Part 6 (1/2)
l. s. d.
A four-wheel chaise 3 3 0 Three horses 3 3 0 Self 1 1 0 Two servants 1 1 0 Custom-house at Waterford, hay, oats, etc. 2 1 7 Ditto at Pembroke and Hubberston 3 0 0 Sailors, boats, and sundry small charges 1 15 5 15 5 0
1777. Upon a second journey to Ireland this year, I took the opportunity of going from Dublin to Mitchelstown, by a route through the central part of the kingdom, which I had not before sufficiently viewed.
Left Dublin the 24th of September, and taking the road to Naas, I was again struck with the great population of the country, the cabins being so much poorer in the vicinity of the capital than in the more distant parts of the kingdom.
To Kildare, crossing the Curragh, so famous for its turf. It is a sheep-walk of above four thousand English acres, forming a more beautiful lawn than the hand of art ever made. Nothing can exceed the extreme softness of the turf, which is of a verdure that charms the eye, and highly set off by the gentle inequality of surface. The soil is a fine dry loam on a stony bottom; it is fed by many large flocks, turned on it by the occupiers of the adjacent farms, who alone have the right, and pay very great rents on that account. It is the only considerable common in the kingdom. The sheep yield very little wool, not more than 3lb. per fleece, but of a very fine quality.
From Furness to Shaen Castle, in the Queen's County, Dean Coote's; but as the husbandry, etc., of this neighbourhood is already registered, I have only to observe that Mr. Coote was so kind as to show me the improved grounds of Dawson's Court, the seat of Lord Carlow, which I had not seen before. The princ.i.p.al beauties of the place are the well-grown and extensive plantations, which form a shade not often met with in Ireland.
There is in the backgrounds a lake well accompanied with wood, broken by several islands that are covered with underwood, and an ornamented walk pa.s.sing on the banks which leads from the house. This lake is in the season perfectly alive with wild-fowl. Near it is a very beautiful spot, which commands a view of both woods and water; a situation either for a house or a temple. Mr. Dawson is adding to the plantations, an employment of all others the most meritorious in Ireland. Another work, scarcely less so, was the erecting a large handsome inn, wherein the same gentleman intends establis.h.i.+ng a person who shall be able to supply travellers post with either chaises or horses.
From Shaen Castle to Gloster, in the King's County, the seat of John Lloyd, Esq., member for that county, to whose attention I owe the following particulars, in which he took every means to have me well and accurately informed. But first let me observe that I was much pleased to remark, all the way from Naas quite to Rosscrea, that the country was amongst the finest I had seen in Ireland, and consequently that I was fortunate in having an opportunity of seeing it after the involuntary omission of last year. The cabins, though many of them are very bad, yet are better than in some other counties, and chimneys generally a part of them. The people, too, have no very miserable appearance; the breed of cattle and sheep good, and the hogs much the best I have anywhere seen in Ireland. Turf is everywhere at hand, and in plenty; yet are the bogs not so general as to affect the beauty of the country, which is very great in many tracts, with a scattering of wood, which makes it pleasing. Shaen Castle stands in the midst of a very fine tract. From Mountrath to Gloster, Mr. Lloyd's, I could have imagined myself in a very pleasing part of England. The country breaks into a variety of inequalities of hill and dale; it is all well inclosed with fine hedges; there is a plenty of wood, not so monopolised as in many parts of the kingdom by here and there a solitary seat, but spread over the whole face of the prospect: look which way you will, it is cultivated and cheerful.
The Shannon adds not a little to the convenience and agreeableness of a residence so near it. Besides affording these sorts of wild-fowl, the quant.i.ty and size of its fish are amazing: pikes swarm in it, and rise in weight to fifty pounds. In the little flat s.p.a.ces on its banks are small but deep lochs, which are covered in winter and in floods. When the river withdraws, it leaves plenty of fish in them, which are caught to put into stews. Mr. Holmes has a small one before his door at Johnstown, with a little stream which feeds it. A trowling-rod here gets you a bite in a moment, of a pike from twenty to forty pounds. I ate of one of twenty-seven pounds so taken. I had also the pleasure of seeing a fisherman bring three trout, weighing fourteen pounds, and sell them for sixpence-halfpenny a piece. A couple of boats lying at anchor, with lines extended from one to the other, and hooks in plenty from them, have been known to catch an incredible quant.i.ty of trout. Colonel Prittie, in one morning, caught four stone odd pounds, thirty-two trout. In general they rise from three to nine pounds. Perch swarm; they appeared in the Shannon for the first time about ten years ago, in such plenty that the poor lived on them. Bream of six pounds; eels very plentiful. There are many gillaroos in the river; one of twelve pounds weight was sent to Mr.
