Reminiscences of my Irish Journey in 1849

Wednesday 18th July

Damp morning, yet with struggling sunshine; rejected contributor of Duffy’s, sits at back table while we breakfast; speaks of Ld. Limerick, of Dolly’s Brae affair (quite new) – baddish fellow; forgotten all but his voice. Three coaches in the road; immense packing, get under way at last, towards Killarney and Shine Lawlor. Longish row of fellows sitting against the walls of houses on quay at the bridge end; very ugly in their lazzarone aspect under the sunshine. Spacious but half-waste aspect of streets as we roll upwards towards the hill country out of Cork. Windy, and ever more so; country bare. Put off hat (owing to head wind) at first stage, and took out cap from my carpet bag. – Bare commonplace country, - plenty of inequalities and “natural features,” but culture, and elegance of taste in possessors, much wanting. Blarney Castle, I remember it, among its bit of wood at the foot of dingy uncultivated heights in dingy bare country; a grey square tower mainly, visible in its wood which the big waste seemed to reduce to a patch.

Country getting barer, wilder; forgotten now, all details of it. Meet criminals, in long carts escorted by police; young women many of them, a kind of gypsey beauty in some of the witches, keen glancing black eyes with long coarse streams of black hair; “Cork for trial” – eheu! Saw at another point of the road, large masses of people camped on the wayside, (other side of Mallow I think?) “waiting for out-door relief;” squalid, squalid, not the extremity of raggedness seen at Kildare, however. Remember next to nothing of the country; hedgeless, dim – moory, tilled patches in moory wilderness of untilled; heights in the distance, but no name to them discoverable, nor worth much search; wind freshening and right ahead. Mallow perhaps about two o’clock; hollow with modicum of woods; green all, and fertile-looking, with pleasant slate roofs and promise of a goodish town soon. Town really not bad: swift yet darkish stream as we enter; ascending street, shops, air of some business; barrack (fails nowhere): we descend again swiftly, street narrower and winding but still handsome enough; have to turn to Limerick Railway Station, and then amid the tumult of men, horses, boxes, cars and multiplied confusion, wait long before we can return to hill-foot, and resume our road. Sheltered road for some miles; on our right over the hedge, runs ugly as chaos ditch of a futile “Canal.” This is the way to Ballygiblin (Sir W. and Lady Beecher’s), but I have given up that. Wind still higher, sunshine gone; haggard famine of beggars; (one stage I specially remember in this respect; poorest of hamlets, hungriest of human populations); dust, tempest, threatenings of rain; cigars are my one poor consolation: At “Millstreet” dine or lunch; pleasant village among woods on the hill-slope, as seen from the distance; interior, one mass of mendicancy, ruined by the “famine,” by the potatoe-failure. All towns here seem to depend for their trade on mere produce of the earth: mills, distilleries, bacon, butter, - what of “respectability with gig” could be derived from that has taken station in towns, and all is wrecked now. After lunch, street filled with beggars; people in another coach threw halfpence; the population ran at them like rabid dogs, dogs of both sexes, and whelps; one oldish fellow I saw beating a boy, to keep at least him out of the competition. Rain; “Hay-y-p!” down hill at a rapid pace, happily we get away. Duffy has taken refuge inside; and the rain now for about an hour becomes furious; - lasts in furious occasional showers, but briefer, till near the end of the journey. Desolate, bare, moory country; hanging now in clear wet; much bog, mainly bog; treeless and swept over by a harsh moist wind; ugly, ugly, and very cold; meet drove of horses, coming from (or going to?) some “fair.” Light clean-shanked cob-looking creatures, very cheap; I was told “£5” or so, for they are unbred and they are lean. Sharp-nosed pinched little Irishman with wild grey little eyes and dark hair has now ( I really don’t remember where) got upon the coach, is very explanatory, communicative; - a kind of caterer for some hôtel, as I gathered afterwards. That is “Mangerton” (a huge ugly hulk of a mountain truncated-pyramidal) with the Devil’s Punchbowl on the top of it; that is the lake country; and Macgillicuddy’s Reeks you see there (further westward, an irregular serrated ridge), the highest land in Ireland!” and so forth. A gentleman in dish-hat whom I had seen first in Mallow (Lawless, Lord Cloncurry’s son as I learned afterwards) came now up beside me: civil English dialect, “had got spoiled potatoes to dinner yesterday at Mallow.” Nothing memorable more. A fierce rain, where we changed horses, when he got up; wretched people cowering about to look at us, or beg, nevertheless: and this ended our rain for that evening. N.B. Lawless’s former coach was somehow connected with the London undertaking (new this season) to forward or frank man to Killarney for a certain sum: one or two frankers I think he told me, were in that coach. Dim to me all of it, - and unimportant!

Mangerton, streak of Killarney evening smoke, and Macgillicuddy’s serrated ridge, front of the mountain-country, handsomely fringed too with some wood, were now getting very visible; the moor changes itself into drained cultivated land, with gentlemen’s seats, and human, or more human farmhouses: - decidedly rather beautiful, by contrast especially. Rain gone, wind tolerably fallen; western sky clear as silver, but mostly still overhung with dark waving sheets of cloud. “Inn, and a cup of hot tea;” that is the grand outlook! Big mills (I think?) at crossing of some stream; we are near some castellated modern house up on the left, - name forgotten, proprietor (useful, slightly squinting young man, connected with Peoble O’Keefe’s territory) dined with us next day. High avenues, Lord Kenmare’s; steepish descent; paved street at least, and square-built open street (town of 6,000 you would have said, 12,000 I was told); chaos of hungry porters, inn agents, lodging-agents, - beggars, storming round you, like ravenous dogs round carrion; this is Killarney. Swift, O swift into the car for “Roche’s”, for anybody’s; and let us off!

Roche’s, I find is a mile-and-a-half distant; at the lake side or near it; fine avenues all the way, and we go fast – the inn itself, a kind of general lodging house rather, did, in my experience, by no means correspond to our hope. Funeral overtaken by us; the “Irish howl;” - totally disappointing, there was no sorrow whatever in the tone of it. A pack of idle women, mounted on the hearse as many as could, and the rest walking; were hoh-hoh-ing with a grief quite evidently hired and not worth hiring. Swift, thro’ it! Here is “Roche’s,” a long row of half-cottage looking buildings; in the middle part is the inn proper and we get admitted talier qualiter. Bedrooms of the smallest ever seen “no private sitting room;” bread bad, tea lukewarm, & c: public room (which happily is nearly empty) has no window that will come down in it, and to shove any up (or support it up) you must have a stick: evidently not the best ventilated or the best in any respect of terrestrial inns. I walked out, to be free of the hot foul air; would fain have seen the lake or Mucruss Abbey at night without any guide, - but couldn’t, no admittance anywhere. Rain beginning, I came in; wrote a letter; went to bed.