Before I quit it I have one other observation to make, which is relative to the want of accommodations and extravagant expense of strangers residing at Killarney. I speak it not at all feelingly, thanks to Mr. Herbert’s hospitality, but from the accounts given me: the inns are miserable, and the lodgings little better. I am surprised somebody with a good capital does not procure a large well-built inn, to be erected on the immediate shore of the lake, in an agreeable situation, at a distance from the town; there are very few places where such a one would answer better; there ought to be numerous and good apartments. A large rendezvous-room for billiards, cards, dancing, music, etc., to which the company might resort when they chose it; an ordinary for those that like dining in public; boats of all sorts, nets for fishing, and as great a variety of amusements as could be collected, especially within doors; for the climate being very rainy, travellers wait with great impatience in a dirty
common inn, which they would not do if they were in the midst of such accommodations as they meet with at an English spa. But above all, the prices of everything, from a room and a dinner to a barge and a band of music, to be reasonable, and hung up in every part of the house. The resort of strangers to Killarney would then be much increased, and their stay would be greatly prolonged; they would not view it post-haste, and fly away the first moment to avoid dirt and imposition. A man with a good capital and some ingenuity would, I think, make a fortune by fixing here upon such principles.
The state of the poor in the whole county of Kerry represented as exceedingly miserable, and owing to the conduct of men of property, who are apt to lay the blame on what they call land pirates, or men who offer the highest rent, and who, in order to pay this rent, must and do re-let all the cabin lands at an extravagant rise, which is assigning over all the cabins to be devoured by one farmer. The cottars on a farm cannot go from one to another, in order to find a good master, as in England; for all the country is in the same system, and no redress to be found. Such being the case, the farmers are enabled to charge the price of labour as low as they please, and rate the land as high as they like. This is an evil which oppresses them cruelly, and certainly has its origin in its landlords when they set their farms, setting all the cabins with
them, instead of keeping them tenants to themselves. The oppression is, the farmer valuing the labour of the poor at fourpence or fivepence a day, and paying that in land rated much above its value. Owing to this the poor are depressed; they live upon potatoes and sour milk, and the poorest of them only salt and water to them, with now and then a herring. Their milk is bought; for very few keep cows, scarce any pigs, but a few poultry. Their circumstances are incomparably worse than they were twenty years ago; for they had all cows, but then they wore no linen: all now have a little flax. To these evils have been owing emigrations, which have been considerable.
To the west of Tralee are the Mahagree Islands, famous for their corn products; they are rock and sand, stocked with rabbits; near them a sandy tract, twelve miles long, and one mile broad, to the north, with the mountains to the south, famous for the best wheat in Kerry; all under the plough.
Arriving at Ardfert, Lord Crosby, whose politeness I have every reason to remember, was so obliging as to carry me by one of the finest strands I ever rode upon, to view the mouth of the Shannon at Ballengary, the site of an old fort. It is a vast rock, separated from the country by a chasm of prodigious depth, through which the waves drive. The rocks of the coast here are in the boldest style, and hollowed by the furious Atlantic waves into caverns in which they roar. It
was a dead calm, yet the swell was so heavy, that the great waves rolled in and broke upon the rocks with such violence as to raise an immense foam, and give one an idea of what a storm would be; but fancy rarely falls short in her pictures. The view of the Shannon is exceedingly noble; it is eight miles over, the mouth formed by two headlands of very high and bold cliffs, and the reach of the river in view very extensive; it is an immense scenery: perhaps the noblest mouth of a river in Europe.
Ardfert is very near the sea, so near it that single trees or rows are cut in pieces with the wind, yet about Lord Glendour’s house there are extensive plantations exceedingly flourishing, many fine ash and beech; about a beautiful Cistercian abbey, and a silver fir of forty-eight years’ growth, of an immense height and size.
October 3. Left Ardfert, accompanying Lord Crosby to Listowel. Called in the way to view Lixnaw, the ancient seat of the Earls of Kerry, but deserted for ten years past, and now presents so melancholy a scene of desolation, that it shocked me to see it. Everything around lies in ruin, and the house itself is going fast off by thieving depredations of the neighbourhood. I was told a curious anecdote of this estate; which shows wonderfully the improvement of Ireland. The present Earl of Kerry’s grandfather, Thomas, agreed to lease the whole estate for £1,500 a year to a
Mr. Collis for ever, but the bargain went off upon a dispute whether the money should be paid at Cork or Dublin. Those very lands are now let at £20,000 a year. There is yet a good deal of wood, particularly a fine ash grove, planted by the present Earl of Shelburne’s father.