Jenkinson. Upon the whole, these circ.u.mstances, with the pleasure of shooting and boating on the river, added to the glorious view it yields, and which is enough at any time to cheer the mind, render this neighbourhood one of the most enviable situations to live in that I have seen in Ireland. The face of the country gives every circ.u.mstance of beauty. From Killodeernan Hill, behind the new house building by Mr.
Holmes, the whole is seen to great advantage. The spreading part of the Shannon, called Loch Derg, is commanded distinctly for many miles. It is in two grand divisions of great variety: that to the north is a reach of five miles leading to Portumna. The whole hither sh.o.r.e a scenery of hills, checkered by enclosures and little woods, and retiring from the eye into a rich distant prospect. The woods of Doras, belonging to Lord Clanricarde, form a part of the opposite sh.o.r.e, and the river itself presents an island of one hundred and twenty acres. Inclining to the left, a vale of rough ground, with an old castle in it, is backed by a bold hill, which intercepts the river there, and then the great reach of fifteen miles, the bay of Sheriff, spreads to the eye, with a magnificence not a little added to by the boundary, a sharp outline of the county of Clare mountains, between which and the Duharrow hills the Shannon finds its way. These hills lead the eye still more to the left, till the Keeper meets it, presenting a very beautiful outline that sinks into other ranges of hill, uniting with the Devil's Bit. The home scenery of the grounds, woods, hills, and lake of Johnstown, is beautiful.
Dancing is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler, and the pay is sixpence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education. Weddings are always celebrated with much dancing, and a Sunday rarely pa.s.ses without a dance.
There are very few among them who will not, after a hard day's work, gladly walk seven miles to have a dance. John is not so lively, but then a hard day's work with him is certainly a different affair from what it is with Paddy. Other branches of education are likewise much attended to, every child of the poorest family learning to read, write, and cast accounts.
There is a very ancient custom here, for a number of country neighbours among the poor people to fix upon some young woman that ought, as they think, to be married. They also agree upon a young fellow as a proper husband for her. This determined, they send to the fair one's cabin to inform her that on the Sunday following ”she is to be horsed,” that is, carried on men's backs. She must then provide whisky and cider for a treat, as all will pay her a visit after ma.s.s for a hurling match. As soon as she is horsed, the hurling begins, in which the young fellow appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company fixed on him.
If he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to the girl; but if another is victorious, he as certainly loses her, for she is the prize of the victor. These trials are not always finished in one Sunday; they take sometimes two or three, and the common expression when they are over is, that ”such a girl was goaled.” Sometimes one barony hurls against another, but a marriageable girl is always the prize. Hurling is a sort of cricket, but instead of throwing the ball in order to knock down a wicket, the aim is to pa.s.s it through a bent stick, the end stuck in the ground. In these matches they perform such feats of activity as ought to evidence the food they live on to be far from deficient in nourishment.
In the hills above Derry are some very fine slate quarries, that employ sixty men. The quarrymen are paid 3s. a thousand for the slates, and the labourers 5d. a day. They are very fine, and sent by the Shannon to distant parts of the kingdom; the price at the quarry 6s. a thousand, and at the sh.o.r.e 6s. 8d. Four hundred thousand slates are raised to pay the rent only, from which some estimate may be made of the quant.i.ty.
Mr. Head has a practice in his fences which deserves universal imitation; it is planting trees for gate-posts. Stone piers are expensive, and always tumbling down; trees are beautiful, and never want repairing.
Within fifteen years this gentleman has improved Derry so much, that those who had only seen it before would find it almost a new creation.
