Libera nos, Domine.
Bidding adieu to Balinosloe, I went to Aghrim, where the Number of Houses exceed not a Pair-Royal of Aces; however, the Place will be ever memorable in History, for the decisive Battle fought here, which reduced a whole Kingdom to the Obedience of the Protestant King William. And all over the Plain here lie scatter’d Heaps of Mens Sculls to this Day; insomuch that it does not only represent Golgotha, but had also the Father of that Grecian Hero dwelt here, who wept for more Worlds to add to his Conquests, he might have sav’d his Page the Labour of shewing him at Meals the ghastful Emblem of Mortality. Hence I proceeded to Loghrea, where is kept the chiefest Market in all the Province of Connaught; and from thence going to Killilel, I saw a small wooden Cross set tottering upon a Heap of Stones in the Road; about which some Priest, and his bigotted Tribe, had been mumbling a Pater Noster, and Ave Maria to the Blessed Lady. At Balihavely I took Notice of an old Castle metamorphosed into a Cow-House; and next I went to Athenrea, an ancient, but much ruinated Town, built by old King John of merry Memory. Then I came to Galway, a large Seaport Town, situated on the River Caarle; when I first enter’d this Place, I really took it to be a general Goal for the whole Kingdom; for the Houses (which are some one, some two, and some three Stories high) are all strongly built of Stone, and most of the Windows thick barricadoed with thick Iron Bars, insomuch that there are not the like Buildings to be seen through the Country for Strength. In the Midst of this Town stands a Church, dedicated to honest St. Nicholas, whose Steeple hath a pretty good Set of Bells, and its Chimes are somewhat Musical, but not well approv’d by the Fanaticks, because they are set to the Tune of a Psalm. Moreover, in this Church are two Pulpits, one for the Doctor to preach in, and one for the Archbishop of Tuam, in case his Preferment makes him not above it.
The Women of this Country are generally so homely, that had the Mother of all Living been as ugly, when she took her ill-condition’d Being from one of Father Adam’s Ribs, her frightful Phisiognomy had forc’d the Godhead to act the sixth Day over again. Seeing the female Sex so ordinary, to comfort them under this Misfortune, I composed the following Lines, call’d the Picture of an Irish Woman.
Of all the Creatures I have ever found,
An Irish Woman is a strange Compound!
Unseemly Gestures wanton Sports betray,
Yet talk of Love, she knows not what to say.
Her chiefest Breeding lies in milking Cows,
Her Face is only fit to fright the Crows;
Her Breasts are large, her Belly somewhat hard,