If in my previous paper I have dwelt much on hotels and comforts it was for the purpose of showing intending tourists that in these matters at least man has done much for Connemara and the South-West. I had frequently heard complaints made or doubts expressed into the character of the accommodation to be found in the West, but our experience proved that in all respects the accommodation was most satisfactory. Of course, I would not advise intending tourists to follow us in our lightning speed. The ground that we covered in a day would serve for three or four days, or even a week. There was scarcely a spot we visited that we did not wish to remain longer, both for the charm of the scenery and the various excuses offered. For lovers of the picturesque or for lovers of the rod, for those who want to enjoy scenery or to enjoy the milder form of sport, such as angling, there are opportunities and facilities in abundance. There are touring routes planned out of endless variety. We only enjoyed a selection. In looking over the guide-books on my return I was as much surprised by what I had not seen as by what I had. With regard to what I had seen, the writer of the guide bock had not exaggerated. So, assuming them to be as truthful in regard to the others, I can only say that in the resources of Connemara and the West and South-West, so far as touring is concerned, must be inexhaustible.
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Though I cannot say that man, meaning thereby the local man outside hotel proprietors, has done much for the West, Mr. Balfour did much by his light railway and the road scheme, and prepared the way for more. The Midland Great Western, in developing the railway system, have really opened the gate of the West, and allowed easy, I dare not say, free access, but by these railways, motors, and hotels they have done all that could be expected, and I am sure at as reasonable rates as the circumstances would warrant, and what the Midland has done for the West the Great Southern has done for the South and South West, and as a result we find excursions to Killarney from Belfast at wonderfully cheap rates. Of course, our own Great Northern has its part in that. And I should mention specially Messrs. Thomas Cook & Co., who by their enterprise and their arrangements in the matter of touring in Ireland have conferred a great boon not only on tourists, but on the inhabitants of all touring centres. They seem to have planned tours for all tastes and all pockets.
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| College Street, Killarney c1900. National Library of Ireland L_CAB_03397 |
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But I must pay that while I met with no disappointment in the scenery I met with disappointment in other respects. I wished I had been able to see the West as Thackeray, Barrow, Johnson, and others did in the first half of the last century. They had no railways and motors to rush them through. A Bianconi's car or a modest side-car was all they had to depend on. It afforded them time to go when they, pleased and as they pleased and to talk to men, women, and children as they passed along. Most of these writers, Thackeray specially, seem to have been more impressed by and interested in the people and the pigs than in anything else. In fact, pigs, potatoes, poteen, and petticoats seem to have made the strongest impression of them. Thackeray, we know, was particularly impressed by the neat handed Phyllis's, who ministered to his wants in the various hotels he stopped at, of which we have lasting evidence in "Peg of Limavady" and "Kitty of Coleraine." He was, if possible, more charmed by those he met in the South and West, over whom he seems to have gone into ecstasies. I must say, however, that none of us had any time to study these houris of the West as Thackeray had, but I am afraid the race must be extinct or that all are so good that it is difficult to pick out the best. But I do not think any of us lost our hearts or our heads as Thackeray seems to have dome. But then, perhaps, we had not such artistic eyes as he had or such an appreciation of a good dinner and graceful service.
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By my recollections of those old tourists and chroniclers I was prepared to meet pigs and red petticoats at every step, but it was the third or fourth day before I saw a single pig, and as to red petticoats, I only found them in graceful abundance in Achill. Indeed, I think it was only here we saw the life of the West in all its ancient characteristics unmarred by modern developments. Here we found in endless number along the road the donkey with panniers carrying goods to or from markets, donkeys carrying small loads and men and women who, it appeared to us, would have been more humanely occupied in carrying the donkeys. Here, too, we saw red petticoats in abundance, and also the old custom of a man and woman riding the one horse. It was all interesting, all picturesque, all truly Irish, and we were grateful, for it assured us that in their encroachments upon Ireland English customs had not penetrated as far West as Achill.
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In another respect we met with disappointment. Thackeray, for example, tells us that he saw thousands of people idling on the bridge at Galway. I did not see more than half a dozen on it, but it was early morning when I passed over it. Then he and other writers dwelt at large upon the wonders of Claddagh, and upon its ancient people, ancient laws and customs. In these grand old days the Claddagh people had a King and Queen of their own, and one of them describes a ball at which all the inhabitants attended, except the King and Queen, who were out selling fish, which was and is the principal source of livelihood of these descendants of Irish kings. But I did see the part of the town in which the present generation live, and I must say that if ever ruin and desolation were stamped on human dwellings it was here.
