the world. Of every regiment sent to the colonies, a part (two companies, I believe,) remains behind in the mother country, to attend to the interests of the regiment, but principally to collect recruits, train them, and send them to the regiment on the foreign station. Those companies which remain behind are termed the depôt of the regiment. The periods of circulation for the artillery and infantry are different; and the troops destined for the East Indies have also their own peculiar regulations. The latter have no depots in Cork, being all equipped and embarked from English harbours.
One of my first walks in Cork was to these barracks. The great gate which leads to the inner court was placarded from top to bottom with advertisements, inviting young men to enter her Majesty's service. These English invitations are, in their composition, of a very characteristic nature; and we on the Continent, where every one is compelled to serve as a soldier in his turn, can form no idea of them. They are generally got up like attractive playbills: for instance, at the top of one is placed the representation of a dashing horseman galloping in full uniform, and underneath, in large letters, ‘GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!’ It then proceeds to say, that ‘twelve of the finest of her Majesty's regiments, of the greatest respectability, and of the most acknowledged gallantry, are now open to the free choice of the sons of Erin. Now is the very best time for active young men to enrol themselves in one of them for her Majesty's service, it is the most easy service,
My time would not permit me to copy these announcements verbatim; but many of them were of a much more alluring character, and offered still greater advantages than those I have mentioned. Recruiting parties from the various regimental depots, composed of the tallest and finest-looking men, are also sent into the surrounding towns and villages, where, their caps profusely decorated with bunches of many-coloured ribbons, and their sticks and sword-belts also ornamented with ribbons and flowers, they parade the streets and market-places, and visit the alehouses, in order to entrap the ‘spirited young men.’ It is surprising that so many healthy young Irishmen are able to resist all these allurements, and that, on the contrary, they do not all eagerly grasp at the prospect of exchanging their filthy rags and miserable cabins for good gay clothing and comfortable barracks. His native soil must have numberless attractions for an Irishman, that he so often prefers privations at home to plenty and abundance in the English colonies.
Cork barracks are said to be the largest and best in the kingdom; and as we wandered about in the sleeping-rooms and eating-rooms, the canteens, (as the sutlers' shops or alehouses in English barracks are called,) the officers' mess-rooms, and the extensive squares, we every where saw much to excite interest and attract our attention. The 10th hussars, returning from exercise, defiled before us. The regiment was composed of remarkably fine men, and the noblest horses in the world. The saddles were all ornamented with tiger skins, most of them genuine. The equipment of English soldiers is indeed the most costly in the world, for everything is of the best quality: thus the hussar-jackets worn by the officers in this regiment, alone cost about forty pounds each. Imitation gold, in epaulettes or lace, is unknown in the English army; and the cloth worn by the officers (rendered still more expensive on account of its red colour) costs about two pounds per yard. As the English troops have to visit extremely different climates, a relaxation of the strict regulations
It is said that the English have adopted the red colour for their soldiers, in order the better to conceal the blood from their wounds, so that the recruits, when first brought into action, may not be frightened by the sight of so much blood. But on the other hand, as there is so little in nature that is red, his dress makes the English soldier more easily distinguished, and thousands may have been slain by the enemy's bullet, who, in gray or green clothes, might not have been perceived. This red dress has doubtless rendered many English victories much more sanguinary and fatal to the troops, and it is inconceivable that no attempt should yet have been made to introduce a gradual change of colour. For the well-known colour of the uniform of the British navy a more plausible reason is assigned,—that indigo blue is the only colour which can withstand the destructive effects of salt water.
One of the officers informed me that the band-master of his regiment was a German. This is very frequently the case, in English as well as in Russian regiments. These band-masters are very well paid, receiving as much as twelve shillings a day, besides diet and clothing. Of all foreigners, Germans are most frequently found in the English service, especially in the navy; whilst Frenchmen are most rarely met with. It is said, however, that no Frenchman is permitted to enter the British navy. (Are there any Englishmen in the French service?) It is only in the cooking department that the exception to this rule, so unfavourable to the French, is apparent; for in the mess-room of the 45th regiment, which was about to be embarked for the Mediterranean, I found a cook of that nation. A German tailor, whom I also met here, and who was kind enough to direct my attention to many things worthy of notice, assured me that this was the only Frenchman he had ever known in the English army, and he must have seen a large portion of it, during his long residence in Cork, where he had assisted in clothing most of the regiments that are constantly passing through that city.
Germans are somewhat scarce in Cork. I could only hear of five, and three-fifths of these I saw, that is to say — the tailor above-mentioned, a teacher of music, and a young musician, — all
In the neighbourhood of Cork are two sights, one of which, although very celebrated, is scarcely worth the trouble of visiting; whilst the other is as beautiful as it is famous. The latter is the voyage down the river Lee to Cove; and the former is the ruins of Blarney Castle, so well known from the popular song of ‘The Groves of Blarney,’ and also by the legend that whoever kisses a certain projecting stone of the castle, is gifted by the fairies with a remarkable and irresistible amiability, especially in the eyes of the fair sex. This legend has called forth numerous ill-natured caricatures against poor O'Connell; amongst others, one in which he is represented sitting on the Blarney Stone and deriving his irresistible powers from this kind of kissing. All this, however, one may very easily imagine, without going to see it. But the voyage down the Lee to Cove must be made in person to be duly appreciated.
The south, or rather the south-eastern, coast of Ireland, from Cape Clear to Carnsore Point, forms a nearly straight line, 120 miles long. It contains a number of inlets, or arms of the sea, which, being less deep, broad, and long than those on the western coast, which are termed bays, are here simply called harbours. Such are the harbours of Baltimore, Glandore, Kinsale, Oysterhaven, Cork, Youghal, Dungarvon, Waterford, and Wexford; into most of which now small rivers, as the Bandon into Kinsale harbour, the Lee into Cork harbour, the Blackwater into Youghal harbour, and the Suir into Waterford harbour. All these rivers
Accompanied by one of my German fellow-countrymen, and a numerous crowd of Sunday travellers which filled the steamboat, I embarked on the beautiful stream. The city of Cork lies picturesquely beautiful on both sides of the river, which unfortunately is somewhat shallow near the town. To remedy this defect, a great ‘navigation wall’ has been built, by means of which the channel is narrowed and deepened. The sailors are benefited by this improvement; but not so many hundreds of the poor citizens who prefer living on dry ground, but whose houses, in consequence of this contraction of the river, are frequently inundated with water, and rendered uninhabitable during high floods.
The bay is full of islands, which seem to divide it into many arms. All these islands are richly cultivated, and many charming villas closely approach the water, or rather lie near it, in delightful succession, and surrounded by extensive parks. The water itself was every where alive with ships and boats; and here and there, where there is a little harbour, as at Passage, they lay in thick groups. The ships, the channel, the villas, the parks, their beautiful trees and meadows, and the little groves—all these, as they presented themselves on the voyage, formed a rapid succession of the most varied and delightful pictures.
At the extremity of the largest island, called the Great Island, lies the principal roadstead of Cork, the well-known Cove, with its slate-covered houses (like the houses in Elberfeld and Barmen,) rising one over the other, on the steep shore of the island, in the form of an amphitheatre. We climbed the ascent behind the town, to obtain from thence a view of the entire scene; and on our way thither met half the population of Cove, which streamed down from the church, situated high on the hill; so that at every step, along with the beauties of nature, we had also to admire the remarkably handsome appearance of the so-called better classes of the race inhabiting those districts.
From the hill one looks down on the deepest part of the bay, which is widest at Cove, and is studded with numerous small islands, some of which, as Spike Island, Haulbowline, &c., lie in it like great ships of the line. The latter is furnished with an extensive magazine of sea stores, in which the ships and expeditions which are here equipped find every thing they require. Before the bay joins the open sea it is again narrowed, and on each point of the peninsulas which form this strait a fort is erected to guard the entrance. Between these forts one looks out on the free ocean, and sees various dark-looking specks in the distance, which are known to be ships, looking out for the entrance, which is recognized by Roche's lighthouse—the first indication of Cork Harbour to be seen from the open sea. It is said, that on clear nights this light is visible twenty-five miles off at sea. Out of thirty-six lighthouses, there are only two which shine still farther over the sea, viz., Arran Island light in the west, visible twenty-nine miles distant, and that of Cape Clear at twenty-eight miles. Of these thirty-six, twenty-six are termed first-class lighthouses; ten have two lights, one has three, and seven are revolving lights: all the rest are fixed.
I could learn nothing certain respecting the great magazines I have mentioned as being on one of the islands in the middle of the bay. Whilst some affirmed that most of the stores were empty, others stated that these magazines were now almost entirely disused; but all thought it ridiculous that the three regiments lately sent to China, and which were ultimately furnished with provisions from Ireland, should not have been here supplied in the first instance, certainly at a much cheaper rate, and sent direct from Cork to their destination. Instead of this, however, they were first embarked here in steamers, and sent partly to Liverpool, and partly to Bristol; from whence they travelled by steam and railroads to London, and from thence again by steam to Chatham, where at last they embarked for China. This little preparatory journey alone cost upwards of £5000, all of which might have been saved at Cork.
I heard farther complaints here of the falling off of the fisheries, It is well known that fish, especially salmon, was formerly so abundant in all the mouths of English rivers, that, as in Bristol for instance, people were forbidden to give their servants salmon more than twice a week. The same story is told of some German towns; but the English salmon fisheries are now almost every where destroyed. This result may probably, in some degree, be attributed to the great increase of salmon-eaters; but is also in an equal degree referrible to the inordinate increase of manufactories,
The city of Cork carries on an important trade in timber, vast quantities of which are every where to be seen on the landing-places of the harbour, and even on the water. It was mostly American timber. Baltic timber is usually much preferred, but it is of course dearer than that brought from the British Colonies. It is said that American timber rots much quicker than the Baltic, probably because the young speculative colonists, who wish to make money, and room for themselves in the forests of America, do not take such care in its management as the land and forest-owners in the Baltic provinces. It is also said that it is particularly liable to dry rot; and some years ago there was a great outcry against it on this account. All the world joined in the clamour: long articles were written in the newspapers about dry rot, and all who had built houses of American timber were afraid that, before they were aware, their roofs would come tumbling about their ears. Many, in their alarm, even pulled down their houses, and had them rebuilt with Baltic timber. Numerous remedies were suggested for the prevention of this dry rot, and there was even an Antidry-rot Company established, which advised and proposed, I know not what, but at last came before parliament with a petition praying that the duty on Baltic timber might be abolished. This, in fact, was the sole object of the ‘dry-rot bubble;’ and the whole outcry was probably originated and promoted by jobbers
On my way to Cove I had observed on the shore a large building, which I was informed was a nunnery, and also a place of education for young ladies. Next day, provided with letters of introduction by some kind lady-patronesses at Cork, I visited this institution. It contains forty young ladies of the higher classes, who are here instructed in all the fine arts and sciences, and at the same time partake of the discipline of the cloister. The building is very spacious and elegant, and the teachers are nuns of the congregation of Paris. The principal of the institution, a lady of most polished manners, was so obliging as to conduct me over the entire building, and thus made me acquainted with an educational establishment which left nothing to be desired. I could scarcely have believed that Ireland, whose ancient renowned schools lie in ruins, now possessed such a seminary. Many Irish families send their daughters to France, to be educated in the convents there; and even in this institution the education was half French, the ladies preferring to converse in that language, and taking much pleasure in speaking of France. The French have also, on their side, an extreme partiality for the Irish, because they regard them as having been oppressed by their Germanic conquerors, as well on account of their Catholicism as of their Celtic origin. No French book appears respecting Ireland that does not laud O'Connell to the sky, that is not full of admiration for the Irish national character, and equally redolent of denunciations of the English and their tyranny, as well as of blindness to those benefits which, like roses among thorns, Ireland actually finds in her union with England.
As the Sclavonic and Germanic races are opposed to each other, so there is also a union of Celtic or Roman races,—(the two are and have ever been united)—the French, Italians, and Irish, against the Germanic races, the Germans, Dutch, and English. The Irish know this well, and are therefore much more friendly to the French than the English are. In general the Irish speak the French language with fluency, and have great politeness and affability of manner. The attention of France is always directed towards Ireland, with which she is constantly coquetting and intriguing,
There are more convents than monasteries in Ireland; but the number of both, especially of the latter, is extremely small. The city of Prague alone contains more of these religious establishments than are to be found in all Ireland—a fact which will, I think, excite the astonishment of my German readers. Knowing, as we do, how strongly the Irish are attached to the Catholic religion, and looking upon them as arch-Catholics, according to our modes of thinking, we in general picture to ourselves the whole land full of priests, nuns, monks, churches, and cloisters; and expect to find crucifixes, crosses, and images on all the roads; in a word, that Ireland has, in this respect, the same appearance as Bohemia and some parts of Austria. But how widely and remarkably different is the reality. The priests are seldom seen in the streets; and I never saw monks and nuns mixing with the people in the streets, as in Italian and Bohemian towns. No splendid churches have ever been built in the Irish cities—in the style, I mean, of those in Belgium, and also in some towns of France and Germany. No remarkable ecclesiastical buildings, like those ancient, picturesque, and venerable structures which stand in the streets of our Catholic towns in Germany, are to be found in Ireland. The cathedrals of Dublin and Armagh are the only ones of any celebrity; and the first of these, which I saw, presented so little that is deserving of notice, that I am inclined to mistrust the alleged beauty of the other.
In the Catholic countries of the Continent, the neighbourhoods of the churches are generally adorned with a multitude of little chapels; but these are either entirely wanting in Irish towns and villages, or are extremely few in number. Nowhere on the roads are there stone crosses, or statues of saints, before which travellers may kneel in prayer. The old churches, abbeys, and cloisters of the land, as well as the old stone crosses, lie in ruins, or are completely swept away.
If the Bohemians had a saint so famed and honoured as St. Patrick, they would have erected a thousand statues to his honour in all corners of the land, as they have done with their St. Nepomuck. In Ireland, on the other hand, there are scarcely two statues of St. Patrick. In short, the whole land seems as if
In no country has Protestantism tyrannized over Catholicism so completely as in Ireland. Until lately, the Catholics were not permitted to have high steeples, or large bells in their churches; and at one time, say the people, ‘the Protestants forbade us Catholics to eat with a knife and fork, a spoon only being allowed us, and what we could not catch with that we had to eat with our fingers.’ There was also the shameful law by which a younger son, who chose to leave the Catholic religion and turn Protestant, might claim the property of his elder brethren, who adhered to their ancient faith. In no other country have Protestants endeavoured to make proselytes by such laws as these; nor has any other nation, whilst preserving the outward form of the old Catholic church, retained also, as in Ireland, her tyrannical, exclusive, persecuting, heretic-branding, and proselytizing spirit. All those errors are much more natural and pardonable in the ancient mother church, than in its Protestant rival, which raised its banner in the name of freedom of conscience, and claimed a toleration in matters of faith which it was bound to grant to others in return. The Catholic church regards itself as the only true and universal church, to which all Christians shall and must belong; and tyranny and intolerance are, therefore, much more natural to it. But the exercise of similar tyranny by Protestantism, which protested against all tyranny in matters of religion, is just as disgraceful and unnatural as it would be to a liberal in politics.
The emancipation of the Irish Catholics has, indeed, greatly moderated and improved their condition. Not only are Catholics now admitted into Parliament, but every where throughout the country they enjoy a much greater equality—a result which cannot fail to be gratifying to every humane and right-minded Protestant. A Catholic, and a poor man, were formerly in Ireland almost synonymous terms. The Catholic, even if he did not belong to the lower orders, was ever obsequious and humble to the Protestant, who, on his part, was haughty and exclusive. Now, they
In following up the complete emancipation of the Catholics, and the reforming of their situation, it is to be hoped that the position of their priests may speedily be altered, so as to do away with the contemptible practices which still prevail in their churches. I allude more especially to the collections which are made at the doors of Catholic churches for the benefit of the priesthood. The small income of the Irish priests has compelled them to collect a tribute from church-goers, for the service of God, such as is not raised in a similar manner in any other Catholic country. I witnessed these collections in several places, among others in Cork. The tribute was gathered at two entrances—at the principal gate where the poor went into the churth, and were obliged to pay a penny each; and at a side door, where the rich entered, and payed as much more as they pleased. At the latter was posted up, in large letters, ‘A SILVER COLLECTION IS EXPECTED;’ that is to say, you are expected to pay at least sixpence. A priest attended in person to receive the money, and also, as I was told, to produce by his presence a still more effectual impression on the purses of the people. He returned thanks with a bow for every gift that was deposited on the plate. Before the principal door of the church, which was open, and on the steps leading to it, were crowded many poor people and beggars—too poor to pay the required tribute. They lay with folded hands and bended knees upon the stones, and listened for the far-off sounds that reached them from the interior of the church. ‘They are satisfied,’ said my companion, ‘if they but hear the little bell of the assistant of the priest who officiates at the altar; when they have heard that little bell from within, and
I, and many others, who were accustomed to the matter, looked on this scene without perceiving in it any thing very disgraceful; but if we examine it narrowly, clearly, and sharply with the torch which Christ has placed in our hands, can we find language too strong in which to reprobate a state of things, which forces the priest to resort to such measures in order to support his existence? It is said that the incomes of the Catholic priests in Ireland are chiefly derived from these collections, which are censured by the Protestants still more than by the Catholic laity, although the former are not called on to pay any thing, but are in reality those by whom this scandal was originated, since it was by the Protestants that the Irish Catholic church was deprived of its ancient revenues. The utterly destitute Irish are thus entirely excluded from the worship of God, except what pertains to the tinkling sound of the mass-bell; and were the inmost recesses of their hearts less deeply imbued with religious feeling, the result would be most unfavourable to their spiritual welfare.
Those who deem the ancient Irish language as their mother tongue, are still worse provided for. In the great city of Cork—around which Irish is still much spoken—two preachers only deliver sermons in that language; and yet it is very natural that the people should wish to hear what they hold most sacred in the language they love the best. A short time since, as I was informed by the chaplain himself, the prisoners in the Cork county gaol petitioned him occasionally to preach his sermon in Irish instead of English.
The Roman Catholic bishop of Cork has one of the most interesting collections of books I have anywhere seen. This learned and industrious man has turned his whole house into a library: not only has he converted his sitting-rooms and dining-rooms into book-rooms, but even in his bed-rooms every available space is filled with books: his attendants, even his maid-servants, sleep in little libraries; the staircases are lined with books along the walls; and the corridors which lead from room to room have full bookcases at their sides; every where books are literally piled up, even to the garrets. This is the largest private library in Ireland, and contains many interesting and costly works. I mention this, because I believe it is not generally known that there are still such men among the Roman Catholic clergy, who regard and collect every thing relating to literature with such extraordinary zeal. The time once was, indeed, when Ireland was better known in Europe than many other lands, and when more light streamed
But those times are now much changed. The island can no longer be styled, even by a poet, ‘Felix Hibernia!’ All the productions of Irish poets are somewhat melancholy; and Haydn, when an Irish melody was played before him, without his knowing from what country it came, said that such music must belong to an unhappy and enslaved people. The great and promising spirits which frequently arise in the island are speedily absorbed by England in the various services of the state. For study and literature, the Irish Catholics mostly resort to the Continent; but they have lately obtained a Roman Catholic seminary at Maynooth, in their fatherland. The worthy prelate of Cork informed me that he had received his education in France, which country is generally preferred by the Irish clergy for acquiring the knowledge requisite for their vocation; and in my wanderings through Ireland I twice met with poor old men who expressed a strong wish to save enough to enable them to send thither their sons, (who had devoted themselves to the priesthood,) when they reached the proper age.
In no country that I have visited is mourning so general as in the United Kingdom, and no where have I seen so many black craped, mourning gentlemen as in Cork. Mourning is not only usual in very many cases where it would not be thought of in Germany, but is also of longer duration. For near relations it continues an entire year; even for very distant relations, or
I have before remarked, that the Irish Catholics are now more powerful and wealthy, and the Protestants more liberal. This is undoubtedly true, inasmuch as the liberal and tolerant Protestant party was never so great as now; and never, since the times of Cromwell and William III., were the Catholics in so prosperous a state as at present. I had, however, frequent occasion to remark that they still sometimes stand in their old relative positions. I was once recommended not to take off my hat so often, as that was only done by the poor Catholics; and in Cork I lodged at an
Whilst recognising the beneficial influence of the temperance movement on the passions and violence of the people, we must not at the same time imagine that every thing is already accomplished. This will be clearly exemplified by the relation of a remarkable deed of violence, which was perpetrated in true Irish style, a very short time before my arrival in Cork. A trader, already engaged in business, had entered into partnership with another individual; but finding that they could not agree, a separation was decided upon. Each party was anxious to buy the other out, and retain possession of the shop. As, however, no satisfactory agreement could be made on the subject, (and the arrangement of such matters by process of law is very tedious in Ireland,) one of them collected a party of his friends, who, armed with shillelaghs, (the terrible Irish cudgel,) attacked and stormed his opponent in his shop. The latter was not altogether unprepared, and stoutly defended himself; but the attacking party was too powerful, and the shop fell into their possession. Only ONE man was killed in this affair! But such is the mode by which people in Ireland sometimes obtain possession, even at the present day.
Having received the congratulations of my host and my friends upon the ‘delightful day,’ which day, however, I only considered as one not absolutely very bad, I left Cork for Kilkenny, where I was informed a great horse-race was to take place. Not only in Cork, but all over Ireland, have I been perpetually congratulated on the ‘delightful weather’ that fell to my lot, even when I was drenched
If in England the police are not constantly prying into the circumstances and character of every stranger, the benefits to be derived from such a system of espionage are amply supplied by private individuals; and I would recommend every one who would avoid the torture of a curious and circumstantial inquisition, to follow my example; or, what is perhaps still better, to write the whole on a small piece of paper, and attach it to his hat; as, when the first curiosity of his fellow-travellers is fully satisfied, he may shake hands with them, and find them, as I did in the present instance, agreeable and well-informed companions.
One of my neighbours was an extensive whisky distiller, and he related to me the following remarkable facts in connexion with the temperance cause, by the success of which he had been a heavy loser. Formerly he kept ninety men at work, but could now only give employment to fifty. Notwithstanding the serious diminution thus produced in his income, he highly praised the temperance reform, and this, as he candidly admitted, for a selfish reason. Whilst he employed ninety men, they were so intemperate and unruly as to occasion him infinite anxiety and annoyance. But the fifty men he now employed were teetotallers, and could do more work than the previous ninety; so that he was now enabled to extend his speculations to other fields, and to manufacture whisky for exportation to foreign markets, and in this manner retrieve, in some measure, his previous loss. When those who from interested motives must naturally be the opponents of temperance are thus enabled to extract from it so much that is beneficial, is it strange that its friends should extol it to the skies?
The country between Cork and Kilkenny has many beautiful and interesting points; it may even be said, that the most attractive part of Ireland commences at Cork, and continues from thence in a north-westerly direction. The entire coast district from Cork to Dublin is unsurpassed in Ireland for beautiful landscapes, prettily situated towns, delightful river scenery, fine bays and harbours,
The last town in the county of Cork is Mitchelstown, and the traveller whose time will not permit him to stop here, as was my case, should sit on the south side of the car, and thus escape the mortification of seeing in the distance the entrance to the far-famed Mitchelstown caverns, which he must otherwise pass in vexation and silence, and forget. The next river is the Suir; and from thence the road passes through a flat country lying between the Galtee and the Knockmeledown mountains, which are both about 3000 feet high. The most elevated points of each of these mountain chains are only about nine miles asunder, so that the smallest details of their structure are visible on both sides of the plain.
Cahir lies on the banks of the Suir. The lofty steeple of its Catholic church is visible from a distance, rising proudly near the little steeple of its Protestant rival. Although formerly such a thing was unheard of, the steeples of Catholic churches in Ireland are now frequently more stately than those of ‘the Establishment.’ The mania for building churches is now as great among the Irish Catholics, as it ever has been among the English Protestants; and in both countries people vie with each other in this respect, in a manner I have never seen equalled, except in Russia. Cahir is delightfully situated on the river Suir; and as the inhabitants of Fermoy direct attention to the ancient and renowned Lismore, so those of Cahir revert to the equally ancient and (on account of its ruins) renowned Cashel. The ruin-covered rock of Cashel, which we saw in the distance, is one of the most sacred places in Ireland. The ruins of churches, of different periods, adorn the rock; and a high pillar-tower, in good preservation, marks its summit. The ruins of Cashel are said to be the most
The present Lord Glengall is the individual on whom, after God and the sun, after turf and potatoes, depends the welfare of the people in the neighbourhood of Cahir. In the suburbs stands his castle, in which he resides, pursuant to a promise made by him some years since. In all these castles and great families, the question is invariably ‘residence’ or ‘non-residence;’ with the people it is a question of existence or non-existence. If the landlord resides on his property, the people are contented; they have less annoyance, and greater advantages. Should the landlord, on the other hand, be an absentee, the tenants are more hardly used, they are harassed with executions for non-payment of rent, and the money is drained from the country, without any equivalent being received in exchange.
Leaving Cahir, we reached the far-famed county of Tipperary, in which more men are beaten and killed in one year than in the whole kingdom of Saxony in five years. Not only in their own county, and in their own neighbourhood, do these revengeful Tipperarymen perpetrate their evil deeds, but they pursue to his retreat in a distant part of the land, and accomplish the destruction of, every individual against whom they have sworn revenge. I could cite many well-known facts in illustration of this assertion; and tales of murder are even related, in which those who wished to slaughter their victims, sought and found in Tipperary an instrument willing and ready to carry out their intentions, and to become a murderer by profession. ‘Tipperary hanging-men’ is, in consequence, a proverb in Ireland; and I have sometimes heard the coachman apply this epithet to his horses when they were restive.
As the Italians have their dagger, so the Irish, and especially the Tipperarymen, have their ‘shillelaghs,’ the hard clubs I have already mentioned, with which they perpetrate most of their crimes. Shillelagh is a small place in the county of Wicklow, in the neighbourhood of which many of those clubs are cut, and from thence their name is derived. These clubs look much more harmless than one would expect from their far-spread evil repute; and the long thick staves, tipped with iron, which are carried by the inhabitants of our Alps, have a much more dangerous appearance. But it is the use to which it is applied that has rendered the shillelaghs so terrible.
In Cahir I met a Tipperaryman in the street: he was walking by his little ass, which was tackled to a turf-car; his clothes, which
‘Do not, on that account, judge and condemn those Tipperarymen so quickly, sir!’ began one of my fellow-travellers, as we again seated ourselves on the car. ‘There are certainly exceedingly ill-tempered persons among them, and they in many respects deserve the bad character they bear in Ireland; but I have known this county for many, many years—I may say I know every corner of
In Fermoy, Cahir, and many other villages in the south of Ireland, are to be seen a great number of mills, by which the corn is ground into flour for the Cork market. In some places these mills are as numerous as the cotton-factories in many English towns.
Clonmel is the largest town in Tipperary, and contains upwards of 16,000 inhabitants; and to judge from its outward appearance, and the bustle in the streets, it is, as we say in Germany, ‘ein nahrhafter Ort,’ or, as the English express it, ‘a very respectable-looking and thriving town.’ I here visited the establishment of Mr. Bianconi, whom I have before mentioned as the most extensive proprietor of public carriages in Ireland; but had not the pleasure of meeting with that spirited and useful individual, who was then in Italy with his family, revisiting his birth-place. All the cars and harness which are required for his extensive business are manufactured in Clonmel, and he gives employment to upwards of a hundred of the inhabitants.
‘Since temperance,’ it is said, the unruly people of Tipperary have become more quiet and orderly; and although their unfortunate political condition has a tendency to keep them perpetually in a rebellious mood, yet riots and outbreaks, arising from party hatred and revenge, are much less frequent. But so many changes in Ireland are now dated ‘since temperance,’ that if it only continues fifty years longer, this reform will surely mark the commencement of a new era.
As is commonly the case in Ireland, several old beggar-women surrounded our car in Clonmel. One of them, to whom I gave a penny, spat on it before putting it into her pocket. At first I thought she was displeased that I had given her so little; but I afterwards remarked that the practice was customary with beggars in Ireland (as well as in England), and that they spit on the coin
I have mentioned the flaxen-haired children; but there are some parts of Ireland, the west for example, where all are black-haired. Ireland appears to present a remarkable anomaly with respect to the colour of eyes; for while, in other lands, blue eyes are generally found with light hair, and brown eyes with dark hair, here blue eyes are common every where, almost without exception, and an eye blue as the Forget-me-not (vergissmeinnichtblauste Auge), gleams even under the most raven black hair.
In the south of Ireland there are a great many little groups of hills, of limited extent, the geological connexion of which with one another may certainly be traced by scientific research, but which to the casual observer appear wholly unconnected, and form no long chains, like our German mountains. Such groups are those we passed to-day, as well as some I had noticed on the road to the Shannon; the Slievh Grine, near Youghal, and the Comeragh mountains, near Clonmel, are also of a similar character. All those may be considered as little groups of mountains, which have their highest elevation in the middle, and descend on all sides in several lesser heights, which are all separated from one another,
Beyond Clonmel we passed another of these groups, called Slievhnaman. The most striking feature of these mountains is, that up to the top they appear like grassy hills, whilst on each summit are to be seen rocks which appeared to have been dashed to pieces, and then thrown together in a heap of small fragments. Almost every summit was crowned, as it were, with a heap of broken rocks, such as I have described, and it was often difficult to believe that they had not been thus piled up by art. In fact, the people in the neighbourhood believe that the ancient fire-worshippers gathered these stones, and assert that their altars were placed on those heights. But although this supposition is in the highest degree improbable, the latter portion of the assertion may be based on truth; for it is well known that the Celtic and Druidical Irish had altars on the summits of mountains, that they held many hill-tops sacred, and that on some of them their kings were crowned. Not far from Cork, in the neighbourhood of Cloyne, and near the mouth of Cove-bay, is a rock called Carrig-coith, ‘the Rock of the Sun,’ on which the Druids offered sacrifice; and many of those summits to which I have alluded may have been similar rock-altars of the Sun, built by nature.
We arrived at Kilkenny in the evening, and after having dined, I had a sight of life in an Irish town, on the eve of a great horserace. Kilkenny has now about 25,000 inhabitants, and is, with
On these and similar occasions of popular excitement in Ireland, the most remarkable objects are the ballad-singers, who are in no country so numerous as here. In Kilkenny there were literally twice as many ballad-singers as lamp-posts standing in the street. Their usual stand is in the gutter which separates the footpath on which the foot-passengers walk from the carriage-way; and in this kennel they are perpetually strolling up and down. They are generally provided with a number of printed copies of the ballads which they sing, and their principal employment consists in the sale of these songs, which they are continually waving in the air, with a peculiar and stereotyped motion of the hand. Ballad-singers are also to be found in the streets of other countries, and here and there some one listens, and a rich passer-by gives them a trifle; but in Ireland the ballad-singers have not such an easy life: crowds of poor people, beggars and rabble, perseveringly swarm around them, follow them step by step, and listen to them with a degree of eagerness, which may partly be attributed to the fact that the singers proclaim their own misfortunes, which they have turned into verse, but still more to the great delight which the Irish take in music and singing, and in every thing new that passes in the streets.
In every corner of the great main street, which otherwise presented nothing very remarkable—(for Kilkenny is not what is termed a ‘thriving town,’ but has rather an air of antiquity, and is one, perhaps the largest, of the inland towns before mentioned)—bagpipes were snuffling, violins squeaking, melancholy flutes blowing, and ragged Paddies dancing; in a word, with the universal revelry was mingled a mass of misfortune, misery, and mourning, such as in any other country can very seldom be seen united.
The horse-race was fixed for the following day, and as the hippodrome, or race-course, as the English term it, was three miles distant from the town, the racing actually commenced at the outskirts and in the streets; that is to say, among the coaches, fiacres, omnibuses, one and two-horsed, long and short-seated cars, the elegant equipages of the gentry, and the carts of the peasantry, uncovered, or covered with tents, in which many thousands of people were setting out to enjoy the ‘excitement of riding a race.’
Accompanied by one of my fellow-travellers, I took an outside place on a stage-coach which we had hired for the day, that we might command a better view of the spectacle before us. Stage-coaches are decidedly preferable on these occasions, because they are usually stationed nearer the course than the stands erected for spectators, and whilst one sits on them high enough to see every thing, he may also venture to leave his place without danger of losing it. After rolling through the thick cloud of dust which was raised on the road, the broad, level field which constituted the race-course of Kilkenny lay before our eyes. It is naturally an important, and frequently a difficult matter to find, in the neighbourhood of an English town, a spot which affords all the requisites for a race-course: the ground must be dry, elastic, level, and sufficiently extensive; and besides being level, it must also present that variety of surface which adapts it for all kinds of races. In the United Kingdom there are not less than 120 race-courses. One of the most perfect in every respect, and at the same time one of the most celebrated courses in Europe, is the Curragh of Kildare, which is said to owe its extraordinary elasticity, so much admired by racing men, to the worms which are continually piercing its surface. In this famed racing-ground are eighteen different courses, which all differ from one another, on account of the varieties of hill, valley, plain, sloping surface, &c., and therefore enable the entre-preneurs of the races (the match-makers) to select according to their taste, the capabilities of their horses, or the nature of the race.
We took our station in the midst of a prodigious throng of spectators and carriages, at a point between the so-called ‘Stand’ and the ‘Weighing-house,’ which afforded a convenient view of the entire scene. The stand, also called the ‘Grand Stand,’ is a large house, usually close to the course, which is fitted up with convenient galleries for spectators. At some of the great corsos, as, for example, at Doncaster, Epsom, and Ascot-heath, this stand is a large ornamental building; and in some places a hill or a rock is tilted for the same purpose, like an amphitheatre, or the natural advantages of the situation are made available in some other way. The weighing-house is a small building adjoining the course, and opposite the grand stand, where the jockeys are weighed; its upper part also serves as a stand for the stewards of the race. Near the weighing-house is always placed the winning-post, at which the result of the race is determined. The various starting-posts, whence the horses start, are fixed at different points, according to the distance to be run. The ‘Rubbing-house,’ which at the same time usually serves as the ‘Saddling-house,’ is
Some individuals are so fortunate in betting at races, as thereby to have laid the foundations of extraordinary fortunes. Others are enabled to speculate pretty safely, and to arrive at a tolerably correct result, by skilfully combining a perfect knowledge of the nature of the course and of the horses, with the state of the weather, and other accidental circumstances; as, for instance, one horse will run against a contrary wind much better than another. The celebrated Mr. Crockford, formerly a petty trader, has amassed a fortune, almost entirely from betting, that must excite astonishment: his capital is reported to amount to £300,000; and he is the proprietor of several remarkably handsome houses in James's-street, besides a beautiful country residence near London.
In all races, the ‘business of the turf’ is regulated by the stewards, who are generally selected from the nobility or gentry of the surrounding country. Their proceedings are under the superintendence of a ‘clerk of the course,’ whose duty includes the preparations for the races, and their subsequent management; and the stewards also direct and regulate the balls, dinners, and other festivities of the race week. One of the stewards of the Kilkenny races, on the present occasion, was the well-known Marquis of Waterford, who possesses a yearly income of £70,000, and was ‘the observed of all observers.’
The most active, and, in some respects, the most important personages in the whole concern, are the jockeys, many of whom, from personal advantages and their superior horsemanship, frequently acquire as much fame as the horses they ride. Great strength of body united with a small figure, personal intrepidity and courage, a strong and enduring constitution, and an unblemished character, are the principal characteristics of a jockey. The last is most essential; for when we consider the immense sums frequently staked on a race, the loss or gain of which may depend on a stroke of his whip, or a gentle pull at his rein, it may readily be supposed that attempts to bribe the jockey, and induce him to play the knave, are by no means rare. He has also not only to work hard, but during his preparation for the race he must observe the abstinence of an Arab, and at meals act merely the part of a spectator,—and all this in order that, at the races, he may risk his
The privations which the regular jockeys undergo for some weeks previous to a race, are intended to reduce their weight and strengthen their wind, for which purpose they eat little, and no food of a very nutritious character—fish, bread, and tea being their principal articles of diet; half the day they lie in bed, and the other half they ramble about, or take long walks, loaded with clothes, in order to perspire freely. Thus they fast and sweat as if for a wager; and if the desired effect is not produced quickly enough by these means, Glauber salts, and other purgatives, are freely used. It may be supposed that the breeding and training of the horses themselves is proceeded with in a still more artistic and scientific manner; and, in fact, to such a degree of perfection are these matters brought in England, that one must read the books written on the subject to learn how carefully and perfectly every point is considered and illustrated.
The entire field was covered with thousands of spectators; the grand stand was crowded from top to bottom, as well as two other temporary buildings, erected for the occasion; but the greater number had placed themselves in their equipages, which, like a crowded city of carriages, were drawn up at the edge of the course,—first an endless file of carts, in which every place was hired, and behind these the stage-coaches and the carriages of the gentry. On the other parts of the ground, and on every little height and hillock, groups were collected to behold the spectacle; whilst hundreds of horsemen, and crowds of gigs and tilburies, galloped or drove about in the space between, now here now there, where any thing excited their curiosity. About noon, the gallant steeds were brought out, and ‘the glorious bustle of the course’ commenced. All eyes were turned upon them: their appearance, gait, and condition were strictly scrutinized, and bets and speculations grounded thereon. As the old well-known horses appeared, the history of their career was called to mind, anecdotes were related of them, and the circumstances under which they gained the victory on former occasions; whilst the victor of the day is generally named in anticipation by the connoisseurs. A remarkable
The race-horses, covered with their clothing, were first led up and down in the midst of a crowd of admirers and amateurs until the bell sounded to saddle, when the jockeys, having cast off their outer garments, came forward in their light, close-fitting costume, bearing the colours of their respective employers. The saddles, which are made extremely light, sometimes weighing only two or three pounds, the jockeys, the bridles,—in short, every thing the horses are to carry, are then weighed, and the differences equalized. For this purpose hollow tubes filled with shot are generally used; and these tubes are either attached to the saddle, placed in the boots of the jockey, or bound round his body in a long leathern bag like a girdle. Great care is taken to fasten these tubes securely, as every thing is again weighed in a similar manner after the race; and should the jockey then be found to have lost any of his weight, his labour is all in vain, and even should he be first, he cannot be proclaimed the winner.
The bell rung a second time, and the jockeys assembled at the starting-post. This scene was concealed from our view, for the starting-post was some little distance from our station, and the throng of horsemen and carriages that surrounded it, prevented our seeing any thing distinctly. We did not even hear the trumpet that gave the signal for the commencement of the race. ‘They are off, they are off!’ suddenly resounded from rank to rank in our neighbourhood: all necks were instantly outstretched; all eyes, spectacles, and glasses were turned on the course. Yet there was still a delay of some moments, until the cloud of horsemen who surrounded the starting-post had dispersed; and then the six racers, with their many-coloured jockeys, came on with long strides, and rushed past us like so many flashes of lightning. A universal movement took place among the spectators, a universal cry of ‘beautiful! splendid! beautiful!’ Those who had favourites among the horses encouraged the riders with appropriate exclamations. ‘That's right! Nimrod! bravo! go on! go on!’—‘No! no! Charley take care!’—‘That's right! spare your strength at first, and you'll pass him!’—‘See! see! he is closing with him! he has passed him already!’—‘O ho! it is Charley's race!’—‘No! no! it is Nimrod's race!’ ‘It is Nimrod's race’ implies that the horse so called is the winner of the race.
But, on the whole, the spectacle of an English horse-race offers little that is pleasing to the eye of the painter; the gratification,
The Roman desultores, in their races, amused the people with varied feats of horsemanship, sometimes stretching themselves on the backs of their horses, or springing off and on in the greatest heat of the race. But no amusing by-play of this description is to be seen in an English race: the sole, exclusive aim of the riders is to pass one another. The entire pleasure of the spectators is, as I have said, of an internal character, and is derived from various sources, such as the great preparations, the excellence of the horses, the high prize which falls to the winner's lot, the large sums staked on the game, the multitude of spectators, with their whole attention directed to the single point, which horse's nose shall first reach the winning-post. This point, and every thing connected with its determination, constitutes the excitement which every one feels at the races in England.
The first race at Kilkenny was what is termed ‘a steeple-chase.’ This kind of race is of Irish origin, and has from thence extended all over the United Kingdom. Like all Irish sports, and Irish hunting, it has something especially wild in its character. It is said to have derived its name from a steeple, or some high object in the distance, being fixed upon as the point towards which the ‘high-mettled sons of Erin’ ran their course, rushing straight forward, headlong over stock and stone, hedge, ditch, wall, hill, and valley, until the appointed goal is reached. A steeple-chase, therefore, properly speaking, ought not to be run on a race-course: but as it is now frequently practised at these places, or somewhere in their vicinity, a steeple is no longer deemed a requisite ingredient in the sport. The direction of the course is pointed out by a double row of flags, between which the riders must keep, and between which they must not avoid any obstacle that presents itself. As only the strongest horses and the best riders are adapted for the steeple-chase, there is a marked distinction between ‘field-riding’ and ‘turf-riding.’ The former is, of course, attended with most danger; and as some of the best riders and
Throughout the entire field the course of the bounding steeds was followed by all eyes; and although the circle they described extended upwards of three miles, there was always some individual, who, whilst watching the motions of one particular horse with marked attention, could also tell with astronomical exactness the exact position of every animal. The most interesting moment of the entire race is, of course, that which immediately precedes the arrival at the goal. Now were all hopes and expectations strained to the highest pitch, and the greatest efforts were made by all. The horses seemed to stretch their long legs over a still larger space, the riders twisted themselves like worms, and increased their exertions, and the spectators sharpened their eyes to the utmost to discover the horse which should first step beyond the destined point, and occasion the winning or losing of so many thousands. A few minutes before all had displayed the highest spirits, and it appeared as if every one felt perfectly sure in his saddle, and certain of winning; but now some appeared completely crest-fallen, and others in a state of the greatest excitement. At last the horses approached the winning-post. Some had already given up the contest and remained far behind, but one or two still struggled on; they were pretty well matched in strength and elastic energy. The contest was for a moment doubtful: now one, now another, appeared to have the advantage; the cheers of the partisans of the various horses swelled almost into an involuntary and vehement shout; suddenly one of the animals strained his strength one degree more, sprang forward, and first passed the post, closely followed by the others; and the whole rushed far beyond the appointed spot before the jockeys were able to check their impetuous career.
One of the jockeys had fallen in the last struggle, a little before reaching the winning-post. ‘He is killed!’ was the first exclamation from the ranks of spectators. ‘He is killed! he has broken his neck! Poor man!’ But we had no time to think more of him: the strain of excitement at the closing moment is too great to permit the attention to be diverted, even on account of a dying man; and our eager eyes flew on with the eager runners. Accidents of a fatal nature are not uncommon at English races, more especially in a steeple-chase. After the race, we inquired for the poor jockey, who had remained lying on the course. ‘He has broken his neck, I believe,’ said one. ‘No! he is safe,’ said another; ‘he has only broken two of his ribs!’
