Besides an incessant round of banquets, receptions, concerts, balls, and what are humorously called "entertainments," the Royal visitors devoted much time to inspecting museums, libraries, hospitals, colleges, schools, including some sights not usually attractive to strangers, such as the collections of preparations and curiosities in the College of Surgeons, and the College of Physicians. The antiquities in the Royal Hibernian Academy's rooms were duly inspected; a conversazione at the Royal Dublin Society attended; a flower-show at the Rotunda; The Catholic University in Stephen's Green visited; and above all there were splendid doings at Trinity College, where the Prince (and at the same time, the Duke of Cambridge, and Lord Abercorn) received the investiture of honorary Doctor of Laws. After this the Royal LL.D. went out, unrobed, to unveil the statue of Edmund Burke.
Then there was the Cattle Show, for it happened that the usual spring meeting of the Royal Dublin Society fell at the very time of the Prince's visit. Of course there was also a review in Phœnix Park, and on this occasion the military spectacle was of unusual brilliancy.
On Sunday, the 19th, His Royal Highness attended the service in Christ Church, a cathedral exceeded by few in historic interest.
In addition to the many engagements in Dublin, visits were paid to Lord Powerscourt's beautiful domain, with the romantic and classical scenes of county Wicklow; and to the Duke of Leinster at Carton, and to Maynooth College, fifteen miles off. The President, Dr. Russell, with the officials, formally received the Prince, while the hundreds of students gave him a cheerful welcome in the great quadrangle.
It would occupy too much space to mention all the incidents crowded into the days of the Irish sojourn. They are all recorded in full detail, in the newspapers of the period, and especially in the columns of the Times, who sent a special correspondent to chronicle the events, day by day. In a leading article of the Times, the writer gives a summary of the proceedings, and makes comments on what might be the result of the Royal visit. Some sentences of this article we quote as showing what was the impression made at the time by the Prince himself:—
"Any reader of our daily correspondence could easily make out a hundred distinct occasions during these ten days on which the Prince, most frequently with the Princess, had to be face to face with some portion of the people, in some ceremony or other, and had to perform a part requiring all the graces and gifts of Royalty. There were presentations and receptions; receiving and answering addresses; processions, walking, riding, and driving, in morning, evening, military, academic, and mediæval attire. The Prince was invested as a Knight, robed as an LL.D., and made a Lord of the Irish Privy Council; he had to breakfast, lunch, dine, and sup with more or less publicity every twenty-four hours. He had to go twice to races with fifty or a hundred thousand people about him; to review a small army and make a tour in the Wicklow mountains, of course everywhere receiving addresses under canopies, and dining in state under galleries full of spectators. He visited and inspected institutions, colleges, universities, academies, libraries, and cattle shows. He had to take a very active part in assemblies of from several hundred to several thousand dancers, and always to select for his partners the most important personages. He had to introduce the statue of Burke to the wind and rain of his country. He had to listen to many speeches sufficiently to know when and what to answer. He had to examine with respectful interest pictures, books, antiquities, relics, manuscripts, specimens, bones, fossils, prize beasts, and works of Irish art. He had never to be unequal to the occasion, however different from the last or however like the last, and whatever his disadvantage as to the novelty or the dullness of the matter and the scene. He was always before persons who were there at home, on their own ground, and amid persons and objects familiar to them, and sometimes in a manner made by them. Be it Cardinal, Chancellor, Rector, Mayor, Commanding Officer, President, Chairman, or local deputation, he had to hold his own, without even seeming to do so—that is, without effort or self assertion. All this he had to do continually for ten days. Now, men of common would know what an anxious thing it is to have to do this even once, and how utterly they may be upset by the concurrence of two or three such occasions."
All this and more the Prince had to do and to suffer during his visit. The speeches if not long, were numerous and appropriate. Altogether the Irish campaign of 1868 was not an easy one. Let it be remembered with the more honour.
On the 25th of April, the Royal visitors returned to Holyhead, and stopping at Carnarvon, the birthplace of the first Prince of Wales, received a public greeting, and an address. At a banquet subsequently given, the Prince thus responded to the toast given by the High Sheriff of the County:—
"On behalf of the Princess and myself I return our warmest thanks for the kind way in which our health has been proposed, and for the manner in which it has been received. It has afforded the Princess and myself the very greatest pleasure to come to North Wales and visit the ancient castle of Carnarvon. It is particularly interesting to us to come upon this day, the anniversary of the birthday of the first Prince of Wales. For a long time it had been our intention to pay a visit to Wales, and I regret that that intention has been so long in the fulfilment; but the cordial reception which we have received to-day will, I am sure, lead us to look forward with great pleasure to another visit on some future day. We deeply regret that our stay should be so short, and that, it being necessary for us to go homewards, we cannot remain longer with you. I thank you once more for the kind way in which you have received the few words I have addressed to you, and for the welcome we have received from the people of Carnarvon."
His Royal Highness concluded by proposing the health of the Lords-Lieutenant, the High Sheriffs, and the Mayors of the towns and counties of North Wales.