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| Claddagh, Galway c1900 – www.walkaboutgalway.com |
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But so far as I could observe the track of desolation is over the place. Passing over the bridge, where Lough Corrib flows with a power that might drive any amount of machinery, I saw a huge building of bad and derelict look. I found it was Persse's distillery, which is now used as a store for lumber. I saw other old buildings, which had seen better days, but which now seemed to exist more as memories of the past than as incidents of the present. Eyre Square is the principal square and centre of Galway. On looking out from the Railway Hotel, on one side of it the first thing that meets the in a small old building, such as one would have associated with Carrick Hill in its oil days, and next to it a one-storey building, with its old thatch remaining, and, of course, unoccupied. I was not surprised to hear that many of the Home Rulers who visited Galway were disillusioned as to the advantages of local government in one part of Ireland at least.
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I could not say with these writers that I saw much idleness in the West, for in many parts of my tour I saw few people of the peasant class either working or idling. I do not think I saw a man working in a field in all Connemara. I could sympathise with a young lady who recently made a short stay in the West, who said that she was glad to get back to Dublin to enjoy the sight of a man. Had it not been for what I had read about the slackness of recruiting I should have said the men were all with the colours. But if there were many they were old, and not new recruits, if we are to believe the statistics. I dare say, however, many of them were away harvesting in England or Scotland.
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Still I must say I do not know what man would do in many parts of Mayo or Galway. In many places the stones are as plentiful as grass, and that does not seem of the richest. There is very little tillage over the greater part of the West that we passed through, so that it would be difficult to know how men could he employed. I did not observe any signs of what is called congestion, except, perhaps, at the extreme West, where the people seem to depend on fishing or tourists for a living.
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I must add, however, that I did not see so much beggary as I expected, and I will add, so many signs of poverty, so far as the dress or countenance of the people we met would suggest poverty. One of those old writers said that if giving to the poor was lending to the Lord, Ireland would be the place for promoters to establish Celestial banks. I honestly believe we have more poverty, so far as appearances would suggest poverty, in some of our Belfast slums than there is in the West of Ireland, so far as we saw it. It is true we may not have mingled much with the madding crowd in districts where poverty is paramount. But I can only speak of what I saw and heard. I have seen what I would call more poverty-stricken looks in the city than I saw in my entire route in the West.
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In reading old accounts of tours in the West I find that the principal features that struck the tourists in many districts were the workhouses, the jail, and the convents or chapels. We did observe that the workhouse does form a prominent feature of many towns, and so do chapels; but in some parts of the country jails have been amalgamated, and those that are left are only wrecks of their former selves, and not calculated to impress tourists. We found churches, or the vanes of churches, on various sections of our route, so that the moderns seem to keep pace, and more than pace, with the ancients in the great attention and lavish money they spend on their ecclesiastical buildings. While Roman Catholic churches so largely predominate, and while the popular representation both of the counties and the towns is chiefly in the hands of Roman Catholics, or of Protestants who do the work for them, perhaps even better than they could themselves, the Protestant element is well represented in both the West and South so far as our exploitation extended. In many of the towns and small districts a large number of the principal shops were occupied by Protestants. This is true from Connemara to Clare and from Sligo to Limerick, and of all places else most true of Limerick, where some of the finest shops and almost all the principal industries are in the hands of Protestants. And I am bound to say that, so far as my inquiries and information wont, these Protestants seem to be held in the highest respect. It is not for me either to explain or moralise on that. I merely mention this as one of the most striking features of my trip apart from the scenery.
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I can only say that it left on me the most pleasant recollections, and I would advise any Northerner who has the time and means to enjoy a holiday in either the West or the South. They will be warmly welcomed and well repaid in the variety of scene and life they will enjoy, in the wild picturesqueness of mountain and lake and dell that will pass like a splendid panorama before their eyes at every turn, and in the new experience of life and character that will be theirs.
– "The Man in the Street," in "The Ulster Echo."
Source: The Witness, 13 August 1915.
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