Ireland: Dublin, the Shannon, Limerick, Cork, and the Kilkenny Races, the Round Towers, the Lakes of Killarney, the County of Wicklow ... and the Giant's Causeway, Issues 1-4

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Harper & Brothers, 1844 - 115 pages
 

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Page 89 - THE harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed. Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls, As if that soul were fled. — So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts, that once beat high for praise, Now feel that pulse no more.
Page 24 - A French author, Beaumont, who had seen the Irish peasant in his cabin, and the North American Indian in his wigwam, has assured us that the savage is better provided for than the poor man in Ireland. Indeed, the question may be raised, whether in the whole world a nation is to be found that is subjected to such physical privations as the peasantry in some parts of Ireland. This fact cannot be placed in too strong a light ; for if it can once be shown that the wretchedness of the Irish population...
Page 6 - In the west of Ireland, there are districts where a man may imagine himself in a wilderness abandoned by mankind, where nothing is to be seen but rocks, bogs, and brushwood, and where wild beasts alone may be supposed capable of housing. All at once, however, on closer inspection, little green patches like potato-fields are seen scattered here and there among the rocks, and a stranger is tempted to go nearer and examine them.
Page 63 - And through ages of bondage and slaughter, Our country shall bleed for thy shame. Already the curse is upon her, And strangers her valleys profane ; They come to divide — to dishonour, And tyrants they long will remain. But onward ! — the green banner rearing, Go, flesh every sword to the hilt ; On our side is Virtue and Erin, On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt.
Page 6 - Let the traveller look where he is going, however, or he may make a false step, the earth may give way under his feet, and he may fall into — what ? into an abyss, a cavern, a bog ? No, into a hut...
Page 25 - There are nations of slaves, but they have, by long custom, been made unconscious of the yoke of slavery. This is not the case with the Irish, who have a strong feeling of liberty within them, and are fully sensible of the weight of the yoke they have to bear.
Page 25 - It seems as if wretchedness had prevailed there from time immemorial — as if rags had succeeded rags, bog had formed over bog, ruins had given birth to ruins, and beggars had begotten beggars, for a long series of centuries. Nor does the future present a more cheering view. Even for the poor Greeks under Turkish domination, there was more hope than for the Irish under the English.
Page 25 - They have a national costume, their houses are habitable, their orchards are carefully tended, and their gaylyharnessed ponies are mostly in good condition. An Irishman has nothing national about him but his rags, his habitation is without a plan, his domestic economy without rule or law. We have beggars and paupers among us, but they form at least an exception; whereas, in Ireland, beggary or abject poverty is the prevailing rule. The nation is one of beggars, and they who are above beggary .-seem...
Page 13 - ... wear a coat of a coarse texture, but to go about in rags is nowhere allowed but in Ireland, except to those whom the extreme of misery has plunged so deeply into despair, that they lose all thought of decorum. In Ireland, no one appears to feel offended or surprised at the sight of a naked elbow or a bare leg. There is something quite peculiar in Irish rags. So thoroughly worn away, so completely reduced to dust upon a human body, no rags are elsewhere to be seen. At the elbows and at all the...
Page 62 - THERE is not in the wide world a valley so sweet, As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet ; Oh ! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

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