The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh; and the Irish Sketch Book

by William Makepeace Thackeray

or some similar signboard. High and low, in this country, they begin things on too large a scale. They begin churches too big and can’t finish them; mills and houses too big, and are ruined before they are done; letters on signboards too big, and are up in a corner before the inscription is finished—there is something quite strange, really, in this general consistency.

Well, over James Hurley, or Pat Hanlahan, you will most likely see another board of another tradesman, with a window to the full as curious. Above Tim Carthy evidently lives another family. There are long-haired girls of fourteen at every one of the windows, and dirty children everywhere. In the cellars, look at them in dingy white nightcaps over a bowl of stirabout; in the shop, paddling up and down the ruined steps, or issuing from beneath the black counter; up above, see the girl of fourteen is tossing and dandling one of them; and a pretty tender sight it is, in the midst of this filth and wretchedness, to see the women and children together. It makes a sunshine in the dark place, and somehow half reconciles one to it. Children are everywhere—look out of the nasty streets into the still more nasty back lanes; there they are, sprawling at every door and court, paddling in every puddle; and in about a fair proportion to every six children an old woman—a very old, blear-eyed, ragged woman—who makes believe to sell something out of a basket, and is perpetually calling upon the name of the Lord. For every three ragged old women you will see two ragged old men, praying and moaning like the females. And there is no lack of young men, either, though I never could make out what they were about: they loll about the street, chiefly conversing in knots; and in every street you will be pretty sure to see a recruiting sergeant, with gay ribands in his cap, loitering about with an eye upon the other loiterers there. The buzz, and hum, and chattering of this crowd is quite inconceivable to us in England, where a crowd is generally silent: as a person with a decent coat passes, they stop in their talk and say, ‘God bless you for a fine gentleman!’ In these crowded streets, where all are beggars, the beggary is but small: only the very old and hideous venture to ask for a penny, otherwise the competition would be too great.

As for the buildings that one lights upon every now and then in the midst of such scenes as this, they are scarce worth the trouble to examine: occasionally you come on a chapel, with sham Gothic windows and a little belfry, one of the Catholic places of worship; then, placed in some quiet street, a neat-looking dissenting meeting-house. Across the river yonder, as you issue out from the street, where the preceding sketch was taken, is a handsome hospital; near it the old cathedral, a barbarous old turreted edifice, of the fourteenth century it is said; how different to the sumptuous elegance which characterises the English and Continental churches of the same period! Passing by it, and walking down other streets,—black, ruinous, swarming, dark, hideous,—you come upon the barracks and the walks of the old castle, and from it on to an old bridge, from which the view is a fine one. On one side are the grey bastions of the castle; beyond them, in the midst of the broad stream, stands a huge mill that looks like another castle; farther yet is the handsome new Wellesley Bridge, with some little craft upon the river, and the red warehouses of the new town looking prosperous enough. The Irish town stretches away to the right; there are pretty villas beyond it, and on the bridge are walking twenty-four young girls, in parties of four and five, with their arms round each other’s waists, swaying to and fro, and singing or chattering, as happy as if they had shoes to their feet. Yonder you see a dozen pair of red legs glittering in the water, their owners being employed in washing their own or other people’s rags.

The Guide-book mentions that one of the aboriginal forests of the country is to be seen at a few miles from Limerick; and thinking that an aboriginal forest would be a huge discovery, and form an instructive and delightful feature of the present work, I hired a car in order to visit the same, and pleased myself with visions of gigantic oaks, Druids, Norma, wildernesses and awful glooms, which would fill the soul with horror. The romance of the place was heightened by a fact stated by the carman, viz., that until late years robberies were very frequent about the wood; the inhabitants of the district being a wild lawless race. Moreover, there are numerous castles round about,—and for what can a man wish more than robbers, castles, and an aboriginal wood?

The way to these wonderful sights lies through the undulating grounds which border the Shannon; and though the view is by no means a fine one, I know few that are pleasanter than the sight of these rich, golden, peaceful plains, with the full harvest waving on them and just ready for the sickle. The hay harvest was likewise just being concluded, and the air loaded with the rich odour of the hay. Above the trees, to your left, you saw the mast of a ship, perhaps moving along, and every now and then caught a glimpse of the Shannon, and the low grounds and plantations of the opposite county of Limerick. Not an unpleasant addition to the landscape, too, was a sight which I do not remember to have witnessed often in this country—that of several small and decent farmhouses, with their stacks and sheds and stables, giving an air of neatness and plenty that the poor cabin with its potato-patch does not present. Is it on account of the small farms that the land seems richer and better cultivated here than in most other parts of the country? Some of the houses in the midst of the warm summer landscape had a strange appearance, for it is often the fashion to whitewash the roofs of the houses, leaving the slates of the walls of their natural colour; hence, and in the evening especially, contrasting with the purple sky, the house-tops often looked as if they were covered with snow.

According to the Guide-book’s promise, the castles began soon to appear; at one point we could see three of these ancient mansions in a line, each seemingly with its little grove of old trees, in the midst of the bare but fertile country. By this time, too, we had got into a road so abominably bad and rocky, that I began to believe more and more with regard to the splendour of the aboriginal forest, which must be most aboriginal and ferocious indeed when approached by such a savage path. After travelling through a couple of lines of wall with plantations on either side, I at length became impatient as to the forest, and, much to my disappointment, was told this was it. For the fact is, that though the forest has always been there, the trees have not, the proprietors cutting them regularly when grown to no great height, and the monarchs of the woods which I saw round about would scarcely have afforded timber for a bedpost. Nor did any robbers make their appearance in this wilderness: with which disappointment, however, I was more willing to put up than with the former one.

But if the wood and the robbers did not come up to my romantic notions, the old castle of Bunratty fully answered them, and indeed should be made the scene of a romance, in three volumes at least.

‘It is a huge, square tower, with four smaller ones at each angle; and you mount to the entrance by a steep flight of steps, being commanded all the way by the crossbows of two of the Lord De Clare’s retainers, the points of whose weapons may be seen lying upon the ledge of the little narrow meurtrière on each side of the gate. A venerable seneschal, with the keys of office, presently opens the little back postern, and you are admitted to the great hall—a noble chamber, pardi! some seventy feet in length, and thirty high. ‘Tis hung round with a thousand trophies of war and chase,—the golden helmet and spear of the Irish king, the long yellow mantle he wore, and the huge brooch that bound it. Hugo De Clare slew him before the castle in 1305, when he and his kernes attacked it. Less successful in 1314, the gallant Hugo saw his village of Bunratty burned round his tower by the son of the slaughtered O’Neill; and, sallying out to avenge the insult, was brought back—a corpse! Ah! what was the pang that shot through the fair bosom of the Lady Adela, when she knew that ‘twas the hand of Redmond O’Neill sped the shaft which slew her sire!

‘You listen to this sad story, reposing on an oaken settle (covered with deer’s-skin taken in the aboriginal forest of Carclow hard by), and placed at the enormous hall-fire. Here sits Thonom an Diaoul, “Dark Thomas,” the blind harper of the race of De Clare, who loves to tell the deeds of the lordly family. “Penetrating in disguise,” he continues, “into the castle, Redmond of the golden locks sought an interview with the lily of Bunratty; but she screamed when she saw him under the disguise of the gleeman, and said, My father’s blood is in the hall! At this, up started fierce Sir Ranulph. Ho, Bludyer! he cried to his squire, call me the hangman and Father John; seize me, vassals, yon villain in gleeman’s guise, and hang him on the gallows on the tower!