He has built a handsome stone house, on the slope of a hill rising from the Shannon, and backed by some fine woods, which unite with many old hedges well planted to form a woodland scene beautiful in the contrast to the bright expanse of the n.o.ble river below. The declivity on which these woods are finishes in a mountain, which rises above the whole. The Shannon gives a bend around the adjoining lands, so as to be seen from the house both to the west and north, the lawn falling gradually to a margin of wood on the sh.o.r.e, which varies the outline. The river is two miles broad, and on the opposite sh.o.r.e cultivated inclosures rise in some places almost to the mountain top, which is very bold.
It is a very singular demesne; a stripe of very beautiful ground, reaching two miles along the banks of the river, which forms his fence on one side, with a wall on the other. There is so much wood as to render it very pleasing; adding to every day by planting all the fences made or repaired. From several little hills, which rise in different parts of it, extensive views of the river are commanded quite to Portumna; but these are much eclipsed by that from the top of the hill above the slate quarry. From thence you see the river for at least forty miles, from Portumna to twenty miles beyond Limerick. It has the appearance of a fine basin, two miles over, into which three great rivers lead, being the north and south course and the Bay of Sheriff. The reaches of it one beyond another to Portumna are fine. At the foot of the mountain Mr.
Head's demesne extends in a sh.o.r.e of rich woodland.
October 7. Took my leave of Mr. Head, after pa.s.sing four days very agreeably. Through Killaloe, over the Shannon, a very long bridge of many arches; went out of the road to see a fall of that river at Castle Connel, where there is such an accompaniment of wood as to form a very pleasing scenery. The river takes a very rapid rocky course around a projecting rock, on which a gentleman has built a summer-house, and formed a terrace: it is a striking spot. To Limerick. Laid at Bennis's, the first inn we had slept in from Dublin. G.o.d preserve us this journey from another!
It is not uncommon, especially in mountainous countries, to find objects that much deserve the attention of travellers entirely neglected by them.
There are a few instances of this upon Lord Kingsborough's estate, in the neighbourhood of Mitchelstown. The first I shall mention is a cave at Skeheenrinky, on the road between Cahir and that place. The opening to it is a cleft of rock in a limestone hill, so narrow as to be difficult to get into it. I descended by a ladder of about twenty steps, and then found myself in a vault of a hundred feet long, and fifty or sixty high.
A small hole on the left leads from this a winding course of I believe not less than half an Irish mile, exhibiting a variety that struck me much. In some places the cavity in the rock is so large that when well lighted up by candles (not flambeaux; Lord Kingsborough once showed it me with them, and we found their smoke troublesome) it takes the appearance of a vaulted cathedral, supported by ma.s.sy columns. The walls, ceiling, floor, and pillars, are by turns composed of every fantastic form; and often of very beautiful incrustations of spar, some of which glitters so much that it seems powdered with diamonds; and in others the ceiling is formed of that sort which has so near a resemblance to a cauliflower.
The spar formed into columns by the dropping of water has taken some very regular forms; but others are different, folded in plaits of light drapery, which hang from their support in a very pleasing manner. The angles of the walls seem fringed with icicles. One very long branch of the cave, which turns to the north, is in some places so narrow and low, that one crawls into it, when it suddenly breaks into large vaulted s.p.a.ces, in a thousand forms. The spar in all this cave is very brilliant, and almost equal to Bristol stone. For several hundred yards in the larger branch there is a deep water at the bottom of the declivity to the right, which the common people call the river. A part of the way is over a sort of potter's clay, which moulds into any form, and is of a brown colour; a very different soil from any in the neighbouring country.
I have seen the famous cave in the Peak, but think it very much inferior to this; and Lord Kingsborough, who has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in Burgundy, says that it is not to be compared with it.
But the commanding region of the Galtees deserves more attention. Those who are fond of scenes in which Nature reigns in all her wild magnificence should visit this stupendous chain. It consists of many vast mountains, thrown together in an a.s.semblage of the most interesting features, from the boldness and height of the declivities, freedom of outline, and variety of parts, filling a s.p.a.ce of about six miles by three or four. Galtymore is the highest point, and rises like the lord and father of the surrounding progeny. From the top you look down upon a great extent of mountain, which shelves away from him to the south, east, and west; but to the north the ridge is almost a perpendicular declivity.