From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837
The condition and appearance of the peasantry differ much in different parts. In the districts about Westport and Newport the people were formerly in comfortable circumstances, uniting the occupations of farmer, weaver, and fisherman; but for several years the change in their circumstances for the worse has been very great, which has been attributed to the decline in the linen trade, the subdivision of farms, and early and improvident marriages.
The peasantry, particularly in the pasturing districts, where extensive farms are held in common, live in villages; detached cabins are sometimes to be met with; their habitations are built in some parts of uncemented stone, in others of sods or mud, on a stone foundation; they are roofed chiefly with bog timber, which is never of sufficient size to furnish rafters except for the smallest cabins: the price of foreign timber prevents its general use. Their cabins hence have an appearance even more miserable than those in other parts of Ireland. In the mountainous districts, and on the borders of the bog, the habitations are peculiarly wretched, indicating the greatest poverty. In Gallen the houses are built of dry walls dashed with mortar, and have generally a chimney and two partitions, besides a recess called a hag, sunk in the side wall opposite the fire, which contains a bed, and is screened by a straw mat hung up for a curtain.
The fuel is universally turf; the food, potatoes, oaten bread, milk, and herrings; and the clothing, chiefly a dark-coloured frieze manufactured by themselves, with thicksets and cotton occasionally. The women were formerly clothed in home-made stuffs, flannels, and friezes, and, like those of Galway, the short jacket and petticoat was of red flannel or frieze; the jacket has in most instances given way to a cotton gown, but the deep crimson petticoat is still worn throughout the greater part of the county. The Irish language is generally spoken by the old inhabitants, but young people almost everywhere speak English, and many of the children, even in the mountain districts and along the sea shore, are unacquainted with the Irish language.
Every village has its code of laws established by the inhabitants: differences which cannot be accommodated in this manner were referred to the proprietor of the estate, or his agent; but now they are generally carried to the sessions; this rude system of village law is said to give rise to much strife and pertinacious litigation. A place is shewn near Dunmore town, in Addergoole parish, where, after a violent fall of rain accompanied with a dreadful and unusual noise, the workmen at a turbary perceived the bog, to the extent of ten acres, floating after them till it spread over a piece of low pasture which it entirely covered to the extent of thirty acres. Mayo gives the titles of Earl and Viscount to the Burke family.
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Truelove's Journal: A Bookshop Novella
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.
This is a story for the genuine booklover, penned 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 ».
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