Pococke's Tour in Ireland in 1752

ISBN: 9781332027798 出版年：2016 页码：200 George T Stokes Forgotten Books

The Tour here printed is, as I have said, an exact transcript of the original. I have printed all the mistakes in grammar, in geography, in the spelling of names, whether of towns or persons, making no attempt to correct them. This narrative illustrates one point most clearly. Pococke was a learned man, an F and a Church dignitary; but spelling was not a fixed quantity in his mind. His spelling of the same name often varies three or four times on the one page. It has more interest, how ever, than a merely orthographical one. This Tour is a most interesting contribution to Irish social history during a period which is remarkably dark, and deals with a district of country — the sea-coast line all round Ireland — of which very little is known at that precise period. Pococke started from Dublin, went north to the Giant's Causeway, penetrated the extremest wilds of Donegal, eu tored the farthest recesses of Erris, Achill, and Belmullet, at a time when Belmullet was two days' journey west of Westport, and when no wheeled vehicle had ever entered that district, or was to enter it till seventy years later. That circumstance did not trouble Pococke, for he always travelled on horseback,'with outriders, as Richard Cumber land, ih his chatty Memoirs, tells us he met him in Wales. Pococke's observations and notices about this part of Connaught are specially important, because he came just half -way between Cromwell's period and our own. His notices illustrate the effect of the legislation of Cromwell. The Roman Catholics of Ireland had been, as all know.