Neither Charley nor Nimrod, upon whom so much had been
The second race was what is termed a ‘hurdle race.’ The English word ‘hurdle’ signifies wattled work, and the term includes the fascines used by the soldier, as well as the pens of the peaceful shepherd. A hurdle race is therefore a race in which various obstacles, generally hurdles, are placed across the course. It is said that George IV., when Prince of Wales, accompanied by Mrs. Fitzherbert and the officers of the 10th dragoons, of which regiment he was colonel, was one day out upon a hunting excursion on the downs near Brighton; but, being unable to find suitable game, his Royal Highness, who loved excitement, proposed ‘jumping matches’ over the hurdles which the shepherds had erected on the downs for their sheepfolds. The company derived so much pleasure from this amusement, that hurdle races have ever since been enrolled in the catalogue of English sports. The specimen of this race which I saw at Kilkenny proved a failure. One jockey fell from his horse; another did not keep the right line of the course, and was consequently obliged to withdraw; and at last it was announced that ‘Mr. Soloway's Countess walked over the course.’ Having no other competitors, she had no occasion to waste her strength with running, and therefore walked slowly to the goal. Many people cried ‘humbug,’ and alleged that some deception had been practised; but the true cause of this unpleasant termination I did not discover.
Last came the farmers' horses, most of which were ridden by their owners; and this race afforded me the greatest pleasure. About fifteen started, and the spectacle was enlivened by the great variety of colours. This description of racing is the only branch of the sport in which I could perceive any utility, since it evidently tends to improve the breed of horses. But as regards the great and renowned racers, they are useless either for the purposes of agriculture or of war, or indeed any thing except betting, which sacrifices the money, time, and peace of mind, of countless thousands, and is of no service to the state.
It is extraordinary that this love of racing, according to the English fashion, should have been so generally diffused over the whole Continent during the last ten years; and, like other English customs, find so many imitators in various countries. But scenes
As the races had congregated so great a multitude of people, many of whom preferred eating and drinking to fasting, betting, and taking notes, ample provision was made for this class. At a short distance from the course, behind a hill, a city of tents was erected, where every earthly desire an Irishman could form might be gratified. These tents were all long and large, and all constructed in the same manner,—an alehouse in front, a large room with benches and tables behind, and in the middle a dancing-floor. This dancing-floor generally consisted of a door, or planks fastened together like a door, and placed over a hole in the ground so as to render it more elastic under the feet of the dancers, who were usually four in number, and jumped about to their heart's content. This scene was enacting in at least fifty tents, in one half of which whisky was to be had, whilst in the remainder tea only could be procured.
In the avenues of this city of tents were repeated the scenes I had witnessed in Kilkenny the evening before. At every step stood poor singing beggars,—girls, boys, women, men, young and old,—all clad in the strangest costume of rags and tatters, and all waving their printed ballads in the air. Some of them were literally misery personified: hunger and want were too evident on their haggard features, and care and anxiety sat in their sunken eyes. Yet they sang merry and comic songs, and endeavoured to throw into their meagre countenances the greatest possible expression of joviality. The number of bards is still quite as great in Ireland as in the time of Brian Boru and the great O'Nial. But,
The shows and travelling theatres were congregated together in a thickly-crowded half-circle; and such was the incessant noise and clamour issuing from them, that no one could hear his own voice, much less understand what they said. In some of the huge waggons were to be found a collection of wild beasts; in others a puppet-show, a company of black Africans, or some similar wonder of the day. In front of each waggon a stage or balcony was erected, where the showmen, the trumpeters, the bagpipers, and the drummers, were constantly screaming, blowing, making speeches, or attempting, by pantomimic gestures, to make themselves understood by the gaping crowds around them. The chief inducement held out by them was, that the admission was only one halfpenny; and for the sake of this halfpenny they all shouted and gesticulated in opposition to each other, and in the most frantic manner. There can be no doubt that half the inhabitants of Kilkenny came out merely for the sake of the dancing-booths and the travelling exhibitions, and scarcely deigned to honour the hard-working racers with the slightest attention.
As I had no inclination to inhale a cloud of dust in the evening similar to that through which I had passed in the morning, I left the environs of the race-course earlier than the other spectators, and took my way on foot along the road, which I found, fortunately, almost deserted. I overtook one old man, who limped along, lame and slow, and I pitied him; he too had left the course early, through fear of the dust and the crowd. I inquired what had induced him, lame, sick, and old as he was, to make a pilgrimage to this tumultuous scene of youthful sport. He answered, that he was indeed old, sick, and weak, and for ten years past those epithets might be applied to him; but yet he went every year to the races. ‘I see them with joy,’ he said; ‘it delights my heart, rouses me, and almost makes me young again. Since I saw the jumping horses to-day, the lively scene of bustle, and the various critical moments of the race, I feel myself almost perfectly well, young, and strong again.’ We may thus perceive how even the sick and infirm in England are reinvigorated by this species of excitement. But I fear the sickly old men of Germany would be unable to derive a similar amount of comfort and relief from the sight of a horse-race. We regained the town by little by-ways, running through green meadows and fields, and, to our joy, only saw at a distance the rising dust, as it was again stirred up by the returning vehicles.
Next morning I applied myself to other pleasures and pursuits.
The cathedral, which stands near this tower, and the ruins of an old abbey at a short distance from it, but on the same hill, are highly interesting objects. The cathedral is one of the largest and most beautiful ecclesiastical structures in Ireland. Here were laid the first foundations of a church in Ireland, which was effected by a holy missionary thirty years before the arrival of St. Patrick. This church contains several interesting old monuments: amongst the number is that of an ancient knight of the 15th century, named Schorthals, a family at one period of great note in this district, but whose descendants live miserably poor; also that of a Fitz-Gerald, who on his death-bed renounced the Protestant for the Catholic religion; and that of a Lord Ormond, of the Galmoy branch. The effigy of the latter, in complete armour, is stretched out on his tomb-stone, his feet resting on the figure of a hound, in the manner so common in England. But the people who showed me the monument supposed that this figure represented an otter, which had once bitten Lord Ormond, and was thus
The family name of the Lords Ormond is Butler: they are the principal people in this district, and are famous enough in Irish history. They have a beautiful old castle, with a park, adjacent to the town: it stands in the same relative position to Kilkenny as Windsor Castle does to the town of that name. This is the case with a great many old castles of the nobility in England and Ireland. Whoever has seen Windsor Castle, its ancient appearance, its antique gateway, and its old-fashioned towers, may form a good idea of all those old ‘baronial mansions,’ most of which stand on an eminence in the neighbourhood of the town formerly under their sway.
Kilkenny Castle, amongst its other attractions, possesses a fine picture-gallery, which is arranged in a splendid hall of gigantic size. As the cathedral of Kilkenny was built by St. Rievan18, who preceded St. Patrick in preaching the gospel, so the castle was built by the Earl Strongbow, the warlike forerunner of Henry II. in the complete subjugation of Ireland. Strongbow is as famed in Ireland as Cortez in Mexico; but since the middle of the 15th century the family of Butler has remained here in uninterrupted possession.
Many families in England and Ireland still cling to their old recollections, with a peculiar and characteristic obstinacy. The trophies won by their forefathers, hundreds of years ago, in various party struggles, and the portraits and other relics of the leaders in those contests, are carefully preserved by their descendants, who seem fully to participate in the views and feelings of their ancestors. To such an extent do these opinions yet prevail, that, should the followers of the Red Rose ever again assert their claim, I am confident that numerous partisans of the White Rose would still be found ready to oppose them. There are many who yet cherish the memory of the Stuarts, and who are consequently the best Carlists and Jacobites in the world. Amongst these may be numbered the Butlers. Their castle is full of portraits of the time of the Stuarts, and we see there Charles I. himself, and his family, by Vandyke; the Earl of Stratford, who was beheaded in his reign; with many other Stuarts, and all the beautiful ladies of the court of Charles II., painted by Sir Peter Lely. No land, no people, preserve and cherish their entire history so warmly in their bosoms as England and the English. Among the other paintings in the gallery are many beautiful pieces of Ruisdael, Gasper Poussin, and other celebrated artists.
The park of the castle extends along the river Nore, and furnishes many delightful views. No Irish castle is without ivy. In Germany, ruins only are ornamented with this parasite; but in Ireland it is used as a common ornament, even for dwelling-houses. We Germans substitute for this purpose the vine, which Ireland does not possess, because, notwithstanding the mildness of the climate, it has not sunshine enough.
From Kilkenny to Waterford, the traveller rolls down the hills with all the waters of the country. The three greatest rivers in Ireland (after the Shannon)—the Suir, the Nore, and the Barrow, all flow in this direction, and meet at Waterford; and as they bring down along with them clear waves, fruitful soil, and fresh green fields, they collect in the country around this city a multitude of charms.
At six o'clock in the morning we mounted our diligence-car to roll down into this country. It was still rather dark, but yet light enough to enable us to distinguish a party of dusky figures that surrounded our carriage. They were of course poor Irish women, whom hunger had already driven from their beds. Their chorus of lamentations was heartrending. Each recounted her sufferings, the number of her children, the misery of her husband, with as much zeal and emulation as the showmen on the Kilkenny racecourse had proclaimed their rarities. With the most humble supplications they earnestly entreated, if we would not each give something, that we would at least jointly contribute a sixpence, which they would afterwards divide among themselves. When they saw that our hearts remained unmoved, they at last led forward a poor old blind woman, and brought her close to our carriage, so that in the twilight we could behold her empty eyesockets: ‘Look, your honours! there's misery for you! Only look at this poor unfortunate woman! Give her something—only one penny, your honours, and God will prosper your journey! God will protect your eyes, and carry you home safe to your families!’ When this wretched creature, whose hand they held close to us, had received something, the others appeared somewhat
A traveller in Ireland can never dwell too strongly on the extraordinary misery of the poorer classes, in order as much as possible, and from every quarter, to contradict the opinions of those Englishmen who will not believe in the misery of Ireland—who deny it, who laugh at it, and call him a fool who speaks of it, and believes in its existence. Ruin, decay, rags, beggars, and misery are to be seen all through Ireland,—not merely in the wild districts of Clare, Donegal, Mayo, and Kerry, where, in truth, they present themselves in the greatest and most appalling forms,—but equally throughout the most beautiful and most fertile plains. And why is this the case? Because it is not the poverty of nature that is to blame, but men,—the men of England on account of their severe laws, and the men of Ireland on account of their laziness and want of industry. Thus, even this beautiful district, as far as Waterford, displays the usual richness of Ireland in poverty, the usual abundance of want, and the great profusion of indigence. A vast quantity of land in this fertile district is said to be under the management of middlemen, and there are here, therefore, many poor villagers and farmers whose rents have been screwed to the very highest, or who, as the Irish express it, are ‘rackrented.’ A landowner who exacts from his tenants an excessive rent, is called a ‘Rackrenter,’ and the mansion in which this tormentor dwells is a ‘Castle Rackrent.’
Having met with a gentleman proceeding to Waterford on foot, I resolved upon travelling the latter part of my journey in the same manner, especially as my companion promised to guide me to the city through some of the by-roads of the country. On our way we took a look at the works on a new road, visited some poor farmers, and examined the ruins of a little Danish castle, called Dunkit, amid whose walls the blackberry-bushes were in blossom at this late period of the season. As the climate of Ireland neither forces the blossoms rapidly forward, nor brings the fruits quickly to maturity, a few blossoms are always to be seen here throughout the entire year. The corn ripens so slowly that, although the summer-seed is sown six weeks earlier, the harvest is almost six weeks later than in those continental countries of Europe which lie under the same degree of latitude. In the North there are countries in which the life of nature blazes up into a bright flame for a brief summer, and then again sinks into dust and ashes. In Ireland, this life always feebly glimmers, like a lighted sod and is never entirely extinguished.
We soon after beheld the valley of the Suir, the lofty picturesque shores of rock on both its sides, and the beautifully-situated town of Waterford, like a pearl in its mouth.
Waterford and Wexford were both founded by the Danes, and, with the surrounding country, were held by them longer than any other part of Ireland. Hence their names are not Celtic, but Germanic. In the geography of Ireland there are multitudes of these Germanic names, which were introduced by the Danes or the English. They are easily known by the terminations: -ford, -town, -borough, -berry, &c., as for example, Maryborough, Mitchelstown, Thomastown, Castletownsend, Rosscarberry, Bearhaven, and many others.
It is perhaps more worthy of remark that some of the natural features of the country have also laid aside their old Celtic appellations, which they doubtless originally possessed, and have assumed English names, as the river Blackwater, the Hungry Hills, near Bantry, the Keeper Mountain, near Limerick, and the Mourne Mountains, near Newry. The names of sandbanks, of many islands and headlands, have likewise become English: yet, it must be remarked that these English names are often nothing more than corrupted and Anglicized Celtic words. On the whole, however, the old Celtic names are yet the most prevalent in Ireland, as well in the objects of art as in those of nature. They have been retained every where, even within the ‘Pale,’ i.e. within that part of the country which the English surrounded with palisade work, and within which they made every thing else English—namely, within the province of Leinster.19 Some of these old Irish names of rivers are, the Suir, the Shannon, the Bandon, the Kenmare, &c.; and of mountains, Inchiquin, Commeragh, Slievh Bernagh, Croagh Patrick, and innumerable others. It is also worthy of remark, that the highest mountain summits have usually retained the longest their ancient Celtic popular names.
As the English names of towns are distinguished by their terminations, so many of the genuine Irish may be known by their first or last syllables. Some of the most common of these are Bally, Dun, Rath, Glen, Kil, Ennis, and others. Bally signifies town; Dun is the old far-famed word, which is so frequently found in countries that once were Celtic, and signifies hill; Rath has nearly the same meaning; Glen signifies valley; Ennis, or Innis, an island; and Kil, a church. Bally is decidedly that most used in composition; for instance, Ballynasloe, Ballyporeen, Ballyshannon, Ballymahon. No less frequent is Dun; as Dundrum, Dundalk, Dunmore, Dunkerrin, Dungarvan. Rath is not so frequently used: Rathdrum, Rathdowny, Rathcormuck, Rathkeale, Rathvilly, and Rathronan are instances. Kil occurs in more numerous instances; as Kilkenny, Kilbaha, Killarney, Killaloe, Kildare, Killala, Kilbegs. Ennis, or Innis, is frequently used; as the town of Ennis, Enniscorthy, Enniscaltra, Ennistogue. The study of these old Irish names, most of which go back into the times of the Druids, and their comparison with the numerous Celtic names of Scotland and Wales, and with those which still exist in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, would be a subject of the greatest interest, and its complete investigation yet remains to be accomplished.
Waterford is the sixth city in Ireland, and has about 30,000 inhabitants. For the last twenty years the amount of its population has been nearly stationary, having increased little more than a thousand during that period. It is remarkable that this has been the case with nearly all the towns of the south of Ireland; thus Waterford, which in 1821 had 28,676 inhabitants, in 1831 had 28,821; and Wexford, which in 1821 had 10,580, in 1831 numbered only 10,673. In other towns the increase is extremely slow; thus Cork, in 1821, contained 100,658 inhabitants, and 107,016 in 1831, being an increase of only six per cent. Kilkenny, with a population of 23,230 in 1821, increased about two per cent, in ten years; and Youghal and Cove seven per cent, during the same period. Some of the southern towns seem even to retrograde in the amount of their population, as Clonmel, which in 1821 had 15,590 inhabitants, and in 1831 only 15,134; and Bandon, which in 1821 had 10,179, and in 1831 only 9,917. During the same period the general increase of population in Ireland was fourteen and a half per cent. Nearly all the towns of the south fall short of this general increase: Tralee, Thurles, and a few more insignificant places, being the only exceptions. The greatest increase of population is in the towns of the north of Ireland. Belfast, in the last ten years,has increased its population forty-two per cent; Galway twenty, Londonderry sixteen, and Newry thirty per cent.
Though the population of Waterford has increased so little during the last twenty years, its exports have not remained equally stationary. On the contrary, as is proved by the official returns, its exports have been doubled. The same number of men, therefore, must have nearly twice as much to do now as they had formerly. The principal article of export from Waterford is the grain of the surrounding country, which is shipped to England. This trade has been constantly increasing during the last forty years, and is now almost five times as great as it was before that period. In the year 1802 the entire quantity of grain exported from all Ireland to England amounted to 461,000, or nearly half a million of quarters, at which it remained till about the year 1808, when it first exceeded half a million of quarters, and amounted to 656,000. From that year it slowly increased, till in 1818 it amounted to over a million, being then 1,200,000 quarters. In 1825 it was two millions, and in 1837 three millions. In 1838 it was higher than it ever was before, namely, 3,474,000 quarters of corn, mostly oats, which is the principal grain of Ireland. From this year it has somewhat fallen off, but has ever since been more than two millions.
Waterford possesses two prominent features which are of the greatest advantage to its trade: first, one of the most wonderful quays in the world; and, secondly, one of the finest harbours in Ireland. The quay is a mile long, and so broad and convenient withal, that it must be invaluable to merchants and mariners. It is skirted by a row of elegant houses; and the scenery on the opposite side of the river, which is here a mile and a half wide, is extremely picturesque.
The embouchure of the river Suir, which forms the harbour, is wide and deep, without islands or sandbanks, and affords all possible security and convenience to ships. I have already said that Waterford harbour has a great similarity to the bay of Cove, near Cork. Cleaving the land in a similar manner, it runs from the sea, taking with it the sea water, for ten or fifteen miles into the country. At its upper end it divides into two branches, one of
I took tea in Waterford, at an hotel which had a separate room for the friends of repeal. On the windows of this apartment the words ‘REPEAL ROOMS’ were displayed in large characters. Similar rooms are met with in many Irish towns, where the friends of repeal are always to be found, perusing the opposition papers of England and Ireland, which are taken for their use. Most of the provincial papers of Ireland are, of course, opposition papers. In Waterford alone, three of them are published. The Dublin Evening Mail is the leading Tory paper of Ireland, and I did not find it in any of the repeal rooms I visited. I am inclined to think that we Germans, were we ever so zealous repealers, would sometimes read the Evening Mail, if it were only to ascertain what our adversaries said of us. English parties, however, are always so completely absorbed in their own interests, that they merely read the papers of their party, and appear not to give themselves the slightest trouble about the arguments of their opponents. In this respect they rely implicitly on the commentaries of their own journalists, who sometimes apprise them of the ‘disloyal and outrageous machinations’ of the opposite party.
At Waterford the east of Ireland commences. As the nations of the south—the Phoenicians, the Spaniards, and the French—chose their landing-places at Bantry, in Kerry, Clare, and other places in the south-west; so those sailing from the east, as the Danes, the Welsh, and the English, first arrived near Waterford, which town, with Wexford, the Danes first possessed and longest retained. The Welsh Strongbow effected his landing between Wexford and Waterford. The English King Henry II. landed at Waterford, and there commenced his conquest of Ireland. Here Cromwell also landed, and from hence he marched into the heart of the land, to conquer it once more. The city, even at the present day, exhibits abundant proofs of the exploits of this ruthless warrior, and mighty oppressor of Ireland. Every citizen can point out to the traveller the rock, opposite the town, from which he battered it with his cannon; and there yet stands, at the end of the quay, an old ruined tower, which bears traces of a breach made in it by Cromwell's artillery. How many similar breaches made by Cromwell in Irish walls still remain, as apparent as when his soldiers left them—and how many wounds inflicted by him on the political condition of the country are yet unhealed!
Cromwell's time was almost contemporaneous with our Thirty Years' War, and may, in many respects, be justly compared with it; but the injuries inflicted on Germany by the latter have long been healed and forgotten; its devastating effects have long disappeared, and every thing has again long resumed its former aspect. It seems as if there were something peculiar in the nature and condition of Ireland that prevents her wounds from ever healing: she is constantly bleeding from a thousand wounds and sores; and although still clinging to life with too much tenacity entirely to die away, she never at any moment possesses energy enough completely to achieve her freedom, or restore herself to a more healthy state of existence.
On the following morning, when I came to the river, it was exactly low water. Several vessels were lying on their sides in the mud, as if stranded. Above the beautiful bridge, the Suir seemed almost entirely drained, and the banks were slimy and muddy. But as the tide rolled in, the sand-banks were covered, the ships righted themselves and danced upon the waves, the artery of the river was filled, and the landscape again reflected in its restored mirror. The sun mounted high in the heavens, and our steamboat, The Repealer, rushed forth through the waves. What is there to be found in Ireland that has not some connexion with repeal? I was informed that the repealers go almost exclusively by this boat, and hence it was also called the People's Steamer. On the flag which waved from the quarter-deck were the words, ‘Hurrah for the Repeal of the Union!’ O'Connell can now, at his meetings, truly boast that the repeal cause is progressing with the rapidity of steam. In this corner of the earth, indeed, steam does not go very far—only to the town of New Ross, fifteen miles distant, whither we were bound. Nor does it afford any exclusive advantage to the repealers, as the anti-repealers also employ steam in their cause. Another steamboat, bound to the same place,
Had I not been in Scotland, and sailed down the Firth" of Clyde, I would pronounce this trip on the arms of Waterford Harbour to be the finest in the United Kingdom. Or, were there not much that is beautiful out of the United Kingdom, I could also say that it is the most delightful journey I ever made in my life. But it is sufficient to affirm that the landscape on the shores of these waters is as picturesque, pleasing, and diversified in its kind as any other in the world. The waters flow through the deep and convenient bays somewhat more quickly than through a lake; and as its entrance from the sea is concealed from the spectator by a very sudden turn, he actually believes he is on an inland-lake, and is astonished at the large ships which ascend it, seeking harbours hidden far in the heart of the land. At times the shore is a hill, sloping down to the water, which, like almost every river-bank in the United Kingdom, is studded with charming seats and pleasure-grounds; at others, it juts out in steep, rocky, and wooded headlands, which the Repealer almost grazes as she speeds past.
At no great distance below United Kingdom are seen, in the background of a bay, the immense ruins of the far-famed Abbey of Dunbrody, one of the most celebrated and beautiful ruins of Ireland, which are here held in about the same estimation as the ruins of Melrose are in Scotland. Alas! they are now, like the times of their grandeur, in the far distance; and the Repealer has too much to do with the opposition steamer, which is walking close upon her heels, and forces her to keep her straightforward way, to turn from her course, and give the traveller a look at the ruined abbey. In truth, it afforded us no little amusement to see our rival, as she was about to turn into the mouth of the Barrow, run aground on a sand-bank, where, as our captain drily observed, she must stick till the tide would rise somewhat higher, and float her off. As for the Repealer, being obliged to be at New Ross by a certain time, she soon left Dunbrody far behind, and splashed away with the flowing tide up the Barrow. The British Islands must reap important benefits from the double alternating currents, one landwards, the other seawards, of the navigable rivers. In no other country do the waters of the sea flow so far inland, bearing ships into the very heart of the country.
On the deck of an Irish steamer there is seldom a want of entertainment. On the quarter-deck the company is twice as talkative as on that of an English steamer; and the forecastle resounds even with music and singing. To the music, which, of course, was that of the bagpipes, we had dancing. Since Paddy,
The evening was wondrously calm, and even the fishes, though still poorer than Paddy, jumped in the water for joy. I planted myself beside the captain, on the high platform in the centre of the vessel, and, while I observed the grave and serious rich on the quarter-deck, and the merry poor in the forecastle, I could not refrain from praising the justice of God, who, while he makes man poor, at the same time renders him more capable of taking delight in the most trifling things.
The beautiful seats of the Powers, the Asmonds, and other families which lay along the banks, are all so charming that one would like to take a sketch of each separately. Near Castle Ennis, in a broad beautiful meadow, stands the largest, most lordly, and picturesque oak I ever saw. One looks on these mansions with increased interest, if, as I had, he has an Irish priest as confessant at his side, who, from being intrusted with the private affairs of the families that reside in them, can give him a sketch of the history of each. While I listened to my priestly confessant, I was somewhat amazed at the extra-ordinary things which happen in the usual every-day life of these families. In one of these mansions there yet dwells an old lady, the widow of one of the most distinguished of those rebels who were beheaded by the English during the last rebellion in Ireland.
As we passed a rock, our cannon were fired, in memory of a sailor, who, some months previously, had fallen overboard at this spot, and was drowned. The reports were re-echoed from the rock, and the manes of the dead were no doubt highly gratified by the honour thus conferred upon them.
We anchored at New Ross, and as this place is the extreme end of the Barrow navigation, and the brightest gem in the entire
The country between New Ross and Wexford is pretty level, fertile, and entirely under tillage. This is the case with the whole county of Wexford, which occupies the most south-easterly point of Ireland. By nature it is quite cut off from the rest of the country; for on one side it is bounded by the Wicklow and Carlow mountains, and on the other by the sea and Waterford Harbour. The most extreme point of this county, a peninsula that runs out into the sea, is again separated from it by the Forth mountains. This point is the far-famed Barony of Forth, which is inhabited by a separate little population of its own.
The county of Wexford is one of the districts of Ireland which the traveller beholds with peculiar satisfaction, for the annals of Irish crime and criminals declare that it is in it that morality must be highest, as the fewest crimes occur here. I even found many years in which, out of the 300, or 200, or 160 murders which were committed in Ireland, not a single one had taken place in Wexford. In fact, the inhabitants boast of much greater enlightenment than is possessed by those in the west. They every where speak of the dark west, and believe themselves more intelligent, better educated, and better farmers.
The Barony of Forth, that extreme little peninsula, is the crown of the entire county, for here dwell the most orderly people in all Ireland. It is celebrated throughout the south of Ireland, and when it is mentioned every one takes off his hat, for its very name awakens ideas of a nobler race of men. The people are said to be the descendants of a colony which Strongbow, the famous Welsh knight, who first came to Ireland with English troops to
‘The Barony of Forth!’ must sound to an Irishman something like Eldorado once did to our German ancestors. It is alleged of the county of Wexford, that it is divided into smaller lots or holdings than the rest of Ireland—that there are here large proprietors, and consequently more persons who are well-off and comfortable; and—another wonder—that there are no absentees; and all this is still more applicable to the barony of Forth. Here estates are still smaller, and many peasants are the lords of the soil they cultivate. Great wealth does not exist among them, yet every one has a competency. They have a better system of agriculture, and cleanliness and order prevail in their houses. Nay, they have—and in this too they differ from the inhabitants of every other district of Ireland—a feeling that rags, holes, and tattered clothes are no ornament, but a disfigurement. Their houses are even generally surrounded by little flower-gardens. They know nothing either of the political or religious party-spirit which divides the rest of Ireland, and therefore have no party-fights; whilst Protestants and Catholics live together in peace and concord. In a word, the barony of Forth seems to form a sort of moral looking-glass for the rest of Ireland; and every thing is so natural, and so like what might be expected in a civilized people, that one cannot enter it without exclaiming, ‘Why is it not thus
Half-way between New Ross and Wexford we changed our horse, and while this was being done we entered a public-house to refresh ourselves with a glass of whisky. In the next room some people were reclining and sitting, sleeping and chatting; they were temperance men, and wore their medals around their necks. The hostess told me that these people, though continually in the vicinity of her whisky bottle, yet never desired to taste a drop of it. These temperance men are such a phenomenon that I could never look on them without astonishment. They informed me themselves that they were once great drunkards, but that in their present condition they were more than happy. They appeared to me like wild beasts, that had put on chains of their own accord, and now wore them with pride and joy. When one thinks what charms the poisonous fire-water must have for a poor badly-clothed man, who is often labouring under deep dejection, in a wet, cold climate, he can scarcely believe that they do not continually suffer, on account of these frequent temptations, the torments of Tantalus.
They were talking of Father Mathew, and had in their hands a bill announcing his intended arrival in Wexford in a few days. Perhaps it would be interesting to my German readers who have never been in England to read a faithful translation of one of these bills. There was printed at the top, in very large letters, ‘FATHER MATHEW IN WEXFORD!’ and it then proceeded:—‘The teetotallers and friends of the temperance cause are informed, that it is intended to form a procession, consisting of the united Total Abstinence Societies of Wexford, and generally of all teetotallers who may be willing to join it. in order to meet the Very Reverend Father Mathew at Arkandrish, on his way from New Ross to Wexford, as a testimony of the high and deserved esteem in which he is held by them. Each society will be accompanied by its respective band, and all are requested to assemble on the Quay of Wexford at half-past nine o'clock precisely.’ The people expected that on this occasion many hundreds of persons from the surrounding country would be certain to take the pledge. Temperance must be the more valuable to the Wexford men, as they are all hard-working and industrious people.
As we drew near to Wexford we again passed some country-seats, and my companion was malicious enough to make me, a
A few miles further south our road again ran along the sea-shore, where the following natural curiosity is to be seen. A row of four or five little islands runs out in a straight line from the coast into the sea. At low water a long, narrow sand-bank emerges from the sea, and connects them with the shore, so that they then look like a single tongue of land, on which a carriage may drive from one island to the other; but when the tide returns, they are again changed into a series of islands. This tongue the Irish call St. Patrick's Bridge. The name of this saint is also applied to multitudes of other natural curiosities. It is strange that the celebrated Giant's Causeway has not been dedicated to him instead of Fingal; but St. Patrick has been often obliged to go shares with this giant, and sometimes even with Old Nick himself. Do my readers remember ‘The Devil's Bite?’
Wexford, which I viewed the next morning, is an old town, with narrow streets and small houses. The only new, broad, and handsome street is the Quay, which runs along the bay, called Wexford Harbour. No traveller can behold without amazement
In Wexford I had again an opportunity of admiring what I had already admired in many Irish seaport towns, namely, the strange way in which an Irish porter carries a bag of flour. A German porter usually stoops down to it, grasps it in his arms, and swings it upon his shoulders. In the English ports they carry almost every thing, even the heaviest loads, on the head, or, properly speaking, on the back of the neck. They have a peculiar kind of cushion which they place upon the nape of the neck, and fasten it there with a band that runs round across the forehead. This cushion is thick, high, flat on the top, and fits the hollow between
We often go to see in a small place what we have neglected in a large one: thus, in Wexford, I paid a visit to one of the many hundreds of infant schools which are now established all over England and Ireland. The schools are at present particularly interesting in Ireland, as both Roman Catholic and Protestant children meet together in them, evincing that not only is greater toleration shown towards each other by the two parties, but that, by means of these schools, a still greater degree of toleration will be produced. The one I visited at Wexford, like most of the Irish infant schools, had only been established five years, and contained ninety-one Catholic and thirty Protestant children. The children usually remain till their twelfth year, but the Catholics often send their daughters back again, as they are dissatisfied with the parochial schools, which are attended by those of more advanced age. The Protestant children seldom return, better schools being provided for them. The system of education at these infant schools is very peculiar, and, indeed, extremely poetical. All the instruction is conveyed in verses, which are sung by the little pupils, and, whenever it is possible, accompanied with a pantomimic acting of the subject. Almost every general movement made by the children is attended with singing. For instance, as they come into the school-room they sing the following verse:—
- We'll go to our places, and make no wry faces,
And say all our lessons distinctly and slow;
For if we don't do it, our mistress will know it,
And into the corner we surely shall go.
When I entered the school all the little things were in the garden. At the sound of their teacher's bell they immediately took each other's hands, and marched two by two, in a long procession, into the school-room, singing the song of which the above is a portion. I recognised the air as the ‘Infants' March,’ an old
A kind of pantomimic action, accompanied with singing, is also frequently used; and in this manner all those occupations of men which can possibly be imitated by the hands and feet are represented by the children. The sowing and reaping of the husbandman, the planing of the carpenter, the hammering of the smith, the churning of the dairy-maid, are all imitated, the children at the same time singing, ‘This is the way the carpenter planes;’ ‘This is the way we snuff the candle;’ ‘This is the way we churn the butter.’ Some remarks are afterwards made on every subject, as, for what purpose the board is planed—why the candle must be carefully snuffed—how good bread-and-butter tastes, and that if they have any to spare they should give it to those who have none. I have never seen these rhymes except in manuscript, and the teachers informed me some of them were composed by themselves, and some they copied from the collections of others. It is probable, however, that there are printed collections of them which chanced not to fall into my hands.
Many objects are accomplished at the same time by this combination of pantomime and song. In the first place the attention of the children is directed to a multitude of occurrences and occupations that are going on around them, and which they are thus led to imitate; and as children generally possess a strong disposition for this imitation, it is by this means assisted and developed. Being all more or less intended for artizans, labourers, sempstresses, dairy-maids, and similar employments, their arms are thus
These infant schools having been only five years established in Ireland, little is yet visible of their effect on the education of the present generation. There can be no doubt, however, that it must be considerable, for thousands of children who formerly grew up wild in the streets, or in miserable huts, now enjoy the advantage of a more rational superintendence, and are lodged for the day in a far better house than their parents could afford them. As the Irish are intelligent, and desirous of knowledge, one cannot look on the vast numbers of schools with which their island is now being covered, with any other but the highest expectations and the fairest hopes. I believe I did not pass through a single village in which I did not discover one of these new schoolhouses, and in which a distillery, either idle or going to ruin, was not pointed out to me. Nothing can be more gratifying than to perceive the decay of the latter, and at the same time to behold the former every where rising in beauty! In Wexford, which once contained seven distilleries, there is now only one in full work. In New Ross, whence we came, and in Enniscorthy, whither we were going, the principal distilleries had ceased working. ‘Hear, hear!’ one might justly exclaim on hearing this glorious news,
I have before alluded to the new Roman Catholic churches and steeples which are to be seen in almost every Irish town. In Wexford there is also a handsome Catholic college, which has been recently erected. ‘Our young priests,’ boast the Irish, ‘need now no longer go to Rome or Paris to learn any thing.’ If to these are added the newly-erected workhouses, with which all Ireland is now studded, one of which is to be found in every town of any importance, we shall have named all the new buildings in Ireland, and shall at the same time have marked out the principal points from which the moral misery of the land is being attacked—ignorance by the schoolhouses, poverty by the workhouses, and religious thraldom by the Catholic colleges and churches. On the whole, a tolerably clear idea may be formed of an Irish town of the present day, by conceiving it to be composed of the following elements: a number of goodly buildings, a similar number of ruined dwelling-houses, a suburb-quarter of miserable huts, some new well-built national and infant schools, some old and some quite modern Catholic churches, a fever hospital, an extensive fortress-looking workhouse, and lastly, perhaps, some barracks for soldiers.
I have designated the workhouses as fortress-like, and for this reason—they are generally situated on elevated ground, outside the town, probably for the sake of the fresh air; they are built of a gray, firm stone, are surrounded by lofty walls, and provided with small turrets and other little castellated appendages. They command an extensive prospect over the country, and are the terror of the beggars, who prefer the independence of a mendicant's life to confinement in one of these houses. Some places, in which workhouses have not yet been erected, are at this moment swarming with beggars, who have there retreated to escape from these dreaded buildings. Hitherto the poor of the country were supported almost exclusively by private benevolence, which was probably more freely and extensively bestowed in Ireland than in any other part of the United Kingdom. But this practice is now opposed and discountenanced by the system introduced by the state, and by the attempted application of the English poor-laws. The Irish, however, true to their good and charitable nature, do not like to be deprived of the exercise of their private benevolence; and being doubly affected by the assessment for the support of the poor that has been levied upon them, they are to a man discontented with this reform. Thus the beggars and their benefactors are
In this respect the Irish beggars and their patrons somewhat resemble the Irish tenants and their landlords. The latter complain that the increased wish for improvement, enlightenment, and independence, which pervades the country people, produced partly by the spirit of the age, and partly by the O'Connell agitation, has destroyed the old good understanding between them, and that the tenants sometimes choose to think for themselves, and even to vote against them, their natural lords and masters. The tenants, on the other hand, lament that they are no longer guided by those who once protected them, that they no longer enjoy the confidence and the regard of their landlords, but that they are now, more frequently than formerly, driven by them from house and home. This is melancholy, and reminds me of Courland, Livonia, and other countries, where the abolition of serfdom produced complaints exactly similar. Yet for the sake of the sacred cause of freedom we must rejoice over these temporary evils, since it is to be hoped that in the end they will be compensated by a glorious result.
During the last Irish rebellion, Wexford was the scene of an unparalleled and revolting deed. At the bridge which leads to the town, across a narrow part of the bay, the rebels deprived of their lives a number of English and Protestant prisoners, by throwing them over it, and drowning them. Musgrave, in his Memoirs of the Irish Rebellion, (a work which is celebrated in Ireland, and now rather scarce,) says that most of the prisoners were piked before and behind at the same time, and flung into the water. When we recollect that these are facts which yet live in the memories of many, and that similar cruelties figure on every page of the history of Ireland—a history so rich in civil wars,—we cannot venture to put complete confidence in the present tranquil aspect of that country, and can entertain no very sanguine hopes that similar scenes will never again be repeated.
The road to Enniscorthy, the third great town of the county of Wexford, does not pass over this bridge, but proceeds around the extreme point of the bay, and crosses the water at Carrick-bridge, where the river Slaney bursts from a narrow rocky-sided valley. The old castle, whose ruins crown the rocks near this bridge, is descended from the time of Strongbow, like most of the ruins and castles in this part of Ireland, which was the principal theatre of his deeds. Strongbow is the great name which has here every where been spoken of for nearly seven hundred years. Strongbow is one of those men who acquire greater celebrity after their death, and after the lapse of centuries, in proportion as the seed they sowed grows and flourishes. Strongbow was the first of the Anglo-Norman knights who came over to Ireland, leading the way for all the troops of English soldiers and colonists who in after-times deluged the land. For three or even four hundred years, Strongbow was famed as a great knight, in that district only which the English called their ‘Pale.’ When Henry VIII. and Elizabeth afterwards subdued the rest of the country, the other Irish inquired who it was that first brought the English upon their backs. And it is only at the present day, seven hundred years after his death, when O'Connell and the other Irish patriots are always talking about him, and haranguing against him, that he has become quite a great man.
The spot where Strongbow first landed, and where he pitched his first camp, is still pointed out, and the traces of a ramp are said still to exist there. This spot lies on the coast of Wexford, between the headlands Hook and Crook, and on the maps of Ireland is called ‘Strongbow's Camp.’ But I was told by an Irishman that the people call it ‘Bag and Bun,’ because the two ships which came with Strongbow were named, the one Bag, and the other Bun. Strongbow was ignorant of the best place for landing, and when he inquired of the Irish pilots, was told that he must enter Ireland either by Hook or by Crook, for that thus he might do so most securely. Hence has arisen the English phrase, ‘by hook or by crook.’
Enniscorthy is an old Irish town. ‘Very old, sir, very old; for you see’—(this you see the Irish put in every where)—‘even my grandfather lived there,’ said my companion on the road, an Irishman ‘in the commercial line.’ Methinks I have never met with such strange laughers any where as the Irish. They often make bull after bull, without one being able to tell whether it was through wit or stupidity, and then they burst into a laugh at the offspring of their own cleverness. To Englishmen, such a being must be unendurable. My friend told me that we would soon arrive at Enniscorthy, and then he laughed most heartily; perhaps it might happen that we would both travel to Dublin together, and here again he laughed, while he held his two hands to his mouth. I believe this excessive inclination to laughter has been remarked as peculiar to the Gascons also.
As we had time enough in the evening, before sun-down, my laughing companion and I ascended ‘Vinegar Hill,’ which is close to Enniscorthy, and is celebrated in the history of the Irish Rebellion. Here a decisive battle was fought between the Irish rebels and the English troops in 1798, and on the top of the hill there yet remain the ruins of an old windmill—(as the people say, but it looks more like those of a round watch-tower of the middle ages)—in which many of the rebels were hanged in retaliation for the atrocities perpetrated at Wexford bridge; so that its name might be not undeservedly changed from ‘Vinegar Hill’ to ‘Blood Hill.’ All this only made my companion nearly kill himself with laughing. As I thought it not improbable that he might remember some singular events of the war, I asked him what really was the commencement and cause of it, when he said that it ‘commenced by burning houses,’ and ‘ended by knocking every thing to pieces.’ All these little rebellion-battles, and civil-war, events have even now-a-days their practical significance, for O'Connell is now perpetually awakening the long-hushed cannon-thunder into an endless echo, and is using their artillery once more in his wordy war against the English.
On the top of Vinegar Hill, as on the tops of most of the grass-covered hills of Ireland, naked points of rock rise above the turf, and from one of these, which I climbed, I enjoyed a most delightful prospect of Enniscorthy and the valley of the Slaney. We wandered homewards through a suburb of the town called Drumgold, so named because the rebels here buried a drum filled with plundered gold.
Enniscorthy is ‘a capital place for the wool trade.’ My friend in the mercantile line, who assured me of this, inquired whether Germany was also ‘a good place for wool.’ Such are the questions
In Enniscorthy, also, there is an old castle built by Strongbow. It stands in the centre of the town, on its highest part, has four towers, and, what is more remarkable, is still in a state of the most perfect preservation, so that it is inhabited by a clergyman of the Established Church, who has fitted up for himself a most elegant residence within these ancient walls and towers. In English towns one finds old dwelling-houses more rarely than in our German cities, but in the country, on the contrary, more frequently. I passed a very agreeable and instructive evening with this clergyman, a man of a highly cultivated mind, and a perfect gentleman, with quite the appearance of a most aristocratic Tory, who in his old castle had brought together much to comfort the body and to improve the mind. We sat at an old oak table, the wood of which had been for three hundred years in its present form, and must have been the portion of a tree in the forest more than six hundred years before it was converted to that use.
Since the last ‘clipping’ of the revenues of the Protestant clergy of Ireland, the income of the rector of Enniscorthy has been reduced from £2100 to £1000 a year. The revenues of all the Protestant clergy have not, however, been reduced in the same ratio; and those of the bishops and archbishops have suffered proportionably the least. The necessity for a further clipping is shown by a table of the incomes of these dignitaries. In Ireland there are twenty-two bishops and archbishops of the Established Church; whilst in England there are only twenty-seven. Taken on the whole, these twenty-two Irish bishops have better incomes than the twenty-seven English bishops, the average yearly income of an Irish bishop being about £7000, whilst that of an English bishop is about £6000. There are four English bishoprics with a revenue of less than £2000 a year each; in Ireland there is not one less than that sum. In England there are ten between £2000 and
In and around Enniscorthy, the most widely-spread family-name is Murphy; and I was informed that at the residence of a wealthy gentleman of that name is still preserved a crown, which his ancestors are said to have worn as kings of Munster. It is an undoubted fact that the crowns of many similar old, insignificant, and long-vanished kingdoms still exist, and with them the old pride and claims are handed down from generation to generation. It is incredible how many ancient dust and rust-covered crowns there are yet in Europe, the possessors of which still cherish the hope of being able, at some future day, to deck themselves out with this dust and rust.
Ruined kings' palaces are still more numerous in Ireland than kings' crowns. On the following morning we again saw one on the road from Enniscorthy to Arklow. It was the ruins of Ferns, the seat of the last monarchs of Leinster. ‘Monarchs!’ In this high strain the Irish talk of their kings, although in the rest of Europe this term is reserved for the great sovereigns alone. This monarch was the well-known Mac Murrough, who invited Strongbow and the English over to Ireland; and with him the race of the kings of Leinster became extinct, and Strongbow assumed their rights. The popular traditions make Mac Murrough die of a fearful disease, which, in the last years of his life, rendered him an object of general aversion. The well-known family of the O'Cavenaghs is descended from this last king of Leinster; and the present head of that family still bears the title of The Mac . Over the ruined battlements of the Castle of Ferns there is now hanging an iron basket, in which, as I was told, a fire is lighted on occasions of great national rejoicing. I have remarked these iron baskets on some other Irish ruins, and I believe this kind of illumination is quite peculiar to Ireland.
The remainder of the county of Wexford is as level, as well cultivated, and as pleasing as its commencement. The hedges with which the fields are enclosed consist entirely of furze, and, as these were now covered with blossoms, the distinct yellow boundary lines presented a very peculiar appearance. Here and there were some fields planted with young silver firs, and even thick hedges were sometimes formed of these beautiful trees. ‘A very nice fancy taste, and one that is not usual in Ireland,’ as was remarked by one of my fellow-passengers, who, as our coachman had previously informed me, was a ‘play-actor’ from Dublin. Such pleonasms are genuinely Irish.
