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

by William Makepeace Thackeray

A neater establishment cannot be seen than this; and liberty must be very sweet indeed, when people prefer it and starvation to the certainty of comfort in the union-house. We went to see it after the show at Naas.

The first persons we saw at the gate of the place were four buxom lasses, in blue jackets and petticoats, who were giggling and laughing as gaily as so many young heiresses of a thousand a year, and who had a colour in their cheeks that any lady of Almack’s might envy. They were cleaning pails and carrying in water from a green court or playground in front of the house, which some of the able-bodied men of the place were busy in enclosing. Passing through the large entrance of the house, a nondescript Gothic building, we came to a court divided by a road and two low walls: the right enclosure is devoted to the boys of the establishment, of whom there were about fifty at play—boys more healthy or happy it is impossible to see. Separated from them is the nursery; and here were seventy or eighty young children, a shrill clack of happy voices leading the way to the door where they were to be found. Boys and children had a comfortable little uniform, and shoes were furnished for all; though the authorities did not seem particularly severe in enforcing the wearing of the shoes, which most of the young persons left behind them.

In spite of all the Times’s in the world, the place was a happy one. It is kept with a neatness and comfort to which, until his entrance into the union-house, the Irish peasant must perforce have been a stranger. All the rooms and passages are white, well scoured, and airy; all the windows are glazed; all the beds have a good store of blankets and sheets. In the women’s dormitories there lay several infirm persons, not ill enough for the infirmary, and glad of the society of the common room. In one of the men’s sleeping-rooms we found a score of old grey-coated men sitting round another who was reading prayers to them; and outside the place we found a woman starving in rags, as she had been ragged and starving for years; her husband was wounded, and lay in his house upon straw; her children were ill with a fever; she had neither meat, nor physic, nor clothing, nor fresh air, nor warmth for them;—and she preferred to starve on rather than enter the house.

The last of our agricultural excursions was to the fair of Castledermot, celebrated for the show of cattle to be seen there, and attended by the farmers and gentry of the neighbouring counties. Long before reaching the place we met troops of cattle coming from it—stock of a beautiful kind, for the most part large, sleek, white, long-backed, most of the larger animals being bound for England. There was very near as fine a show in the pastures along the road, which lies across a light green country with plenty of trees to ornament the landscape, and some neat cottages along the roadside.

At the turnpike of Castledermot the droves of cattle met us by scores no longer, but by hundreds, and the long street of the place was thronged with oxen, sheep, and horses, and with those who wished to see, to sell, or to buy. The squires were altogether in a cluster at the police-houses; the owners of the horses rode up and down, showing the best paces of their brutes; among whom you might see Paddy, in his ragged frieze-coat, seated on his donkey’s bare rump, and proposing him for sale. I think I saw a score of this humble though useful breed that were brought for sale to the fair. ‘I can sell him,’ says one fellow, with a pompous air, ‘wid his tackle or widout.’ He was looking as grave over the negotiation as if it had been for a thousand pounds. Besides the donkeys, of course there was plenty of poultry, and there were pigs without number, shrieking, and struggling, and pushing hither and thither among the crowd, rebellious to the straw-rope. It was a fine thing to see one huge grunter, and the manner in which he was landed into a cart. The cart was let down on an easy inclined plane to tempt him; two men ascending, urged him by the forelegs, other two entreated him by the tail. At length, when more than half of his body had been coaxed upon the cart, it was suddenly whisked up, causing the animal thereby to fall forward; a parting shove sent him altogether into the cart, the two gentlemen inside jump out, and the monster is left to ride home.

The farmers, as usual, were talking of the tariff, predicting ruin to themselves, as farmers will, on account of the decreasing price of stock, and the consequent fall of grain. Perhaps the person most to be pitied is the poor pig-proprietor yonder: it is his rent which he is carrying through the market, squeaking at the end of the straw-rope, and Sir Robert’s bill adds insolvency to that poor fellow’s misery.

This was the last of the sights which the kind owner of H—— town had invited me into his country to see; and I think they were among the most pleasing I witnessed in Ireland. Rich and poor were working friendlily together; priest and parson were alike interested in these honest, homely, agricultural festivals; not a word was said about hereditary bondage and English tyranny; and one did not much regret the absence of those patriotic topics of conversation. If but for the sake of the change, it was pleasant to pass a few days with people among whom there was no quarrelling; no furious denunciations against Popery on the part of the Protestants, and no tirades against the parsons from their bitter and scornful opponents of the other creed.

Next Sunday, in the county Meath, in a quiet old church lying amongst meadows and fine old stately avenues of trees, and for the benefit of a congregation of some thirty persons, I heard for the space of an hour and twenty minutes some thorough Protestant doctrine, and the Popish superstitions properly belaboured. Does it strengthen a man in his own creed to hear his neighbour’s belief abused? One would imagine so; for though abuse converts nobody, yet many of our pastors think they are not doing their duty by their own fold unless they fling stones at the flock in the next field, and have, for the honour of the service, a match at cudgelling with the shepherd. Our shepherd to-day was of this pugnacious sort.

The Meath landscape, if not varied and picturesque, is extremely rich and pleasant; and we took some drives along the banks of the Boyne, to the noble park of Slane (still sacred to the memory of George IV., who actually condescended to pass some days there), and to Trim, of which the name occurs so often in Swift’s Journals, and where stands an enormous old castle that was inhabited by Prince John. It was taken from him by an Irish chief, our guide said; and from the Irish chief it was taken by Oliver Cromwell. O’Thuselah was the Irish chief’s name no doubt.

Here, too, stands, in the midst of one of the most wretched towns in Ireland, a pillar erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington by the gentry of his native county. His birthplace, Dangan, lies not far off. And as we saw the hero’s statue, a flight of birds had hovered about it: there was one on each epaulette and two on his marshal’s staff; and, besides these wonders, we saw a certain number of beggars; and a madman, who was walking round a mound and preaching a sermon on grace; and a little child’s funeral came passing through the dismal town, the only stirring thing in it (the coffin was laid on a one-horse country car—a little deal box, in which the poor child lay—and a great troop of people followed the humble procession); and the innkeeper, who had caught a few stray gentlefolk in a town where travellers must be rare, and in his inn, which is more gaunt and miserable than the town itself, and which is by no means rendered more cheerful because sundry theological works are left for the rare frequenters in the coffee-room. The innkeeper brought in a bill which would have been worthy of Long’s, and which was paid with much grumbling on both sides.