From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837
The peasantry are a fine race, much superior in appearance to those of any of the other northern districts: they are tall, well formed, and robust: their countenances display the bloom of health, and they possess that uninterrupted flow of spirits which is the constant attendant on regular living and active, yet not overstrained, industry. Whether from habit or a natural propensity, the people do not rise until a late hour in the morning, and the cows are not milked until noon. The cottiers who dwell in the more retired and mountainous parts are poor, and their cabins are wretched huts, with a wattled door and a straw mat on the inside; many of the herdsmen, who are able to give their daughters a marriage portion of £20 and a feather bed, live in these cabins. The lower classes have no confidence in physicians: when one is called in, the patient despairs of life; hence a dislike is entertained for the whole medical profession. Yet, notwithstanding the reluctance to spend money upon medicine, considerable sums are lavished on the wake which precedes interment. The English language is universally spoken, and most of the children are educated in the parochial and national schools.
« Fermanagh Antiquities | Index | Fermanagh Mineral Springs »
County Fermanagh | Fermanagh Baronies and Towns | Fermanagh Lakes and Mountains | Fermanagh Agriculture | Fermanagh Geology | Fermanagh Manufactures | Fermanagh Fish and Birds | Fermanagh Rivers | Fermanagh Antiquities | Fermanagh Peasantry | Fermanagh Mineral Springs
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A touching story for the genuine booklover, written by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St John Featherstonehaugh.
Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Join our mailing list to receive updates on new content on Library, our latest ebooks, and more.
You won't be inundated with emails! — we'll just keep you posted periodically — about once a monthish — on what's happening with the library.