A fine inviting road lay before us, and a rival coach followed close behind, as we rapidly rolled into the county of Wicklow. We did not even waste time in delivering, in an orderly manner, the letters and parcels which we had for the little villages that lay along the road, but threw them from the coach near the houses
We passed the place where the well-known murder of a landlord named O'Brien was perpetrated a few years since. It is said that the murderer is still undiscovered, although the deed was committed in the open day, and close to a field in which many labourers were at work. So hard is it to discover an evil-doer in Ireland, where there are so many who, if they have not actually lent him a helping hand, at least feel great sympathy for the criminal. Not one-half of the committals for crimes in Ireland are followed by convictions; whilst in England and Scotland conviction generally follows more than two-thirds of the committals. This is clearly proved by the statistics of crime in both countries. In one year of the last decade, the committals in England were 24,443, and the convictions 17,832; that is, the former were to the latter as 8 to 4 4/5. In Ireland, in the same year, there were 26,392 committals, and 12,094 convictions, being in the proportion of 8 to 3 2/3. In another year there were in Ireland 23,822 committals, and 11,194 convictions; in England, on the other hand, there were, the same year, 27,187 committals, and 19,927 convictions. Hence it is evident that in Ireland it is twice as difficult to convict the perpetrator of a crime as in England.
In all the little towns through which we passed the people complained that they were now inundated with beggars, who had migrated from the larger towns where workhouses are erected, and where a stricter watch is kept over them. The last of these little places was Gorey, and some miles beyond it we entered the far-praised county of Wicklow, whose pyramidal mountains had been long beckoning to us in the distance. This county is mountainous throughout, and is almost completely surrounded by plains,—on the south by that of Wexford, on the east by that of the Barrow, and on the north by that of the county of Dublin. The mountains
This entire tract of country is rich in interesting and romantic spots and valleys; but the most celebrated of all is the Vale of Avoca, particularly the spot where its principal streams unite their waters, and shortly before it falls into the sea. The Vale of Avoca is as highly prized in Ireland, as is the Vale of Vaucluse in the south of France. It is remarkable that beautiful objects have usually beautiful names. Avoca sounds almost quite Italian, though in the mouth of an Englishman but half so, namely, ‘Aevocae’. A great number of these Italian-sounding names are scattered through Ireland, as Portumna on the Shannon, Liscanor Bay on the coast of Clare, the promontory Brandon, and the town Bandon, Fort Delore on the coast of Kerry, Garomna and Castello in Connemara, Matino and Matilla, and the canal harbour Portobello, near Dublin. Are these sounds the same in the Celtic language of Ireland as in the old original Celtic language of Italy; or are they real Italian names, that have been introduced into Ireland, as into other countries, for the sake of their pleasing and musical sound?
The beautiful foliage is the greatest charm of the Vale of Avoca. There are stately oaks and beeches, which form the most picturesque groups, and are entirely covered with ivy. Indeed all those rocky valleys of the Wicklow mountains, through which rivers flow, are thus adorned with a beautiful foliage; whilst the broad lidges, the pyramidal summits, and the unwatered valleys, are quite bare. On the sides of these beautiful watered valleys there are large tracts perfectly treeless. The Irish oak has a very
The little town of Arklow lies at the mouth of the Avoca, near the sea, and from it the road ascends into the wooded vale, first through Glenart wood, in which Glenart Castle and another handsome and picturesque mansion, Shelton Abbey, stand facing
- There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
So sings Moore; and these words the Irish interpret literally; for they do not, in fact, consider that a poet, momentarily intoxicated by the wonderful beauties of a place, may declare to the world, without the slightest intention to deceive, that this place is the sweetest in the wide world, but that when a prosaic expounder of the sublime and beautiful delivers such expressions ex cathedra, he is manifestly guilty of exaggeration. There are so many charming vales, and nature is in a hundred thousand spots of the earth so extremely pleasing and beautiful, that it is only allowable to forget this so long as a man lingers in his charming valley, and revels in his enjoyment of nature, but not when he looks out from it and compares it with the rest of the world. ‘The Americans,’ say the Irish, ‘who come hither, assure us they have never beheld any thing like it. A Frenchman too was lately here, and he assured us that there was nothing equal to it in his country.’ The German alone, whom they had now with them, would not thus come out with his ‘the most splendid scenery he ever saw in his life.’ It is often with the inhabitants of a narrow district as with a person in love: the latter has obtained his ideas of the divinity of human nature, and of the fair sex in particular, merely from a single individual of it. As he is now so deeply absorbed with this individual, and studies in her all the beauties which grace the human soul, as well as the human body, he deems all this the personal merit of the individual alone; and, (though in accordance with reason he should love the entire human race with the same affection) he now casts off reason altogether, and ‘falls in love,’ as the English say, that is, into a deep hole, from which he can only see and adore one star of the many millions which stud the vast dome of heaven. Thus have the Irish discovered the breath of heaven in their Vale of Avoca. They and their journalists and poets have laid bare and praised all its beauties: hence they have fallen in love with this vale, as if it were the only one of its kind on the entire globe.
Even those Irish who have not seen this Vale have conceived the most delightful ideas respecting it, and it is more than probable that Moore has largely contributed to this by his continually repeated lines—
- There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
The rest of this poem is very poor, and even ends in commonplace. In the literature of every nation there are short passages like this, which, no one knows why, have found a greater echo, and have exercised a mightier effect on men, than entire great works, or than the deeds of a whole glorious life. Millions of beautiful sentences often pass away unregarded, while two or three words for ever glow and burn bright in the hearts of an entire people. Moore has a multitude of these striking and burning passages, in which he has sung, in short, affecting, and patriotic lays, the beauty of many an Irish glen, castle, and ruin, and in this manner has erected, in the hearts of the people, a monument of their fame more indestructible than brass or stone. Thus, in another famous lay, he has sung of the enchanting lake of Glendalough, at whose ‘gloomy shore’ we arrived the following day; thus also has he sung of Innisfallen island, at Killarney:—
- Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well!
And long may light around thee smile,
Soft as on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.
Thus again of Arranmore, the largest of the isles of Arran, on the east coast21 of Ireland, whose inhabitants, even at the present day, are convinced that from their shores they can behold Hy Brysail, or the enchanted island, the paradise of the heathen Irish;—
Then the waters of the Moyle, over which Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, sails in the form of a swan, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell is to be the signal of her release:—
- O Arranmore, lov'd Arranmore!
How oft I dream of thee,
And of those days when by thy shore
I wander'd young and free;- Or, when the western wave grew bright
With daylight's parting wing
Have sought that Eden in its light,
Which dreaming poets sing.
And many other remarkable spots of the Emerald Isle.
- Silent, O Moyle! be the roar of thy water,
&c
It is a great mistake to consider Moore a great English poet. He is thoroughly an Irish genius, who only uses the English language to clothe his Irish thoughts, feelings, and sentiments. The English can therefore admire but one half of the man—his language; whilst his other half—his sentiments—cannot reach their hearts as they do those of the Irish, who regard him almost as a divinity. If a Sclavonic poet were thus to breathe his Sclavonic sentiments and patriotism in German verse, we could as little look upon him as a German poet as we can upon Moore as an English poet. Moore's patriotism is completely anti-English. His is the bloody motto which O'Connell has prefixed, to his Memoirs of the History of Ireland:—
He frequently calls the English the ‘fiend:’ for instance, in his mournful poem on the battle of the Boyne,
- But onward!—the green banner rearing
Go, flesh ev'ry sword to the hilt!
On our side is Virtue and Erin,
On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt.
and in The Parallel, where he compares the Irish to the enslaved Jews, and marches to battle uttering prophetic warnings against their oppressors. He feels a deep sympathy for the deeds of the old Irish heroes and kings, and sings them like a bard of old. Thus he bids the Irish
- As vanquish'd Erin wept beside;—
Thus he takes the harp from Tara's hall, and plays on it in the manner of the ancient bards:—
- Remember the glories of Brian the brave!
Even against the Danes he goes to battle at the present day, and bids
- The harp that once, through Tara's halls,
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
And in the Ode on Wellington, Ireland's pride, he thus speaks of Erin's history:—
- ——; Erin remember the days of old,
Ere her faithless son betrayed her.
- While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
Yea, even his other little poems, which we in Germany often look on as the outpourings of a general melancholy, or excessive sentiment, and deep love for nature and for man, almost one and
Such beautiful, musical verses as these are written upon the hearts of the Irish, and indelibly stamped upon their memories. They sway the people more than O'Connell's best harangues, which will be entirely forgot long before Moore's verses will cease to be sung by the people from generation to generation. Thomas Moore is a far worse agitator than O'Connell, although he remains quietly at home on his estate, comfortably seated in his easy-chair. He arouses the hearts of the Irish, and with tears, with sighs, with inspired blessings, with curses, and with song and music, he marches to do battle against the English. O'Connell fights in the van; and Moore is his bard, who stands singing at his side, O'Connell, Thomas Moore, and Father Mathew form the great triumvirate which now stands at the head of all moral movements in Ireland, each in his own peculiar field and post. They form the triple leaf of the remarkable shamrock which flourishes fresh and green on the mountain summit of Irish fame, and to which the inhabitants of Erin look up with love and admiration.
- Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay!
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?
It is deserving of remark that these three men are all natives of the south of Ireland, and all from the neighbourhood of the sea coast,—O'Connell from Cahirsiveen, in Kerry, Father Mathew from Cork, and Moore from Wexford, where his father was a
The greatest fault of the Vale of Avoca is, that it is so short, for how gladly would the delighted eye roam over more of those green meadows, those charming groups of rocks, and those ivy-mantled, ivy-draperied trees!
From the Vale of Avoca we arrived at the Vale of Avon, wherein lies the little town of Rathdrum, where we found most excellent, clean, and neat quarters with a small shopkeeper, who is, at the same time, the innkeeper of the place. This reminds me that I have not yet said a single word of all the good, neat, and clean rooms which I found every where during my travels in Ireland. The Irish inns are not so famous as the best in England; nay, even in Ireland, an inn kept by an Englishman is usually recommended with the addition—‘the landlord is an Englishman, sir; you will find yourself very comfortable there.’ There must, of course, be some reason for this; but so much is certain, that I never felt very anxious about the choice of my quarters, and every day I experienced the most perfect conviction that even in the smallest town I would be able to lie down in the evening in a good and clean bed. The bed and the cleanliness are, however, the principal things which a traveller may always depend upon, for the attendance is mostly slow and the fare not to every body's taste. The beds are generally so large that they take up almost the entire room, and leave only space sufficient to walk round, to look for a convenient spot for ascending this mountain of feathers and bed-clothes. The fare usually consists of mutton chops, potatoes, and tea. The latter is always drinkable and good, the potatoes are always only half boiled (I do not remember having ever eaten a perfectly boiled potato in Ireland), and the mutton chops, at least in the opinion of the eulogizing host, are always ‘nice,’ but sometimes so hard and tough that one scarcely ventures to risk his teeth upon them. Of this description were my mutton chops at Rathdrum. I therefore did as the Irish do with their herrings,—I rubbed my potatoes on the mutton chops, and particularly on their brown roasted fat. Thos my potatoes obtained an excellent taste, and formed another description of potatoes au point.
Not far from Rathdrum, in the vale of Avonmore, are coppermines, which threaten to destroy the beautiful trees. It is well said, utile cum dulce; but unfortunately the utile is almost every where waging internecine war with the dulce. Even the salmon, which were formerly very plentiful in the river Avon, have been driven from it by these mines. ‘The sulphureous sulphur-water’
I had heard so much in praise of the Seven Churches and the Round Tower of the Vale of Glendalough, that I delayed but a few hours in Rathdrum, and then set out with a little one-horse car into the mountains, to visit that valley. I certainly would have shortened those hours to minutes, had I known beforehand what an incomparable spot is distinguished by the name of Glendalough. The road passes first through the valley of Clara, through which the Avonmore flows, and then some ten miles farther, in a sidelong direction, to the source of the little tributary streams of that river. The surrounding country is very thinly inhabited, and in those ten miles there is only one village, called Laragh. The mountains north of these valleys, however, are still more uninhabited, so much so that they are called ‘the uninhabited mountains,’ and are really a phenomenon in this part of the country, which is only a few miles from Dublin. They stretch from north to south, about fifteen miles in length; from east to west, they have a breadth of ten miles; and within this space not only are there mountains, but valleys also, which are almost completely devoid of inhabitants, and, as the people say, uninhabitable. All is stony, rocky ground, with grass thinly scattered, and no kind of vegetation. The entire region is appropriated to feeding goats, which live here half wild, as in the mountains of Kerry. Nay, sometimes they become altogether wild, so that the herdsmen turn
It is singular that so wild a district should be found so near the principal city of Ireland. Although there are extensive tracts in the British dominions which are much more fertile than any in Germany, there are at the same time spots infinitely more wild than any thing we can find in our own country, which yet possesses more forests and is less thickly populated; for where have we mountain regions where goats and sheep run half or entirely wild? Even on our highest Alps the cattle are every where kept within fences and watched over. I never remember to have seen in Germany such perfectly wild, neglected tracts of ground, either quite destitute of inhabitants, or with a thinly-scattered and miserable population, as are to be found here in Ireland, and also in some parts of Scotland. Thus the physiognomy of the country is a true picture of its social condition. The English have made a great military road through this wilderness, and erected barracks at the various stations, which, in the time of the rebellion, were all filled with soldiers to keep the desert in check. Some of those barracks are now turned into police stations.
At the Laragh barracks three wild glens meet,—Glenavon, Glenmacnass, and that into which we now turned, Glendalough. Scarcely had we reached the entrance of this valley when we observed a man in a purple-red coat standing at a door; and no sooner had he noticed us than he sprang upon our car, and seating himself by the driver, thus addressed me in a loud voice: ‘Your honour will allow me to go with you? I am the well-known guide of Glendalough: George Irwin is my name, if you please.’ But I must describe the man before I allow him to talk. He had a long, matted beard, frizzled-looking, and clinging round his chin and jawbones like wool; his features were very strongly marked; his cheeks weather-beaten and thin; his forehead high and wrinkled; beneath these wrinkles glowed a pair of eyes that gleamed in their sockets; and between all those wrinkles and ruins, a boldly-arched hawk's nose raised itself. His words were rough, wild, and hoarse, and tumbled out over his tongue, like the wild bog-streams of Ireland over dark rocks and mossy stones; and his voice sounded as if it came from a hollow, and from an organ of speech wasted and worn for years by wind, rain, storm, and whisky. ‘That's my name, your honour,—George Irwin, the guide of
I followed this man, who drew me after him almost by force, yet at the same time with courteousness, and with constant ‘your honour,’ until he led me to the mountain lakes of Glendalough, which word means ‘the vale of the two lakes.’ In fact, I do not remember ever to have had a more intelligent and entertaining guide than George Irwin, and I regretted nothing more than my inability to understand all the stories, anecdotes, and legends, which flowed from him like a shower.
‘Sir Walter Scott, the great Scottish poet, told me, your honour, that he knew no other spot in the world to be compared to our lakes of Glendalough, in natural beauty and romantic situation; and of the Round Tower, which your honour shall soon see, he said, that it was unique in its kind, and that in Scotland there were only the traces of two such round towers remaining, of which we have a hundred and more in Ireland, and some beautiful and perfect ones among them. Our famous Irish poet, Thomas Moore—our Tommy, as we Irish call him for shortness' sake, your honour, just as we usually call the great Daniel O'Connell simply Dan—our Tommy. I say—I know him these forty years, and he knows me very well too—has made a beautiful poem on those lakes, which your honour shall soon see. It begins—
I know the entire poem from beginning to end by heart; but of course your honour knows it very well yourself. The young Princess too, now her gracious Majesty, was delighted with the wild charms of this spot; and I almost believe it is our Glendalough that has made her Majesty think of visiting Erin once more next year. I hope she will also come here again, and I perhaps will have again the honour of guiding her where she then,
- By that lake, whose gloomy shore
Skylark never warbles o'er;
Where the cliff hangs high and steep,
Young Saint Kevin stole to sleep.
So wonderful and remarkable a scene I had really never before seen. Wild, bare, rocky, and dark-coloured mountains ran out into a sharp promontory; to the right the ground descends into the valley of Glendassan, and to the left into that of Glendalough. One can see into both these vallies at the same time, through broad, wide rock-doors. In the foreground, in the midst of the basin formed by the meeting of the two vallies, lie the low ruins of the Seven Churches; and right in the centre, forming the middle point of the landscape, rises the lofty, slender, pillar-temple, that stands, in good preservation, exactly in the middle of this picturesque wilderness, like Pompey's Pillar in the midst of the waste of Alexandria. Behind this temple appear the water-mirrors of the two famous lakes; first the smaller, and behind it, the larger. The entire prospect is ruin,—ruins of nature and art. No tillage, no fields: only from the top of one of the higher rocks we saw rising a dull smoke, marking the hut of an inhabitant of the mountains: and below, in the valley, lay the cabins of two public-house keepers and guides, who offer their services and refreshment to travellers.
‘All this is now in a sad condition, as your honour sees,’ began Irwin again; ‘but formerly, when the great city of Dublin was still a turf-bog, a flourishing city stood here. There was here a high school of divinity, to which foreigners came from France and Germany, even from Italy, (from Palermo, for instance,) here to draw wisdom and knowledge from one of the light-fountains of our island. This was in the earliest centuries of Christianity. There stood here a college, a convent, many buildings for the students, the professors, and those belonging to the convent; and then, no less than seven churches! The number seven, as your honour knows, was always a sacred number all the world over, in the east
I have been there too, your honour, and could tell you many things of those distant islands, but that I must show you the place here, and that I have many things still to explain to you about our Seven Churches of Glendalough. All those Seven Churches I have named, as well as the others, originated in the first ages of Christianity in our land. But even before St. Patrick brought us the light from the Holy Land—in those ancient days when Fionnuala, daughter of Lir, was still flitting around the lakes and rivers of Ireland, longing for deliverance,—even then, God was already honoured here.’
- Oh Arranmore, loved Arranmore!
How oft I dream of thee!
‘There, on the tongue of land between the two lakes, I will show your honour some remains of Druid temples; and here you see before you the tall Round Tower, built in our land by the Fire-worshippers of the East. There are certainly some learned men, your honour, who, as I well know, will not believe that those towers ought to be ascribed to orientals, and suppose that they were built by Christians in later times, for other purposes. But this is not true; for, in the first place, all travellers who have come here have assured me that in no country in Europe is there any thing like our Irish Round Towers, and that they have seen similar ones only in the East. And besides, we common Irish know well enough of ourselves by whom those towers were raised, and what purpose they served. The priests of the fire-worshippers ascended to the top of the tower, and shouted at sunrise towards all quarters of the compass, ‘Baal! Baal! Baal!’ to announce to the faithful
I once more beg my German readers to observe, that I record these words of George Irwin, not as the over-strained fancies of an ignorant individual, but because they perfectly represent the views, opinions, and far-and-wide believed traditions of the Irish people; and because, if we will not believe that there is any truth in them, we must at least believe in as great a wonder, a strange monomania to which an entire people has blindly resigned itself.
The Round Tower of Glendalough is one of the most perfect and highest in Ireland. It is 110 feet high, and 51 feet in circumference. Besides a little doorway, which can be easily climbed to from the ground, it has four small windows near the top, and two others farther down. It appears to be built of two kinds of stone—of granite, and clay-slate wedged in between the granite blocks. It is almost impossible to view without emotion this majestic, uncommon, and also perplexing kind of building, in which all the Irish take so great an interest, that almost every one who has written any thing, has put on paper his own theory of the object of the Round Towers. Not only have professors and authors ex professo published treatises on those matters, but many amateurs of Irish antiquities have also produced their theories. When you meet with an idle rector, or a curate or vicar living alone, the one will not fail to tell you that he rejects all hitherto proposed hypotheses about the Round Towers, and has a theory of his own, which he will commit to paper as soon as his business will allow him; and the other will say, he has long since prepared a little treatise on the subject, which, on account of different obstacles, is not yet printed.
The Seven Churches lie, in the same manner as those on Scattery Island, and in a more or less ruined state, about the Round Tower, and the entire area of the ruins serves at this day
‘This is a fine festival, your honour, and the entire churchyard is then full of people, singing and praying, who have streamed in from twenty or thirty miles round, and met in Glendalough. As they are free from anxiety with respect to the souls of their departed friends, confiding in their hopes of being saved at the judgment, the festival is not altogether a mourning one; and they sometimes indulge in a certain degree of gaiety over the graves. I might almost call this festival ‘Erin's pleasure-garden.’ Yes! churchyards and ruins are indeed Erin's pleasure-gardens.’
Here also the people show several old graves as those of Irish kings, which lie surrounded by the graves of the poor of modern days. The entrance to the ruins is by an old half-ruined Saxon doorway, wreathed with ivy. Amid the stones which lie about among the ruins, and by the little stream which runs near the edge of the churchyard, are several very curious ones, to which particular virtues of a strange nature are ascribed. There is one which has a hole for kneeling in; and the prayers offered in this hole are supposed to have a particular efficacy. Then there is an ancient cross, which women embrace to render them more prolific; but as Irish women are generally blest with plenty of children, this cross is quite superfluous. In the old churches there are many strange articles of furniture which I never saw before; for instance, an ancient baptismal font, in which the children were entirely immersed, and which was also covered with a lid through which the head only appeared.
Next to the site of the ruins lies, as I have said, the first, or little lake. ‘It is called also the Lake of Serpents, your honour, or Lough Napeastia. This lake, your honour, is so called, because
‘Is not that a wonderful story, your honour? But much more wonderful, and not less true, is what is affirmed of the upper lake, —that never since St. Patrick's time has a lark built a nest on its shore, or even been able to fly over it. For thirteen hundred years, your honour,—this is a certain truth,—one single lark has not flown over this lake. Tommy Moore, too, confirms this when he sings,
This happens, your honour, because it was the skylarks who used to rouse the workmen early to their work, when they were building the Seven Churches here by the lake. The ‘undertakers’, who employed the workmen, took this song of the lark to mark the commencement of the day and the labour. In those days they had no clocks; and in the long winter nights, and dark overcast days in summer, they only knew how to reckon their hours by burning wax tapers. When now those larks, which had helped in so holy and beautiful a work, were dead, by St. Kevin's decree no others were thought worthy of singing their song here after those pious larks.’
- By that lake, whose gloomy shore
Skylark never warbles o'er.
‘St. Kevin was the builder of those Seven Churches, your honour; and he was also the first bishop of Glendalough. Many bishops succeeded him, and many treasures, both ecclesiastical and secular, were laid up here. As long as the four Irish kings
The isthmus between the two lakes is covered with some traces of old ditches and masonry, which are thought by the people to be the work of the Druids. Among others, there is an entire circle of well-preserved walls, seventeen feet in diameter, which Irwin set down without hesitation as a Druidical temple. Others believe that it was merely a pen or fold, used by the herdsmen for their cattle,—a somewhat curious alternative. I am not disposed to adopt either supposition, the wall being too insignificant for a temple and too good and solid for a fold. Near the Druidical buildings stand the remains of a single stone cross, which, as Irwin argued, proved still more conclusively the heathen origin of the former, because, as he said, the early Christians often erected crosses on the sites of heathen worship, so as to consecrate them to the true God.
On the 3rd of June, last year, this Druidical isthmus was the theatre of a great temperance festival. Father Mathew having visited the neighbourhood, selected this ancient place, and appointed the meeting to be held on the day (the feast of St. Kevin) so much honoured by the Irish people. ‘Upon this stone wall, your honour,’ said my guide, ‘the God-gifted man stood, and preached to the people with a powerful voice. They were collected together from all the neighbouring glens,—some from Glenmacnass and Glenavonmore, some from the Vale of Avoca, some
On the second lake a boat awaited us, and we embarked in it, to enjoy a view of the rugged overhanging rocks of Lugduff and Mullacop, which advance to the edge of the shore. The chief wonder in these cliffs is St. Kevin's bed, a little hollow, which is seen some forty feet above the water, and is approached by narrow steps cut in the rock. It appears to have been hollowed out by the hand of man, and is so small that one person only can conveniently stretch himself out in it. It is also said by the people to possess the same virtues in regard to the fruitfulness of women which are ascribed to the cross I have already mentioned. I have neglected to observe, that whilst we continued within the bounds of Glendalough, in addition to our principal guides, we were accompanied by a party of idle women, girls, boys, and children, who followed us every where. Such a retinue the stranger in Ireland has always behind him; and he finds it as difficult lo get rid of it, as O'Connell does to rid himself of his tail. One cannot drive those people away by entreating or scolding: they run constantly after one, at first merely gaping in silence, but afterwards joining in the conversation and assisting the real guide. This our tail now rushed to St. Kevin's bed, and seemed anxious to creep in all together, until one old woman drove all the others away, proclaiming that it was her privilege to show a stranger the position of a woman in Kevin's bed. She accordingly crouched herself in it like a bird in its nest, or the image of a saint in its niche, and, as seen from the lake, presented a very comical appearance.
The legend which the Irish tell of this bed is very poetical:—‘St. Kevin, your honour, was a young man, who probably felt like other young men, and also devoted the best part of his feelings
In winter, however, thought I, it must be difficult to distinguish between the blessed and the enchanted water; for then it often happens that the entire valley of Glendalough is covered by one and the same great sheet of water.
The ground behind the lake looked very wild and lonely. A pair of eagles build their nest on one of the rocks, and the
These people have a strange clothing for the feet: it is a kind of stocking, without a sole, which covers only the upper part of the foot; and there is a hole in the fore part of the stocking, through which the great toe protrudes, and thus the stocking is secured to the foot. These stockings, for which the bare foot forms the sole, are a very ancient fashion in this country; and it is only very recently that leather shoes have been introduced.
As we returned from the most distant corner of the lake, we recalled with pleasure the succession of fair scenes we had surveyed—the dark rocks, the Druidical isthmus, Father Mathew's festival, the Lake of Serpents, St. Patrick's soft-heartedness, the graves, the pillar-temple—what riches! At last we passed out through the little ivy-covered ruined gateway; and near an old hawthorn, which Irwin pointed out as marking the bounds of the town that once stood here, we seated ourselves on our car, and drove off silently, thanking the Irish for their ‘jaunting-cars,’ whose formation allowed us so to sit, that, instead of the horses before us, we could see the vanishing landscape of Glendalough behind us, on which our eyes remained eagerly fastened as long as possible.
At Rathdrum I was told that not one of the Protestants of that place, though they amounted to several hundreds, had taken the pledge. This I had also heard in many of the small towns of the south of Ireland. In the north, on the contrary, many Protestants have become teetotallers. I can only explain this by supposing that the Protestants of the south, being the minority of the population, are more jealous of the Catholics, and therefore less inclined to join in a movement which originated with them. The Protestants at Rathdrum appeared to me even to hold temperance in no small contempt, and to speak of it with derision. They affirmed that it
The copper mines near Rathdrum are worked by gentlemen from Cornwall, of the name of Williams, who are also proprietors of mines in America. These old mines are now worked on a new system; and no less than 2000 persons are said to be employed in the mines of the vales of Avonmore and Avoca. The managers of the mines are Englishmen, and the workmen Irish. There are several lead mines also in this district, under the direction of the Irish Mining Company. Nearly all the mountains of Wicklow contain veins of metal; nay, even gold has been found in Croghan; but I fear this discovery has realised the proverb that ‘all is not gold that glitters.’
In the workhouse at Rathdrum I found 300 paupers. Three months before the number had been upwards of 350; but as it was now the potato harvest, with work plentiful and potatoes cheap, many of the inmates had requested their discharge, whilst with the return of spring they would all crowd in again. I was informed that the first patient admitted into the hospital lately erected here was a German clockmaker, from which it appears that this class of artizans, who are so numerous throughout Great Britain, are to be found even in these small Irish towns.
I know not whether the Protestants of Rathdrum are especially zealous, or whether their manners and opinions are more or less conformable to those of all Irish Protestants; but I was informed that very few of them sent their children to the national school of that place. The great subject of dispute between the Protestants and Catholics, as regards these national schools, is, whether extracts only from the Bible shall be given to the pupils, or the entire and unabridged Scriptures. The former is the wish of the Catholics, and they have carried their point; the Protestants insist on the latter, but hitherto without success, since Catholic influence preponderates at the Board of Education in Dublin.
Twenty or thirty years ago there was not a single good house in Rathdrum; now the town looks very neat and regular. The question which the English so often propose, whether Ireland is an improving country? must be answered in the affirmative, in respect of a hundred different kinds of improvements. The external appearance of the towns has everywhere improved within the last twenty years; the roads, canals, and other means of transport, are improving everyday; and the cultivation of grain, and the planting of trees, is increasing, as any one may perceive, whether travelling by highways or by-ways. The increase of
In a Protestant church at Rathdrum I saw what I had already seen in many other Protestant churches in Ireland, namely, prints from copperplate engravings,—engravings from Raphael and other painters, hung on the walls of the church, as in a saloon, in place of the oil paintings which are found in German churches. In no other country have I seen engravings so highly honoured. These prints seem to me undeserving of such an honour, whilst the dignity of the church is in some measure lowered by their introduction. What a poverty in the higher branches of art does not such a substitute indicate! In many parts of Germany, in some provinces of Austria, for instance, a painter in oils is to be found in almost every village, who is able to ornament its church as it deserves. But this introduction of black engravings into a church manifests an extreme degree of coldness and insipidity in religious art, more especially as they are not at all adapted for large buildings.
It was on a Sunday that I again mounted a little car, in order more conveniently to visit some beauties of the county of Wicklow,—the celebrated Devil's Glen, the Glen of the Downs, the Rock of Glencarrig, &c. The peculiar grouping of the mountains, (a characteristic I have already several times mentioned,) which lie in clusters, or singly beside each other, while a plain extends all round them, forms a peculiar feature in the landscape, with their two open valleys on each side, or the broad level pass between them. Mountain passes usually ascend the sides and pass over the ridge of the mountain; but here you often travel over the plain, then traverse a valley between the mountains, without ascending at all, and then, after some time, come forth again on the broad plain—a mode of travelling which produces an extremely pleasing effect.
Many Irish proprietors are now planting the mountains with trees, and I observed with pleasure the new plantations in the vale of Glencarriff. The larch seems to be here, as in Scotland, a favourite tree, and several of them were covered from top to bottom with ivy, which, the people say, never climbs the pine or the silver fir. The eye is never tired of the beautiful old oaks, and the fine groups of trees which are every where seen, with the fresh meadows between them. I can perfectly understand why people
Wo to that man who no longer perceives in himself any trace of vanity! It is in general an evident sign that his ruin is at hand. It is only after love of bare absolute necessity is satisfied, that the love of personal decoration, and the embellishment of whatever surrounds us, begins. I have found no country in which so many men have renounced all impulse for decoration, and all love of ornament, as in Ireland. It was therefore quite refreshing and gratifying to discover, in this part of the country, so many farmers' and peasants' houses ornamented in a very peculiar manner,—the ridges, edges, and borders of the straw-roofs being plaited like the manes of horses; and in some instances this plaiting was executed so neatly, that it looked as if an elegant border of lace ran all round the edge of the roof. At times cottages are seen quite luxurious in this straw-lace, being decked out with it like the ball-dress of a lady. Many of these dwellings belong to wealthy and aristocratic individuals, who sometimes whimsically term their sumptuous country-seats merely cottages. At times, however, they are the elegant, ornamented, suitable abodes of the farmers.
It is extremely gratifying to find in the little gardens of these cottages all the elements of which the great parks are composed,—a little spot of bright-green turf, kept in such wonderful order; a few neat laurel trees, every leaf of which seems to be carefully trimmed; some small arbutus, a rose-tree in full bloom on the wall of the house, and various other pretty evergreens. The narrow paths are kept as trim and neat, and bounded with as clear sharp lines as if in a drawing; and as the proprietor has not much land to lose in a mere pleasure-ground, the whole is often not much larger than an oil painting.
As the Avoca flows down to Arklow, so does the little river Vartry run into the sea at Wicklow. This little valley is also famed and visited for its beauties, especially for a wild, narrow defile, through which flows the river, after having thrown itself in a splendid cascade from a wild boggy height. This part is called the Devil's Glen. Profane as its name may sound, this celebrated spot observed its Sunday in a very pious and Christianlike manner, its owner having locked the iron gate placed at its entrance. Most
The cascade, in the back-ground of the valley, tumbles down from a wild plateau of bog, and, though now in the autumn, the bog did its best to provide it with turf-brown water; yet no part of it interested us so much as the contrast between this same brown colour of the water, and the white colour of the foam. I would have gladly returned by another, wilder side-path, on the other bank of the river; but one of the inhabitants of the cottages near the waterfall told me that Mr. S——, to whom that side of the valley belonged, allowed no one to pass that way on a Sunday. Here also the mountains have a physiognomy very usual in Ireland. Below, they are encircled with a wreath of oak and ash trees; then, a little higher up, comes a bare streak of heather; and, finally, on the very top, lie great fragments of rocks, which sometimes resemble an artificial wall.
The park of the Cunningham family, near Mount Kennedy, afforded us much more enjoyment than the Devil's Glen. This park, from its peculiarity of soil and situation, is particularly favourable to evergreens. Here are to be seen an incredible multitude of laurels, hollies, and, in a meadow, the largest arbutus in Ireland. The main trunk of this tree—the ‘Master-tree,’ as the gardener called it—no longer exists; it was cut down, I forget why. From the root, however, no fewer than twenty-five long branches or trees had shot forth on all sides. I walked round beneath the extreme tops of the branches, and found that its circumference was not less than eighty-three paces. Another giant arbutus, of similar size, existed at Rogerstown, near Dublin, till the year 1839, when unfortunately it was blown down by a storm. These old and gigantic trees, which must have been planted at a very remote period, are daily diminishing in number, either by the fury of the tempest, or the hand of man; and their gradual disappearance may suggest the question, whether the
In this garden cypresses also were growing in the open air, in a northern latitude but a few minutes removed from the fifty-third degree. There is no doubt that Ireland is that country nearest to the north in which the cypress flourishes. The rose-trees were covered with blossoms, even at this late season of the year; and I may here say, once for all, that I found them blooming every where in the open air, even in the extreme north of Ireland; and even there they rise into such high bushes and trees as to overshadow the cottages near which they are planted.
On our way from Mount Kennedy, we passed the Glen of the Downs, which is, if I may use the expression, a completely impromptu valley in the middle of a plain; for from the plain you suddenly enter a charming corridor of rocks, which is thickly hung with oaks, ivy, and bushes, and contains some glorious spots, whilst in a few minutes the quick-rolling car again emerges upon the downs. These ‘Downs’ are very numerous in Great Britain; and the word is probably derived from the Celtic ‘Dun’. The English, especially in Ireland, have corrupted numbers of Celtic words, and altered them to suit their own meaning.
After issuing from the Glen of the Downs, you perceive the Great Sugar-loaf on the left, and the Little Sugar-loaf on the right. These two mountains, which taper from the base to the summit with as much regularity as an Egyptian pyramid, are the most remarkable hills in the county of Wicklow; but the names by which they are known in Ireland cannot be of very ancient origin, as scarcely three hundred years have elapsed since sugar-loaves of a conical form were first made. Both these mountains are quite bare from top to bottom.
Not far from the Sugar-loaves lies the well-known Killonderry park, and the little town of Bray; while the demesne and mansion of Powerscourt, and the little town of Enniskerry, are but a short way off. Then follows an extraordinary number of little towns, villages, parks, castles, houses, cottages, and other descriptions of country-seats, all of which are more or less distinguished by their situation and their charming pleasure-grounds. In a word, the district from hence to Dublin is most populous, and extremely rich in villages and towns; here houses and cultivation are no longer required. It is a most beautiful drive; and is to Ireland what the county of Kent is to England. We had frequent glimpses of the sea, which disappeared again behind oaks, parks, and mountains. Of Ireland—the old Celtic, turfy, wild Ireland—there is
On my return to the Irish capital, my first visit was to that man whom every stranger in Dublin must be equally eager to see as he would the Pope, if in Rome,—I mean the man whom in Kerry they call King ‘by courtesy,’ or in joke,—who was then Lord Mayor of Dublin,—who is designated throughout all Ireland the ‘Immortal’ and the ‘Great Agitator,’ and for whom they have in London so many other names. It is certainly a pleasure to be able to converse for a quarter of an hour with a man so clever, so experienced, so distinguished, talented, and intelligent, and who, within the walls of his own house, is such an agreeable and hospitable host. But I will speak as little of O'Connell in his private capacity as I would of the private character of any other man I became acquainted with. Many individuals are unknown beyond the narrow circle of their private life, and these belong entirely to themselves; others, again, appear on the stage of public life, as actors, as authors, or as statesmen, and thus, in some measure, lay themselves open to criticism. Such men, so long as they wear the costume of the part they have assumed, it is allowable to judge, and speak of freely and openly, without committing any breach of decorum. Nay, one may even be their determined public enemy,
O'Connell, in proportion as he has made himself more public, has retained less of himself for himself than any other man in England. He every where gives himself up to the gaze and judgment of the public, whether in parliament or at public meetings, in the streets, at elections, or in travelling. He scarcely ever ceases to lead a public life, and almost every thing he does is done before the eyes of hundreds or thousands. Peel, Wellington, and other great statesmen, hide themselves in the mysteries of their bureaux and cabinets, from which they issue forth in their public measures, and in person only in parliament, or at public dinners. O'Connell, the tribune of the people, is almost public property, flesh and bone; he even speaks of his domestic concerns at his popular meetings, for he is enabled to support his house and his family only through the indirect assistance of the public.
Whoever travels in Germany, or in any other country, for geographical or ethnographical purposes, and wishes only to make himself acquainted with the character of the country and its inhabitants, need not trouble himself much about the personal characteristics of our distinguished men. To travel in Ireland for the same purposes, and to remain ignorant of O'Connell,—the man who, as Atlas supports the earth, has taken the entire emerald isle on his shoulders,—is next to impossible; for he is himself an ethnographical phenomenon, partly because for thirty years he has exercised an extraordinary influence over the formation of the character and the condition of his nation, and partly because he himself and his power is another phenomenon, which can only be explained by the character of Irish nationality.
The Irish are a people after the old model, a people almost without a counterpart in the world. In Germany, we have every where become too enlightened and too self-dependent for any individual to be able to raise himself to such preponderating authority. We laugh at all who call themselves prophets; but among the Irish the old faith in saints and miracles still exists. Here alone the mighty, the immortal, and the great still find a fertile soil, whence to obtain laurels and a halo. The Irish are enthusiastic, credulous, blind, innocent as children, and patriotic, so that they are ready to abandon themselves to the most ardent admiration of a talented individual, and to raise him aloft on their shields and shoulders, as the Romans were wont to elevate their generals. They are also unhappy, and desirous to be relieved from their sufferings, and their full, wounded hearts are consequently ever ready to applaud and shower down praises on him
In a well-regulated state, among an enlightened, well-governed people, where every one possesses some knowledge, and where every one has sufficient for his wants, the elevation of such a tribune of the people would be a pure impossibility. It was not till Rome's infima plebs began to sink in misery and vice, that the tribunes of the people made their appearance on the stage. In Ireland, there are more miserable poor beings, without rights and without property, than in any other country in the world; and it is therefore a soil suited for the production of talented, active, eloquent tribunes like O'Connell. For thirty years has O'Connell represented the vigorous and unwearied arm of Ireland, which, during the whole of that period, has been threatening England, and with which she is again wresting her plundered natural rights, one after the other, from the flames of an English parliament lighted to consume them.
I am not vain enough to suppose that I can furnish a complete portrait of a man so remarkable as O'Connell, and I will not, therefore, attempt a task for which I feel myself incompetent. I will, however, endeavour to present those of my readers who have not had an opportunity of personally witnessing a muster, or even a company, of the Emerald Legion, (as O'Connell, in his poetic flights, often calls his repealers,) with a faithful picture of such a meeting, accompanied with a few remarks on some of those individuals so often mentioned in the newspapers, who were present on this occasion. It was one of the usual repeal meetings, summoned by O'Connell to keep the fire of agitation alive among the people, and was held in the hall of the Corn Exchange. Although I arrived at the hour appointed, I found the hall already crowded to suffocation. Judging from external appearance, I concluded that the assemblage was entirely composed of such men from the counties of Kerry, Clare, and Kildare, as I had seen in their proper costume of rags in the interior of the country. To my great astonishment, very few whole coats, and not many we would call orderly and comfortable citizens, were to be seen. They were all standing or sitting on benches, ranged round the walls of the hall in an amphitheatrical form. In the middle was a table, at which some clerks and reporters were seated. A gallery which ran round the room was filled with women, boys, and girls. Perceiving that there was still some room at the table in the middle of the hall, I endeavoured to force my way to it, and instantly found a multitude of helping arms, by whose good-natured assistance I was elevated above their heads, and passed over the railing
At the end of the table was an elevated seat for the chairman, and another for O'Connell at its side. Over the chairman's seat waved a green flag, on which the words ‘Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!’ were embroidered in letters of gold. On the walls of the hall, as is usually the case in England on similar occasions, were several mottoes, such as the following:—
‘That people which does not desire to make its own laws, desires slavery, and deserves slavery.’
‘He who commits a crime increases the strength of our enemies.’
‘Repeal is Erin's right and God's decree.’
It is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the national character of the British and their political constitution, and one which has not been sufficiently admired by foreigners, that an agitation almost bordering on revolt can be borne and suffered by both, without their receiving any essential injury. O'Connell's uninterrupted career of thirty or forty years, as the popular tribune and agitator of Ireland, is not more strongly illustrative of the extreme craftiness of this able man, who, although ever verging on the extreme limits of the law, yet never oversteps them, than it is of the political freedom and national character of the whole British people, as well as of their ministers and statesmen, in whose side O'Connell must be a most vexatious thorn, and the greatest stumbling-block, whilst they have never yet ventured on a single step beyond what the law allows, or injured a single hair of his head. I will not here inquire whether it would be possible, either in France or Germany, for such an individual to persevere in a similar course of agitation for so long a time, without entering a prison or being brought to the guillotine but I will
The shouting and cheers in the street, and the rolling of a carriage, announced the approach of the Lord Mayor, who soon after entered, accompanied by the chairman, whose name I do not remember. I must tell the truth: I was, I think, quite free from prejudice against O'Connell, but he appeared to me somewhat comical in his lord mayor's costume. The splendid red fur-lined robe, and the long double gold chain,22 methought did not at all become him: at least in London I saw a Lord Mayor whom all this finery became much better. This is no reproach to O'Connell, for there are many mighty spirits not made for uniforms. The cheers with which he was received were extremely animated, and each of the captains of the Emerald Legion was also received with great cheering. Men, women, and children, all shouted and joined in the noise. Among these captains none attracted my attention more
The room again resounded with the cheers of the multitude, in welcome of John O'Connell, ‘the amiable son of the Liberator,’ as he was repeatedly called in the speeches that followed. The sons and sons-in-law of O'Connell all stand by their father—they are all agitators and repealers. Nay, even his little grandsons lend their aid to the cause; and very lately O'Connell had his twenty-first or twenty-second grandson made a member of the Repeal Association immediately after his birth. On that occasion he said, he was an old man and might soon die, but that he would inoculate all his own and Ireland's children and their children's children with repeal. John O'Connell, (after his father, one of the most distinguished members of the family,) has externally little resemblance to the repeal patriarch. He is smaller and more delicately formed than his sire, whose features are all a little too broad, and his countenance is by no means so remarkable. According to the general opinion, he is very talented, and deserving of esteem. What I heard him say was very pertinent to the subject, and he spoke more fluently than any other person who addressed the meeting.
The chairman having opened the proceedings with a short speech, next read the minutes of the previous meeting, and then announced various contributions to the repeal rent, which were deposited in a box on the table appropriated for their reception.
John O'Connell then rose, and gave an account of a journey through the interior of Ireland, from which he had just returned. He described the magnificent meetings he had attended at Balliwatobber, Ballinmormagh, Kilkerrin, Kilbirry, and other equally distinguished places, where he found all the most respectable inhabitants most determined anti-unionists, and devoted, soul and body, to the repeal cause! Many priests had promised their support; and he calculated that, on the whole, at least 50,000 persons had pledged themselves for repeal at the various meetings he had attended.
Then arose Dan himself, and adjusted his wig. In the heat of his speech he often accidentally touches his wig, sometimes pushing it off a little, and then pulling it down again into its proper position on the other side. It is said that he even took off this wig at a public meeting and exhibited his bald head. On the occasion alluded to he had severely criticized the conduct of a gentleman of the party opposed to him, and, indulging in witticisms on his personal appearance, had given him to understand that he was not the most handsome man in Dublin. This gentleman replied, that so far as beauty or ugliness was concerned, he believed Dan owed all his beauty to his wig, and that if he were to take it off he would perhaps be still uglier than the speaker. At this the people began to laugh, and looked at O'Connell for his reply. Dan did not take long to consider, but actually took off his wig, and exposed his bald head, at the same time remarking, that as his opponent wished to see his bare head, he was ready to favour him with a view of it; it had become bald in the service of his country, and therefore he was neither ashamed nor sorry for it; whilst his fellow-countrymen would feel greater pleasure in seeing his uncovered head, bald and ugly as it might be, than with the wig on it. By this ready tact, and the fearless, frank disregard of himself thus displayed, he turned the laughter and the sympathy of the audience to his own side.
Besides this manoeuvre with the wig, he indulges in some other little habits while speaking. For instance, he hops or turns about on his heels as on a pivot, and even jumps up with his whole body. Every standing speaker, I believe, does this more or less, though not at such regular intervals as O'Connell. In the French Chamber of Deputies there are individuals, especially persons of small stature, who at certain emphatic parts of their speeches raise themselves on the extreme tips of their toes, and stand thus for a long time, as if they would fly after their own
Although O'Connell's language is very clear and precise, still he does not speak so fluently as his son: he sometimes hesitates, thinks, and repeats himself; but all this ceases when he becomes warm and enthusiastic. What struck me most, was that he possessed so much of the Irish brogue. He did not, it is true, say repale, like Tom Steele, and some others who were present; but he pronounced the English th almost like d, as, for example, de wishes, with some other Irish peculiarities of accent. This brogue is so difficult to be lost, that the most refined Irishmen always retain a portion of it, which is very unpleasant to English ears; and it is said that even the Duke of Wellington cannot wholly divest himself of it.
The theme of O'Connell's discourse was that of all his speeches for forty years, yea, of his entire life, of all his thoughts and labours—the oppression of Ireland by the ‘Saxon.’ To have heard one of his speeches, is to have heard them all; for not only is the subject, but also the leading thoughts, and even the principal phrases, almost invariably the same. He repeats, over and over again, certain violent expressions and claptraps, the effect of which on his auditory he knows by experience, and which they are never tired of hearing and applauding. Some of these effective words, which never fail in the desired effect, are ‘Erin,’ ‘Poor Erin,’ and the ‘Emerald Isle’ ‘Bravo! bravo! hurrah!’ immediately resounds from every bench as soon as he utters them. Then, ‘the Saxons,’—for honourable as this name is, in and per se, yet in the mouths of the Irish it has become a term of reproach by which to designate the English—O'Connell usually calls the English, at least when speaking of their unjust or violent deeds in Ireland, ‘the Saxons,’ at the same time laying a very strong emphasis on the letter ‘a.’
As certain words and thoughts recur over and over again in O'Connell's speeches, like the white horse in the pictures of Wouvermanns, or the waterfall in those of Ruysdael, so there are certain things which always make their appearance at the repeal meetings. Letters from distant individuals are read, applauding and encouraging the repealers; facts calculated to awaken patriotism for Ireland, and hatred against England, are hunted out from Irish history; reports of repeal meetings, held in the provincial towns, are pompously communicated, in order to strengthen the enthusiasm of those present; money contributed for the repeal cause is handed in, and some suitable remarks, thanks, and praises bestowed on the givers. Finally, whenever it is possible, some total stranger, from a distant country, as from America, is introduced, who makes a speech, or at least says a few words, declaring his own and his country's sympathy for Ireland. O'Connell himself regulates the whole, accompanying every incident and every event with a few suitable remarks, some high-sounding expressions to excite Irish patriotism, and various thrusts and cuts at England.
‘England,’ said he, ‘has every where been for slavery. Whithersoever we turn our eyes, England has reduced the nations to bondage. In Asia she has made slaves of a hundred millions of freemen. In Africa there are English slaves. Around Australia she has wound her chains. It is the nature and the character of England to subject and to make slaves of all nations, far or near, that are not able to resist her. Even Ireland, our beautiful, our unhappy Ireland, our holy island—(‘Bravo! bravo! hurrah!’)—is the most striking example of England's love of despotism and tyranny. For six hundred years the Saxons—(‘Bravo!’)—have exerted all their powers for nothing but our
‘America, too, the English once held in similar bondage; but the Americans have thrown off the yoke, and are now, to the regret of the English, a free, mighty nation. I do not say that we ought to follow the example of America in its entire extent, for to employ force is not our object. We can gain our purpose by the peaceful means of a legal opposition. I am against, and declare myself completely opposed to, the employment of physical force. I am aware there are some amongst us who have recommended the employment of force; but I hope that, on calm and reasonable reflection, they will agree with me, and allow that I am right, when I assert that were we to have recourse to physical force, we would only totally ruin our righteous cause. I do not like force, and I will not hear any more of it. Nay, I would rather withdraw myself from the stage of public life altogether, and spend the remainder of my days in undisturbed retirement, than have any thing to do with men who recommend such illegal and unadvisable means for obtaining such just demands. (No applause here.) I wish therefore not to be misunderstood, when I allude to the example of America. I would only wish you to imitate the Americans in their love of freedom and of fatherland—in their persevering opposition to English tyranny, and in their manly resistance to attacks on their rights as citizens and
‘The greater numbers we can warm with the fire of enthusiasm for our cause, the better we can prove to ourselves, to the English, and to the entire world, the atrocious wrong that England has done, and continues to do us, and the stronger hope is there that we will obtain a majority in parliament, and, through that majority, justice for Ireland! For this purpose, be active and watchful. Associate, agitate, and stand by me. Give me the means of continuing the war which I have been waging for you during forty years. Yes, for forty years have I striven and fought against despotism, against bigotry, against the Tories, against England, and for Ireland—(‘hear! hear!’)—and every true-hearted Irishman—(cheers)—loves me the better for it. For forty years have I wished for but one thing, striven for but one cause,—to obtain justice for Ireland, and to shake off the tyranny of England. And has my struggle of so many long years been in vain? Have we not obtained the abolition of the infamous old penal laws against the Catholics? Have we not obtained seat and voice in parliament? Do we not now share in the municipal government of our own towns? Our successes have as yet been glorious; let them inspire you with confidence that this last demand—repeal—which is to crown our entire work, will be granted, must be granted. For not till then,—till we have repeal, till as an independent nation we may stand on an equal footing with England,—not till then will Ireland flourish, not till then will any thing prosper here; but when that period arrives, all the blessings which the Almighty—(here all pulled off their caps)—has bestowed on our lovely Erin, our holy island, will unfold themselves, and contribute to our enjoyment.—(‘Hear, hear!’ exclaimed or rather grunted Tom Steele, who is one of Dan's criers of ‘hear, hear!’) There is but one means for the complete rescue of Ireland, and that is repeal: but one thing on which the welfare of all depends,—repeal! With repeal you will be happy, with repeal you will become rich, with repeal you will obtain all that you desire and, strive for. Therefore so long as I live I will cry ‘repeal!’ and you too, as long as you live, must join in the cry. (‘Bravo! bravo!’ ‘hurrah!’ ‘repeal! repeal!’)’
‘You ask me who will obtain repeal for you? I tell you, I
While O'Connell uttered these last words, the entire assembly became still and motionless; and the oftener he repeated these ‘listens,’ the deeper the silence seemed to become; but when he stopped to take breath, and to pass on to something else, then the assembly breathed again, and burst forth into an universal shout of applause that I thought would never terminate. He then sat down, and a bunch of grapes was handed to him which he shared with his son; but he arose again on several occasions, in order to accompany every little incident and transaction with his remarks and suggestions. For instance, when a very little boy, about eight years of age, stepped forward, and handed in £4, which his schoolfellows had contributed to the repeal rent, and which they had deputed him to present, O'Connell gave his hand to the boy, after having first taken off his hat, and inquired his name, which he communicated to the meeting, and then addressed some words of kindness to the young repealer. It was a strange sight to see the pretty little child standing opposite this cunning old fox—for it cannot be denied that O'Connell has something extremely sly about him.
Next came a contribution from the women of Limerick. To these ladies, too, O'Connell was obliged to say something complimentary. He observed that now-a-days the ladies of Limerirk were genuine, sincere, thorough repealers, and that they had long ago won themselves the fairest and most renowned distinction as patriotic Irishwomen, at the famous siege of Limerick, in 1690, in the reign of William III., when they defended a bridge against the English, on which occasion not less than 500 Saxons were massacred.—(Ha! bravo! bravo!) Here Tom Steele arose and proposed ‘three cheers for the sons of Limerick, and for Limerick's beautiful daughters,’ which were given with thunders of applause. Then O'Connell gave a minute account of the brilliant reception which he met with in his last visit to Limerick, and how many hundreds of converts he had made on that occasion. After that came a contribution from Galway; upon which O'Connell spoke in praise of Connaught. He said that truer Irish hearts did not beat any where than there; nay, that there was the home of the most Irish Irishmen; but he also knew that many of the large graziers and proprietors of extensive pasture lands in that province dreaded a separation from England, because they imagined that after the repeal of the Union, England would lay a duty on the import of Irish cattle.
‘I believe,’ continued he, ‘that this is an empty fear, and it is no reason why they should wish to check repeal; for, in one word, do you imagine that after the repeal of the Union the English will be less hungry than they now are? Do you imagine that after the repeal of the Union they will lose their appetite? In fact, I believe they will be just as hungry as they are at present. They relish our cattle now better than those which they obtain from abroad. And hereafter, when we are independent, when we can cultivate our pastures and our fields better, we will be able to offer them far better cattle. And should they not choose to take it then, merely because it is not Union cattle, I believe that by our independence, by our awakened industry, and our increased speculations in other quarters, we would soon be able to buy the cattle of our Connaught graziers for our own use, and, without inviting the English to purchase them, consume them ourselves. This fear, therefore, should not prevent our graziers from striving for the repeal of the Union. Besides, we also know well that the Union does not afford the least protection to our present cattle trade; for no regard for us will prevent the English from purchasing cattle elsewhere, if they can buy them better and cheaper than they can from us. This is clearly proved by the adoption of the new tariff, in which not the least regard was paid to our interests; it has, however, had no great effect on our cattle trade, and solely for this reason, that they can obtain from us cattle of a far better quality, and cheaper too, than from a foreign country.’
After this a letter from a Lord Ffrench was read, whereon O'Connell remarked that he was the first lord who had declared himself a repealer. The donation from the town of Drogheda, which contributed no less than £50, was received with particular rejoicing. O'Connell bade every town in Ireland imitate its example; and drew so vivid and affecting a picture of the genuine patriotic Irish spirit that animated that town, where there were perhaps no less than nine repealers out of every ten of its inhabitants, that the tears almost came into his eyes. Once he really did shed tears, when, alluding to the present judges of the superior courts in Dublin, who are all Tories, he spoke of a late judge, (O'Loughlin, I believe,) who was one of his personal friends. He accused the present judges of hostility towards the Catholics, and of the most prejudiced partiality for the Protestants, although he was compelled to admit that in other respects they were ‘perfect gentlemen,’ and much to be esteemed. He said, ‘Bloody spots, frightful and spectral reminiscences from our history float before my eyes; and I shudder in my inmost heart when I think
The numerous small contributions were to me more interesting than the larger ones. They included many of a shilling, eightpence, sixpence, and one even of twopence, which last was probably from a beggar. The reading of this list induced many of the persons present to send in their little contributions. One man, on an upper bench, said aloud, that he would give all he had in his pocket, and he handed down fourpence. O'Connell himself produced several shillings wrapped in paper, and deposited them on the altar,—I mean in the money-box,—observing that they were sent him for that purpose. The sums which are thus made up of the pennies and shillings of the poor, in order to enable O'Connell and his coadjutors to carry on the repeal agitation, are so extraordinary, and so large in amount, as to be almost incredible.
As a finale, a German was brought forward. He had just arrived from America, and had, I believe, brought letters of introduction to O'Connell. My countryman assured the meeting, that, on the other side of the Atlantic, no one doubted the success of repeal: he compared O'Connell with Washington; and said that the name of Irishman, which had hitherto been a stigma in America, was now, since the spirited repeal movement, and since Father Mathew's successful advocacy of the temperance cause, beginning to be a title of honour. O'Connell makes use of all possible means, and of all sorts of persons, to bring wind into his sails.
It appeared to me extremely remarkable, that during all these lengthy proceedings, which lasted several hours, I did not observe the departure of a single individual of those who were at most but idle spectators or applauders. They all held out till it became dark, and even listened with the greatest attention to those speeches in which O'Connell analyzed the policy of all the powers of Europe, and which were doubtless beyond their comprehensions.
At last, when all the letters were read, and all the contributions unpursed, and the money-box seemed pretty full, the meeting was dissolved. At the very last, Tom Steele jumped upon the table, and proposed three cheers for the Queen, three cheers for Ireland, three cheers for repeal, and three cheers for the noble German from America. All being now over, the Lord Mayor departed amid universal applause, and I saw him set off homewards in a magnificent carriage drawn by two dapple-gray steeds, and loudly cheered by the people in the streets. While I was still at the window, looking out after him, I heard a clinking and ringing behind me, and on turning round perceived that the money-box had been overturned, and the people were carefully gathering up all the run-away pennies, sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. O'Connell's son was standing by.
I must confess that, of the whole proceeding, this money-box was what I disliked the most. I cannot excuse O'Connell, and who can—will posterity excuse him?—for making his patriotic labours at the same time a trade and a means of making money, and for driving this trade publicly, and before the eyes of all, without the slightest shame or reserve. I believe he no longer thinks there is any thing disgraceful in it, for he has intrenched himself behind such reasoning as the following:—‘I was a barrister in excellent practice, which promised to become much better and more productive than it was. I turned patriot, and devoted my entire time and all my energies to my country's cause. Fellow-countrymen, this cause is very expensive to me, for I must not only support myself, and my family, and my sons-in-law, but also many other friends who help me and mine into parliament, and place me in a position to do effectively whatever I undertake on your behalf. There is nothing more just than that Ireland should pay me all the costs of this cause, and also remunerate me for the gains which, as a lawyer, I could have made, and which I have abandoned through love for her. I can therefore with the greatest justice require the O'Connell tribute from you, and can accept it with the very best conscience.’ This train of reasoning O'Connell has been constantly repeating for a length of time, and it has been reiterated in all the journals of his party, and by all his friends, over and over again.
As in all his speeches he introduces requests or demands for money, or constant vindications of his just claims on his country for support and remuneration, his enemies abuse him as a ‘false prophet,’ a ‘regular robber,’ a ‘knave in politics,’ a ‘hypocrite in religion;’ and they reproach him most severely for wheedling the money out of the pockets of the poor, in order that
I do not say, however, that we should therefore look upon all that O'Connell does as resulting from interested motives of gain; or that all his zeal, his eloquence, and his patriotism springs merely from love of money, and that we should therefore consider him a manifest liar, deceiver, and hypocrite. It is easy to conceive a man who is zealous for his country and his own interest at the same time. Perhaps he commenced through pure love of his country, through pure antipathy and sincere hatred of the Tories; and unexpectedly discovered, in the course of his career, those sources of wealth which he now allows to flow on, since he finds they are of assistance to him. There are, I believe, prophetic spirits, who occupy an intermediate position between the pure exalted angel-soul and the Evil One, and who, though we may call
We must also consider O'Connell as a child of our own age, and in this respect make great allowances for his conduct. It is possible, it is even probable, that if, like J. J. Rousseau, he had refused the assistance of his friends,—if, like Cincinnatus, he had lived by the plough—or if, like the millions of his poor compatriots, he had clothed himself in rags, and subsisted upon nothing but potatoes, he might never have attained such power, but, on the contrary, have been despised and neglected by the people. Perhaps the present age will and must have its heroes well dressed and well fed. As the English national debt is a burden which keeps all England together, so is the O'Connell tribute a burden which keeps together all repealers. Having once pledged themselves to pay so much, this promise obliges them to continue with O'Connell. They are probably astonished at the extraordinary amount of this tribute, which a man without any external power, and merely by his eloquence and zeal, has imposed upon them, and perhaps they value him the more highly on that account. Add to this, that O'Connell is an extraordinary man—a man of the nineteenth century—the money-century,—who has risen to authority, power, and wealth, by means and ways hitherto unheard-of in the world; and who, without employing any physical force, and without making any concessions, has for forty years raised an opposition against the most powerful aristocracy in Europe; while, on his side, he has had almost nothing but a few millions of beggars as supporters.
Every one knows that it had long been the wish of parliament to introduce the English poor-laws into Ireland; and this, after long debating, has at length been actually done within the last few years. All Ireland is now subjected to a poor-tax; and with the money thus levied, and with some considerable parliamentary grants, poor-houses and workhouses have been erected all over the country. The number of workhouses to be erected in the island is one hundred and fifty, one hundred of which are already completed. When the remaining fifty are finished, and the whole are opened and in operation, it is in contemplation to follow up the Poor Relief Act with a Vagrancy and Mendicancy Act. Hitherto it has been impossible to prevent mendicancy in Ireland, as in England, by legislative measures, because until now there were very few asylums for the poor supported by the state. I was told that in all Ireland there were only six. Institutions for similar purposes, founded and supported by voluntary contributions, were, however, and still are, extremely numerous. In Dublin there are, for all possible purposes,—for teachers, strangers, musicians, orphans, widows, infants, Catholics, Protestants, servants, and other classes—upwards of fifty various institutions, asylums, retreats, poor-houses, and schools. Of all these charitable establishments in Dublin, one only, the House of Industry, was maintained by the state. It was the most extensive of the whole, and supplied lodging and food to no fewer than two thousand paupers, beggars, invalids, orphans, the old, the decrepit, and the insane. This was the only institution of the kind which I visited in Dublin.
Since the introduction of the English poor-laws, Ireland has been divided, like England, into districts, called ‘Unions.’ Each house in such a union is now valued at a certain annual rent, which value is rated at two or more per cent., and the money thus raised is expended in the maintenance of the union workhouse. The city of Dublin and its environs are divided into two unions, the North Union and the South Union. All the houses in the former are estimated at the yearly value of £394,000, and in the letter at £561,000. The annual value of all the houses in Dublin
The control of all these workhouses in England and Ireland is in the hands of three poor-law commissioners, who reside in London, and have their assistant commissioners, who reside in the interior of the country. Each of these assistant commissioners has his district, containing a number of unions, which he is constantly inspecting, and on the condition of which he reports to the chief commissioners. These reports are printed. The chief commissioners also issue annual reports on the state of the entire system of poor relief in Ireland. One of them, Mr. George Nicholls, previous to the adoption of the poor-laws in Ireland, had also made various reports on the advantages to be derived from their introduction into that country. These various reports together form a little library, which he who wishes to know Great Britain should not leave unstudied, for they are full of the most excellent remarks, and the most interesting inquiries concerning the country, and the condition of the people.
The guiding principle of the workhouse system, in the opinion of Mr. Nicholls, ought to be, that the support which is afforded at the public cost should be, on the whole, less desirable than the livelihood which the labourer can procure by his own free labour. To carry out this principle, it might appear necessary, at the first glance, that the occupants of a workhouse should in every respect be worse clothed, worse fed, and worse lodged than the independent
In Ireland, it would be scarcely possible to make the lodging, clothes, and food of the poor in the workhouses worse than those of the Irish peasants; and even were it possible, it would be quite unnecessary, ineffective, and inadvisable. The Irish are thoroughly, by nature as well as by habit, a migratory people, and fond of change. The Irishman would rather wander through the entire world seeking employment, than endure the discipline of a workhouse, so long as he is in possession of his health and strength. Imprisonment, and confinement of every kind, is to the Irishman more irksome than to the Englishman. Consequently, even though he were much better off in a workhouse than he could be at home, he would never enter one except in case of the most extreme distress; and he will be sure to remain in it not a single moment longer than this distress continues. In the Irish workhouses, therefore, the opposite principle may perhaps be followed,—namely, to give the people something better than they can procure outside, in order thus to hold out some inducement to them to relinquish their free, wild, wandering misery, which they bear about the world with them, to submit themselves to order and discipline, and to partake of the enjoyment of a better, more seemly, and more human condition. For thus would be best attained the true object of workhouses, which is not merely to pave the way for the introduction of a vagrancy act, and to get rid of beggars, but also to mitigate the sufferings and better the condition of those who have been reduced to misery by imprudence, misfortune, or ignorance and prejudice. Whether this last object is kept steadily in view in the management of the Irish poor, I have some doubt, since, on the contrary, slight traces of a system of terror are connected with the erection of workhouses in this country. The discipline especially, in these
The food and clothing in the Irish workhouses is at all events better than the poor could have out of them; for of course they are not here allowed to be half-naked, and half-starved, the usual condition of the Irish pauper, but are supplied with whole and sufficient clothing, and proportionably good diet. The latter consists principally of the general food of all the Irish,—potatoes, oatmeal, and milk, particularly buttermilk. Certain classes only, as the sick and the children, receive bread. Public institutions, and their diet and government, are very interesting to the ethnographer, since they afford him a convenient insight into the manner of living of the bulk of the nation after which they are modelled. When, therefore, I here describe the diet of an Irish workhouse, the reader has a picture of the manner of living of the great mass of the people, at least those of them who have enough to eat.
The day's food consists of a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, lunch being given only to the children and the sick. In Ireland and England breakfast and dinner are taken at later hours than in Germany, namely, the former at nine o'clock and the latter at four. The breakfast, as is common in Ireland with those who can maintain themselves at all decently, consists of oatmeal porridge, called ‘stirabout,’ with new milk, and the dinner of potatoes and buttermilk. The children's lunch consists of bread and new milk. In addition to this, on Sundays, holidays, and appointed days, as every Thursday, they receive a small quantity of ‘brose’ or soup. A grown-up person receives daily, for breakfast, seven ounces of oatmeal and half a pint of new milk; and for dinner, four pounds of potatoes and a pint of buttermilk. This diet of an adult costs one shilling and fourpence three-farthings a week. That of the children costs something more, on account of the milk and bread, which is more expensive than potatoes. Children under two years of age are the most expensive, the cost of
The cost of clothing is calculated at a halfpenny a day, or threepence-halfpenny a week. The total cost of food and clothing for a pauper consequently amounts to about two shillings a week. If we reckon the cost of keeping up the house, the salaries of officers, and all other expenses, the maintenance of a pauper will amount to about three shillings a week, or about seven pounds ten shillings a year. It is, however, worthy of remark, that all these expenses, as appears from the various reports, are constantly on the decrease, especially in consequence of the increasing cheapness of provisions. The expenses vary, of course, a little in different workhouses; yet the above may be taken as the average cost of the maintenance of each pauper.
The potato-boiler in this great establishment is a perfect wonder. In it there are boiled at once 1670 pounds of potatoes. This vast quantity is divided into small portions, of three and a half and four pounds. Each of these portions is contained in a little net, in which it can be easily removed, and all the nets are placed in an immense basket, which is lowered into the water and boiled, nets, potatoes, and all. It is afterwards raised by a windlass; when all the poor people march up in military order, each receives a net with its contents, and marches off again.
In the school of this workhouse I also found the Chinese-Russian numerical frame I have formerly mentioned, which had been here introduced about a fortnight before my visit.
As in most of the public institutions in Great Britain, the chief employment of the inmates of this establishment was picking oakum—that lint which is so essential for the wounds of the English men-of-war—in a word, tow for the caulking of ships. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of hands are daily employed, in the prisons and workhouses, in untwisting old ropes'-ends, and converting them into this necessary article.
One of the most interesting portions of this great establishment is the old clothes-store, containing all the various uniforms of rags which are taken from the beggars on their admission into the workhouse. Instead of their motley equipment they are given the gray uniform of the house, with N. D. U. W. H. (North Dublin Union Workhouse) stamped upon it in large letters. The old
Dublin is, or at least hitherto was, the principal rendezvous of all the beggars of Ireland, the great wealth and the greater population of this city, according to Mr. Nicholls, promising them a richer harvest than any other town in the country. This harvest is further increased by the gifts of chance visitors, who are called to Dublin by business or pleasure, and who are generally more accessible to beggars than the constant residents. The numerous charities which exist in this city are also a great attraction. Those Irish, likewise, who go over to England in search of employment, always leave some portion of their family, frequently the whole of it, in Dublin, where they endeavour to support themselves by begging. Moreover, all the Irish paupers and beggars which England sends back to Ireland, as a burden she will not bear, usually arrive first in Dublin, where they collect in numbers. Thus the numerous streams of vagrancy flow into this city as into
The museums and literary societies of Dublin are not a little indebted to the Germans. The museum of the Royal Dublin
The most interesting collections for strangers are those of the university (Trinity College); of the Royal Dublin Society; and of the Royal Irish Academy. After the Germans, the bogs of Ireland have done most for the museums of the two last of these institutions. They are the best preservers of antiquities a country can desire; and almost all the information Ireland wishes to obtain concerning her ancient condition, she must derive from the writings and monuments found at the bottom of her bogs. Not alone the beads of gold and amber, which were worn by the women of ancient Ireland; not alone the bodies of men, but even their clothes, even the butter which they used to eat, even samples of the weed which they used to smoke before the introduction of tobacco; even the bodies of races of animals which are now extinct in Ireland,—all these have the bogs covered with a preserving layer of turf, and have kept uninjured, not even omitting furrows drawn by the plough many centuries ago. The collections of these Irish antiquities, as well as the care bestowed on their preservation, and the diligent study of them, are all very recent. So great is the present zeal for exploring and draining the bogs, that every day fresh antiquities are discovered, and doubtless much will yet be found that will render these collections more complete than they now are. The most interesting things which have been discovered in the bogs are, first, to give precedence to man, human bodies, in perfect preservation, of which one is to be seen in the Dublin museums. The skin, indeed, is dried up and tanned brown; but the entire figure and physiognomy is still plainly discernible. From the dress of this man it is supposed that he must have lain for at least five hundred years in the Galway bog in which he was found. As preservers of animal substances, one might compare the Irish bogs with the great ice-masses of Siberia. The latter, however, excel the former, inasmuch as they even preserve the flesh fresh for thousands of years. It would be interesting to compare all the substances in nature, first fluid, and then solid, with one another, with regard to their preserving qualities.
Then there are parts of the buffalo, which formerly existed in Ireland. In a treatise among the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, this Irish buffalo is said to differ from that described in Cuvier's Ossemens fossiles, and is particularly distinguished by a greater convexity of the forehead, by a considerable length of body, and by the shortness of the bent-down horns. But the fossil deer of Ireland is above all especially deserving of admiration and attention, on account of its extraordinary size and peculiar construction. Of this animal portions are so frequently found, that there are few Irish peasants who are not acquainted, either by hearsay or as eye-witnesses, with the ‘horns of the old deer,’ as they express themselves. Nay, in some parts of the country, these horns are so commonly met with that, without being deemed worthy of the least attention, they are thrown aside, or applied to economical purposes. Some of the enormous antlers of this animal are used as field-gates, others as bridges over little brooks. In Siberia, a trade is carried on in the bones of the fossil mammoth, which is there so abundant, and they are purchased by private persons for all sorts of economical purposes. These fossil bones of the stag are found as well in the bogs as in the marl-strata in which Ireland is so rich. In the Isle of Man, too, the same fossil stag has been found; and of late some specimens, complete in almost every respect, even to the very smallest bones, have been placed in many British museums. The name of Cervus Megaceras has been given to this animal. Its horns resemble, in their structure, those of the still existing elk, but they are much larger, while the animal itself is somewhat smaller. The most beautiful specimen of this animal is in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society. The proportions of its principal dimensions, as I found them given in a little treatise by a member of the Irish Academy, are as follows:—
In Yorkshire, on the coast of Essex, in the forest of Bondi near Paris, in many parts of Germany, and, according to Cuvier, in various districts in the neighbourhood of the Po, parts of the Cervus Megaceras have also been found. Nearly perfect specimens of this animal have been placed in the museums of Edinburgh, Cambridge, and two or three other English towns; but all these are far excelled by the Dublin specimen in beauty, magnitude, and completeness. It is another of the singularities of Ireland of which we have already enumerated so many, that this animal should be found there more frequently than in any other country in Europe. How many questions does not this single fact suggest? It often seems to me as if Ireland had formed a little world of its own. One would sometimes feel inclined to believe it the remains of the continent of Atlantis, which did not resemble Europe in all its productions, and existed for itself alone in a hundred particulars.
Among the works of art which have been discovered in the bogs the most remarkable are those of amber, which prove that this gum was either found in Ireland, or that it was obtained in traffic from the Phoenicians. There is also a necklace of shells, which seems as devoid of art as if it were taken from the neck of a queen of the South Sea islands, and must have had its origin in the remotest ages of European barbarism. Then there is a multitude of admirable little articles of gold, rings, strings of beads, and some strange little instruments, of which, from their form, the use and object cannot with any confidence be determined. Among the beads are some of astonishing size, made out of thin plates of gold. If these ornaments, as is supposed in Dublin, all really belong to a heathen age, (which is not improbable, as they bear not a single trace of Christian art,) we must confess that the old Irish heathen were but little inferior as workmen
One of these articles of gold is bent nearly circular, in the form of an open ring, greatly flattened at its extremities, and of such a size as to permit its being conveniently held like a handle. The Dublin antiquaries believe that it was used on the ratification of treaties of peace. There exists, however, a multitude of similar handles, or half-closed rings, of copper, and even some of silver, which are believed to have served as coin. The most curious thing connected with this subject is, that at the present moment multitudes of similar half-closed rings are manufactured at Birmingham, of iron, and sent to Africa, where they are used as money, in traffic with the Ashantees and some other negro nations. This African ring-money so much resembles these Irish articles, that some of the former, made in Birmingham, have been placed alongside the latter at Dublin. This appears a singular shape for money; and yet we find that in two countries, so remote from each other, the same strange form was adopted. In all things, in all phenomena, natural-historical, historical, antiquarian, as well as psychological, one can never extend his inquiries too far, either in relation to space or to time. Threads and chains will then be found spun over our entire globe, and all connected like a net. Perhaps the Phoenicians traded with these African nations also. Perhaps this strange form of money, which one can scarcely believe to have been twice invented, was brought to Africa by the Phoenicians, or introduced from the wilds of Africa into the wilds of Ireland, or, vice versa, from the Irish to the Africans. As the English now make this money in Birmingham, so perhaps it was made by the Phoenicians ages ago. Do we not find the Round Towers of Ireland again in Persia; and have not monuments been discovered, even in China, similar to the cromlechs and cairns of Ireland? Not long since an account of some similar Cyclopean monuments, near Bombay, was published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy.
Articles of bronze seem to have been found in Ireland more rarely than might be expected from the extraordinary number of architectural monuments ascribed to the Ostmen and Northmen
Several distaffs of the most simple construction have been found —namely, a round stone, with a hole in it, in which a staff was stuck. On the staff was wound the thread, and the heavy stone, on being set in motion, served to keep the simple machinery turning round. The Irish of our own days, however, have succeeded in inventing a still more simple distaff. In place of a stone, which requires labour and art to adapt it for this purpose, they use merely a potato. This kind of distaff, of course, was not used by the ancient Irish, as Drake had not yet presented them with a substitute for the stone.
There is here a considerable quantity of the ‘bog-butter’ which I have already mentioned, and which has been frequently found in pieces of from eight to ten pounds weight. The largest is said to have weighed seventeen pounds. Primitive antique cheeses have also been preserved in the bogs, in forms resembling none at present known in Ireland.
Iron, I was told, was generally entirely destroyed in the turf-bogs, and has only been preserved when it has remained in contact with fat animal matter. In like manner, I have been informed by many, that all the limy parts of animals, all their bones, are soon destroyed, and that the fat and skin, were alone preserved. Thus all the internal bones of the bog-man I have mentioned are said to be completely destroyed, by the moisture of the bog having forced its way through the body. If this be correct, the information I obtained from many quarters, and which I found repeated
A multitude of interesting remains of Irish Christian antiquity are here to be seen,—manuscripts, crosiers, and the like,—which, by their peculiar ornaments, show that in Ireland the arts also had then entered on a very peculiar path of development, the entire style and the ideas of the painters, calligraphists, and workers in metals, being manifested in them very differently from those to be seen in any other country.
In the museum of Trinity College, Dublin, founded by Queen Elizabeth, are also many interesting Irish antiquities; for instance, an old harp, of beautiful workmanship, which is said to be that of the Irish King O'Nial. In this harp I saw, actually and tangibly, one of those musical instruments, which, in pictures of the assemblies of the Ossianic heroes, we are wont to look upon as mere ideal representations.
All the buildings of Trinity College are large, handsome, and convenient, and are all kept in the neatest order. The part most admired is the library-room, which is said to be the largest of its kind in the British empire. In 1842 the number of books in it amounted to 96,100. Of all the works I saw here none interested me so much as the new map of Ireland, which, so far as it is completed, is a truly gigantic work, and the most magnificent and best of its kind that Great Britain has yet produced. The same corps of engineers who made the last great map of England, are also employed on this of Ireland; and, as they have brought hither with them all the fruits of their experience in England, it is believed that their labours here will be still more exact; and that Ireland, which hitherto was one of those countries of whose geography but very little was accurately known, will thus, all at once, possess one of the fullest and most faithful maps in the world. It is scarcely credible, and yet it is not the less true, that all the maps of Ireland which were made during the last century, were based upon an old one, drawn towards the close of the seventeenth century, by the (in Ireland) famous Sir William Petty. Not one of these maps is to be at all depended upon, because, at a time when the British had determined the positions of a number of far-distant lands by astronomical and trigonometrical observations, and when many parts even of Russia were already surveyed, no general trigonometrical survey of Ireland had as yet been commenced. Even at the end of the last century, the map of Ireland then deemed the most accurate, was made from very inaccurate
English libraries interest foreigners most by the splendid and gigantic works, which English perseverance, English art, and English money have produced, and which one has more rarely an opportunity of seeing in our continental libraries. Amongst the works of this description which I had an opportunity of seeing at Trinity College, were the Antiquities of Mexico, a work which is said to have cost the editor, Lord Kingsborough, £30,000. A production of art, almost as complete as nature herself, is Lambert's plates and description of the genus Pinus. This Lambert devoted his talents, his life, and his fortune, to the completion of this distinguished work. It is characteristic of England to produce such men, who possess all these requisites in a high degree, and who devote them to the execution of one work, the attainment of one object. With us, in Germany, all these powers are never thus concentrated on one single point. Lambert employed a number of first-rate artists, and made them repeat their
The great work of Gough, Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain, and another by Dugdale, the Monasticum Anglicanum, which in a series of volumes gives views and a detailed history of all the churches and abbeys of England—an entire volume is devoted to St. Paul's cathedral—were also objects of my attention. It is astonishing in how many respects England has been already illustrated by her artists, and how every evidence of human existence, every branch of science, has always been there cultivated and carried out with relation to the entire country. All the various classes of British history and British antiquities have their own works, and among them usually a standard book, of universally recognised authority.
Trinity College is decidedly the greatest and most extensive building in Dublin, and the largest college in the United Kingdom. To give a slight idea of what has been done for this college by parliament and private individuals, I will mention a few of the sums which have been presented to it. In 1758, Dr. Baldwin, its provost, bequeathed to the college no less than £80,000. Parliament granted the sum of £40,000 for building a square, thence called ‘the Parliament Square,’ which contains many chambers for fellows and students. In 1787, parliament voted £12,000, merely to build a chapel, which, however, cost considerably more. For all this money it might have been reasonably expected that this college would be somewhat less mute and more active than it appears to be, as the English universities generally designate Trinity College their ‘Silent Sister.’ There are, however, many persons of a European reputation who have here received their education and mental cultivation, such as Young, Goldsmith, Swift, Hamilton, Congreve, Burke, Dodwell, Grattan, Coulter, &c. The English usually complete their education at one and the same college; and each of the various universities of the kingdom is therefore constantly employed in reckoning up the great men who have been there educated, in comparing them with those produced by other colleges, and in erecting monuments and statues to them in their buildings. In our German universities this can never be the case, as we usually visit several, one after another. The German universities acquire their fame principally from their teachers; the English, from their pupils.
The chapel of Trinity College is very elegant, although far inferior to many college chapels at Oxford. In it I saw a remarkable
Dublin is celebrated in England for its squares. Merrion-square is said to be the most beautiful, and Stephen's Green the largest, in the British empire; and both of these are only a short distance from the little Doctors' Gate.
Merrion-square is a handsome parallelogram, with noble grass-plots, and surrounded by the finest private buildings in Dublin. The latter, as I walked along the paths of the square, presented a very melancholy appearance, with their blinds drawn down, a sign that their owners were not at home. I reckoned ten houses in succession which were all veiled in this manner. During the entire summer, and the greatest part of the winter too, the nobility
Dublin, of course, has lost most by the union of Ireland with England. At the end of the last century, when Ireland yet possessed her own parliament, Dublin was the usual residence of two hundred and seventy-one temporal and spiritual peers, and of three hundred members of the House of Commons. In 1820, on the contrary, the city counted no more than thirty-four resident peers, thirteen baronets, and five members of the House of Commons. If, as has been calculated so long ago as in 1782, no less than two millions sterling were drained from Ireland to be spent out of the country, it may reasonably be assumed that that sum has now at least doubled itself. As Ireland is not, like other countries of Europe, remunerated for this by the visits of strangers, it may be easily conceived how sore and disagreeable this absenteeism is to the trading classes. Ireland is probably that country of Europe from which there is the greatest emigration, and into which there is the smallest immigration, of wealthy persons.
As elegant clubs are, in London, more numerous than elegant houses of public resort, so in Dublin squares are more numerous than public gardens. The wealthy and privileged classes have entirely monopolized the enjoyment of these squares. Usually, it is only the inhabitants of the surrounding houses, and a few subscribers, who are allowed to enter the square, which is enclosed with a high iron railing, and each inhabitant or select subscriber is furnished with a key for the gates which open into it. These monopolizers of squares are also protected by law against surreptitious intruders; and there is generally painted on a board set up near the gate—‘Any person imitating the keys of this square is liable to a fine of five pounds.’
The entire of Merrion-square, with all the houses that surround it, belongs to a nobleman, whose name I have forgotten. The inhabitants of these houses pay a higher rent on condition that the square shall remain free and unbuilt on. The lawns of Merrion-square, like those of all English gardens, are elegantly kept; and though the whole is only twelve acres, a gardener, who has his dwelling in a corner of it, and two under-gardeners, have always plenty to do, to keep the grass and the walks in the wished-for accurate order. Between the lawns wind several serpentine paths, and here and there some line thick clumps of trees are distributed. The iron railing is every where lined with dense shrubberies, in order that those walking in the garden may feel themselves more private and concealed from the gaze of the public. The enjoyment
The other square, Stephen's Green, is almost an English mile in circumference. It is the property of the city of Dublin, but has been given to the inhabitants of the square, as a ‘fee farm,’ by act of parliament. For this they pay £300 a year,—another example of the various legal relations in which the inhabitants of English towns stand to their squares. In the centre of these handsome grounds an equestrian statue of George II. has been erected.
A statue of the Duke of Wellington was offered to the inhabitants of these two squares, to be erected in their grounds; but it was declined on account of its great want of taste. It was therefore erected in that park which is the pride of the good folks of Dublin, where they make their first acquaintance with whatever is beautiful and blooming and grass-green in nature—in the Phoenix Park, close to Dublin. Of this park the Irish assert that it is unequalled in the United Kingdom. But beautiful as it may be, and unsurpassingly suitable as is its name, and the monument which has been erected in the middle of it—a Phoenix in flames, in allusion to the annual rejuvanescence and new blossoming of the trees and shrubs,—still I must confess that I cannot comprehend what is so displeasing to the Irish in the noble parks of London, surrounded as they are by so many splendid buildings, that they wish to extol the Phoenix Park so highly beyond every other. The avenues to it are bad, in quite an extraordinary degree; the buildings, even the Vice-Regal Lodge, are very insignificant structures; and the
The Phoenix Park lies almost quite outside the city: and as we are now once more in the open country, and have left behind us the smoky narrow town, we will not return again, much as we may have still to see there; at least not further than is necessary to find our car, which is to convey us to the north of Ireland.
In Germany, we sometimes say to a person whose name we do not know, ‘May I take the liberty, sir, to ask you your name?’ In England, one would do better to say, ‘How do you spell your name, sir?’ otherwise one would derive little information from the answer, which generally consists of some corrupted, inarticulate sounds. ‘How do you spell your name, sir?’ asked I of a man, who, having thrown his luggage into the well of the car, took his seat on the bench beside me. I received a volley of letters in reply; but as I was not yet sufficiently practised in English spelling, I was nothing the wiser, for I neither knew how to write or to pronounce it. This much, however, I know, by the final syllable pen, and the Christian name John, that my friend must be from Cornwall; for of Cornishmen is sung the following couplet:—
- By tre, pol, lan, and pen,
You may know most Cornishmen.
These Cornishmen are usually called John, as the Welsh are Johnson: hence the former say that the latter are their sons. Mr. [...]pen was a thorough trader, and had no mind for any thing that was not in his line. When, therefore, I told him I had come from Saxony, ‘Ah, Saxony,’ said he, ‘that is a very fine wool country!’ When I expressed my regret that the weather was bad, and that we would see but little of the interesting country, he replied, ‘that all weathers were the same to him, if business were only doing; but the worst of all was, that it was now so dull and slow.’ ‘But it is some consolation to me,’ said I, ‘to think that we are entering on a better-cultivated part of
All this conversation passed between us while we were making ourselves as comfortable as we could on the car. At last we started off. The cloud of poor invalids, beggars, useless helpers and helpers' helpers, and hawkers of newspapers and picture-books, all of whom were proclaiming in a loud voice the important novelties contained in their papers, to induce us to buy, cleared away, and our car, with its mountain of luggage, and its sixteen outside passengers, rolled off through the suburbs of Dublin. I remarked in passing, that here also a great number of houses were adorned with ivy, in the same manner as all ruins in Ireland. As Erin is the ivy-land, so is Dublin the ivy-city.
Under a heavy fall of hail, rain, and snow mixed together—a kind of weather which the English call sleet, and which is very common in Ireland—we drove past the ruins of the cathedral of Swords. There stood beside them a large and almost perfect Round Tower, and many lordly old trees. The name Swords, although English, reminded me of the old Irish battles fought by Erin's king, Brian Boru.
Farther on we passed another ruin, the old castle of Balruddery; but at the next town, Balbriggan, quite a spectacle presented itself to me—a large manufactory! Balbriggan was the first place in Ireland in which I found a great cotton-mill. Balbriggan stockings are celebrated, even in England. From this place the north-eastern manufacturing district of Ireland may be said to begin. The ruins cease to be the principal objects of interest; and such grand groups of ruins as those of Kilkenny, Glendalough, and Cashel, are no longer to be met with in the north.
We took a little siesta at Balbriggan, and changed our horses. As we again seated ourselves on the car, we were surrounded by the usual swarm of poor people, begging us for Heaven's sake to give them a halfpenny. ‘There's time enough yet, gentlemen! the car's just going off!’ exclaimed they, as the driver raised his whip. ‘There's time enough yet, your honours! Sure your honours won't go away without leaving us and our poor families a trifle! I'm not asking for myself, your honours, but for my poor dying children! Oh! oh! the car is going off, and your honours won't give us any thing!’
In the meantime it had become dark. It is by no means pleasant to be on an Irish car when night comes on, without the light of either stars or moon, as was now our case; for one cannot venture to sleep through fear of tumbling off. A stout lady, who sat at the other side of me, therefore after a while began to sing aloud. She said she did so to keep herself awake and lively. Accompanied by her song and our universal dumbness, both of which, as well as the rough sleet, continued all the way to Drogheda, we entered the last-named town.
In this entire district, and particularly in Drogheda, the linen manufacture is the staple trade of the inhabitants. In consequence, however, of the erection of extensive flax spinning-mills at Leeds, this branch of Irish commerce has of late greatly decreased, and the linen manufacture is now much depressed. In England, it is one of the most recent branches of its manufacturing activity; whilst in Ireland it is one of the oldest. The linen manufacture of Ireland has occupied the attention of the English and Irish legislatures for two hundred years; but in England it has only obtained importance since the beginning of the present century, in consequence of the introduction of vast spinning-machines. These machines have also been lately introduced into Ireland, and the flax-spinning is now conducted on quite a new system. Many towns have been losers, and others gainers, by this change. It is remarkable that the exportation of Irish linen to England and foreign countries since the beginning of the present century, has regularly fluctuated between thirty-five and fifty-five millions of yards yearly. The general lamentations of the linen manufacturers and flax-spinners, that their trade has been destroyed, may therefore probably be caused by the increase of population, and of hands seeking employment. The population of Ireland has almost doubled itself since 1800; and to prevent these lamentations, the production and exportation of linen should also have been doubled in the same period.
Drogheda is an old Irish place, but is almost entirely in the style of English towns. It is the only town in the north of Ireland the population of which is on the decrease. In 1821 it had 18,118, and in 1831, only 17,365 inhabitants. It is situated on the Boyne, which has become famous, less for its slightly dark-coloured bog-water,—one of its chief tributaries is called the Blackwater, a name borne and deserved by many rivers of Ireland—than for the blood that was once poured into it. The famous—for the English, the glorious, by the Irish, the deplored—Battle of the Boyne, in which William III. conquered James II., and drove him from the country, was fought here. This battle was to the Irish what the battle of the White Mountain was to the Bohemians, and the battle of Culloden to the Scots. The battle-field lies up the river, a few miles from Drogheda; and as the valley is distinguished as well by its natural charms, as, in particular, by its Druidical remains, and, above all, by the celebrated sepulchral monument of New Grange, I made a little journey up along the river on the following day, in company with a well-informed and kind patriot of Drogheda.
In a narrow part of the valley, where the struggle that decided the battle took place, there has been erected an obelisk, on a little block of stone, or rock, close by the river. My friend, who had
James II. behaved with no great bravery in this memorable battle, which was fought on the 1st of July, 1690. Seized by a panic, even while the battle was yet undecided, he sought safety in flight, and rode through the entire length of the island, at a pace that has never been equalled. In a few hours he had left behind him the entire way from the battle-field to Dublin Castle; and on the next evening he rode to Waterford, a distance of more than one hundred English miles. The Irish therefore justly call him Shamus a' cacach, that is, cowardly, or dirty James. On his part, James threw all the blame on the Irish; for when, in his flight, he reached the Castle of Dublin, and Lady Tyrconnell, a woman of ready wit, came out to meet him, he said to her, ‘Your countrymen, the Irish, madam, can run very quick;’ her reply was, ‘Your majesty excels them in this, as in every thing else, for you have won the race.’ At Waterford, James embarked for France. As he was in the act of ascending the side of the ship, the wind blew off his hat; and as it was evening, and the hat could not be recovered immediately, his attendant, General O'Farrell, an Irishman, put his own hat on him, that he might not take cold. James was pleased, and remarked, as he ascended the vessel, that if, through the fault of the Irish, he had lost a crown, he had gained a hat from them in its place. James's accusations of the swift-footedness of the Irish are now forgotten; but the Irish still blame him, and have not ceased to call him a' cacach. By this battle William III. confirmed, for the last time, Henry II.'s conquest, the subjection of Ireland,—a subjection which before this had to be confirmed once or twice every century by an
The entire valley of the Boyne, from Drogheda as far as Navan, contains traces of Druidical monuments. Thus, on our way, we inspected the remains of a cromlech or Druidical circular temple, which is situated on a height. It now consists of only four large stones, disposed in the form of a segment of a circle. As a part of the height had been dug away for agricultural purposes, two other stories had sunk down. Farther up the valley are several large tumuli, one of which is the celebrated hill of New Grange. This hill, which is composed of an enormous mass of flint-stones, is about 50 or 60 feet high, and 200 paces in circumference. The multitude of stones of which it is formed is therefore immensely great, especially as most of them, at least those on the summit, are not much larger than common paving-stones. Round about the hill, at the edge of its base, is a circle of large blocks of stone, the heads of which are all stuck into the ground. Some of these stones have already fallen; others have completely disappeared. As the hill is surrounded by arable land, the peasants may have removed many of the stones to make way for the plough, so that the circle is no longer complete. The outside of the hill is now entirely overgrown with grass, bushes, and trees, the stones having, in the course of years, become covered with dust, mould, and clay, on which vegetation then sprang up. Here and there, however, particularly upon the summit, this green covering of grass has been removed, probably to satisfy the curiosity of man; and there the stones may be plainly seen, as well as every where else, by any one who takes the trouble to dig away the soil.
In size and outward shape, this tumulus closely resembles those which have been raised at Cracow, in honour of Kosciuzko, Wanda, and Krak. It also reminds one of the tumulus of Elpenor, and of that of Achilles, on the Sigaean promontory, as described by travellers, and by Homer in the twelfth book of his Odyssey. The mound of Patroclus, and that of Halyattes in Asia Minor, according to Camden's testimony, must be very like it. The larger of the Tartaric tumuli in the Crimea, which were probably erected in honour of Scythian or Bosphoran kings, exactly resemble it in figure, with this difference, that, in that stoneless country, they are composed, not of stones, but of earth. In the south of Russia, on the top of these mounds a figure, rudely chiselled out of stone, is sometimes placed, or even a common stone. On the tumulus of Achilles, too, traces of a pillar are said to be still
It is not, however, in its exterior appearance, but in its internal structure, that the hill of New Grange is most interesting. An opening has been discovered at the base of the hill, through which the hollow interior may be reached, and this was the principal object of our journey. For this purpose we had provided ourselves with lights, the entrance being extremely narrow and rather long. Before the entrance there is a little space protected from the wind, a kind of cave in the earth heaped up at the foot of the mound, and which was probably formed by the explorers and excavators of the entrance. Here we took off our clothes, lighted our candles, and commenced our operations. The passage, which is about fifty feet long, is somewhat obstructed with stones, so that one can only work his way in by lying on his back, while he feels his way with his feet, and pushes himself forward with his hands. As the ground is covered with sharp-cornered flint-stones, this slide-path is not the most agreeable in the world. The sidewalls of the passage are formed of large, tolerably flat stones, set up perpendicularly, with equally large stones laid across them on the top. We soon reached the convenient interior of the tumulus, where one can not only stand upright, but can also walk about freely, as it is neither more nor less than a little chapel, to which three side-chapels are appended. Having brought with us a whole bundle of candles, we hung one of them in the centre of the large chapel, another in each of the three small ones, and the remainder we attached round about to the rocks, wherever we could; and now, in this illumination, my eyes beheld the most remarkable and most interesting specimen of primitive Cyclopean architecture I ever saw. Rude and simple as every thing was, it would yet be difficult for me to convey to my readers a correct idea of the appearance and structure of these chapels.
It is manifest that they were not hollowed out of the mound of stones subsequent to its erection, for this its structure would not permit; but they existed before the hill itself, and the great pyramid of flint-stones, was raised over the roof of the chapels. As children build houses of cards, so were these chapels built of blocks of stones. A few large flat stones were placed beside one another, on their edges, to form the back and side walls, and over them a few more were placed to make a ceiling. In this way were
I have said that in this way the entire Cyclopean work will endure for eternity; for, excepting the wasting away of the stones by the action of the air and weather, which, from the hardness of their nature, cannot happen in any conceivable period of time, no cause can be imagined capable of destroying these monuments. The thousands of years which have passed over these stones have
These chapels can no longer in any way be offensive; for the differences of opinion, and the party contentions, of which they were perhaps once the object, in the time of the Druids, just as many heathen and not-heathen temples afterwards became, and still are, have all long since passed away, and their revival is altogether inconceivable. Mere wantonness would have far too much to do in the destruction of these vast masses of stone, so that we need not entertain any fears from that cause. The art-enthusiasts, who have plundered the temples of Greece and of other countries, can scarcely find any thing here worth robbing; for these structures are only remarkable in their present entirety, and would lose their interest as soon as the individual pieces were taken asunder. Perhaps an exception must be made to this in a few respects, as I will immediately show. Curiosity and avarice can derive little or nothing from the destruction of this edifice; for here there is nothing hidden from the sight, and every one can immediately convince himself that it contains nothing more than the rude
We then examined the details of the three little chapels, and found them no less interesting than the structure of the whole. In each of them we saw a large stone basin, and, in one of them, two such basins, one within the other. These basins, which bear some resemblance to the baptismal fonts of our Christian churches, are the most remarkable specimens of Druidical or Cyclopean stone-cutting I ever beheld. They are great caldron-round stones, about twenty or twenty-four feet in circumference, hollowed out into a shallow cavity, like the saucer of a tea-cup. The manner in which they were hollowed out, and the entire workmanship of them, is so rude, and the circular form of the basin is so irregular, that, although it is quite evident they have been thus fashioned, not by nature but by art, it is yet impossible to conceive in what way this form has been given then. Chisel, circle, and measuring-rod seem not to have been used in their formation. It looks just as if the hollows were produced by rubbing one great stone upon another for a long time. These basins rest upon another immense stone, which serves them as a pedestal; and in the eastern chapel there is, as I have said, two such basins, a smaller within a larger. Perhaps in the other two chapels there were also similar little basins, which may have been removed for some museum of antiquities; for I remember having seen a Druidical basin of this kind in an English museum. The northern chapel, which is exactly opposite the entrance-passage, is constructed of the largest stones. One of the basins was half-full of water which had trickled from the roof of the cavern. My companion told me that he always saw this water here, whenever he visited the chapel.
With the exception of these basins, few traces of art are to be seen, and these consist of some marks here and there on the stones. On one, for example, several parallel zigzag lines have been cut. On the surface of another are some spiral lines, winding round in six or seven circles, within one another, like a helix. Then there are some little round figures with radii, which resemble stars, and, finally, a figure which seems to be meant for an imitation of flowers or fruits. Those star-like figures were perhaps meant for stars, which the old star-worshipping
As we were going out again, and I once more threw the light on some stones, I observed, on those which formed the inner-door of the entrance, a countless multitude of little gnats. These animals are now the only, and perhaps the most ancient, inhabitants of this colossal work. Year after year they retire here in the autumn to pass the winter, and fly out again in the spring.
When at last we regained the open air, we met two Irish peasants, and asked them by whom they believed these caverns were formed. They replied ‘the Danes,’ which is the usual answer given by the Irish to questions respecting the origin of any ancient structure in their country. It is the Danes who have piled up their moats, the Danes to whom the oldest of their ruined castles are attributed, the Danes have erected the ancient barrows and cairns. Even the Round Towers, the ignorant common people sometimes ascribe to the Danes; and, in fact, to the annoyance of the inquisitive tourist and the friend of antiquity, there are even many among the well-educated, who, without further
All these various considerations combined have led me to an hypothesis which I have met with in no Irish writer, namely, that the Irish people may have confounded the Danes with the much more ancient nation, of nearly the same name, the Danaans, who are said to have lived in Ireland long before the birth of Christ. These Danaans, or Tuatha-de-Danaans, were, according to Irish tradition, the third race who colonised Ireland. Of these Danaans, Moore, who repeats the popular tradition, says:—‘They were a people famed for necromancy, who, after sojourning for some time in Greece, where they had learned this mysterious art, proceeded from thence to Denmark and Norway, and became possessors, while in those countries, of certain marvellous treasures, among which were the Stone of Destiny, the Sorcerer's Spear, and the Magic Caldron. Armed with these wonderful gifts, the tribe of the Danaans next found their way to Scotland; and, after a rest there of some years, set sail, under the auspices of their chieftain, Nuad of the Silver Hand,24 for Ireland. Here, landing secretly, under cover of a mist which their enchantments had raised, these sorcerers penetrated into the country, and conquered the inhabitants in the battle of Moytura, which is also called the ‘Battle of the Field of the Tower.’’
As so much art, and even magic, is attributed to the Danaans,
There are, as I have said, many other tumuli along the banks of the Boyne, yet they are all, with one exception, far lower and smaller than that of New Grange. The people say that ancient chieftains are buried beneath these little hills. The exception is that called Dowth, or the Moat of Dowth, which exactly resembles New Grange; but it seems to me to be a little larger and higher, and outside it is not covered with bushes, but quite bare. At one spot, where the turf has been removed, one can plainly see that, like New Grange, it is composed of an immense mass of flint stones. On one side of the hill there is also an entrance, a couple of large stones, laid on one another, forming just such a door as that of New Grange. It is extremely probable that this entrance leads to a similar hollow passage, and again to a chapel, perhaps larger, perhaps somewhat varied, and at all events interesting for the sake of comparison. But, oh! disgrace to all those inhabitants of the surrounding country, with their ten thousands a year!—the entrance has not been opened any farther, and nothing is yet known of the interior. I remember
From the summit of this hill we enjoyed one of the most beautiful prospects of the valley of the Boyne, down upon all the tumuli lying around, upon the river winding between them, and then away towards the west upon the town of Slane, where, in former times, a famous college existed, and which still lies there, as Cromwell left it—in ruins. To these old Catholic colleges, now lying in rubbish, the Irish patriots point with sadness. They once had many of them; but since the times of Cromwell and of William III. they have none. Their young people, intended for the priesthood, were all forced to complete their clerical education in foreign lands, in Spain, Italy, or France. Not till a recent period did the Roman Catholics obtain a college of their own for the education of their clergy—the College of Maynooth in the vicinity of Dublin, which now represents the university of Roman Catholic Ireland.
Not far from the Moat of Dowth, upon the estate of the Netterville family, are the ruins of an old church. They are, as usual, ornamented with ivy; and within the roofless circuit of its walls are, as is also usual, the monuments of those who, as the Irish say, ‘were brought home to their own people.’ Among others was the white marble monument of a Netterville, which stood so extremely pleasing and picturesque between the gray church-walls and the green ivy, that I cannot understand why the English travel to Père la Chaise at Paris, and to Frankfort, to see the prosaic monuments there, while, by making a tour of the old churchyards of Ireland, they might enjoy the greatest abundance of picturesque, beautiful, and in every respect interesting sights. We have many complete collections of all distinguished English mansions: why have not a few English painters and writers joined, and given to the world an illustrated work under the title of ‘The Old Churchyards of Ireland?’ The painter indeed must be a Ruysdael, whose unequalled Churchyard, in the Royal Gallery at Dresden, comes near in effect and poetry to an Irish churchyard;
I visited this church, however, not on account of the old monuments, but for something else,—namely, Shilagh na Gigh, that is, in English, ‘Cicely of the Branch,’ whose name relates to an extremely remarkable old Irish custom, which again reminded me of the East—this time the old East of Herodotus. The Irish are no less superstitious than the Romans of old, and, like them, ‘ill luck and good luck’ is the principal object of their thoughts and cares. A hundred thousand things and events are signs of ‘ill luck:’ meetings, looks, words, sounds, natural phenomena, feelings of various kinds, become signs of ill luck under certain circumstances. The look of a sorceress is especially dreaded. ‘She overlooked my child, and it now fades in his bloom,’ is the expression used on such occasions.
As in nature every poison has its antidote, so likewise, in the world of Irish superstition, there are as many things that bring good luck as there are that bring bad luck. For good luck they spit upon the penny they receive, lest it may be enchanted and infected with ill luck. For good luck they dip their children in holy wells, or have recourse to various charms, when the ill luck of a look or of a mere word is upon them. Even adults, even men, have sometimes a dark and melancholy feeling that a spell of ill luck has been thrown around them by some person or other; and, among the various remedies they adopt to counteract it ‘for good luck,’ is this:—‘Persuadent nempe mulierem, ut exhibeat iis quod mulieres secretissimum habent.’
There once were—and whatever was once in Ireland, one may be almost certain that it is still there—women, who made a profession
Here is another proof that this western island is full of peculiarities to be met with in no other country of Europe. Look whatever way one will, he will find some in Ireland. Thus, on our return to Drogheda, we met a funeral, and it struck me that the bier was very rudely constructed. On inquiry, the people told me that little art was here employed on the bier, because it was never used more than once, but immediately after the burial it was broken to pieces, and thrown into the grave. I afterwards found that this custom was pretty general in the north of Ireland. They destroy it in the churchyard, either by hewing it with a hatchet, or placing it between the forked limbs of a tree, and thus breaking it to pieces.
I had scarcely entered Drogheda at one side, before I had again to quit it on the other, in consequence of the resolution of some enthusiastic friends of antiquity, with whom I had the good luck to become acquainted in that place, and who would not suffer me to depart until I enjoyed a sight of their celebrated Monasterboice. These (in Ireland) famous monastic ruins lie a few miles to the north of Drogheda, and I set out for them the next day. They consisted of the remains of some churches, and a Round Tower, and are some distance from the high road, so that we had
There is said to be still extant a multitude of historical poems written by him. But the work for which he is most celebrated in Ireland, is his Synchronisms of the Irish kings, and of the Oriental and Roman emperors, and the head monarchs of all Ireland, as well as its Christian provincial rulers, and, finally, the kings of Scotland of Irish descent.25
- Flann, of the great church of sweet Buite,
The last professor the country of the three Finns was Flann.
Monasterboice, in remote times so long the seat of piety, art, science, and learning, lost its importance and fell into ruins after the English took possession of the kingdom of Meath, to which it belonged.
Not far from the ruins, on a bleak height, lay a few huts of Irish labourers; and then the road led down into the plain, in which nothing was to be seen but these ruins in the centre. They lie together, lonely and melancholy, in a picturesque group; and while all around was bare, they were overshadowed by some old trees, which found support and protection between their walls. At the side of the high Round Tower, around whose lofty broken summit ravens and rooks were fluttering, and between the low ivy-mantled church-walls, a couple of lofty stone crosses showed themselves, erect and uninjured, while the intermediate spaces, as usual, were filled with old and falling, and new and upright, gravestones. The dusky hue of the turfy soil around, the bright-yellow foliage of the trees amid the ruins, and the green sward at the base of the buildings, all these various colours gave an extremely picturesque appearance to the interesting group of little crosses, churches, tower, and gravestones. Then there was no one to be seen, except myself and the guide whom I had chosen at the huts; and the entire sky, as is usual in Ireland, was full of cloud-mountains of the vastest and most grotesque shapes.
I here again felt the truth of an Irish writer (Petrie), who, describing the Irish landscape, says,—‘The colours with which nature
What I have remarked respecting the clouds, might be also said symbolically of the political and moral heaven of Erin. As clouds upon clouds rise from the Atlantic Ocean, and envelope her in an ever-varying and ever differently tattered mantle of gloom, with beams of light flowing down through the rents, so clouds upon clouds continually emerge from the sea of events, and shroud in constantly-changing forms the oppressed and straitened spirit of her people, who dream on in sad despair, being but occasionally permitted, in the warm sunshine of prosperity and joy, to resign themselves to a passing ecstasy. One cannot help believing that he perceives the character of a people, and the national history of their country, depicted in the natural scenery and climate of their land. These changing clouds of an Irish sky continually remind us of Moore's poems:—
of his shades of sorrow:
- Erin! the tear and the smile in thine eyes,
Blend like the rainbow that hangs in thy skies!
of his sun-gleams of joy:
- Has sorrow thy young days shaded.
- As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow!
of his lingering and vanishing light:
- At the mid-hour of night, when the stars are weeping.
of his sunbeams amid rain:
- 'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking.
- Though dark are our sorrows, to-day we'll forget them,
And smile through our tears, like a sunbeam in showers.
We at length arrived at the ruins themselves; and at the same time there also arrived one of those stormy hail-showers, rolling over the landscape. The hail rattled down between the old shattered walls, and we had to creep for shelter into the Round Tower, the door of which was here fortunately near enough to the ground to allow us to slip in with ease. This tower is of the usual height of 110 feet, but may have been somewhat higher, as its summit is now broken. It has also the usual circumference of 50 feet. Though I was always glad to be able to visit one of these singular buildings, I found nothing in this tower of Monasterboice to distinguish it from others of the same kind. The ruined churches likewise have nothing to distinguish them, beyond the picturesque charms common to all Irish ruins. Here, however, are the three remarkable crosses I have already mentioned, erected in honour of the three celebrated Irish saints, St. Patrick, Boetius, and Columb Kill.
These crosses belong to the most remarkable of the old Christian antiquities of Ireland, being decorated with great art, and better preserved than others of a similar description. They are composed of several large blocks of stone, laid one over another, are from twenty to twenty-four feet high, and are ornamented from top to bottom with graceful sculptures. Their form is quite peculiar, and in no Christian country have I seen any thing like them. On a pillar, about fourteen feet high, which stands on a broad pedestal, is fixed a cross, with four arms of equal length, each of which becomes somewhat wider towards the centre, in the same manner as the cross of the Knights of Malta; the arms of the cross are bound by a large stone ring or circle, the segments of which pass from arm to arm. It looks as if a stone cross and a stone ring were united into one figure. The pillars, crosses, rings, all are covered with sculptures, which afford plenty of subjects for thought to the Irish antiquary. Their whole appearance proves that a very peculiar style of Christian art existed in ancient Ireland; and, by the manner of their lines and drawings, reminded me of the paintings and embellishments of the old Irish manuscripts which I had seen at the college library in Dublin.
The pillars and the arms of the cross are, of course, four-sided; each side is bordered with twisted lines or spirals; and the entire is divided into little squares, in each of which is a scene from the Old or New Testament history; for instance, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Paradise, Hell, the Passion, &c. In Paradise, I remarked a couple of harpers. The Irishman could not conceive a Paradise, in which he could not find his beloved national instrument.
The spiral borders and the ornaments, which serve here and there to fill up, are quite peculiar. Thus, on one cross I saw intertwined snakes, winding round a human head; on another, a woman with a long dog hanging to each ear,—perhaps a scene of torture from the Irish hell. Two dogs, of slender forms, twisted into a very peculiar figure, almost like snakes, occurred very often. I could not learn the meaning of these dogs, which appear so frequently on the old Christian monuments of Ireland. At Dublin, I saw a crosier, which was covered all over with these slender little dogs, wrought on the back of its crook. They probably refer to the legend of some Irish saint.
A very peculiar drawing, which I had already noticed on several Irish antiquities, again presented itself to me on Columba's cross, and on that of St. Patrick. It was a perfectly regular circle, in which many twisted, wavy, and spiral lines were intertwined. On one of these circles was a hand, neatly chiselled, in bas-relief, upon the stone.
I began to consider what the monks could have meant by these signs, unquestionably symbolical; and when I could not find any thing better, I conceived that by the circle they perhaps intended to signify the globe of the world; by the twisted and knotted, snaky and spiral lines, the various and stormy eddies and whirlpools of human life and passions, which flow through that globe; while the hand, lying upon it, represented the hand of the Creator and Father of all things, who rules all these confused lines, and will one day reduce them all into harmonious order. When I had finished this solution, I asked my attendant Paddy his opinion respecting the hand, and the circle beneath it? Taking off his hat, he replied: ‘I'll tell your honour. Look! there was a woman who baked a cake one Sunday, and broke the commandment: but when she caught hold of the cake to take it up, it remained hanging to her hand, and she could never get it off again; and the holy St. Patrick therefore had it carved on the stone here, to remind and to warn us for ever to keep holy the holydays and Sundays, as we are commanded. That's it, your honour!’ added Paddy, and he put on his hat again.
On the foot of one cross various monsters are carved, probably
Columb Kill, called also Columba, is one of the most celebrated of the Irish saints. He was, as is said of most Irish saints, of royal lineage; for on his father's side he was descended from Nial, who was the father of many kings; while his mother, Aethena, was of the princely house of Leinster. Before she bore her afterwards so celebrated son, she had a dream which I will here narrate, partly in proof of the great celebrity of this saint, partly to give my readers a sample of the fantastic nature of Irish dreams. Adamnan, an Irish author, who wrote so early as the seventh century, relates this dream thus:—‘There appeared to the princess Aethena, as she lay awake one night shortly before her delivery, an angel from heaven, who brought her a veil of wonderful beauty, on which were embroidered and painted the most charming flowers in the entire world. Aethena was astonished at the beauty of the flowers, and wished to catch hold of the veil; but the angel lifted it up, and spread it out; and, when the princess asked him why he so soon deprived her of the present he had displayed to her, he made answer, that this veil was a type of a great and honourable gift she would receive, which likewise she could not retain long for herself, but would be obliged soon to send out into the world. The princess then saw the veil ascend into the air, and spreading itself out wider and wider, slowly depart from her. At last she beheld it, covered with beautiful flowers and glittering stars, spread itself far away over the valleys, mountains, plains, and forests.’26
Shortly after she bore Columba, or, as he was at first called, Crimthan, for the name of Columba was afterwards given to him when the dove-like simplicity and innocence of his character became known. Kill, as we have already remarked, means, in ancient Irish, the same as church; so that Columb Kill signifies ‘the dove of the church.’ Not merely were his labours confined to Ireland, where he founded monasteries and schools, but he was of the greatest importance to Scotland also, whither he emigrated, and whose great apostle he became. The cross which was here raised in his honour, among the ruins of Monasterboice, once fell
Has it ever been the custom, any where else in Christendom, to erect large handsome crosses, near churches, to particular saints, as chapels are built, in order there to pray for them? or is this also a custom peculiar to the Irish Christians alone?
I returned on foot to the little hut on the rising ground, where we had left our car, and, as another heavy shower of hail was pouring down on the ruins and the dark fields, I was compelled, for the sake of shelter, more closely to inspect the interior of the cabin. Here I particularly observed the mode of preparation of these oaten cakes which I had seen carved in stone on the cross of St. Patrick, and which form so conspicuous a feature in the whole domestic economy of the north of Ireland and Scotland. These famous oat-cakes are made of coarsely ground oats, the principal grain of Ireland and Scotland, in the following extremely simple and even rude manner. The meal is formed into a thick paste with water, and spread upon a warm circular plate of iron (called a griddle), which is found in every Irish cabin, and is heated by a few handfuls of lighted straw. The paste is spread out on this like a thin pancake, and in a few moments is fit to eat, and dry like biscuit. As the people call this cake, and as they eat these oat-cakes every day, it might lead one to suppose, that, as cake-eaters, the Irish and Scotch live very luxuriously. These cakes, however, taste not much better than flour mixed with water, and afterwards dried. Nevertheless, many persons are passionately fond of them; and the Irish usually assure the stranger, when they show him their oat-cakes, that they are exceedingly wholesome, strengthening, and nourishing, which can only be true of them when compared with the watery and unnutritious potato. The English, who are generally very inquisitive about our black bread—the word black27 horrifies them—and often maliciously remark that such food would not be given even to horses in their country, completely forget that, in Germany, oats are given to horses, and that many
The Irish harp, too, which I had seen in the picture of Paradise on the stone cross at Monasterboice, I again found during my sojourn at Drogheda. It was at the house of a Roman Catholic priest, who gave us an Irish musical-poetical soirée, which I reckon one of the most agreeable soirées I ever attended. The reception room of this gentleman, like that of many Irish patriots, was adorned with portraits of Father Mathew, of Moore, and of O'Connell. The latter I scarcely recognised, for he was painted in various colours, with a mantle trimmed with fur, and had his lord mayor's golden chain around his neck. He looked like an old Irish king. Besides these, there were pictures of two celebrated Irish landscapes and ruins, and portraits of some Irish saints and apostles. In one picture was Father Mathew in the open air, on a grassy mound. Behind him, in the dark background, stood a Christian cross, and through the cloudy sky a stream of light poured down upon it. Before him kneeled and stood the lame, the blind, and the healthy, to whom he was preaching. This picture was interesting to me, as an illustration of the opinions which the Irish entertain of this remarkable man.
Drogheda is a very Irish town—the last genuine Irish one the traveller meets with on this coast as he advances northwards; for, after it, every thing is more inclined to the Scotch. Nay, Drogheda is perhaps more Irish than many a town in the south or west of the island. The population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, and but very few Protestants are to be found there. Drogheda is therefore one of the greatest strongholds of O'Connell, and was much eulogized by him in the speech I heard at Dublin. The Drogheda Argus, a large paper published here, contains, in almost every number, some out-and-out repeal-articles, the subject of which is the necessity of a renewed organization of the repeal agitation, and the ‘struggle for a national existence.’ The suburbs of Drogheda are genuinely Irish, miserable, filthy, falling cabins; and many persons are likewise to be found in the neighbourhood, who understand and speak the old Irish language, and say that they cannot speak English with comfort and fluency. Nay, according to what I was told by the inhabitants, I must believe that the Irish language is far more general in and
As I was now about to take leave of the old Celtic soil, all these matters combined to render me more desirous to be present at such an Irish poetical-musical soirée.
The first person who came forward was an Irish declaimer, a man from among the people,—I know not whether a gardener, a carpenter, a ploughman, or a ‘broken farmer,’28 but I was told he knew a countless number of old Irish poems and songs. He came in and thus addressed me:—‘Out of friendship for him (meaning the priest) I am come: he told me that there was a foreigner here, who wished to hear some of our old Irish poems, and I will gladly recite to him what I know.’
‘I am much obliged to you,’ said the priest; ‘but if you were to recite all you know, we would be obliged to listen to you all night, and perhaps many other nights besides.’
‘It is true our forefathers have handed down to us a great number of poems from generation to generation; and very beautiful ones they are too, sir, if you could only understand them. How beautiful is not the song of Tober a Jollish, that is, of the glittering spring, which is but three miles distant from our town; or that of Cuchullin, the Irish champion, who went to Scotland. Shall I begin with the song of Cuchullin, your reverence?’ ‘Do, my son, and God bless thee!’
The man began to declaim, and recited for a quarter of an hour without once stopping. The subject of his poem was as follows: Cuchullin was an Irish youth, of princely blood, who went to Scotland to perfect himself in the use of arms. As from all quarters people resorted to Ireland to complete their spiritual, religious, and scientific education, so the Irish youth used to go over to Scotland to practise the arts of arms. In Scotland, Cuchullin fell in love with the daughter of his teacher, Conlear, and swore eternal fidelity to her. But when he returned to Ireland, after completing his studies, and took up his residence at his father's court, occupied in the contentions and battles of his fatherland, he grew up to be a great, mighty, and distinguished man, and forgot his Scottish mistress, who, her love being now turned into hatred and contempt, meditated revenge for the insult offered her. She bore a son, the fruit of the hypocritical love of Cuchullin. This son she had instructed in the use of arms, and all things necessary for a hero: she chose him as the instrument of her revenge, while at the same time, as a memento of Cuchullin, he became an object of her hatred. When Connell,—if I
I, or course, did not understand a single word of all this recitation, but my host was kind enough to relate the story to me afterwards. To understand, however, was not so much my object as to convince myself, by my own ears, that this old Ossianic poetry is still living and extant here in Ireland among the people. The reciter was, as I have said, a simple man, and his recitation was as simple, unadorned, and undeclamatory as himself. Sometimes, however, when carried away by the beauty of the poetry and the ideas, he became animated, and even appeared much affected: he would then look at his hearers, as if he expected their sympathy and admiration for himself and his poem. Sometimes I remarked that the metre of the poem changed; and I was told that this was the case in all their poems, and that the metre always adapted itself to the subject. On the battle-field, the father and the son had a dialogue, which they said was the most beautiful part of the whole poem; but that they could give me no idea of it, for when translated into prose it would lose all its sublimity; and that I, being unacquainted with the language, could form as little idea of it through the medium of any other language as a blind man of the splendour of the sun.
After this he recited a Song of the Fairy Mounts. The subject was a story often and every where repeated in Ireland, of a fairy queen who finds a youth sleeping on a mountain, falls in love with him, and invites him to go with her, while she tells him of her power and greatness, and the splendour of her fairy palace. He is at last persuaded to do so, but on the condition, that, when he dies, he shall be brought home and buried with his own people. The queen grants this, and takes him away with her. This story reminded me of Goethe's Erl-King29, and of many similar Hungarian and Russian legends. I once thought that the story of the Erl-King had sprung from the German mind, but now I would no longer venture to define the circle to which this legend is limited. It seems to me to have gone from the west of Ireland into the very depths of Asia. Even in the legends of the Greeks there is something similar,—the abduction of Ganymede by Jupiter's eagle, and the residence of many other mortals with the Gods.
This reciter told me that most of what he knew was very ancient, and was chiefly Ossianic poetry, of which there was a great deal here in Drogheda, among the people. I had already heard this, and I afterwards heard it repeated at other places in the north. The county of Donegal, in particular, was described to me as full of still living Ossianic poetry. From what I have learned in Ireland, I am much inclined to believe, what others have already
‘Oisin,’ in pure Celtic Irish pronounced ‘Oshin,’ was—as is now generally acknowledged, since Macpherson's accounts of him are on all sides declared fictions—no Scot, but an Irishman, as well as his father Fingal, or, as he is properly called, Finn Mac-Cul. ‘Finn Mac-Cul, your honour, was in those days just such another as our Irish Wellington in these,’ said our old reciter to me. Ossian was, as at least my Irish friends believed, born at Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland, where he spent the greater part of his life. As between the Irish and Scotch every thing becomes a subject of controversy, they have also mutually quarrelled about their heroes, as well as about their missionaries and saints. The more cunning, and, in the field of literature, more active Scotch, have adorned themselves with many a plume stolen from Ireland. Macpherson was not the only, although he may have been the most talented, and most successful, perverter of Irish poetry.
This poetry was followed by music—music from that instrument of which the Irish poet, Samuel Lover, sings—
- Oh! give me one strain
Of that wild harp again,
In melody proudly its own,
Sweet harp of the days that are flown!
The harp was produced, and a blind young harper prepared to play some old Irish pieces. I was told, that he was one of the most distinguished harp-players in the surrounding country; and, in fact, his music enraptured us all. The first piece he played was Brian Boru's March, at the famous battle of Clontarf, on the bay of Dublin. The Irish king Brian Boru, who had made himself sovereign of all Ireland, overcame the Danes at this great battle, in 1014. He himself, however, was slain, shortly after the battle, by the Danish leader Bruadair; and thus Ireland gained a great victory, and lost her greatest monarch. The music of this march is therefore powerful and wild, and at the same time melancholy. It is at once a song of triumph and of mourning. The rapid changes, and the wild beauty of the air, was so great,
So sings Lover.
- But, Isle of the West,
Raise thy emerald crest,
Songs of triumph shall yet ring for thee.
After Brian Boru's march followed the air of The Fairy Queen, a very old Irish piece, as I was told. This much I can say, that it was quite a charming composition,—so soft, so enchanting, and so wild, sportive, and playful withal, that during its performance I could think of nothing but the dancing of fairies and the singing of elves. I afterwards heard it several times on the piano, but on that instrument the music was far from being so soft and rich as from the harp of this blind young minstrel. Although this second part of our evening's entertainment, which was given in a language universally intelligible, afforded me much more enjoyment than the first, I am less able to describe it; since, of all the arts, music is that of whose beautiful productions the aesthetic critic is least able to convey an adequate idea by description or criticism.
We were perfectly satisfied with our harper, for he was, in fact, a finished artist; there are, however, others still more exquisite and more famed in Ireland. There is, for instance, a very distinguished harper in the county of Londonderry, of the name of Hempson, a blind man; and another, still more celebrated, named Byrne, whom I often heard mentioned, is, if I mistake not, also blind. The latter, I was told, was generally thought superior to all others. When, therefore, Moore mournfully sings—
we must not understand him literally. Many harps still thrill all through Ireland; and although the Harper's Society of Belfast was lately dissolved, yet another has been founded at Drogheda, of which the clergyman, whose guest I was for a long time, is the soul and president. His whole room was full of harps, and comprised many new ones which had been made by his directions.
- The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,
As if that soul were dead —
This Tara, which no Irishman can forbear mentioning, and whose name resounds hundreds and thousands of times every day, in the conversation and in the poems of the Irish, is a little town in the county of Meath, a few miles from Drogheda, not far from the Hill of New Grange. It was once the seat of government, or capital, and was almost in Ireland what Scone Abbey was in Scotland. There stood here a hall or palace, in which the heathen Irish kings and chieftains used to meet, probably at very different times and for very different purposes, but yet regularly every three years, to consult on matters of general importance.
Ollam Fodhla is said to have instituted this triennial national assembly two hundred years before Christ. There the bards also attended; and not only the laws enacted there, but also all important events that occurred in the country, were recorded by them in a great national register, called the Psalter of Tara. Besides, on festive occasions, the bards used there to sing, at the banquets, the history of the country and the deeds of the kings. Even the laws were written in verse, and set to music. This place is now universally called Tara; in the old Irish it was called properly Teamar, or, as my friend said, Taimara, that is, ‘the great house.’
The last national assembly held at Tara was in the year 554, A.D.30 in the reign of King Diarmid. This was at the time when Christianity and the Christian priesthood had already become powerful in Ireland. The old heathen institutions and monuments, and the heathen order of bards, who, like the Ulemas of Turkey, and like their own priests, the Druids, had formed a powerful and privileged class, declined and were thrust aside. When a criminal was once dragged from a monastery where he had taken refuge, and punished with death in Tara, the monks loudly denounced it as sacrilege, and marching in solemn procession to the palace, pronounced a curse upon its walls. From that day no king sat in Tara; and the monastery which had dared to pronounce a curse upon the most ancient and most celebrated residence of the Irish kings, has since been called ‘the Convent of the Curse.’
As the old Druidical palaces and monuments fell into decay
My Irish friend assured me, that it is a peculiarity of the old Irish language, that it has no jargon or vulgar dialect. Every one, even the lowest and most ignorant, speaks it as purely and grammatically as the best Irish scholar. With the English language this cannot be the case; because this Norman-Saxon mixture has been forced upon a number of subjugated and conquered races. The Irish, the Welsh, the Cornish, the Highlanders of Scotland, all must learn English and speak it with their own peculiar dialect. The English dialects are therefore of quite a different character from our German dialects. They are nothing more than corruptions and perversions of a language in the mouths of foreigners; whilst our German dialects are original offshoots of the same language, each of which had, and still has, its own organic life, its own literature and popular poetry, its own strength and beauty.
One of the company assured me that he possessed hundreds of beautiful old songs and poems in manuscript, which had long been hereditary in his family, and not a single one of which had ever been printed. He, like all Irishmen with whom one speaks on this subject, was of opinion that the specimen of old Irish or Ossianic poetry which Macpherson has given us, is partly a very perverted, and partly a very insufficient one, and that his poems give no correct idea of the great beauty and the extraordinary richness of the national well-springs from which they were drawn. I believe all this quite readily; nay, it is more than probable: but then the question presents itself—why does not some genuine, sincere, and truth-loving Irish Macpherson arise, to collect these beautiful emanations of Irish poesy, and translate them into one of the well-known European languages, in order in this way to save at least whatever can be saved of them in another language? The manuscripts, carefully as families preserve them as precious heir-looms, are daily becoming less numerous. The memory of the people, faithful and strong as it may be, without doubt loses every year more and more of the beautiful old verses. And besides,
The Irish continually assert that their poems are untranslatable, and that all their beauty would be destroyed by translation,—just as a beautiful flower would lose its distinctive character by being painted a different colour. It is, no doubt, difficult to transfer all the fragrance of poetry that lies in verses and words into another language; but Macpherson has shown how the world can be delighted with an imitation, which yet retains much of the original. They should be at least collected and printed in the Irish language.
Social pleasures, such as those with which my Irish friends adorned our evening, are the most delightful which a traveller can enjoy. In by-gone times they were much the custom, but have now long died away. Our pleasures of more recent invention are also here, in this part of the world, on the decrease, partly no doubt to the delight of the friends of intellectual refinement and cultivation. Thus, public balls are everyday becoming more and more out of fashion. The race balls are almost the only ones now known; and a quadrille, to the simple music of the pianoforte, satisfies all. In like manner, cards are getting more and more into disuse. No longer than ten years ago, a card-table was regularly provided for the company; but now cards are almost entirely confined to the common people. These are really remarkable, and, at least as to cards, pretty general phenomena throughout Europe. Conversation is every where taking the place of card-playing, so destructive both to mind and pleasure; and should an historian ever write the history of their extension and decline, they can never be sufficiently chastised by him.
My kind friend in Drogheda, to whom I am indebted for most of what I saw there, was the proprietor of an excellent private school, which I took an opportunity of visiting. The same friend told me of another distinguished school, which was founded at Grace Hill, not far from Drogheda, by the Moravian Brethren, and is said to be one of the largest and best establishments of the kind in Ireland. Unfortunately I had no time to devote any attention to this interesting institution; and on the following day I took my usual seat on a stage-coach—namely, an outside one, beside the coachman.
This place beside the coachman is always the most comfortable, and consequently the most sought after, of all outside places on English coaches, the coachman being a much more important personage than a passenger, and, of course, far better taken care of. Besides, it is generally provided with a cushion, while the other outside places are only bare wooden benches. Then the coachman has a leather apron, which he buckles before him as a protection against rain and cold, and usually shares with the passenger beside him. The other outside passengers may put their legs in their pockets, to keep them from the rain, if they have not brought leather aprons of their own. And then there are the four spirited and beautiful English horses always before you, the sight of which alone affords great pleasure; and, lastly, there is the coachman beside you, who knows every thing along the road, and every one who resides there, as well as his right hand, since he has probably driven backwards and forwards on this road some thousands of times. Then, should he happen to be silent, which is seldom the case, and not very communicative to the inquisitive stranger, the latter may make the coachman himself the object of his attention and observation.
The trade or art of horse-driving is, in the eyes of the English, one of the noblest of arts, and most worthy of a man,—‘a very
Since the construction of railways the famous ‘crack coaches’ have vanished. As opposition is no longer so great, nor coaches so numerous, fame is no longer to be derived from the pursuit; consequently, few lords will in future be found to rival the coachmen. The occupation is losing its honourable character, and persons of an inferior grade are devoting themselves to it: in a word, the whole art is on the decline, nay, is already fallen, and
The friends of animals, and the foes of cruelty to animals, will rejoice at the progress of railways, for to them the rapid driving of the English coachmen, who treated their horses as mere machines, was a revolting cruelty. According to one system, it was, and still is, considered most advantageous to drive the horses for five years; according to another it is deemed better to drive them for four years only; that is, those who adopt the former think that it is more to their interest to feed the horses well, and work them so little as to make them last for five years; whilst the advocates of the latter system consider it more profitable to feed a horse with a diet barely sufficient, and to subject him to such excessive work and speed that he will be knocked up after three or four years, when he is declared useless, and either killed, or harnessed to a cart.
The driver with whom I deposited myself at Drogheda, was, unfortunately, of a very taciturn and morose nature, and I was left altogether to these reflections on English coachmen, and to my own observation of the country through which we were passing. He did not even offer me (what properly and of right belongs to the box-passenger, who usually pays something more for the advantages he enjoys,) half of his apron, to protect me against the extremely temperate climate of Ireland, which alternately greeted us with rain, hail, and snow, intermixed with wind and occasional glimpses of sunshine, in order the better to dry us again. For the linen bleach-grounds, in the north of Ireland, this species of mild climate must be very welcome; but we found it not at all agreeable that our linen should be subjected to this bleaching process on our own bodies. One cannot help remarking, when he hears so much of the extraordinary mildness of the Irish climate, that to man it is of extremely little advantage. To the arbutus, the ivy, and other plants, it may be very beneficial; but man desires something more than such a mixture of sunshine and cold rain,— of a tepid and moist cold atmosphere all through the year, notwithstanding the thermometer may declare it mild and temperate. To be regularly warm once in the year, one would willingly submit to be once cold also; but to be frozen the whole
Drogheda is surrounded on every side by a group of little mountains; then follows a plain; then, again, another little group of mountains, near Newry and Dundalk, followed by another plain at Belfast, which, in its turn, is succeeded by more mountains. Thus the surface of the country alternates in Ireland. The first plain between Drogheda and Dundalk is the county of Louth, the appearance of which affords but little pleasure. It is the most extreme county of the province of Leinster, towards the north, and seems to have participated least of all in the English improvements introduced into Leinster. Every thing is here so wretchedly Irish, the cabins of the people are so miserable, the appearance of the cultivated land so wild, the inhabitants so poor and ragged, as is usually seen only in the most remote western parts of Erin. Nay, it almost seems to become worse the nearer one approaches the confines of Leinster. To this, Dundalk, a clean town, very picturesquely situated on a little bay that runs far into the land, is the only exception; but the hills and mountains which succeed it resemble in appearance true hills of misery, and reminded me of the Hungry Hills in Kerry. The aspect of these bare hills is perfectly wild and uncomfortable. Excepting the fine level road, scarce a trace of the arranging, creating hand of man is to be seen; for the cabins, which stick to the hills like swallows nests, bear little resemblance to a work of man.
I dismounted from the coach as we were going up the hills; and, while the coachman was doing something to the coach, I took a look at some of these miserable habitations. Before one of them I found an Irish tinker, employed in mending a potato-pot. A great hole had been burnt in it, so near the bottom that it could never have been entirely filled. I asked the peasant woman, who was looking on, how long the kettle had been in this unpatched broken condition. ‘Many a long year, your honour,’ replied she; ‘for the last couple of years, when I boiled the potatoes, I had always to put it a little on one side on the fire, so that the water could not reach the hole. The tinkers do not often come here; and when they do, they charge so dear for every little job, that we have been obliged to do without them.’
The tinkers in Ireland, as every where else, are a nomadic class, but here of course they are covered with rags from head to foot. ‘The tinkers are rovers,’ was always the remark of the Irish to me; ‘that is, they are constantly rambling about.’ The tinkers usually ramble about only in the fine season, and often with their families, like our gipsies. In the winter they dwell mostly in
On the other side of this miserable range of hills—the inhabitants of which are for years looking forward for the time when they can resolve to get the potato-pot, the principal and most important piece of furniture in an Irish cabin, mended—is the boundary line of the provinces of Ulster and Leinster. The coach rolled over it; and scarcely had it done so than we seemed to find ourselves in a different world. As with the stroke of a magician's wand—the expression is not a whit too strong—the filthy cabins by the wayside were changed into habitable, yes, pretty houses, painted with various colours. Regular plantations, well-cultivated fields, even little gardens, and trees planted in rows, met the eye right and left. At first I would not trust my eyes, and imagined it was all an illusion, or that the change was perhaps only transient, and confined to the property of some individual landlord favourable to improvement; but it continued to Newry, and, beyond it again, the whole way to Belfast. I now saw that quite a different state of things prevailed here, and that at the boundary the physiognomy of Ulster, the land of the Scottish colonists, the industrious Presbyterians, had actually turned itself towards me.
Of course the entire province of Ulster, or the north of Ireland, does not present this prosperous appearance; nor is it inhabited wholly by Scotch colonists and Presbyterians. On the contrary, many districts of it, as I will hereafter show, are inhabited by genuine Celtic-Irish. In those portions there are whole tracts as wild as any other part of Erin; for instance, the great mountain county of Donegal, and, generally, most of the mountainous parts of Ulster; but just here, at the boundary, the contrast between the two provinces is as striking as I have described above. It seems as if every thing Irish and miserable had been driven from Leinster to her mountainous borders; and as if Ulster, on the contrary, had pushed out her best colonists here to the feet of the mountains. With a sigh the traveller takes leave of old Ireland, and with a shout of triumph Presbyterian Ireland receives him.
I have read the narratives of many travellers who crossed the boundary line of Ulster and the southern provinces at other points, and have invariably found that, as soon as they entered Ulster, even although they were not aware of having passed the boundary, they all remark the great improvement in the appearance and cultivation of the country. It seems that this line of contrast and
The English, and especially the Scotch Presbyterians, and, above all, their hero Cromwell, resolved to clear the province of Ulster entirely of the Irish. As Cromwell saw that it was not possible completely to root out all the Irish at once, he determined to have Ulster at least for himself and his colonists, and to drive the Irish from it as far as possible into the west of Connaught. Without more ado, these poor people were forced, with bag and baggage, from their soil across the borders of Ulster; whilst the Scotch came over from the Lowlands by thousands, and took possession of the land, to which they had as little right as the pickpocket to the watch he niches. This process of banishment of the old population, and the new colonization of Ulster, must naturally have produced greater consequences on its borders; for there the expulsion was more easily effected, and there it was most important to settle new Scotch colonists. The poor expelled inhabitants
Nor was it under Cromwell alone that these expulsions, confiscations, grants, and new colonizations took place in Ulster. Long before his time, they were had recourse to in the reigns of various English kings; and were repeated also after him, by William III., after the battle of the Boyne. Ulster is that part of Ireland which inclines most to Scotland, and approaches so near it, that at all times one may pass from one country to the other in a few hours. This is the point at which Great Britain and Ireland almost touch; whilst toward the south they diverge from each other. While, therefore, for a long period there was no connexion between the history of the south of Ireland and that of the south of Great Britain, the histories of the north of Ireland, or Ulster, and of the north of Great Britain, or Scotland, were long interwoven with one another. The population of these two districts were probably, from very remote times, alternately at peace and war with each other, and both without doubt, in the very earliest times, interchanged their inhabitants. The inhabitants of Erin frequently passed over to assist the Picts against the Romans, or to seek plunder on the coasts; and in like manner the inhabitants of Albion (the old Celtic name of Scotland) often came over to Erin, either to wage war with the Irish themselves, or to assist native warriors in their contests.
From the fusion of the histories of northern Ireland and southern Scotland has arisen a confusion of their names. For instance, about the end of the third century, and also in the fourth and fifth, we find that the inhabitants of Erin, as well as those of Albion, were called ‘Scots;’ while at this time, and for many hundred years after, Ireland was called ‘Scotland’ par excellence; and Scotland seems at a much later period to have gradually claimed this name for itself. In the middle of the third century, some Irish, calling themselves Scots, crossed over to Albion or Caledonia, under the command of their king, Carbry Riada. The Scottish, that is, Irish king, founded a colony in Argyleshire, by which at last the entire country was Scotticized and called Scotland; while the successors of Carbry Riada became kings of Caledonia, and Ireland gradually lost its name of Scotland, and again assumed its ancient one of Erin, which is concealed in Hibernia, Ireland, and Irland.
Newry is a large and handsome town; that is, it is large among
This branch of industry is of a very peculiar nature. When flourishing, it is, for numerous reasons, unquestionably one of the most beneficial any country can desire. It gives food and a more healthy employment to a far greater number of hands, and is more conducive to culture and refinement than a multitude of other branches of industry. It is conducive to agriculture, because the flax can be grown in the country, and requires a very attentive cultivator. The cotton and silk trades are of no advantage to agriculture in our northern climates, as they must derive their materials from abroad. The wool trade requires only the rude care of the shepherd, and is less favourable to culture in proportion as the rank of the shepherd is inferior to that of the agriculturist. A flourishing corn trade gives employment to the rough hand of the peasant only. But linen requires a number of little manipulations, which are partly secure from the destructive influence of new machines and inventions. The first treatment to which flax is subjected, and its conversion into a material fit for spinning, will be always left to the peasants, and will scarcely ever fall into the hands of the manufacturers; while cotton is delivered to the machines just as nature supplies it. The spinning of the flax, too, remains much longer in the hands of the labourer and his family. At last, indeed, a flax-spinning machine has been invented, which is ruining the poor spinners. But flax is a much nobler production than cotton, and capable of being carried to much greater perfection. Some of the finest threads therefore can never be spun by machinery, and will always remain in the hands of men. The Brabant spinners of lace yarn fear not the most inventive heads, or the most ingenious machinery in the world. So is it also with the weaving of the linen. On account of its smoothness, its durability, and firmness, flax is capable of being worked with far greater art than cotton. What beautiful damask patterns we see made of flax and silk, but never of cotton! This gives, in the province of the linen manufacture, far more
Besides, all the manipulations to which the flax and linen are subjected, are of a clean and delicate nature: every thing aims at fineness and whiteness; and this requires a certain delicacy of hand, and refinement of mind, which is unnecessary in other employments, as the herdsman, the field-labourer, or the sailor. It therefore seems that a flourishing linen manufacture must be conducive to the extension of order, cleanliness, and intellectual refinement throughout the country. How pleasing and even poetical is the spectacle of girls employed in bleaching, at their spinning-wheels, and at their looms!
The linen manufacture is, moreover, far less pernicious in a moral point of view than many other branches of trade, which open door and gate to deceit and gambling. We need only call to mind the flour, tea, and corn trades—the adulterators of flour, and the gamblers in corn. So detested a class as the corn-dealers, the linen trade can never produce, nor such a class as the deceitful millers; for the linen lies clear before the eyes of every one, and its fineness or coarseness is capable of no adulteration, though to this there are of course a few exceptions. The rude peasant, the rough thresher, the deceitful miller, the avaricious baker, the hard-hearted corn-dealer, are moral products, which ripen on the boughs and branches of the corn trade. The provident husbandman, the girl singing at her spinning-wheel, the industrious and attentive weaver, the poetic-looking bleaching-maid, the linen-trader, honest against his will,—these are the persons to whom the salutary stream of the linen manufacture gives support, when, divided into many branches, it flows through a land. It is therefore always pleasing to the traveller to arrive in a country that produces flax, yarn, and linen, particularly when the trade is vigorous and flourishing. This is now, indeed, as we have hinted above, no longer the case in Ireland, since the establishment of rival manufactories in England. English speculators have also erected large factories in Belfast; so that at this moment nearly all branches of the manufacture of linen and yarn, even to the bleaching, are passing from the hands of the many poor people, into those of a few great capitalists.
The preparation of flax and linen in the north of Ireland has been brought over either by the Scotch settlers, or has flourished here in Ireland, and in the south of Scotland, from ancient times. It is curious that in Scotland, as in Ireland, the south-eastern parts near the sea are the principal seats of this manufacture. In Scotland, Dundee is the chief seat of this trade, as Belfast is in Ireland. Both countries produce, I believe, about equal quantities of linen, but Ireland seems to export more. It is impossible, however, to ascertain this point correctly, as the returns of the two countries are not founded on the same principles. The linen manufacture of Scotland is stated to have produced only 1,500,000 yards in the year 1707, whilst it now produces nearly twenty-five times as much. The production of this article has increased in the same ratio in Ireland since 1698, though at the expense of the woollen manufacture, which then flourished in the south of Ireland. This took place in consequence of the battle of the Boyne, which gave Ireland again into the hands of the English. The woollen was the only manufacture which had then made any progress in Ireland: it was confined to the south, and stood greatly in the way of the English woollen manufacture, which began to flourish in the reign of William III.. The English parliament therefore resolved to destroy the Irish manufacture, and passed a bill by which an exorbitant duty, equivalent to a prohibition, was imposed on its exportation; and thus this branch of industry was totally ruined. In order in some measure to remunerate the Irish for this loss, the linen manufacture was encouraged, as it was not feared by the English, who had as yet none of their own; and so long, at least, as the present union of the two countries continues, a repetition of the distinctive prohibitory regulations is not to be feared.
Nearly all the little towns through which we passed that evening were lighted with gas. It is remarkable how this important new invention has already penetrated all through this country. In Germany, only the largest towns can boast of being lighted with gas, and these too only partially. In the United Kingdom, towns lighted with gas can no longer be counted.
At last we arrived at the centre-point of all the present light of the north of Ireland, the centre of all the flax-spinning and linen-weaving,—at the great thick hanks of men and houses which Irish flax has here twisted together—at Belfast. I believed, at first, that some great festival was being celebrated; for, in whatever direction I looked, I saw the great four, five, and six-storied houses illuminated from top to bottom. There were buildings among them from which light flashed from one or two hundred windows at the same time. I had for a moment forgotten that I had
Belfast, in the year 1821, contained 37,000 inhabitants, and in 1831, 53,000. In ten years, therefore, its population increased about thirty per cent.,—an increase unequalled in Ireland. The town has also greatly increased during the last ten years, probably in the same proportions as before, and may now contain nearly 73,000 inhabitants. It is remarkable that, as well in its linen trade as its increase of population, Belfast has kept equal pace with Dundee, in Scotland. In 1821, Dundee had 30,000 inhabitants; in 1831, 45,000; and has now over 60,000. The great increase is, in both places, caused by the linen manufacture, by which numbers of the inhabitants of the open country have been induced to become inhabitants of the towns.
This vast mass of human beings, and all the houses they inhabit, live and stand one and all on the ground and soil of one proprietor, the Marquis of Donegal, to whom the entire town belongs, to whom every citizen pays tribute. Two hundred and fifty years ago, it was still very insignificant, and James I. made a present of the barony of Belfast to Sir Arthur Chichester, who had done much to promote the English interests in this country, without having the least idea of the city that would grow up on it for his posterity. From this place the Marquis of Donegal, whose family
The linen manufacture and the linen trade being the principal staple and support of Belfast, it therefore claims the greatest attention from the traveller. The linen-hall, a large quadrangular building, which was erected at the end of the last century, is the central point of this trade in Belfast. In this building, almost all the linen of the north of Ireland, destined for exportation, is collected, finished, sorted, and ‘made up and dressed’ for those countries for which it is destined. Every considerable house has here its ware-rooms and stall, and a walk through the hall is therefore very interesting and instructive.
The linen is sent from here to London, to the United States, to British America, to Spain, to the Brazils, and, lately, to China also. For each market there is not only a particular kind of linen which it prefers, but for each there is also a particular mode of packing, and a particular mode of ornamenting the outsides of the packages. London receives the plainest packages: they must have no ornament of any kind, and every decoration of the linen would only awaken in the inhabitants of that city a prejudice against it. On the contrary, they are very particular and extremely nice about the quality of the linen; and London therefore always receives the best qualities in the plainest wrappers. An extensive linen manufacturer, who had the kindness to conduct me through his ware-rooms, told me that his people had once neglected the above rule, and had sent a bale of linen to a London house, each parcel of which bore on it a little ornament; he no longer remembered what the ornament was, but it might probably have been a couple of silver threads drawn through the band that enclosed the piece, or something similar. This immediately brought down a reprimand from the London dealer, who claimed a slight deduction from the price of each piece, on the ground that he had not ventured to offer the pieces thus ornamented to any of his customers until they had been repacked in a different manner. This individual, so sensitive respecting the external decoration of the linen, had at that time a capital of not more than £500; he is now worth £300,000, principally acquired, it is probable, by his accurate knowledge of the humours of his London customers.
The most directly opposed to the London market in this respect, is that of North America, for which the packages can scarcely ever be too highly ornamented. They are tied up with ribbons
As the whole of South America is accustomed to German linen, the Belfast speculators studiously give to the fabrics intended for Santa Cruz, Rio Janeiro, Pernambuco, &c., a German dress. They imitate both the German and Swiss linens in their external ornaments. In particular, they make use of the Prussian eagle, which they place with extended wings on all pieces destined for South America, that it may pass for the linen of Silesia or Bielefeld. The South Americans will take no linen on which they do not see this eagle. One of the Belfast linen merchants has procured a very ornamented coat of arms, of an old German family, which he puts on his South American linen. Thus ‘every market has its whim,’ as my guide expressed himself.
Even to Germany, as to Hamburgh, for instance, considerable bales of linen are sent. I saw a great bale of parcels, all of which had on them a Swiss cottage, surrounded by flowers and birds, and which was destined for Hamburgh. They are sent there in order to be re-exported as genuine German manufacture. This speculation is possible, because as linen is cheaper in Belfast than in Germany, and as it pays no duty at Hamburgh, the transport costs but little; and the South Americans, when they know the linen comes from Hamburgh, and see the Swiss cottages, are satisfied that it is genuine German or Swiss linen they receive. This they do not call cheating, but speculation, or ‘giving a dress.’ By this imitation of German linen, and also by obtaining labourers from Germany, this northern linen manufacture has greatly increased and improved. From France, also, some peculiar branches of the trade have been introduced. Thus, French or Belgian workmen have settled at Belfast, and there founded the now not insignificant manufacture of cambric. Many French linens also are here imitated; for instance, the Bretagne linens, which, as well as the German, are so much admired in Spain, and go by the name of ‘Britannia.’
Among the flax-mills of Belfast, the most important are those of the Messrs. Mulholland, which are far more extensive than the largest establishments of the same kind at Dundee. At Leeds, in England, are the largest and most splendid flax-mills in the United
As the growth of flax in the north of Ireland is insufficient for the supply required by the linen manufacturers, one sees in the great factories of Belfast, flax from all countries of the world, Russia, France, Holland, and even Egypt, all of which is used for various purposes. The largest and the best is brought from Egypt; the longest is the Russian, from Riga; the finest and most valuable is the Dutch. The flax of the county of Down is the most esteemed Irish flax. In some of the mills the flax is now broken by machinery, in what are termed the ‘hackling-rooms.’ Flax-spinning by machinery was for a long time a matter of great difficulty to thinking heads, because the process to be invented for that purpose should be founded on principles quite different from those of the woollen and cotton-spinning machines, the flax consisting of a number of long smooth fibres, which could not be spun so easily as the short and closely-united threads of cotton and wool. At last it was suggested to pass the flax through warm water: by this means the fibres are divided, and, I believe, somewhat curled and tangled, so that they are easily spun into a continuous thread. By the warm water it was possible to dispense with the twisting and guiding hand of the spinning-girl; and in the great manufactories one girl can now, alas! superintend no less than fifty-four spinning-wheels. Thus all the busy, humming, little spinning-wheels are now melted into great, noisy, gigantic machines; and the many comfortable little rooms that resounded with the songs of the spinners are changed into spacious gas-lighted halls, in which the ruling voice of the inspector commands silence and requires unremitting toil.
The bleaching-girls are no better off than the spinners. Chemistry has now made such vast progress, that it supplies much quicker and more powerful means for the bleaching than the countryman
I had scarcely any idea what a manifold and various apparatus of implements, buildings, machines, and chemical preparations, are required for the perfect management of so simple a process as bleaching. The art has been brought to so high a degree of perfection in these Belfast bleaching-grounds, that a large quantity of raw linen can be completely bleached in four and twenty hours. This rapidity is indeed by no means beneficial for the linen; but, under pressing circumstances, it may be sometimes useful to trade and to humanity. If, for instance, by such fires as those of New York or Hamburgh, great quantities of linen are consumed, it is possible, by these rapid processes, to provide the poor sufferers in a very short time with linen fully bleached. By the various processes to which the linen is subjected, the most various effects and tints of colour are produced,—blue-white, pink-white, yellow-white, and chalk-white, according to the colour most in demand with their consumers. I do not know whether this has been carried to such perfection in Germany. The number and greatness of the chemical preparations I found on these bleaching-grounds amazed me. There is the ‘wheat-starch,’ made in Ireland; the ‘bleaching-liquid,’ brought from Glasgow and Belfast;
Many little contrivances are here to be seen for measuring the strength of the different bucks. These scientific contrivances are now more and more exploding the ancient ‘rule of thumb,’ that is, the old way the bleachers had of trying the strength of the bucking-washes by the tongue, and the taste. Many of the chemical instruments, and nearly all those made of glass, are procured from Germany; as is likewise the case in most of the manufactories of England where chemical apparatus is used.
Damask is now manufactured at Belfast in considerable quantities; and the inhabitants are not a little proud that their factories make damask even for the table of her most gracious Majesty.
Many other branches of trade have also been established at Belfast, especially during the last ten years. Several of these have been introduced by philanthropists, who dreaded, that, if the entire industrial activity, or the entire existence of the population, depended on the linen manufacture alone, great misery might be occasioned by adverse and unexpected changes, and who thus endeavoured to prepare and open the way for a more diversified activity. The growing necessities of the linen trade, which increased in refinement every day, also caused many other branches of industry to spring up and flourish. Thus there are here ironworks, glass manufactories, whitelead works, &c., most of which are offshoots from the great mother-factories at Glasgow. The most strange, and, at first sight, to a German, most inexplicable, of these subordinate trades, is that of the philosophical instrument makers, who are found all over England, but the true meaning of whose name I here for the first time discovered. By these are meant the makers of chemical and physical apparatus.
The most remarkable fact, however, in the history of Belfast manufacture and art, is that the first printing press was set up in this city so late as in the year 1696: printing was therefore introduced into many Russian towns much earlier than into this British city. Yet Belfast, since the introduction of printing, has, next to Dublin, produced more printed books than any other city in Ireland. Here, in 1714, was printed the first Bible in Ireland; and here the oldest Irish periodical, The Weekly Magazine, was established. Germany, therefore, has many older periodicals than Ireland. Seven newspapers are now published in Belfast, all more or less Whiggish, and, like the Roman Catholic papers of the south, not only opposed to the Tories, but also to the Church of England.
In the Irish rebellion, at the close of the last century, the Presbyterians of the north, and the Catholics of the south rose in concert, and at the same time: the former fought no less obstinately against the English troops than the latter, and they received all accounts of the progress of the French Revolution with as much exultation as the Catholics. Like the Catholics, they are favourable to republican, or, at least, to anti-aristocratic and anti-English tendencies. Nevertheless, they are no friends of the southern Catholics, and, under particular circumstances, are their bitterest enemies. O'Connell and his party have less influence in Belfast than in almost any other town in Ireland; and on all the agitation-expeditions and triumph-progresses which this great man makes through Erin's plains and towns, he carefully avoids Belfast. Of course he has some partisans here, whom he once visited; but he arranged it so that he arrived by night, in a mean-looking carriage, and went off again before the opposite party had time to concert and execute any movement against him. I was told at Belfast that the great musician Liszt had the misfortune to be taken for O'Connell in the neighbourhood of that city, and was very near undergoing something extremely disagreeable that was intended for the agitator. As Liszt approached from Newry, in a handsome chaise drawn by four horses, and it was rumoured that the carriage contained a celebrated man, some of the Presbyterian rabble imagined it was O'Connell. They stopped the carriage, cut the traces, and compelled the eminent pianist to dismount, in order that they might wreak their anger against him in Irish fashion. They merely wished to duck him in a neighbouring pond, and then to advise him to return to his carriage, and to be off to the south of Ireland. It was some time before they discovered that, instead of the well-fed, old O'Connell, a young artist had fallen into their hands. It is the peculiar and
In Ireland, however, it is precisely the reverse. So often as the foe and oppressor, England, appears, so often she is sure to find numbers ready, through party-hate, to suppress a portion of their patriotic sympathies, and even to sacrifice a portion of their own interests, to save the remainder, and to satisfy their hatred. Thus, although the Irish landlords did not like the restrictions to which, before the Union, the trade of Ireland was subjected, and by which they were sufferers, they did not raise their voice against them, because they required the support of the English kings to retain their grants of property. Thus, again, although the Irish
Thus the interests of no two Irish parties run parallel with each other; and even though both are hostile to England, they are still more hostile to one another, and make friends with England half against their own inclination. People think and feel in Ireland so differently on the most important concerns of man, religion, government, nationality, &c., and are all so differently interested in each of these matters, that it is next to impossible to propose or to carry out any general measure which is not considered as poison by some, whilst by others it is received as a healing and refreshing drink. It is proposed to provide workhouses for the destitute: the Presbyterians are well pleased, because they hope to get rid of beggars and disorder; but the Catholics, whose church encourages almsgiving, are averse to it, in order not to be doubly taxed. Is it intended to provide schools for the people: the Protestants insist on the whole Bible being used in them; the Catholics, on the contrary, will have no Bible at all, and then education and civilization suffers. Is the draining of the bogs taken into consideration, or the cultivation of the barren mountains: the farmers applaud, but the great folks do not wish to lose the pasturage for their sheep; or the landlords applaud, and then the peasantry do not like to lose their turf. Is it intended to lighten the pressure of tithes on the farmers: the Established Church shakes her head, and the Catholic chapels nod encouragement. If people in the west rejoice that something is doing for the Celtic language and literature, and that a professorship of Celtic literature has been lately erected in the university of Dublin, it is made a subject for derision in the east; and the Union, to maintain which one party would die, another would give their lives to destroy. When these differences will cease, and all these prejudices be smoothed down, no one can foresee. At all events, the commencement which has been made proceeds at so slow a rate, that one cannot venture to calculate the distance of the goal. The Celts are but slowly disappearing before the advance of the Saxons, and a difference of language will long exist. The Catholics have still so
- When will this end, ye Powers of God?
She weeping asks for ever;
But only hears, from out that flood,
The demon answer,—‘Never!’
The religious dissensions and differences of Ireland claim the traveller's attention, especially at Belfast, for here he enters the central point of a new branch, not only of manufactures, but also of religion, namely, the Presbyterian. The three religions of Ireland, the Presbyterian, the Episcopalian, and the Roman Catholic, correspond with the three races which inhabit it,—with the descendants of the original Irish, and of the earliest English colonists, who are all Catholics; with those of the later English immigrants, who are Protestants; and with the Scottish, who profess Presbyterianism. The principal seat of the Episcopalians is undoubtedly Dublin, where they are most powerful by means of the university; but they are scattered every where through the land, as its lords and masters. The stronghold of the Presbyterians is Belfast, where their ‘Moderator,’ the head of their church, resides, and their general assembly is held. They compose the greater part of the population in the northern districts of Ireland; while in the south the Presbyterians are but few, as in Dublin, Dungannon, &c. The Catholics have no such central city, yet there are genuine Catholic towns, as Cork, Galway, Drogheda, &c. They form every where the principal mass of the population. In the north alone, they have been dislodged en masse by the Presbyterians, who have taken their places.
The Presbyterians in Ireland form a separate church of their own, organized on the model of that of Scotland, and called the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, or Ulster, which is its peculiar province. Its foundation dates from the year 1642, and it has therefore existed just 200 years. At different times, as in the Kirk of Scotland, various secessions and reunions have taken place in the bosom of this Irish Presbyterian Church. These schisms were principally caused by the general synods, which had retained the strict orthodoxy of Calvin, Knox, and the Scotch reformers
As the subscription of the Westminster Confession of Faith produced the Nonsubscribers, so the circumstance that the various presbyteries did not insist upon perfectly unconditional and unqualified subscription,—that some did not desire any subscription at all,—that others permitted an addition like this: ‘We subscribe the Westminster Confession of Faith in so far as it is founded
On the whole, there are now about four hundred and ninety Presbyterian congregations in Ireland, which are divided into about forty presbyteries. The whole Presbyterian population, in the year 1834, amounted to 642,000 souls; but now it is supposed to far exceed 800,000. The Unitarians have forty congregations, or societies, consisting of 42,000 souls.
The province of Ulster had, in 1831, a population of 2,386,000, and it now probably amounts to 2,500,000: nearly the third part, therefore, is Presbyterian. In Belfast, the proportion of the Presbyterians to other religious communities is computed as follows:—
The most remarkable feature in the spirit of the Presbyterian Church is its missionary and proselytising zeal, which has increased greatly in influence and extent since the reunion of the two great Presbyterian bodies, in 1840. First, there is a foreign mission, for India and other foreign countries; then, since 1841, a Jewish mission, for the conversion of the Jews, which, in conjunction with similar societies in Glasgow and Edinburgh, has sent missionaries to Pesth and Jassy, ‘to labour among the seed of Abraham for the everlasting gospel.’ And, finally, there is also a home mission, which is the most interesting of all. This home mission has three objects: first, to promote the building of churches in the north of favoured Ulster; second, to reanimate declining congregations, and to establish new ones in the south and west of Ireland; and, thirdly, to instruct, in the knowledge of the Gospel, through the medium of their own tongue, those who speak the Irish language only.
As these subjects are all new, highly interesting, and little known to us, I will here give a short account of the home mission from MacCombe's Christian Remembrancer for 1842, and will avail
‘In Cork, Clonmel, Athlone, Galway, Carlow, and other important posts, where very promising congregations now exist, this object has been already effected. We have every reason to believe, that, by the establishment of these congregations in the midst of a benighted land, a vast deal of good has been already done; not only because many precious souls will now be thereby trained and fitted for immortal glory and happiness, but particularly
‘The last, and perhaps the most important, object of the exertions of the home mission, concerns the bestowing the knowledge of the gospel on the Irish-speaking population of our island, almost a third of the entire population. And yet for such a mass of immortal souls not the least sympathy has hitherto been shown, even by the Protestant church. Most of them are totally ignorant of the English language, and no attempt has been made to approach them by another medium. The Presbyterian church at last has lately resolved to give the gospel to these people in their own language, and for this object it employs two means. The first is, preaching in the Irish tongue. This was long a pious wish in our country. It is now at last in our power to apply this means. During the past year (1841) the Rev. Henry MacManus, who, with great fluency and strength, can address his countrymen in the language they love, has travelled about every where, preaching the word. He has already visited the towns of Galway, Sligo, Clifden, Westport, Drumcornwick, Brickhill, Boyle, and other places in the west. He has also travelled through a great part of the northwest. The reception he almost every where met with was very favourable, and the readiness and the desire of the people to hear him was so great, that one may entertain the hope that the time of grace for our country, even the set time, is at last arrived. The second means is, the erection of Irish schools. There are about three millions of Irish who speak the Irish language, and love it as their mother tongue. In the year 1818, a Bible was printed, in the Irish language and character, by the British and Foreign Bible Society; and the work of circulating the Scriptures among the Irish-speaking population then begun, has now ripened into
‘This entire system of Irish teaching was established by the Presbyterian church in the beginning of 1835. In the first year, 30 schools were founded; since then they have gone on increasing in number, and in this present 1842 they amount to 223. The scholars last year examined in these schools by the inspectors, amounted to 5407, all Roman Catholics, who learned to read the Holy Scriptures in Irish, and to translate them into English. Not one of these scholars was younger than fifteen, and many hundreds were over fifty and seventy years of age. Many of the teachers have even renounced the errors of Popery, and the knowledge of the Light is making rapid progress among them all. The field of our activity is wide, the necessity great, and the machinery is good. What might not a fully united, zealous, and vigorous Presbyterian church accomplish, if she called forth all the powers that stand at her command!’
So much for the remarkable activity of the Presbyterian church of Ireland, which calls itself pre-eminently a missionary and an apostolic church.
The Irish Sunday-schools, which differ from those above described, by being open merely on Sunday, and conducted by unpaid teachers, mostly originate from this Presbyterian church, as the following interesting view of the number of Sunday-schools in the
| Schools | Pupils | Unpaid teachers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| In Ulster: 2,010 | with 169,377 | and 15,891 | |
| In Leinster: 455 | with 33,540 | and 2,969 | |
| In Munster: 394 | with 19,094 | and 2,045 | |
| In Connaught: 169 | with 8,668 | and 763 | |
| In all Ireland | 3,028 | with 230,679 | and 21,668 |
Here again it is apparent how greatly education has been neglected in the west of Ireland, since in Ulster there are single counties in which the Sunday-schools contain from four to five times as many pupils and teachers as the whole five counties of Connaught put together.
The Presbyterians of the north are as unwearied in their exertions in the field of scientific inquiry as in that of religious enlightenment. The whole north of Ireland, ‘the favoured Ulster,’ in this respect, as far out-shines the rest of Ireland, as Scotland does the rest of Great Britain; and just as the Scotch are superior to the English in education and enlightenment, so are the people of Ulster to the rest of the Irish. Belfast is at once the Edinburgh and Glasgow of Ireland, on a smaller scale. Like Edinburgh, it is the seat of many learned and scientific societies: of horticultural, agricultural, statistical, literary, and historical societies, of a mechanics' institute, a society of natural history, and, lastly, of several musical societies. I visited the institutions and collections of some of these societies.
The society of natural history possesses a little museum, in a handsome and elegant building. This is one of the numerous museums which have of late years been established in all the towns of England; but, upon the whole, the museums of our middle-class German towns are not only older, but richer, and in better order than these British provincial museums. The museum of Belfast contains many interesting Irish antiquities, found in the neighbourhood, and also curiosities of natural history; but here, to his disappointment, the traveller seeks in vain for what, above all things, he has the best right to expect,—I mean a complete, well-arranged, satisfactory, and instructive collection of every thing illustrative of the Giant's Causeway, and, in general, of all the interesting volcanic formations of the north of Ireland. Every provincial museum has no doubt its particular function, since each is generally directed to the investigation of some one important department of natural history. Belfast this great city so
Some specimens of those coasts are, of course, found in the Belfast museum; but when I think how nobly illustrative many of our German provincial museums are of the geological structure of their neighbourhoods, as the Prague museum of the formation of Bohemia, and the wonderfully arranged collections in Graz illustrative of the structure of the Alps, with regret I must say that in this respect Belfast is far behind them. In vain the traveller inquires after a complete collection of all the volcanic masses of which the northern coast consists,—in vain, for an arrangement of them, according to the order in which nature has disposed them, or for a model of the Giant's Causeway in wood, or for a clear, accurate model in plaster, or any other material, of the entire northern coast,—all of which it is a disgrace to Belfast not to possess. The traveller, going to visit this wonder of nature with his head full of expectation, and returning from it with his head full of speculations, finds, alas! nothing, or at least very little, of all these things here.
In general the stranger finds more to interest him in the private than in the public collections of the English. The former are usually much richer, and kept in the most admirable order; whilst the latter seem to be only in the course of formation. Of the private collections of pictures, compared to the public, this is very different; and the public libraries, which form the oldest of all classes of collections in England, are of course an exception; but the finest and best collections of natural history and antiquities are generally those of private persons, who zealously devote themselves to some particular branch. In Belfast, there are some private collections unique in their kind, such as Dr. Drummond's wonderful collection of sea plants, and Dr. Thompson's complete and elegantly arranged collection of shells.
The Botanic Garden of Belfast was laid out in 1830, and a great many English botanic gardens have been established within the last twenty years. I was invariably surprised by the extreme youth of all these scientific institutions in England, which has still to accomplish for its remote districts what we have long since done in Germany. The Belfast Botanic Garden is, next to that of Dublin, the finest in Ireland, and as excellent as any in England. It has some advantages over that of Dublin; for although
Of musical societies, there are now four in Belfast,—the Anacreontic, the Choral, the Harmonic, and the Society of Harpers, all of which give frequent musical festivals, concerts, and rehearsals. Thalberg, Liszt, and other great musicians, have always visited Belfast, whilst they have neglected Limerick, Cork, and other towns of the south. I mention this, because it is well known that other manufacturing towns, as Manchester and Birmingham, are famous for their musical taste, and their numerous musical societies and festivals; whilst Liverpool, and other trading towns, are as inferior to them in this respect, as Edinburgh is to the manufacturing Glasgow; and because the question may be raised,
The Harpers' Society is the oldest musical society in Ireland. It was founded and supported in a singular manner, at the suggestion of some Irish patriots residing in the East Indies, who were probably more affected by the beautiful Irish melodies, when they sang them among themselves, far from their native land, and who contributed funds for the instruction of some blind boys as harpers at Belfast, and to establish concerts there on this old national instrument. Perhaps a few patriotic Irishmen, in the East Indies or China, will some day, mindful of the wonders of their fatherland, send money to Belfast for the formation of a geological museum, to illustrate the Giant's Causeway, and every thing connected with it.
I have already mentioned the Harpers' Society at Drogheda. In the last century there were no such societies in Ireland; and from this one might suppose that harp-playing was now again beginning to flourish, as in the time of the bards of old. But in this we would perhaps deceive ourselves as much, as if from the present schools, professorships, and other exertions for the Irish, Gaelic, and Welsh languages, we were to expect their revival. Sympathies and exertions like these are wont to arise only when an art or science is on the decline; and are often a sign less of its vigour than of its death, like the last flaring-up of an expiring flame. In respect to language, there is no doubt of this. In respect to the harp we cannot decide. Yet Dr. Bunting, who has published a collection of national Irish melodies and a dissertation on Irish music, assures us, that, admirably as some living harpers still play the Irish compositions on the harp, not one of them comes near to those who were present at the great musical meeting at Belfast, in the year 1792, and the most distinguished of whom were, Denis Hempson, Arthur O'Neill, Charles Fanning, and seven others. So much is certain, that the Belfast Harp Society has not fulfilled the expectations it excited, and that it is now dissolved.
Among the other public institutions of Belfast, as in all towns of Ireland, and in all manufacturing towns of England, the fever hospital claims the attention of the traveller. The excessively crowded dwellings of the labouring classes, and the increase of wretchedness and poverty, augment the dangers arising from contagious fever to an extraordinary degree, and render the question of fever hospitals, their better arrangement, and their extension, one of pressing importance to the municipal authorities and the
To the report for last year is appended a table, showing the occupations of the patients, which gives an idea of what classes suffer most from fever. This table will not be completely available until it is accompanied by a statement of the number of persons in the various trades and callings in Belfast. Among 2056 patients, 704, or more than one-third, were millworkers and weavers. There were but six bleachers, although the number of this class in Belfast undoubtedly bears a far greater proportion to the entire population. 423, or more than a fifth part of these patients, were of the class of servants. It is also remarkable that females appear more liable to fever than males. In almost every year there were in the hospital from ten to twenty per cent, more women than men. Yet the fever is not so violent and fatal to the former as to the latter; for nearly all the tables show that the
After I had considered from what side the wind blew, had looked to see whether the coachman had an ‘apron’ or not, allowed an immoderately stout dame, a rarity in Ireland, to mount the coach, in order to avoid being her neighbour,—in short, after I had made a multitude of inquiries and reflections, which a prudent traveller should not neglect when looking for a seat on the outside of an English stage-coach in bad weather,—after doing all this, I fixed myself in the chosen place to travel to Carrickfergus. A fearful storm was blowing from the north, and rain and hail, lashed by the tempest, alternately poured down on us. It was the first day that I ever heard the Irish allow that the weather was bad. Every where on the road the people added to their good-morrow,—‘A wild day to-day!’ Inside our coach, we had as ballast only four young ladies, who filled indeed the narrow space allowed for inside passengers in English stage-coaches, but who appeared to be no great ballast to enable us to resist the fury of the storm, which we on the top, who were most exposed to it, dreaded every moment would upset the coach; and therefore, with our heads wrapped up in our cloaks, we huddled close together, in order to afford the less resistance to the force of the wind. The autumn leaves flew like snow in the blast; the trees on the shore bowed like twigs before the storm; the waves dashed against the
The road runs first along the shore of Lough Belfast. The Irish sometimes call even those waters loughs which are not completely surrounded by land, but have an out-let into the sea; particularly those which, like Lough Foyle, have but a narrow opening, and which we would call Haffs. Lough Belfast is, however, an instance of a lough with an extraordinarily large opening. As the southern coast of Ireland has its so-called harbours, the western its bays, the eastern neither bays nor harbours, at least very few—so has the northern its loughs, such as Lough Belfast, Lough Strangford, Lough Larne, Lough Foyle, &c. Lough Belfast is also called Lough Carrickfergus, after the town of the same name, which, as that name shows, is one of the oldest in Ireland. Long before an Englishman set foot on Ireland's soil, and before the Scotch had yet laid a stone of Belfast, Carrickfergus was a place of note. In Ireland there are many examples of the old Irish towns being abandoned and allowed to go to ruin by the English and Scotch, and of new ones being built in their neighbourhood.
On the whole way from Belfast to Carrickfergus garden follows garden, and country seat follows country seat; but to these tiny productions of man the storm and the surf did not add beauty, as they did to those vast works of the giants to which we were hastening; and as the hail obliged us to keep our eyes closed, all the capital spun out of flax, and laid out in flowers, shrubberies, cottages, and parks, did not bring us the least tribute of enjoyment.
Near Carrickfergus, a large old castle runs out into the sea: it is fortified even now, and is garrisoned by two companies of soldiers. Its situation is very picturesque, and the views of the opposite coast, the town of Bangor, the lough, and the wide sea, must be charming, when Boreas does not interpose a screen between the eye and the prospect. The walls of the castle are at
The Belfast stage-coach goes no farther than Carrickfergus. From thence to the next little village, Larne, a two-horse car conveys the traveller, who, on his arrival there must himself provide his own conveyance, or join her Majesty's letter-bag, which is carried northwards by a one-horsed car. The little Lough Larne, which is sheltered on every side by hills, and has but a very narrow mouth, was studded with small barks, probably fishing boats, which had come in here for shelter. Flocks of sea-birds, which also seemed to dread sea-sickness, were fluttering around the boats.
Larne is a quiet little town, like many in the north of Ireland. From Larne the coast begins to assume its picturesque and wild volcanic character, and here I joined the aforesaid leather letterbag. ‘Her Majesty's Mail’ is here a little low two-wheeled car, of the kind I have already described. The passenger sits on one side, the driver on the other. The horse gets forward as well as he can, and the equipage follows after him. I could not help contrasting this with the majestic four-horsed mails in England.
All the land lying between the sea, Lough Neagh, Lough Belfast, and the river Bann, is called the county of Antrim. This entire tract, so rich in wonders, is covered with a great stratum of limestone. Over this limestone, volcanic masses, probably thrown up from beneath, have been deposited, and have disturbed the arrangement and composition of the original stratum, which in some places is even entirely removed, and in others depressed, or at least covered or shattered in pieces, and thrown aside. This limestone, or hard chalk, is snow-white wherever it is disclosed to the eye; the volcanic masses are chiefly basalt, and, where it is uncovered, is dark-coloured and black. The circumference of this district of limestone and basalt is about one hundred and twenty miles; and the stretch of coast in which the mixture of these formations is apparent, from Lough Belfast to Lough Foyle, is about
Sometimes the chalk-mass is deposited in level strata, and over it is formed the basalt in strata equally regular. In many places, the limestone has remained quite untouched by the basalt, and its white cliffs project defyingly into the sea, as they once stood amid the glowing volcanic liquids. In other places they disappear beneath the surface of the sea, as if the basalt had pressed them down. This basalt appears partly in columns, and partly in shapeless masses. It often forms long rows of thick high columns, arranged like organ pipes, or groves of trees, along the coast; it frequently yawns into caverns, stops short in rugged points, springs into the sea with bold overhanging cliffs, or breaks up into little dismembered rocks and pointed islands. In other places, again, the limestone and the basalt seem to have struggled violently with one another for the mastery, while their colours and materials alternate in short patches.
The effects of all these operations and occurrences are, of course, only visible on the coast, and at those spots where the rocks are not covered with earth and vegetation, as they mostly are. Here and there the land rises into some lofty points, which, however, do not exceed 2000 feet; and here and there the masses sink, forming valleys which open out on the sea. Along the sides of these valleys, the basalt and limestone rocks stand in rugged rows, as if they were caused by great convulsions and yawnings of the earth. The good cultivation of these valleys, the black basaltrocks along their sides, the waterfalls which dash down from the precipices, the wide sea at their entrances,—all this must make some of them delightful places of residence. The coast itself, except at the mouths of these valleys, is lined with rugged cliffs. Many headlands and summits rise to a height of from 1000 to 1200 feet, but their usual height is from 600 to 1000.
The nearest of these valleys, after passing Larne, is Glenarm, and then the valleys of Glenariff and Cushendun. A narrow and steep way, called ‘the Path,’ formerly led the traveller along this coast. Very lately, a beautiful road, called the ‘Antrim Coast Road,’ has been substituted for this path, which worked its way, as well as it could unaided by art, over the basaltic and limestone rocks. After the description I have given of this coast, it may be concluded that the formation of a perfectly level road was here an undertaking of no ordinary difficulty. When one sees the work itself, he must in fact confess that neither powder nor pickaxe
Such, then, was the coast and the coast road along which our letter-bag, and those who accompanied it, rolled away through the storm. Near Larne, the long, little peninsula, called Island Magee, which bends around Lough Larne, nearly touches the coast with its point. This peninsula is also of volcanic formation,—a dam built of columns of basalt. Along its entire eastern coast, column-like basalt cliffs are ranged, for the length of four or five miles, and are known by the name of The Gobbins. This basaltic peninsula, which is from a mile to a mile and a half wide, and six or seven miles long, is the true Giant's Causeway of this coast: the so-called Giant's Causeway is mere child's play compared to it. But as the peninsula is covered with vegetation on the upper surface, the pavement of columnar basalt is not visible, and the smaller work has therefore borne off the greater name.
The next interesting point is Ballygally Head, which projects majestically and boldly into the sea, and is formed of a countless number of vast, rudely-formed basalt columns. After the Gobbins, it is the second place where the columns are exposed to the light of day. The road leads round the principal mass of the headland, and the most extreme and somewhat lower point is alone cut off. As the greater portion of the road runs along the edge of the water, the most interesting sights were every where presented by the fury of the storm, that seemed to turn up the
As we approached the entrance of the valley of Glenarm, I remarked a strange column of smoke, that seemed to rise from the topmost edge of the rocks. As I could neither suppose a dwelling nor so great a turf-fire here, I asked the driver what this smoke came from. ‘It is not smoke, your honour,’ he replied, ‘but the water of a waterfall, which is carried up into the air by the storm.’ At first I could not bring myself to believe this; but I afterwards convinced myself that the phenomenon of a waterfall being carried up into the air by a strong north wind, was not unusual on this coast. At one place I saw, on the highest edge of the cliff, three similar columns of water-dust in a row together. They were driven to and fro by the wind: now they rose higher, now lower; but never ceased for an instant, like fountains driven by some constantly working machinery. The edge of the rocks is here and there very steep, and at the same time full of narrow clefts in the basalt. In these clefts, the waterfalls, in calm weather, pursue their picturesque course in quite a natural manner; but when the north wind rages against the lofty cliffs, it rushes up with peculiar violence through the crevices, as through pipes in which the currents of air are compressed, and carries up with it the water it meets, like dust into the air.
I afterwards discovered similar fountains of water-dust on the low coasts. These are almost still more remarkable. Next day, I saw them near the Giant's Causeway, a few hundred paces from the road. As I was driving over a low grassy headland, and did not perceive that the sea was behind it, they looked like fountains rising from the ground, in the midst of meadows. They swayed to and fro in the wind like the others, and rising to a height of
The white chalky rocks of the coast are full of flint-stones, which are not scattered irregularly through them, but sprinkled or deposited in long horizontal strata, of two or three feet in thickness. These flints often run in long stripes through the white rocks. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood dig them out, and make them an article of trade. Near Glenarm, I saw whole walls of flint-stones, great and small, waiting to be shipped. Not only do these flint-sprinkled chalk-rocks break up into boulderstones, but also the black basalt masses that lie above them. Thus the recesses of the coast, and the little valleys, are all full of black and white blocks of stone, like Jacob's black and white herds. These black and white stones are here mingled every where. The road is mended with them; and all the walls of the gardens, houses, and farm-yards are also built of both kinds mixed.
After passing Ballygally Head, we came to other steep, rugged cliffs and masses of rock, called the Sallagh-braes, where the white chalk foundation, and the black basalt cap upon it, are plainly seen. A great mass of basalt has been severed from the rest, and lies, like a floundering whale, in the midst of the breakers, near the coast. The Irish call it Knockdhu, or the black rock. Further out in the sea, about four miles from the shore, lie some other rocks, called The Maidens, on two of which lighthouses have been erected. Still further off, one of the south-western headlands of Scotland is seen raising its head above the waves. It is the Mull of Cantire, with the little isle of Sanda.
The most beautiful point of the coast is Glenarm, which, on account of the many charms assembled here, is one of the most delightful spots in Ireland. The castle, which is the residence of the Antrim family, as well as the little town near it, and the wide valley behind it, bears the martial name of Glenarm, or the Vale
The period at which the Antrim family came over is no longer accurately known; but their present extensive possessions, and the title of Earls of Antrim, were granted them in 1630 by Charles I. Their family name is M'Donnell. To his ‘beloved cousin, Randall M'Donnell,’ Charles I., on the 8th of September, 1630, granted the entire north-western part of the county of Antrim, called the Route, or Root, together with that called the Glyns, the entire island of Rathlin, and the piece of ground called ‘the Crags,’ as well as the Castle of Dunluce, to be held by knight's service, and to yield for it, on the day of the birth of St. John the Baptist, a cast32 of good falcons to the Viceroy of Ireland. Old feudal customs like these are in full force in England a the present day: thus the Duke of Wellington is obliged to make a yearly feudal present to the Queen for his lands, which he would lose if he neglected to do so.
The family of M'Donnell is spread all over the county of Antrim, and I everywhere met persons of the name, who claimed kindred with the Antrim family. At the other side of the water, in the near part of Scotland, the M'Donnells are equally numerous. The Scottish Mac Donnells, and the Irish M'Donnells,
How high these old Irish and Scotch families carry their genealogical pretensions I had, here in the county of Antrim, an opportunity of again convincing myself; for here I was allowed to inspect the genealogical tree of the celebrated family of the O'Nialls. The O'Nialls are a princely family, were kings of Ulster, and also frequently ‘Monarchs of Ireland,’ and scions of the most noble house of Heremon. At the top of their genealogical tree stands Adam! This is tolerably modest and unpretending; for, as I have said, many Irish and Scotch families go farther back than Adam: besides, Adam is a very ignoble progenitor, since all vulgar, as well as noble blood, has proceeded from him. After him came many other Bible names. Then came ‘Feninsa, King of Scythia, founder of the universal schools of the Plain Magh Scanair,’ and ‘Heber Glemsiony, Lord of Gothia.’ Then followed many insignificant names, down to Dea, who carried a colony from Scythia to Gallicia in Spain, 1400 years before Christ. After Dea came Bratha, Breogan, Bilius, and Milesius, mere Spanish kings; and at last Heremon, first monarch of Erin. The length of the reigns of most of the kings was also given. Feidtroth, in the third year of whose reign the Saviour was born, came next; and from him the O'Nialls, who still reside in the neighbourhood of Lough Neagh, in the north of Ireland, as lords and earls, trace their descent. This genealogy was in manuscript, like most other copies which are to be found in the bands of those who claim kindred with the head of the clan. They are very seldom printed. The histories of Ireland, given to the light of day by the press, though they are fanciful enough, do not venture on such high flights. Even those Irish who write histories of their fatherland for publication find it often very difficult to relinquish their belief in those manuscripts, and to reject them altogether as unfounded inventions; whilst those who write and read, but do not print, cling with body and soul to those manuscript histories.
The next day I continued my journey, again joining her Majesty's one-horsed ‘letter-bag.’ It was another ‘wild day,’ for the north wind still blew with equal fury, and our road ran along the coast, as on the day before. To-day we passed Garron Point, and entered the valley of Glenariff. The views on this extent of coast were almost still more beautiful and grand than those we had already seen. Garron Point is a rugged, high point of land, lying there like a footstool before a throne: the road leads over the ridge of land, between the point and the still higher cliffs of the coast. On the projecting summit of the rock lives an English revenue officer, with his people; for all this coast in particular is strongly furnished with coast-guards, because an extensive contraband trade was carried on here by little smuggling vessels, which can easily get between the rocks, and, on account of the wildness of the country, readily transport their goods into the interior. These coast-guards are a kind of amphibia—a kind of middle class between soldiers and sailors; for though their dress is like that of sailors, yet it has also something military in it. Their duty is, from their high station on the rock, to observe every vessel on the sea, to understand how to form a right judgment of them, to guess their destination and designs from their movements and outward appearances; and to oppose the smugglers, as well on land by military operations, as on sea by seamanship.
The valley of Glenariff, which means the Valley of the Caves, is still wider than that of Glenarm. Many other little valleys lie in the neighbourhood, such as Cushendall34 and Cushendun, and all these taken together bear, in Ireland, the name of ‘the Glens,’ or ‘the Glynns.’ These glens, even at the present day, form in, many respects a separate little province in themselves. They lie close together, and being surrounded by high mountains on both sides, have still preserved the old Irish race and language, while to the right and left both have been completely lost by the influence of English and Scotch settlers. ‘In the Glens, the people still speak Irish,’ I was every where assured; and even the people whom I met on the road understood Irish as well as English,—a circumstance I did not expect here. On the entire east coast of Ireland, those glens, and the country round Drogheda, are, as far as my experience went, the principal and almost the only points where the Irish language still exists. In those glens also, one of the last wolves, some say the last,—in opposition to the Kerry people, whose opinion we have already given,—is affirmed to have been shot in the year 1712.
On the road to Glenariff, and in the valley itself, the mountains and cliffs are partially adorned with a beautiful and natural wood: here are seen hollies, hazels, and whitethorns of great
Those caves are found in a conglomerate of clay and an immense multitude of flints, exactly like the conglomerate met with at the foot of the Erzgebirge in Saxony, and that is also visible at the Tharander Grund, near Dresden. On the far-projecting summit of this conglomerate mass lies Castle Carey. The way here passes under the rock, which was cut through by the road-makers, and forms an arch over the road. Beyond the arch, under the ruins of the castle, is seen the broad, handsome, arched opening of another cave, from which some sheep, which had there sought shelter from the violence of the storm, were looking out. This entrance, which is in a perfectly perpendicular cliff, is quite inaccessible; but it has another connexion with the external world by a long passage which goes through the rock. The sheep walk through this long passage, and then rest in the wide convenient cave, over the precipice. In winter, too, they are penned in there by the shepherds.
All the basalt mountains of Antrim are exclusively used for the pasturage of sheep; whilst the neighbouring county of Down is famed throughout Ireland for horses. The latter require the attendance and care of men; but all that is required by the sheep is easily performed by girls; and, in fact, the shepherdesses of Antrim are as much celebrated as their sheep. A verse therefore has been made in allusion to these circumstances, which contains a rhyme very characteristic of Irish pronunciation:
- The county of Down for men and horses,
The county of Antrim for lambs and lasses.
As in Nanny Murray I beheld, alive and bodily before me, just such a personage as one finds depicted in Sir Walter Scott's novels, so in the valleys of the district of the Glynns I saw such rugged, rocky vales, as are represented by those painters and engravers, who endeavour to restore to us, with pencil and graver, the spirit-like forms of Ossian's poetry. Those Glynns are said to be, even now, full of songs and traditions, which glorify the deeds of Fingal and Ossian. At Cushendall, there was shown, until lately, the grave of Dallas, a Scottish hero, who is said to have been slain here by the hand of Ossian; and the people assured me that those Glynns, and the entire coast of Antrim, was the true and principal theatre of the deeds of both those heroes.
Even the Giant's Causeway itself is connected with Fingal; for he, according to the popular tradition, was the giant who built this road for himself. The Irish historians inform us that Fingal, as Macpherson, and, after him, all the rest of Europe, calls him—or Finn-Mac-Cumhal, as the historians call him,—or Finn-Mac-Cul, as the name is pronounced in Ireland,—was the son-in-law of the Irish king Cormac, who reigned in the middle of the third century after Christ, and was the introducer of the famous Fianna Eirinn (the ancient national guards of Erin). He filled all the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland with the fame of his exploits; left to his successors, Ossian and Oscar, the gifts of song and heroism; and fell by the lance of an assassin in the year 273. Even to this day those parts of Scotland and Ireland abound with traditions respecting Ossian and Fin-Mac-Cul, and many natural phenomena are ascribed to those heroes and called by their names. Thus there is, in the north of Ireland, an Ossian's Mountain (Mount Alt-Ossoin,) and a great number of caves, lakes, and mountains, the names of which are compounded with Finn. In the county of Meath is shown a ‘Finn's Rock,’ under the shade of which Fingal once rested, after the chase, with his trusty wolf-hound Brann; also on Shanthamon mountain are his five fingers, in the shape of five great stones
At nightfall we arrived at Cushendall, where we found a woman by a turf fire, who possessed in a high degree the ‘gift of the gab,’—plainly one of those gifts which, when the different qualities of mind fell down from heaven on the British islands, flew to the west side of St. George's Channel—none of it fell on the east. To the turf fire, which she blew for me, and at which I warmed my frozen feet—to the glass of whisky which she handed me, and which tasted of turf, like every thing else in Ireland—and to the oat-cake which she gave me with it, she added such a commentary of clack as I never before heard on matters so insignificant. Excellent as had been the entertainment provided for our minds on this journey along the coast, that for our bodies was proportionably bad; for, except one glass of whisky, one little bit of oat-cake, and a couple of gleaming sods of turf, no comfort fell to my lot on this journey. Add to this, the open car, the rain, the storm, and the clack of the woman with the ‘gift of the gab,’ and it will be readily imagined that it sometimes required all the beauty of the coast of Antrim to compensate for these unpleasant drawbacks. The driver had this advantage, that he had only to travel one stage, and then found another to take his place. As I could not bring myself to stop, I travelled on, exposed to the weather. ‘Indeed it is wonderful, sir, that you travel in such a night,’ said she with the ‘gift of the gab,’ as I was again making myself comfortable on the new car, with the aid of some fresh straw, while she lighted me with the lantern, and wished to give me another glass of whisky before starting, which I could not bring myself to touch on account of the repulsive taste of turf. However, people generally say that this turfy taste, which is at first so repulsive to the stranger, is particularly pleasing when ho has once become accustomed to it; and I know many national dishes which have a flavour extremely disagreeable to those unaccustomed to them, but with which they afterwards become completely enamoured. Thus there may be also national weaknesses and failings, which people in time take for virtues.
‘We are nearly alone, your honour!’ remarked my new driver, as we turned landwards into the dark valley beyond Cushendall; for at Cushendall the road to the Giant's Causeway quits the coast, leaving to the right the north-eastern mountains and headlands of Antrim. ‘Indeed, Paddy,’ I replied, ‘I think we are quite alone: perhaps you see some forms of Fingal's heroes, or
The night was pitch dark, and if the heroes of Ossian were but as luminous as decaying wood, we must now have seen them the more plainly, as the rain and hail had ceased, and only a dry storm swept over the rocks. When we came up from the valley on to the hills, our prospect became pretty extensive, and we recognised in the darkness five gleaming lights. One shone from a lighthouse on the opposite coast of Scotland, two from lighthouses near the entrance of Lough Foyle, and two others behind us, from ‘The Maidens’ before described. The two last-mentioned pairs were twenty or twenty-three miles distant, and yet we saw them shimmering through the darkness as plain as stars, which were entirely wanting in our heaven. With what joy must not sailors, returning from America, behold these lights, and what a pleasing feeling of security must they not produce in them whilst engaged in their perilous voyages. ‘Particularly, your honour,’ Paddy put in his word, ‘if they could persuade themselves that in each of those towers there lived such a brave maiden as now lies buried some weeks on the Maiden Rocks. Has your honour heard of this brave girl of the Maiden Rocks, who rescued a great part of a ship's crew?’
I had, in fact, not heard it, although the story was well known through the medium of the newspapers. ‘Then you must listen to me, for it is a true story. Near those two lights which stand on two rocks, there are some other reefs, at the distance of about half a mile. A few years ago a ship ran on those reefs in a dark foggy night, when they could not see a cable's length from them. As the weather was uncommonly stormy, both ship and crew were soon reduced to a very deplorable condition, and in this state they were perceived next morning from one of the lighthouses, in which an old man and his daughter performed the duty. The poor sailors shouted for help, and made signals for assistance. But the old man shuddered at the idea of rowing through those raging waves, in a frail boat, to the opposite rocks, and he hesitated to embark in the dangerous attempt. His young daughter, however, a girl not quite twenty years old, moved by the cry of distress
At nine o'clock in the evening we arrived, on the wings of the wind, at Ballycastle. This little port lies near the sea, exactly opposite the well-known island of Rathlin. Here ends the mountainous district of the Glens or Glynns, and now begins a waving, high plain, which terminates towards the sea, in a rugged shore, more or less steep.
With the district of the Glynns ends also the Irish language. The people pointed out to me the little stream which flows eastwards from Ballycastle, as the boundary dividing the English and Irish languages. ‘On this side of the bridge,’ said they, ‘almost all the people speak Irish, but most of them understand English too. But on that side, from Ballycastle westward, no one understands Irish.’ For the last couple of miles from Ballycastle, I had a policeman sitting with me on our little car. I asked him if he had much to do here in the Glens. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘we have much more to do than our companions near Londonderry. The people here in the Glens are more quarrelsome and unquiet than these in Derry, and we must keep careful watch. They would be very mischievous, if they were not so much afraid of the law. In the Glens, too, they are poorer than in Derry; as you must know, since you have travelled so much, that the Catholics are all over the world poorer than the Protestants.’ I give this man's testimony in his own words, for I believe there is some truth in it, but I do not venture to say how much.
At last a friendly little inn at Ballycastle opened to us its hospitable doors and calm chambers. We found a right comfortable room, a cheerful tea-table, a homely, warm fire, and by the fire
I blessed the storm, however, which brought with it consequences so agreeable to me. One must travel in extraordinary weather to meet with extraordinary things; and the traveller in England may indeed call it extraordinary luck if he can take his tea at an inn in the agreeable society of young ladies; for in this country it is the general rule that every one, while sipping this beverage, should shut himself up in his own chamber, and, without troubling himself about his fellow-travellers, enjoy himself alone, or, at the most, whisper in a low tone with his own friends. But in the little inn at this end of the world, there were, besides the common sitting-room, only two small bedrooms; and as the storm and the darkness forbade all escape to Rathlin, necessity thus broke through the barrier even of strait-laced English manners, or rather unmanners. The young ladies were obliged to receive the wet, frozen, very pitiable-looking traveller, and make room for him at the fire, without asking leave of papa and mamma. I cannot deny that a certain love of mischief mingled with my feelings; for when I thought of those little Antrim mice, caught here nolens volens, I determined to take full revenge on English customs, which condemn the traveller to so many privations and tedious lonesome hours, and not to let them off so entirely undisturbed; that is to say, I resolved to pass the evening pleasantly, conversing with them to my heart's content.
The ladies were, of course, called Misses Mac Donnell; for in this part of the world every respectable person bears that name. My last postilion was called M'Donnell, and an honest fellow he was; and even the innkeeper said his name was Mac Donnell. The estate of the young ladies' relation, the island of Rathlin, formed the principal theme of our conversation. Seeing plainly that I must relinquish all hopes of a visit to this island, which I had so much desired, for all told me that no one could take me across in this weather, I was obliged to be content with surveying it in the image which these Antrim lasses set before me; to which I afterwards added as much information as I could myself acquire from the coast next morning, through my telescope.
The island of Rathlin, or Rachlin, or Raughlinds, or Raghery, or Rachery,—for in all those different ways is its name written,—is the largest of the islands which lie near the north coast of Ireland, and are considered as a part of it. All the others are small and insignificant, with the exception of Tory or Robber island, which is of some importance, and is inhabited. There are other ways of writing the name of this island, as Recarn, Recraiu, Raghlin, Rachri, Raclinda. Pliny calls it Ricnia, and Ptolemy Ricinia. I cannot conceive whence all these names have arisen, since the inhabitants themselves, and the neighbours round, call it plainly Rachri, or Rachrin, in which they agree with Hamilton at the close of the last century, and M'Kenzie still earlier. It is thought that this name is compounded of Ragh Eri (Erin's Fort), which is not improbable, as the Irish have given to several of the islands on their coast names signifying their situation with respect to the mainland; for instance, they call the little island near Dublin, ‘Ireland's Eye;’ and the insular promontory in Connaught, ‘Erin's Head,’ (Errishead.) Rathlin consists of two tracts of land, united at a right angle. One of those arms, which runs parallel with the coast of Ireland, is something more than five miles long, and the other about three. In the middle, where the legs of the angle meet, is a bay, at the head of which stand the church of the island, and the seat of the Rector and owner of the island; whence it is called Church Bay. The entire island, as it stands, is the product of a volcanic eruption; the same, no doubt, which formed the opposite coast of Ireland, for the structure of both exactly corresponds. The basis is a white chalky limestone, on which rests a mass of black basalt, which shows itself in Rathlin, as on the coast of Ireland, regularly in a large handsome columnar formation.
The tides and currents, which run near the island, and between it and the mainland, are particularly remarkable. This northern point of Ireland is, in this respect, as remarkable as the south-west
The sailors who navigate round Ireland must always attend to these tides and eddies. A person sailing from Dublin could, if the wind were favourable, arrive at Carlingford, near the county of Down, with the tide coming in from the south; thence he could continue his voyage northwards, with the tide retreating in that direction; and, at the time when the ebb again changes to flood, could arrive at Rathlin, give himself up to the eddy along the coast, and with it sail against the tide westward as far as
The waters between Rathlin and the shore are violently agitated twice a day, even in the calmest weather; that is, at each return of the flood or ebb; and this agitation lasts until the currents have acquired an equal strength, when they rush peacefully by one another, until the setting in of the next change again produces the agitation. So it is in calm weather. But when a storm comes on, the sea is scarcely navigable; and it is not only impossible for the small coasting vessels to make this little voyage, as we have already seen, but even large ships avoid the passage between the island and the mainland. The prevailing winds and waves come, of course, from the open Atlantic ocean, from the west; and therefore the west coast of Rathlin is the scene of immense waves, breaking almost incessantly. In winter, the inhabitants are often, for an entire month, surrounded by furious storms, waves, and tides, isolated from the rest of mankind, and shut out from all intercourse with the mainland.
Such an island was well adapted to afford secure winter quarters to a flying king and his companions. Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, therefore availed himself of all these circumstances when he was compelled, a short time after his coronation, to leave his kingdom in the lurch. In the autumn of the year 1306, he came to Rathlin, with three hundred armed men, and settled himself between the basaltic rocks of the island, behind the breakers, tides, and storms, safe from his persecutors, and remained there through the winter. Crossing over to Scotland in the spring, with increased numbers, he began that varied and eventful war which at last ended with the glorious battle of Bannockburn, in the year 1314, in which Scotland established her freedom, and Bruce secured his kingdom by a victory over the English.
When Bruce landed here, the island was then, as now, inhabited by solitary islanders, tending sheep, catching fish, and cultivating patches of oats. At first they fled before the mail-clad knight to the other side of the island; but when they saw that the iron lord treated them mildly and kindly, they came forward, promised to provide him and his men daily with provisions, fish, mutton, and oat-cakes; and at last, choosing him their lord and king, they appointed themselves his fishers, shepherds, and oat-cake makers, and delivered up to him a castle that had stood from ancient times on their island, and is called ‘Bruce's Castle’ to this day, while a cavern near it is still called ‘Bruce's Cave.’ The castle stands on a high promontory, on the east side of the island, within sight of Scotland; and the rock on which it is built
The present successor to Robert Bruce in the government of the island, is a Mr. Gage, who being the spiritual head, the rector, as well as the chief magistrate and the owner of the soil, thus rules his subjects in more relations and by more titles than many a king his kingdom, though he has neither the parade and splendour of sovereignty, nor a prince's crown. This reverend gentleman is a vassal of the Antrim family, from whom his progenitors have held the island, since the year 1740, by lease for ever. King Charles I., as I have already stated, made a grant of it to the Antrim family. The head of the Antrim family is still called the ‘Chief’ of Rathlin. ‘The Antrim family holds the Chiefry or Chiefdom,’ the people say; but Mr. Gage is called the proprietor; and although he still pays a trifling head-rent to his chieftain, yet the latter has nothing whatever to do with the internal management of the island. The rector's tenants are all only ‘at will;’ i. e. they can immediately, and without more ado, be deprived by him of their farms and land, and driven from the island.
Mr. Gage might, if he chose, change his residence to Dublin, or some other place, and give up the entire income of his hereditary island to some other person, who would pay him a rent and take the trouble of its management. Such a man would be called by the Irish ‘a middleman.’ This middleman, to whom the whole island might be leased, would have it in his power to let separate parts of it to under-middlemen, who would then be the immediate landlords of the tenants: thus we should have, from the king to the tenant, a succession of possessors, or at least persons having a title to the soil, one over another, as really happens in an extraordinary number of cases in Ireland. In the first place, there would be the head ruler of all the land, the Queen, to whom all the possessions of the Antrim family would revert under certain circumstances, for instance, should the family become extinct, or should they fail to pay the proper number of falcons due to the Viceroy of Ireland, on the feast of St. John the Baptist. Next, the Antrim family, who reckon the island of Rathlin as part of their earldom, and would take possession of it
The population of the island amounts to about 1100. This number was first accurately determined in the year 1758, when the spiritual chief, and governor of the island, imposed a tax of a shilling on every head, in order with the proceeds to build a new Mass-house, as they term here what in other places people would call a Catholic church. The numbering was accomplished with great trouble; for the islanders opposed it, believing that, out of every numbered family, one individual would surely die. This island also lies under the great injustice which extends all over Ireland, in the relative positions of the Protestants who rule, and the Catholics who are ruled. The rector and owner of the island, who resides here throughout the year with his family, has a good income, and lives in the enjoyment of all imaginable comforts, is a Protestant; but his poor tenants and vassals, from whom he draws this income, and who, in order to be able to pay it, fish, cultivate oats, navigate the stormy sea, and eat seaweed, are poor taxed Catholics, while only sixty or eighty of them are said to be Protestants. For the Catholics, the Protestant rector keeps a Catholic priest, and also, as has been said, keeps a ‘Mass-house’ in good repair for them. An Irish Protestant, who praised the management of the present rector, thus expressed himself: ‘he keeps them (the Catholics) in very good order.’ In winter, of
The sheep of Rathlin are much praised: the rocky meadows of the island afford them excellent pasture, and in the north of Ireland they are known by the name of ‘Rachries;’ a name also given to the islanders themselves, when they cross over to the mainland, where, on account of their rude habits, they appear sometimes to afford considerable merriment to the continentalists of Ireland,—for Ireland naturally stands to Rathlin in the relation of a continent, and all continentalists are accustomed to make themselves merry with the peculiarities of islanders. All these islanders, with the exception perhaps of the Protestants, are said still to speak the ancient Irish language, which is preserved in all the little islands about Ireland, like the Scottish Gaelic, which is even still spoken in greater purity in the kingdom of the Isles than in the rest of Scotland.
The horses of the island are small, being mere ‘ponies,’ as the people in Ballycastle told me. This is also the case with the horses of the Scottish islands. In the Baltic sea, too, the horses of the island of Gothland are well known and sought after on account of their small size. What can be the cause of the diminutive proportions of island horses? A large horse was once carried over from Ireland to Rathlin, and, as the Ballycastle people say, the islanders took it for a monster, thought it would eat them, and ran away from it.
The only four-footed wild animals belonging to the island, are, according to Hamilton, the rat and the mouse. It is said to contain neither foxes, hares, rabbits, nor badgers, though they are plentiful both in the neighbouring parts of Scotland, and on the coast of Ireland. Foxes are said to have been once introduced into the island by command of a Lord Antrim, and a party of his huntsmen were sent there to form a new hunting-ground; but the islanders, who have a great dislike to this animal, bribed the huntsmen, and induced them to disobey their orders. Lord Antrim, who afterwards became acquainted with this, took occasion therefrom to impose on them a new annual tax, for their immunity from foxes. I believe the people here are very much afraid of those animals; for I happened to hear a woman, whose
The islanders, as I have already said, cultivate some barley and oats; but besides this, one of their principal sources of gain consists in the preparation of kelp from seaweed, which is the occupation of the women and children. Hamilton thus describes their mode of proceeding:—They gather the seaweed from the shore after a storm, or cut it from the rocks on which it grows, and spread it out in the sunshine to dry. In the evening they gather it into little heaps, which are again spread out to dry next day. When the weeds are dry, they make a hole in the ground, line it with stones, and in this extempore oven burn the weeds slowly and carefully to ashes. The vegetable salts melt, and, falling to the bottom of the hole, form a solid mass, in which state it is exported, as they do not understand how to purify the soda from the common salt and other matters mixed with it. This preparation of kelp, as the English call it, is carried on through the entire north-west coast of Ireland, and in a similar manner on the south-western coasts of Scotland, and it forms a not inconsiderable article of trade with England.
What was told me of the manners of the simple inhabitants of this island, brought to my recollection the inhabitants of some of the islands in the Baltic. Thus it is remarkable, that the same trait is related of the Racheries as of the people of Runoe, in the Gulf of Riga, that the greatest punishment that can be inflicted on them is banishment from their island, which they love exceedingly, regarding Ireland as an altogether foreign country.
We have two accounts, by learned men, of the nature of the island of Raghery: one by Dr. W. Hamilton, in his description of the County of Antrim; and one by Dr. J. Drummond, in the xvii. vol. of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. From the first account I take a few remarks that may perhaps be acceptable to most of my German readers, who may not have the book itself at their command. Small as the island is, two races of very different characters may be discovered among its 1100 inhabitants. The island, as I have already said, consists of two points of land, joined at a right angle. The west, or longer end, is called
As the Isle of Man was formerly an apple of discord between England and Scotland, so was Rathlin between Scotland and Ireland. It often served the Scottish and Irish chieftains as the place of meeting and the sallying point of their expeditions. There are therefore many of those tumuli, such as are found in Ireland and Scotland, on a little plain in the centre of the island, which was probably more than once a blood-soaked battle-field. In the centre of one of these tombs, a stone coffin containing bones has been found, while all round were strewn many other human bones, being probably those of a hero, and the common soldiers he commanded. Bronze swords and lance-heads, likewise dug up in this plain, are irrefutable testimonies of the bloody dramas which were performed here. The recollection of the atrocities perpetrated here on one occasion, by the clan of the Campbells, remained so long in the memory of the island population, that so lately as at the end of the last century, no Scotchman of that name was permitted to settle on the island, and this law is probably in force at
The great masses of basalt which lie upon the original chalk bottom of this part of Ireland, here form a high plateau or table, tolerably flat on the summit, to which one gradually ascends from Ballycastle by a winding road. The highest edge of this plateau is turned towards the sea, whence it inclines inland, with a gentle slope, for about half a mile, when it mixes with other heights and risings of the highlands of the county of Antrim. The inclined surface of this plateau is covered far and wide with grass, moss, and moist boggy soil, and affords pasture for the cattle of a couple of little farms. Next the sea, it ends abruptly in a steep cliff, from four to six hundred feet high, and here the naked black basalt is every where visible. The highest point rises to 636 feet above the level of the sea, and is called Cape Benmore. The visitor drives up as far as a little farm, called the Farm of the Cross, which lies in a hollow immediately behind the Head, where the sloping masses mingle with other hills, and where the waters have collected in two little lakes, of which one is called Lough Dhu, or the Black Lake, and the other Lough Nacrana, or the Lake with the Island. At this farm I had to leave my car, and continue the ascent on foot. The farmer, Patrick Jameson, whose cattle graze on the summit of Benmore, and his servant or neighbour, were our guides.
We first went round the little lakes, one of which, Lough Nacrana, is remarkable for a small island in its centre. The farmers told me that the people say that this island was made by the Druids, and used by them in their religious rites. At all events, at least in its present form, it is the work of art; for it rises in a perfectly regular oval form above the surface of the lake, and seems to be built of fragments of basalt, such as lie in vast numbers round the shore of the lake. I have not been able to find any thing respecting this lake and its artificial island in any book, and am willing to believe that the Druids might have chosen this wild spot for the scene of their religious ceremonies. The little farm is the only thing in this wild place that does not remind one of the superhuman works of nature. As Benmore is mentioned by Ptolemeus (it is his Robogdium Promontorium,) it is a proof that it was known and famed as something extraordinary even before the Christian era.
From the little Druidical temple-lake, we now ascended to the very top of the cape, by extremely unpleasant paths, for one foot always trod in the wet bog, and the other on pointed rocks. The further we went, however, the more convenient and dry became the path, and above, at the edge of the cliff, it was perfectly level and dry. The storm, too, had somewhat impeded us in our ascent; but when we reached the crown of the hill it ceased completely, and became a perfect calm, which did not move a hair of our heads. This calm at first surprised me not a little, till my guide called my attention to the fact, that the wind struck quite against the perpendicular face of the rock, and was turned off broken, and sent upwards, and consequently produced, not a horizontal current of air, but a vertical one towards the sky. The cliff is so perpendicular, and the edge so sharp, and the wind blew so perfectly at right angles against the wall of rock, that the air immediately behind the up-rushing current was quite still. Further up in the air, the vertical current was, of course, again carried along with the storm from the north; and at a distance of from 500 to 600 paces, the wind again swept along the ground; while still further on, at a distance of 700 or 800 paces, its whole force was felt. The current of air therefore flowed in a great arch over our heads, beneath which we enjoyed a perfect calm.
Basalt, it is well known, is found partly in large, thick, compact, and shapeless masses, which, however, break according to certain laws, assuming certain regular forms. Sometimes, however, basalt is also seen in a certain regular and columnal structure. These columns or pillars are generally as close to each other as if they were cemented together. But wherever the mass has been
On the summit of Benmore Head, we had the nearest promontory of Rathlin Island, Rue Point, exactly opposite us, at a distance of about four miles. The eastern side of this promontory is formed of columnar basalt, like the structure of Benmore Head. Perhaps these two columnar shores were once connected, and were torn asunder by some violent convulsion of nature. The long coast of the western, or Kenramer wing of Rathlin was so clearly visible, that we could see the Church Bay most distinctly, and distinguish the districts of Kenramer and Ushet.
A mountain was shown to us as the site of King Bruce's Castle; and the high chalk cliffs, with their cap of basalt, we saw with such distinctness as to be able to study their structure. I could
In the middle, between Rathlin and the coast of Ballycastle, a speck was pointed out to me, caused, as was said, by the meeting of seven tides. The sailors call this point Slough na Moran. It is a whirlpool, produced by the meeting of the ebbing and flowing tides, and eddies and counter-eddies, assisted perhaps by submarine rocks.
While contemplating Rathlin island, and Bruce's Castle, I thought of Shakspere's Tempest, and the island of the banished duke Prospero. Might it not be possible that Shakspere, who doubtless had heard of Bruce and Rathlin, took from this event in Bruce's life his idea of making a lonely island, the abode of a banished prince, the scene of a drama? The wild inhabitants whom Bruce took into his service, are represented by Caliban. Shakspere only transferred his island to the sunny south, which is most suited for lively dramatic action and poetry. Here, in the cold, dull, windy north, hover only the lyric cloud-forms of Ossian's heroes.
As the traveller ascends the basaltic mass of Benmore Head, he perceives several hollows in the mass, beginning at the edge of the precipice, and running inland, parallel to one another. The farmers of the neighbourhood had here and there bordered them with walls of loose stones, and used them, they said, as boundaries for their fields, and enclosures for their cattle. These hollows are caused by great fissures or clefts, which stretch from the shore far inland, and are again filled with basalt. As they were either not completely filled, or the filling substance was less enduring than the chief mass, these dykes, as the English term them, are still perceptible on the surface. Wherever the filling material has again fallen out of these dykes or fissures, there are wide clefts. One of these, on Benmore Head, is used by the inhabitants of the coast as a regular passage down to the sea. This path they call Fhir Leith, or ‘the Gray Man's Path.’ The Gray Man, who is almost ceaselessly travelling this path, is the storm. The wind that rushes up from it is so strong, that, the instant I set foot in it, my cloak, hat, books, and maps were whipped away into
A vast and mighty column has fallen right across the Gray Man's Path, and is fixed like a wedge between its walls, yet leaving room enough to pass beneath it. One cannot avoid hastening past it, for it looks as if it were about to fall still farther. But it has been meditating this fall from time immemorial, and many generations have passed through uncrushed. At the top, the fissure is very narrow, being only eight or ten feet wide; but it becomes wider towards the bottom. Mighty columns are ranged along on either side; but in the fissure itself they are broken off, so that one can step from the head of one to that of another, and descend as if on a flight of irregular stairs. The heads of these broken pillars are almost all flat, and afford a tolerably level surface, on which one can occasionally sit down to rest, as on a stone seat. These columns do not all consist of one piece, but are composed of a number of blocks, placed one over another. The separate blocks are not, however, always easily distinguishable, because they are very firmly and closely fitted together; but when the columns fall, these joinings open, and they divide into the pieces of which they were originally composed. The component blocks of the pillars of Fair Head are, I think, from ten to fifteen feet long, while the entire columns are from 200 to 250 feet in height. We shall afterwards see that when the columns are most elegantly formed these blocks are shorter and smaller.
The entire weight of this stratum of columnar basalt, 250 feet thick, rests on a bed of clay-slate (Thonschieferlage), which again rests on a substratum of stone coal. This is the reverse of what we might expect; for the heavy, almost indestructible, iron-hard basalt, ought properly to lie beneath, and the brittle clay-slate and coal strata to rest upon it. The basalt columns owe their frequent falls to the brittleness and unenduring nature of the clay-slate which forms their foundation. The joinings of the columns also assist these falls; for the water which penetrates them in the autumn being frozen in the winter, it enlarges the fissures with irresistible force, till at length, after centuries of unobserved toil, they become so wide, the substratum of clay-slate so crumbled away, and the pillars overhang so much, that they lose their balance, topple over some stormy winter's night, when all the elements are in uproar, and are dashed into hundreds and thousands of fragments, and partly ground to dust amid the roaring breakers. As the stratum of clay-slate upon which the columnar basalt rests is 400
Below, where the Gray Man's Path ceases, and the substrata of clay-slate and coal begin, all is covered with ruins, with blocks of columns, with fragments of rock, big and little, with entire pillars, and portions of pillars. In Germany, and also in France and England, there is a game called Lenorchen35 in some parts of Germany. A number of finely divided little sticks are thrown together on the table, so that they lie across and beneath and leaning and resting upon each other, as chance placed them, and the task assigned to the players is, cautiously to remove the little splinters, one by one, without touching or shaking the others. Here, in the lower regions of Fair Head, it looks as if a party of Titans had been playing at this game with columns of basalt, for the pillars and fragments of pillars are heaped upon one another in every possible direction. Here and there many lie together, and look like the ruins of some great and noble building; sometimes they lie in a mass, horizontally, one upon the other. One might imagine that the giants had collected a parcel of Egyptian pyramids, obelisks, Pompey's-pillars, Stephen's-towers, and castlewalls, to play a game of jackstraws with them. It is fortunate for travellers that they no longer play at them, and that, though apparently so loose, yet in fact they are all so firm that one can climb over them without fear. Many blocks have fallen into the sea, and the waves dash high above them into the clefts, fissures, holes, and breaches. Remarkable and grand from below is the view of the great arch of columns, which adorns the brow of the promontory, like a mural crown on the head of a Roman citizen. The vast cleft of the Gray Man, seen from here, looks like a line or a small chink in the immense mass; and the pillar across it, which, when above, one expects to fall every moment, is here scarcely distinguishable from the rest, and not the least of its threatening aspect is visible.
Though the wind helped us up the Gray Man's Path, it took us not quite an hour to reascend from the surf to the top of the rock. We found our chattels behind the pillar, and I took my dinner in the cabin of my Benmore herdsman. It consisted of whisky, oat-cakes, and four fried eggs. The hostess had a whole crowd of children around her, like most Irish mothers, who are every where very prolific, even on these barren basalt headlands. In Germany, only the fine and fertile tracts are thickly inhabited, and sometimes over-inhabited; but in Ireland, even the turf-bogs and the rocks are crowded with inhabitants, as if human beings were here hatched, like the wild sea-fowl, by hundreds and thousands, in the clefts and fissures of the rocks. Even the little island of Rathlin, with its 1100 inhabitants, is said to contain twice too many. The Catholic priests are partly to blame for this over-population, for they are the most busy match-makers in Ireland. As a chief part of their income is derived from marriages, they are most anxious to unite young people as soon as they are marriageable. If the Roman Catholic clergy were chosen from a higher class, were better paid, and their social position improved, this eagerness for marriage-making would probably cease, and the surplus population of Ireland no longer pressing so heavily on the country, one great source of the misery of the land would be removed.
‘Go a one side, the fox is coming!’ cried the farmer's wife to the little squallers, when they were going to make away with the eggs and oat-cakes intended for me; and thus, with the fox's aid, I at last got something warm to assuage my hunger, although I did not allow the little brood to remain quite so hungry as they had previously been. The children did not understand a word of Irish, but all spoke English, though their mother spoke Irish from her youth. ‘The young people are all going out of the Irish,’ said she. Thus even here in the Glynns—to which district Fair Head also belongs—the English is yearly and daily gaining new victories over the Irish. These people, like most of the inhabitants of the Glynns, were Catholics. On the other side of the river, at Ballycastle, Protestantism again begins. ‘There they are all in the Presbyterian way,’ said the farmer, ‘like the haland (highland) people.’ The weather formed our chief topic of conversation, over our turf-fire,—how severe and disagreeable it was now; how beautiful it had been five days ago; then how this ‘terrible break down’ had come all at once, and how the weather would soon mend again. All the time I was reflecting how nearly the cottage and the palace resemble each other with respect to conversation on the weather, which is a topic not to be avoided any where on the wide circle of the entire world.
In the afternoon I returned to tea to my Misses M'Donnell. ‘Well, have you been satisfied?’ ‘Have you been greatly disappointed?’ were the questions that met me. ‘It usually happens that travellers on our coast return disappointed from their excursions.’
‘You are right,’ replied I; ‘I too have heard of travellers being disappointed with your coast; but I must confess, I consider these men either as persons totally incapable of appreciating the wonders of nature, or as blasée, who assume an air of importance, and wish people to understand that Nature, with all her mighty works, is mere child's-play compared with the pictures their own imaginations are able to create. It is in some measure true, however, that the creations of Nature actually fall short of those of the imagination. I, for instance, can imagine columns, 20,000, instead of 250 feet high, with the fleecy clouds floating about their summits. I can imagine these columns in every possible position, oblique or perpendicular, and divided into stories like a house, so that we can mount from landing-place to landing-place, as in the interior of a tower. We can imagine that Nature has built arches of rock, ten or twenty times as high as the gateway of the Colossus of Rhodes; and that she has placed thousands of such arches, beside and upon one another, in rows, like those of a Roman amphitheatre. Is it not possible, moreover, to imagine, in the middle of a plain, a hole that yawns with a gorge half a mile in diameter, quite round, and six or twelve miles deep? By means of natural steps, one can descend on a two days' journey into this hole, and then, looking up as from an enormous well, contemplate the stars of heaven from the neighbourhood of the centre of the earth.’
‘What cannot the imagination do with ice! Picture to yourself this beautiful crystal-like substance, of the clearest, purest transparency, and now let your uncurbed fancy build out of it a palace, worthy of standing at the North Pole for the ice-king. Heaven-high columns of greenish ice; beautiful arches, great and small, thrown from column to column, spring so high that the clouds, gilded by the sun, sport in play from capital to capital. The ice must be clean, and not covered with snow or mud, as in Switzerland; and in the night-time the Aurora Borealis may dance and glisten around it, and here and there shimmer through its transparent walls. And yet no such thing exists in nature.’
‘Many other incredibly splendid and magnificent spectacles we may imagine, such as may possibly exist on the wild moon, or on some other still ruder planet. All men, I believe, do this more or less; for we have all more or less of this magic power we call
The Irish are all very desirous that the traveller should be satisfied with every thing in their fatherland, and that he should bestow becoming admiration on every thing. They are fond of hearing the praises of the traveller, and they expect them. This is because they seldom see travellers in their country, and therefore feel themselves honoured by their visits, as well as because they are most friendly towards strangers, and, as it were, enamoured of their fatherland. The Misses M'Donnell, therefore, who had been anxiously waiting my return, were content with my report, and retired to bed perfectly gratified.
Next day I set out for the Giant's Causeway. The wind was still blowing and roaring from the north, with the same violence as it now had for some days. It dashed against the steep, rugged cliffs, it howled skywards up the rocks, in immense arches it again descended on the road I was travelling, and in long-drawn, lofty
In the immediate vicinity of the valley of Ballycastle there seems to be nothing but limestone. The strangest forms show themselves where the basalt again makes its appearance, and the first extraordinary, interesting point is Carrick-a-Rede, as English orthography writes it, or Caraig-a-Ramhad, according to the proper Irish spelling, i. e. the rock on the road. Properly speaking, there are two rocks, formed of two masses of basaltic columns, clustered closely together, each about 200 feet high, with a circumference of some thousands of feet. The one is connected with the mainland by a little isthmus; but the other is pushed out completely into the sea, and separated from the other by a deep chasm. A little island that lies not far from it is called Sheep Island. Even to the Faroe Islands (Sheep Islands) this is a very usual appellation for such islands as afford pasturage for sheep only. Many of these small ‘Sheep Islands’ also lie along the Scottish coast. The fresh, green, grassy summit of this little island contrasts agreeably with the black basalt pillars which support it.
In summer, the island is connected with the headland by a bridge, made in the following manner. Two thick ropes are, by some expert climbers, fastened to two iron rings, which have been driven into the rocks at each side. These ropes are then connected by little cross-ropes, upon which small boards are laid. A third rope, fastened a little higher than the other two, serves as a handrail. This slender bridge, which is more than sixty feet long, swings of course with every step, and sways to and fro
The picture presented by these two rocks of Carrick-a-Rede, with the little black island beside them, is surprisingly beautiful. We were obliged to be content with enjoying it from the shore, where we chose a spot, sheltered by a grass-covered basalt wall, whence we could see it as plainly as if we were sitting in the very middle of it. The mighty breakers ceaselessly rushed against the island, sending their high-dashing foam even to the sheep on its summit. On the side of the island, turned towards us, was a little bay, shut in by high rock-walls, so that it lay like a mirror unruffled by the slightest breath of air; and this although the storm was raging close beside it. In this bay, and in the little strait between the rocks and the island, the people carry on a not-unimportant salmon-fishery in the summer; for as the salmon come in the spring time from the open sea to deposit their spawn in the bays and mouths of rivers, they usually coast along the shore, searching for the sweet water, and linger in the little strait between Carrick-a-Rede and the mainland, and in the quiet bay of the former. The fishermen take their measures accordingly, and have also built a small hut on the low shore of the bay for their convenience. The salmon-fishery of the entire north of Ireland is of great importance, and quantities of salmon have, from time immemorial, been exported thence to the markets of Spain and Italy.
Proceeding along the coast, we again got a view of an old ruin, which lies on the extremity of a mass of rocks, projecting far into
We perceived, by the number of persons who soon surrounded us, offering their services, that we were at last approaching the great work of nature which was the object of our journey. As, in Ireland, there are always a dozen men where one only is requisite, there were here also a crowd of men, old and young, well-clad and in rags, all of whom represented themselves as the best guides for the Giant's Causeway.
‘Take me, your honour,’ cried one: ‘I showed Field-Marshal Mac Donald the Giant's Causeway, when he came to visit Ireland, and his own country, Scotland.’
‘Take me, your honour,’ shouted another: ‘I showed every bit of the Giant's Causeway to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, and his Grace was exceedingly well pleased with me.’
‘And I, your honour,’ said a third, ‘have a certificate from the Most Noble the Marquis of Anglesea, and his lady and his daughter.’
‘Sir,’ boasted a fourth, ‘I am the best friend of Professor Buckland, of Oxford, who said that every thing I told him of the Giant's Causeway was perfectly true, and I can show your honour every stone of it.’
I chose the one who seemed to have the most promising physiognomy, and, in fact, I was not deceived in him. I was, however, greatly deceived in imagining, that, after I had proclaimed my election, the rest would leave me in quietness. No such thing. According to the obtrusive custom of their country, the entire troop followed me every step of the way. At first I conjured them to remain at home, and not to disturb my enjoyment of the sublime work of nature, with their unnecessary chattering. I entreated them, I gave them money, I supplicated them, I cursed them,—all in vain. They hunted me, as dogs would a deer; and I was at last obliged to yield to my fate, and make peace with them. One party collected stones for me; another pulled me by the right
The distance is not far, and the Giant's Causeway is soon gained. ‘Causeway,’ as is well known, means a high paved road, thrown up like a dam or embankment. The strangest thing about this Giant's Causeway is, that at first sight it seems as if people had erred in naming it; and it looks as if it should properly be called the Dwarf's Causeway. It might be appropriately called Giant's Causeway if it were of vast length, or stretched out for several miles into the sea. But it is not longer than 700 feet, which may be considered extremely short, in comparison with the usual length of roads. It is nothing more than the beginning of a causeway, which soon after sinks beneath the waves of the sea. One might, at the first glance, be inclined to ask himself, why all his attention and anxiety on account of this world-famous word, was directed merely to the little portion of this wide and magnificent coast to which this title is pre-eminently applied; but after he has looked about a little, after he has more closely inspected the Causeway itself and its parts, and especially after he has endeavoured to meditate on it, and to ask himself the how and the why it was made, all his contempt for it vanishes immediately, and the warmest admiration takes its place, yea, the most decided enthusiasm, for this wondrous, inconceivable, mysterious, and in every sense unsurpassingly charming, work of nature.
Yet before my readers can sympathise with this enthusiastic admiration of mine, I must communicate to them as much as I can concerning the formation and structure of this coast. I have already said that, at Benmore, the basalt appears in a vast stratum, 250 feet thick, falling into massy, mighty Cyclopean pillars. Here, at the Giant's Causeway, it is different. In its neighbourhood, on the right and on the left, from Bengore Head to the mouth of the river Bush, a distance of about three miles, the basalt exhibits itself on the rugged shore in the following manner. Not one thick stratum, but many, though mostly two, are plainly distinguishable all along the above-mentioned line of coast. Between
I must next remark, that the two colonnades do not every where rest on an horizontal bed, and are not equi-distant from the surface of the sea. They sometimes descend to the surface of the sea, and again rise high above it, so that it looks as if the fluid basalt had spread itself like a cloth over the original inequalities of the ground. At last the colonnades are lost by sinking down beneath the surface of the sea, where they either cease altogether, or are continued beneath it—first, the lower colonnade; and then, near the mouth of the river Bush, the upper. Where this second or upper colonnade or pillar-stratum reaches the surface of the sea, all the other materials, and ochre and clay strata, which rest upon columns, are removed, and the naked pavement formed by the heads of the basaltic pillars is exposed; and this part forms what is called the Giant's Causeway. The descent of the first colonnade beneath the sea probably produces something similar; yet this circumstance is wanting, viz. that the heads of the pillars are not so beautifully bare and exposed to the light of day.
A second irregularity of these rows of pillars is, that they are often broken by great gaps or dykes, such as I have already described. These dykes or gaps, which sometimes run through all the strata of the coast, are manifestly of later origin. They must have been made when every thing already lay in the order in which we now see it. They are usually filled with basalt; but the most curious part is, that the basalt in them is sometimes composed of layers of horizontal pillars. At the same time, together with these dykes, there often occurs a depression or vertical displacement of both the strata and the columns. Such a depression is even sometimes found unaccompanied by a dyke; and this the English call ‘a fault.’ It looks as if an entire piece of the coast had sunk down, with all its strata.
Finally, there are two principal strata or rows of columns every where to be seen; but they are by no means every where the only ones. On the contrary, other parcels of pillars here and there peep up out of the lower or intervening strata; and if these are not as handsome and regularly formed colonnades, there is at least a variety of lower or higher steps or ranges of basalt between them. There are also, of course, between the colonnades, strata entirely composed of mere amorphous basalt or ochre. In the ochre are seen some streaks of iron ore, and in the basalt is a stratum of coal. Here and there, little strata of clay, resembling Puszuolan earth, make their appearance.
The wonderful structure of the columns themselves can no where be studied and admired better than at the Giant's Causeway, where the most beautiful and most regular specimens lie exposed to the inquiring geologist. By far the greater number of the columns are hexagonal. From this hexagonal shape we may conclude that the pillars were all at one period long, soft shafts, which, from being strongly pressed against one another, were of necessity forced to assume the hexagonal form; just as the cells of bees, or any other round body, when pressed equally on all sides by similar bodies. All these columns, however, could become hexagonal without an exception, only under the supposition that all the round shafts were of perfectly equal thickness, and the pressure on all sides equally strong. But as neither was the case, there also arose irregular hexagons, with unequal sides; and then pillars were formed with three, four, five, seven, eight, and nine sides: three and four-sided, when the wide sides of several hexagons met together; seven, eight, and nine-sided, when a thick pillar happened to stand amid many narrow sides of several hexagons. Those with seven and five36 sides are frequent, but eight-sided pillars are rare, and only one with nine sides has
The diameter of the pillars at the Causeway is from a foot to a foot and a quarter: these are, accordingly, the thinnest and most elegant basaltic columns that are found. There are, it is true, still smaller basaltic crystallizations, with a diameter of a few inches. I myself found, in a dyke, a multitude of little prisms, with three and four sides; but they are far from being so regularly and elegantly formed as the larger pillars at the Causeway, which, on the whole, are the most perfect of their kind. Those little prisms, as the guides assured me, are seldom found any where else but in the dykes, in which I saw them lying loosely on one another. If we consider the entire pillars, first, relative to their position, independent of their combination and structure, we will find here too an exceedingly remarkable phenomenon, governed by a tolerably constant rule, not that this rule admits of no exception. I say remarkable phenomenon; for it might be imagined, that, in this crystallization of a dead inanimate body, every thing should go on according to strict and most unalterable laws, and that one should be shaped exactly like the other. The rule is, that all the pillars stand perpendicularly: all the thousands and thousands of columns of the Giant's Causeway are perfectly upright; and only where a breach has been made, where a piece has been thrown down, are they to be found oblique, and in every possible variety of position. But in other places in the vicinity of the Causeway, many pillars have a naturally inclining position, which they must have assumed when the entire mass was still in a soft, yielding condition. I have already mentioned that the pillars in the dykes sometimes lie in an horizontal position. At Ushet, in Rathlin island, a great quantity of pillars lie in an originally slanting posture. At the promontory of Doon Point, on the same island, and not far from the ruins of Dunseverick, they form a multitude of regular curves, and look like bent down fir trees, as if they were not fluid enough to flow into one another, but yet soft enough to bend over, and then to have hardened in this bowed position. On this island, others are in an horizontal position, and this too in every possible direction, either parallel with the coast, so as to show their whole length, or running into the hill, with their extremities only sticking out.
In fine, on a promontory, near the Giant's Causeway, are to be seen pillars of a waving form, of which the wave-lines or bendings are at the same time perfectly parallel to one another. It
I have already remarked, in the description of Fair Head, that the coarse rude pillars are there composed of joints and blocks, and that these blocks seemed to be from eight to ten feet long. In the more elegant columns of the Giant's Causeway and its vicinity, the blocks are usually not more than from six to eight or twelve inches high or thick, so that a pillar of thirty feet high may consist of nearly forty portions. There are even joints which are but four inches thick; and others, on the contrary, which are two or three feet, or even longer. It is a very remarkable circumstance connected with these joints, that the chink or break which separates them does not go quite through, but that at every corner there is a little piece of basalt which is not broken or jointed, and which passes from one block to the other, fastening them more firmly together, like a cramp-iron. The people in the neighbourhood call these cramping-pieces ‘spurs’ and they are as little visible on the outside as the seams of the joints. I cannot describe the regular form of these spurs. Sometimes they may not exist at all; but that they are generally present is evident, among other reasons, from this, that the labourers at the Giant's Causeway assert that they cannot divide any pillar into its natural joints without first breaking off the spurs, which will not break in the middle. For this purpose, they first strike with a hammer the corners of the prism, in the spot where they suppose the two joints meet, and when the spur is thus removed, they then break off the block itself. In many pillars, Nature has herself undertaken the removal
Such is the structure of the coast, the arrangement and order of the columns, the composition of each individual pillar. Let us go a step farther, and consider a single pillar-joint by itself, without regard to the manner of its connexion with the others. Here, also, new wonders make their appearance, for a spheroidal structure of every individual joint becomes apparent on close examination. In general, the mass of which they are composed is so compact that this structure is not perceptible. But the removal of the spurs, which takes off the angle of the prisms, indicates an inclination of the blocks to assume a spheroidal form, for it is the first step towards making it round. In many blocks we can go still further than the striking off the spurs, and, by regularly hewing off spheroidal layers, may make the block more and more round, till at last we arrive at a tolerably round kernel in the centre. On examination of the external surfaces of the above-described concavities and convexities, we also perceive radial lines, running from the centre of the concavity to the circumference, somewhat like those lines seen on the surface of a leaden bullet, flattened against a wall.
All this would lead us to suppose that the entire mass of the Giant's Causeway, and of the other columnar strata in the neighbourhood, originally consisted of a vast multitude of spherical bodies, which were at first soft, and, from being compressed on all sides, thus naturally assumed the form of hexagonal prisms and blocks. This is its appearance; that this compression and joining of the spheroids did not, however, take place from without, but that it was caused by a splitting, dividing, and formation of the mass from within, outwards, according to the mysterious laws of crystallization, is indeed more than probable. The supposition of a pressure from without would not be sufficient perfectly to explain all the phenomena; for as this pressure would have had a greater effect on the external strata of pillars or spheroids than on the internal, the external would unquestionably be pressed flatter, while the internal would have retained a more spherical shape, which is contrary to the fact. It is not necessary, however, that the prismatic blacks should have actually had an internal spheroidal structure, conjointly with an external globular form. Were this the case, we might indeed suppose that they had also lost it again by pressure. But they may have had a tendency to a globular form without being able to arrive at that form, because each disturbed and hindered its neighbour in attaining this. As in a freezing mass of oil, an innumerable multitude of little globules are formed, which, by degrees, are united into one firm mass of ice, so in the cooling mass of basalt, acted upon throughout by the powerful electric and magnetic forces of crystallization, we may imagine a multitude of little globules to have been produced, which continued to increase in size till at length they mutually prevented each other's growth, and consequently assumed the form of hexagonal prisms. In this whirl and commotion of the component globules of the entire mass, many may have separated themselves from it completely; and in fact, as my friend, Dr. Bryce, of Belfast, informed me, perfectly round pieces of basalt, composed of several coatings or layers, like pearls, are found in the superincumbent stratum. They are imbedded in the ochre, and their outer coating presents a kind of transition between basalt and ochre.
All this explanation, as well as every other, however profound, properly comes to nothing. For while we are still as far as ever from discovering the cause by which these phenomena have been produced, even the most superficial inspection of the basaltic pillars suggests so many questions that one scarcely ventures to utter them. But in all investigations concerning inscrutable subjects of this kind, we derive at least this advantage, that we learn
The beauty, accuracy, and, I may say, the care, with which the columns of the Giant's Causeway have been wrought by these obscure, objectless, chance powers, are what especially produce so strong, and even sympathizing and loving admiration for this great masterpiece of nature. I had to touch the columns, and to feel their smooth surfaces, before I could believe what my eyes saw; and so was it with me afterwards, whenever I beheld pillars from the Giant's Causeway in other places. Many columns have been raised, broken into their component blocks, and set up in the gardens or the mansions of the neighbouring districts. In many of the extensive parks and gardens of Belfast, Derry, and the north of Ireland generally, as well as in Scotland and in most museums of England, one meets with basalt blocks from the Causeway, built up into columns. Whenever I again saw these pillars in such gardens, I felt myself drawn towards them, and, as it were, by some magnetic influence, was compelled to touch, to
Even in the chemical composition of the material, there is as great variety as in the form. Thus, for instance, the basalts in the dykes I have mentioned have partly altered the composition of the earthy strata through which they run, and have been themselves partly altered where they come in contact with them. The pure basalt of the Causeway is said to consist of fifty parts of silicious earth, twenty-five parts of argillaceous and calcareous earth, and twenty-five parts of iron. Iron and flint are therefore its chief component parts; and hence arises the extraordinary weight and closeness of the stone, and the beautiful polish it takes; hence, too, its great fusibility, and the rusty brownish tinge with which its naturally deep black surface is sometimes covered; hence, in fine, arises the phenomenon of all these columns and headlands being magnetic. Flint, as well as iron, having a natural tendency to crystallize in regular forms, it is probable that these two principal constituents of the basalt were pre-eminently active in its formation into regular figures. In general, the grains of the basaltic mass of which the pillars of the Causeway are composed, are very close, compact, and smooth; yet there are sometimes found in it many unfilled spaces, little hollows, air-holes, and fissures. These fissures and holes are usually full of a great variety of crystals,—chalcedony and opal, zeolite, stilibite, natrolite, and sometimes rock crystal. All these are offered to visitors in quantities by the guides, who are constantly collecting them; and amongst these, the zeolites are frequently most beautiful, being usually of a fibrous crystallization, which sends out from a centre elegant, white, glittering hairs of stone, sometimes as fine as the down of a swan's feather.
All this it is requisite to know, in order fully to enjoy a visit to the Giant's Causeway, and its neighbourhood, or to reap advantage from perusing a description of it.
The giant who is fabled to have built this Causeway, is Finn Mac-Cul, or Fingal, the Scotch and Irish Hercules. As at one point of the opposite coast of Scotland similar pillars are visible, and were known to the inhabitants of Ireland in times of old, they fabled that Fingal had formed a road from hence to Scotland, but that in more recent times the greatest part of his work sunk into the sea, by which it is now covered. The deep meaning concealed in this fable is, probably, that the basaltic formations in
All this is very grand and poetical in the popular legend; but they were not content with this, and have gone so far as to seek out for the giant all kinds of domestic conveniences, and have discovered the Giant's Loom, the Giant's Chair, the Giant's Theatre, the Giant's Gateway, the Giant's Well, the Giant's Organ, and the Giant's Honeycomb. However far-fetched may be the resemblance with the aforesaid things, every portion has now at least its name, and can therefore be easily described.
The Giant's Well is a little spring, which issues from between some pillars on the western side of the Causeway, and runs down over the cliff into the sea. The Honeycomb and the Organ are the most remarkable of the giant's other utensils. The Organ is not a part of the Causeway itself, but is situated at one side, on the mountain, and consists of a number of large pillars, which grow smaller towards both sides, like the strings of a harp, and is completely apart from the other colonnade, so that one may easily imagine a giant organist sitting before it, particularly since the columns, when struck, actually send forth a metallic ring. Could we discover means for striking them with sufficient force, we might doubtless play on them as on a dulcimer. The Honeycomb is an assemblage of projecting pillars, which stand in the middle of the Causeway; and not far from it is the Giant's Loom, which contains the tallest pillars here exposed to the light of day, being about thirty-three feet high.
This middle portion is called the Middle Causeway; while on the right is a Great, and on the left a Little, Giant's Causeway. The most extreme end of the Great Causeway projects, when the water is smooth, 700 feet into the sea, before it is covered by it. When the sea is stormy, and the waves are thrown up very high, the entire length of the Causeway is seen only at momentary intervals. This was the case when I was there, and was, I believe, the reason why I could not rightly distinguish the three divisions of the Causeway.
Another, and at present actually existing, giant, has, in addition to all the gigantic matters already mentioned, arranged a sort
The guides on the Causeway are particularly zealous in pointing out to the traveller all the pillars which are remarkable either for their extraordinary size, their height, or the number of their sides. First, there are some perfectly square, with all their sides and angles equal; then hexagonal ones, mathematically equilateral and equiangular; then a triangular one; and, lastly, an eight-sided, and a nine-sided pillar. The triangular column is said to be the only one of its kind on the whole Giant's Causeway. The octagonal one they showed me, and which is called the ‘Keystone,’ is surrounded by eight hexagonal pillars. The nine-sided one is also said to be unique at the Causeway: Hamilton, it is true, says that there are three such pillars; but my twenty guides all protested against it, with the exception of one, who could not, however, prove his case, as we could not resolve to admit that the figures he showed us had nine sides. This is often by no means easy to decide. The nine-sided pillar we saw seemed to be composed of two pillars melted together, for it had one re-entrant angle, and was surrounded by eight other columns. Among 100 pillars, there are supposed to be seventy hexagonal ones, twenty-nine to have five or seven sides, and one to be three, four, eight, or nine-sided.
As I have said, it is with difficulty I could tear myself away from the wonders of the Giant's Causeway, and I would fain have carried away in my pocket a specimen of every species of pillar,
Almost still more beautiful, and nearly as interesting, are the bays and headlands in the neighbourhood of the Causeway. Along the entire coast, from the mouth of the little river Bush to the far-projecting promontory of Bengore, is a succession of little, deep, elegant, round bays. These bays are all surrounded with lofty basaltic shores, with a double row of columns, with strata of ochre, sandstone, and clay-slate, so that each resembles an amphitheatre. The headlands, lofty and rugged, (each of which has, at the base of its extremity, either a kind of little Causeway, or a multitude of great basalt boulder-stones, or some basalt rocks, which look like ruins or tall chimneys,) form a close succession of magnificent capes, which, in variety or elegance of form, can scarcely be equalled any where else. Viewed from the sea, all these various black headlands seem like a single, dark, lofty mass; and the entire line of coast, for about four miles, is called by the sailors Bengore, that is, the Goat's Head, or the Goat's Mountain. To the traveller on the shore, who can perceive its various little portions, each of them appears majestic and grand enough.
The first bay, which lies on the western side of the Causeway, is called Port Noffer Bay, probably an old Irish name corrupted by the English. A narrow footpath, called the ‘Shepherd's Path,’ leads up the rugged steep to the highest pinnacle of the cliff, which, as well on its edge as far into the country, is perfectly level and covered with a short grass. On this beautiful level sward one can walk round the curves of the bays, and out even to the extreme points of the headlands; for terrible as the precipices, chasms, rents, and cliffs look from below, they appear quite
Port Noffer Bay is followed by another, and then another and another. The first is called the Giant's Amphitheatre, at least by my guides; the second Port Keostan, the third Roveran Valley, and, finally, the fourth, Port-na-Spagna. The lofty capes which run out between them, and are 400 feet high, have all separate names. Thus, for instance, they call one ‘The Grand View,’ another ‘Roveran Valley Head,’ &c. It was absolutely impossible not to look down into every bay, not to run out on every headland, for the prospects were always surprising, charming, beautiful, and interesting. The high surf, dashing against the points—the smooth waters in the bays—the little islands in their centres—the beautiful roundly-formed shores—the extensive prospect over the wide ocean at their feet—the long coast, as far as Innishowen Head—the narrow entrance to Lough Foyle in the distance,—with beholding this over and over again, one can never be satisfied in the few brief moments of half a day.
The bay called the Giant's Amphitheatre is the most perfect amphitheatre in the universe, not even excepting the world-famous one at Rome. It forms a half-circle, as perfect as any architect could make it, and the rocks slope down towards the centre at the same angle on every side. The steps of the round wall of rock are equally regular: first, there is a colonnade eighty feet high; then a broad projecting circular bench, for the giants we may imagine to have been the guests of Finn Mac-Cul; then another step, sixty feet high, formed of elegantly arranged pillars, followed by another bench, which runs all round; and so on, down to the bottom. The water is completely enclosed with a wall of black boulder-stones, forming, as it were, the bounds of the arena; and the whole presents a scene in describing which no traveller need fear running into exaggeration, for all the images and expressions he can employ must fall far short of the reality.
The wind was so extremely violent, the ridges of the rocks, so narrow, and the turf so wet and slippery, that we (my head guide
We crept safely back again to the above-mentioned goose-pasture, and after crawling round some other remarkable bays and headlands, we at length arrived at Pleaskin Promontory, or as it is properly called in Irish ‘Plaisg-cian,’ i. e. the dry head. This
| No. | Feet |
|---|---|
| 1. Summit. Thin layer of earth and sward. Irregular basalts, shivered and cracked at the surface | 12 |
| 2. Perpendicular range of coarse pillars, containing air-holes | 60 |
| 3. Coarse bed of rude amorphous basalts, showing marks of a tendency toward forms, resembling an imperfect crystallization | 60 |
| 4. Second range of regular pillars, neat, and divided into joints | 40 |
| 5. Bed of red argillaceous ochre, on which the second range of pillars rests | 22 (includes 5.-7.) |
| 6. A thin course of iron ore amid the bed of ochre | |
| 7. Soft argillaceous stone, of various colours, and mottled appearance, friable, and resembling a variety of steatites | |
| 8. Succession of five or six coarse beds of table basalts, between which thin strata of ochre and other substances occur | 180 |
| 374 |
We give our readers this estimate in order to assist their imagination in forming a clear conception of the exterior of this coast. Pleaskin was immediately succeeded by Port-na-Trughen, i. e. the ‘Bay of Sighs’. According to the accounts of the people, as well as to the descriptions of credible travellers, some long-drawn sounds are produced in the fissures and chasms of the rocks surrounding this bay, which exactly resemble the sighs and tones of complaint of the human voice. I had hoped that I also might
The less I heard these sighs of nature, the more reason I had here at Port-na-Trughen, (whose nomen was for me an omen,) to do all the sighs myself; for it was here that the prematurely sleepy October sun, which had hidden his morose countenance the entire day, treacherously left us completely in the lurch. And two important things were still undone: first, the ascent of the extreme summit of the real Bengore Head; and, secondly, an examination of the ruins of Dunluce Castle, the most interesting on the northern coast of Ireland, which lie about two miles to the west of the Giant's Causeway. Had Apollo given me even the light of a farthing candle, I would certainly have used it to visit Dunluce Castle. But he took all away with him, probably because he had need of it all to rouge his favourite children, the swarthy Aethiopes, and accordingly he left us Europeans buried in night, and mist, and sighs.
Tired and weary, I sat down on the lofty edge of the Bay of Sighs—always, of course, with my twenty guides—and sighed, first to the east, towards Bengore Head. The heads of the old promontories, unshaken after many a storm, stood along the shore like venerable sages, dark Bengore closing the rank. My guides told me—all twenty at once, in unison!—that a pair of eagles dwelt on the top of Bengore, and had built and bred there from time immemorial. At Fair Head, also, I had been told of a similar pair of eagles; thus it appears that these birds every where select only the highest points.
My second sigh was directed to the east, to Dunluce Castle, which I had seen beckoning me so near at many points of my coast-expedition, and which was now, alas! separated from me by four miles of volcanic basalt. My sigh was echoed by all my twenty guides, so heartily, that I almost thought it came from a deft in the rock.
‘Ah, your honour! you will be sorry your whole life long that you have not seen Dunluce, and that you cannot turn thither to-morrow.’ There is not another castle in the world in such an extraordinary situation. The rock is a great cubical block, which has been separated from the shore, and lies surrounded on all sides by wild surf and breakers. On the land side is a cleft, which is crossed by the remains of a wooden bridge. The top of the rock is almost quite level, though the sides are so rugged that a swallow would find it hard to get up them. Its entire summit is covered with ruins, towers, houses, and mason-work, to the very edge, like a beer-glass with froth. Maiva's Tower, Mac Quillan's Tower, the great old castle-wall, all are still to be seen. There are many courts, some inner, some outer, and round them lie the ruins. Some fragments of houses and walls have fallen into the sea, the rock having given way under them, and now lie with the boulder-stones in the surf. Part of the fortification is built on the land side also, and though all lies in ruin, yet the plan may be still distinctly traced; and what renders it particularly handsome is, that a great part of the walls of the castle is built of the natural columns and columnar blocks of basalt, many of which are so placed as to show their polygonal sides plainly on the outside. To the present day, the black basalt is generally used for buildings in the neighbourhood of the coast.
This castle of Dunluce, whose name, though that of a ruin, is still borne by the eldest son of the Earl of Antrim, was in times beyond memory built and inhabited, and was for more than a thousand years, down to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the seat and fastness of several proud independent races. The law of the strongest, the right of robbery, oppression of vassals, and all its concomitants, were abolished here, on the basalt coast of Ireland, as also in the highland valleys of neighbouring Scotland, later perhaps than in any other part of Europe. I hardly think that we in Germany, so late as Queen Elizabeth's time, had such haughty knights, or castle-lords, or mountain-kings, as was that Mac Donnell of Dunluce, who received the Queen of England's letter-patent so rudely. This queen sent to the said Mac Donnell—his name at full length was Sorley Buye Mac Donnell—as a mark of her favour, a long, handsomely-ornamented epistle, in which all
Those Mac Donnells, who are still in possession of Dunluce, and, as I have said, of the best estates in the county of Antrim, belong to the so often named Antrim family, and came over from Scotland in the year 1580. Their predecessors in the possession of Dunluce, and the entire territory adjoining, called the Root, or the Route, were the Mac Quillans or Magwillies, an aboriginal and famous Irish family. With respect to the manner in which the still flourishing Mac Donnells came into possession of their possessions, and how the old kings of the coast, the Mac Quillans, sunk into their present insignificance, there is a very interesting account by Hamilton, taken from an ancient manuscript. As this account, in a short space, throws a very clear light on the ancient history of the country or coast I have described, and may give my readers an idea of the manner in which the old Irish families lost their properties, how such events were brought about, and what English and Scottish families were their successors, I will here give the purport of it, which is the more interesting, as the matters related in it refer to the beginning of the power of the two richest families of the north of Ireland at the present day, namely, the family of the Earls of Antrim (the Mac Donalds as they were then called, the Mac Donnells as they now write their name), and that of the Marquis of Donegal (Chichester), whom I mentioned before at Belfast.
The Irish chieftains, the Mac Quillans, were the original and ancient lords of Dunluce, and rulers of the adjoining territory as far as the river Bann. On the one side they were engaged in continual strife with the neighbouring chieftains beyond the river Bann, while on the other they were exposed to the attacks and forays of the Scottish islanders, who lay to the north-east of them.
In the year 1580 a Mac Donald, as Hamilton writes the name,—though the Antrim family call themselves Mac Donnells—came from Cantire to Ireland, with a parcel of Halanders (highlanders), to assist the chieftain Tyrconnell against the great O'Nial, with whom he was then at war. In passing through the land of the Mac Quillans, he was civilly received and hospitably entertained by the Mac Quillan, who was then lord and master of the Root. Mac Quillan was the more friendly towards Mac Donald, as he
On the day when Mac Donald was taking his departure to proceed on his journey to Tyrconnell, Mac Quillan, who was not equal in war to his savage neighbours, called together all his ‘Gallogloghs,’ as these Irish lords called their militia, vassals, and retainers, to revenge his affronts beyond the Bann; and Mac Donald, thinking it uncivil not to offer his service that day to Mac Quillan, after having been so kindly treated, sent one of his gentlemen with an offer of his service in the field. Mac Quillan was right well pleased with the offer, and declared it to be a perpetual obligation on him and his posterity. So Mac Quillan and the Highlanders went against the enemy, and where there was a cow taken from Mac Quillan's people before, there were two restored back: after which Mac Quillan and the knight Mac Donald returned to Dunluce with a great prey, and without the loss of a man, where they gave themselves up to rejoicings for their victory, and all the pleasure Mac Quillan could command.
Winter then drawing nigh, Mac Quillan, more good-hearted and hospitable than prudent and cunning, gave Mac Donald an invitation to stay with him at his castle, advising him to settle himself until the spring, and to quarter his men up and down the Root. This, Mac Donald, who was pleased with the mode of living at Dunluce, and had also cast an eye on Mac Quillan's daughter, accepted after some pressing. The men were quartered two and two through the Root; that is to say, one of Mac Quillan's Gallogloghs and a Highlander in every tenant's house. ‘In the mean time,’ says the manuscript, ‘Mac Donald seduced Mac Quillan's daughter and privately married her; on which ground the Scots afterwards founded their claim to Mac Quillan's territories.’
While this was going on at Dunluce Castle, the Highlanders and the Gallogloghs were not on the most friendly terms. In the castle, love was the occasion of strife; in the huts it arose, as usual, from the distribution of provisions. It so happened that the Galloglogh, according to custom, besides his ordinary rations, was entitled to a meather38 of milk, as a privilege. This the Highlanders deemed a great affront; and at last one of them asked his host—‘Why do you not give me milk as you give to the other?’ The Galloglogh, who was sitting by drinking his milk, immediately replied for his host, ‘Wouldst thou, Highland beggar as
The affair of course soon became known, and Mac Quillan's Gallogloghs assembled to demand satisfaction. A council was held, in which the conduct of the Scots, their great and dangerous power in the Root, and the disgrace arising from the seduction of Mac Quillan's daughter, was debated, and it was agreed that each Galloglogh should kill his comrade Highlander by night, and their lord and master with them. But Mac Quillan's daughter, the wife of Mac Donald, discovered the plot, and told it to her husband. As Mac Quillan too, who was by this time tired of his guests, was not a stranger to the conspiracy, Mac Donald took the advice of his friends, and fled with them and his wife in the night-time, and escaped to the island of Raghery, which being at this time (A. D. 1580) uninhabited, they were forced to feed on colts' flesh, for want of other provisions.
From this beginning, the Mac Donalds and the Mac Quillans entered on a war, and continued to worry each other during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, while now the Mac Donalds, and now the Mac Quillans, were lords of Dunluce and of the Root. This war continued till the English power became so superior in Ireland that both parties made an appeal to James I., who had just then ascended the throne of England. This king, as is well known, had a predilection for his Scotch countrymen. He accordingly made over to the Mac Donald, by letters patent, four great baronies, including, along with other lands, all poor Mac Quillan's possessions. However, to preserve some appearance of justice, he gave to Mac Quillan a grant of the great barony of Ennishowen, the old territory of the O'Doghertys in Donegal, and sent to him Sir John Chichester, to inform him of this decision and to carry it into execution.
Mac Quillan was extremely mortified at his ill success, and very disconsolate at the difficulties which attended the transport of his poor people over the river Bann, and the Lough Foyle, which lay between him and his new territory. The crafty Englishman, taking advantage of his situation, by an offer of some lands which lay nearer his old dominions, persuaded him to cede his title to the remote barony of Ennishowen, in exchange for the district of Clanreaghurkie, which belonged to the Chichesters. The honest
Thus the Mac Quillans fell from the fine castle of Dunluce and the Root to a little estate in the interior of the country. But they fell still farther: for one of them, Bury Oge Mac Quillan, who, after the old Irish fashion and the custom of the Mac Quillans, wished to be more hospitable and generous than his scanty income could afford, sold his estate at a low price to the Chichesters, and, instead of a landed property, had now a full purse. This he spent in hospitality and generosity, as long as any thing remained in it; and thus at length fell the old Irish family of the Mac Quillans. At the end of the last century, Mac Quillans were still to be found on the Clanreaghurkie estate, amongst the lowest of the people, in the enjoyment of nothing to distinguish them from the rest of the peasants, except, the title of King Mac Quillan, bestowed on them in mockery by their neighbours. I have already mentioned that in many other parts of Ireland the descendants of such kings are frequently to be found among peasants, stablemen, &c.
With this we concluded our sigh about Dunluce, as we sat by the Bay of Sighs. In the mean time it had become perfectly dark, and with some trouble and difficulty I found my way to my car, and returned, late in the evening, to Ballycastle, and found, alas! that the Misses Mac Donnell had also sunk, if not into the lowest rank of their clan, at least into the pillow of their soft couch.
On the following day (the 25th Oct.) I hoped at last for a change of weather; and so, in fact, it happened. The storm, which the day before had been dry, had during the night laden itself with snow, and was busily engaged in powdering the rocks, as I set out in the morning on my return to Belfast. This return journey I had intended to make by Coleraine and Antrim; but
It is generally said that the coast of Antrim is so mild, that the snow never remains on the ground, even when, some miles inland, the hills are deeply covered with it. This may be the case; but I have the evidence of my own eyes that it falls at least as early as October on this mild coast. The blooming roses, that showed themselves in great abundance on some farms, glowed like fire from beneath the snow-flakes that hung on them. Yet mild as the climate is, it is in many respects extremely disagreeable to man. How well some plants bear it, is shown by the myrtles of Glenarm, which I visited once more. Those myrtles, like the arbutus of Mount Kennedy, are the most famous and largest of their kind in Ireland. I was informed that a gardener from the Royal Gardens at Kew, once made a pilgrimage in person to see these myrtles, and to examine closely their situation, and the nature of the country around them.
Among other remarkable things in the Castle of Glenarm, besides a model of the Giant's Causeway, I saw also a large piece of Irish rock-crystal, which is found here in the basaltic caves. It was from four and a half to five inches long, and is said to be the largest ever found here. I was also told that the people of the north of Ireland every where call the basalt, ‘Whinstone.’ I had, indeed, often before heard this word; but I did not know that it was a peculiar North-Irish and Scotch provincialism. ‘Whin’ is the shrub called furze, so common in Ireland, and which grows in abundance on the basalt rocks. The fair lady who told me this, also informed me, that here, in the north of Ireland, what the English call family names, are often called clans-names by the common people; and that if I wished to get a clear conception of the meaning of the word clan, I had only to think of what is called in the Bible the ‘Children of Israel.’ For the Irish and Scotch used the word precisely in the same sense, as is proved by their translating the ‘Children of Israel,’ always by ‘Clan Israel.’ It is remarkable that every thing here, both in customs and
The storm had thrown up an unusual quantity of seaweed at Glenarm, and different other places along the coast. Half the population were next morning, when the wind had somewhat abated, busy gathering it, and taking it away on little cars. All the wet basalt and limestone rocks, which rolled about on the seashore, were covered with men, women, and children, who, as at a joyful harvest-home, gathered the long snake-like slimy weeds, and collected them all carefully into little heaps. The Irish turn these plants to many uses: in the first place, they eat them, and, indeed, in no small quantities. Several of my twenty guides at the Giant's Causeway amused themselves on the way with chewing different marine plants, just as they picked them out of the surf. I saw the people in Ballycastle, too, putting seaweed on their bread and butter, and eating it as we do watercresses. In Belfast, I saw the peasants bring sea-plants to market as a common vegetable, just as they do peas or beans in our country. Some seaweed they salt and boil, and then it has exactly the same appearance as our German plum jam. One may call those boiled seaweeds, Irish jam. Besides, as I have already said, they make kelp from the ashes of the burnt sea-plants, both in Ireland and Scotland; and those which they neither eat nor burn for kelp, they use as manure. Yet I believe they are not here so often used for the latter purpose as on our Baltic coasts, the sandy shores of which gain more benefit from this kind of manure than the wet morass lands of Ireland, which would be more benefitted by lime, sea-sand, and shells, which latter are here and there on the coast of Ireland, at Lough Foyle, for instance, piled up in large heaps, even in entire hills.
All the coasts of Ireland are very rich in various kinds of sea-plants, and accordingly it seems that the green vegetation of the Emerald Isle is continued even beneath the sea. The coasts of Antrim are said to be the richest of all the coasts of Ireland, in those plants, which grow and spread more quickly on limestone
For manure, a kind which is distinguished by the name of ‘sea-wrack,’ is principally used. This is the Laminaria digitata, which is so good a manure, especially for potatoes, that it is proverbially said here, on the coast of Antrim, ‘a sack of sea-wrack will produce a sack of potatoes.’ It is, however, in quantity rather than in quality that the potatoes are improved by it. After every storm, the coast of Antrim is crowded like a fair, and all the people come down from their hills to gather sea-wrack for their potatoes. When the sea is perfectly calm, they wade as far into the water as they can, and cut away the weeds under the water with sickles. What does not the poor Irishman do to get a few ‘'tatoes!’ They take with them their little mountain horses, and load the manure on their backs; or, if the ground is too rocky for horses, they load their own backs with the briny, dripping manure.
From the difficulty of observing them beneath the water, where alone they unfold all their splendour, very few know the delicacy, and uncommon beauty and elegance of form, assumed by these products of marine vegetation, which are scarcely inferior in any respect to those of our gardens. When
It is inexplicable that the importance of this art is not more perceived, and that all museums do not contain herbaries of these wonderful little plants which the sea conceals. If museums are intended for the use of the lover of nature, and in particular to furnish him with knowledge and instruction in matters which would be otherwise inaccessible, then a herbary of sea-plants is infinitely more pressingly necessary in every museum than a herbary of land-plants. The latter, showing but imperfectly the forms of nature, can add but little to her glory; but a herbarium of marine plants is absolutely an elevating and beautifying of the works of creation, and adds to the glory of the Creator. Dr. Drummond also remarks, in the treatise I have mentioned, that one description of seaweed (Polysiphonia violacea), which has very long black stalks, when it is driven about by the waves in a storm in great quantities on the coast of Antrim, entangles and felts itself with its long branches so as to accumulate in large lumps, which roll about on the shore, and often form knots so firm that it is almost impossible to unloose them.
I drank another glass of whisky in Glenarm—the mild climate of Ireland soon teaches one whisky drinking—for my car-driver told me it was the last good whisky we could procure on the coast,—the Larne whisky was no good, and the Carrickfergus whisky was still worse. We then proceeded towards Belfast. I felt myself exceedingly comfortable on one side of my body, which, in one corner of my car, was sheltered from the attack of the snow and wind, and I did all in my power to concentrate all my sense of feeling and my whole soul into this comfortable corner, and to let all my other limbs freeze and shiver in the wet and cold as much as they pleased. Most people say that if one part of the body, the feet, for instance, or the head, is cold, one feels uncomfortable all over, however warm the rest of him may be; but I think my theory is better, and that one may bring himself, with some persuasion and management, to feel contented and warm if
And when I had effected this, I took my leave of Erin, and embarked for Caledonia.
End of Travels in Ireland