- Extracts from
- “Memorandums made in Ireland in the
autumn of 1852”
- By
John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S. Vol. I, London,
- Publishers: Smith, Elder & Co., Cornhill, 1853
We
reached Carlow about seven o’clock, having travelled
according to our post-boy’s reckoning, 35 Irish miles
from Arklow. We put up at a very good inn, called the
Club House. Though the country we had passed over is but
little travelled, and nearly the whole tract may be
regarded as a cross-country, the roads were by no means
bad. Our post-chaises, to be sure, were in a rather
dilapidated condition, but the horses were good, and the
drivers active and obliging.
Carlow,
the capital of the county of the same name, is a very
handsome town, with more than the ordinary display of
public buildings in good style. It contains the ruins of
a fine old castle, said to have been built by the famous
De Lacy in the eleventh century. One front wall and two
corner towers still remain, the latter upwards of sixty
feet high. A singular piece of barbarism – it may almost
be called sacrilege – was committed on this beautiful
ruin, within the last forty years, by a man who, from
his education, ought to have had some regard for such
relics of antiquity.
A physician wishing to adapt the
building for the purposes of a lunatic asylum, set about
blasting with gunpowder some portions of the walls, and
brought down about his ears more than half the
structure. One cannot help wishing that it had been
brought down literally about his ears. How such an act
could have been permitted under the cognisance of the
authorities of the town is marvellous.
Both the English
and the Catholic churches are remarkably fine buildings,
the one surmounted by a handsome spire, the other by a
still handsomer tower: the latter is the cathedral
church of the Catholic dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin.
There are also here a Catholic college, with a handsome
chapel attached to it, and a convent; a jail, lunatic
asylum, infirmary, and a very handsome court-house, only
recently erected.
Carlow
lies on the banks and near the union of the two rivers,
the Barrow and the Burrin, the former of which divides
the county of Carlow from the Queen’s County (Laois). A
portion of the town is situated in the latter and goes
by the name of Graigue. It is connected with Carlow
proper by a handsome stone bridge called Wellington
Bridge. The barrow is navigable by barges down to
Waterford; and the town is now also connected by railway
with Kilkenny on the one hand, and with Dublin on the
other.
The
population of Carlow, by the last census, was, including
the suburb of Graigue, 8687, being a decrease of 1722
since 1841. The great majority of the inhabitants are
Catholics. According to the official returns of 1834,
the proportion of the different religions in the parish
were as follows: Catholics, 7843; Church of England,
1755 ; Presbyterians and other dissenters, 106.
I had
not time to visit any of the public institutions of
Carlow, nor to make any very special inquiries into
other matters. I may state however, that according to
the last two Reports of the National Schools, that of
Carlow had on its books in September 1850, boys, 351 ;
girls, 604 ; and in September 1851, boys, 288; girls,
452.
Strong
in its Catholic tendencies as Carlow is, it has its
staunch Protestantism also; the stauncher, no doubt,
because of the strength of these very tendencies. I here
met with a most intelligent gentleman of this
persuasion, who was not a whit less prejudiced and
jaundiced by his Orange principles than was the small
farmer and ex-soldier of Wicklow, formerly mentioned. He
thought that no compromise should be made with the
Catholics, and that every effort should be made to
extirpate their religion at least, if not themselves.
He, however, admitted that the Protestant clergy had
made a great mistake in withdrawing the children of
their flock from the National Schools, as they had
thereby thrown all the educational advantages of this
system into the hands of their opponents.
While
admitting with all the world that the temperance
movement of Father Matthew had done infinite good to the
people in their social position, he could not refrain
from deprecating it as a measure calculated to enhance
the authority of the priests, and to strengthen the
anti-Protestant spirit among the lower classes. From
everything I have seen and heard in Ireland, I believe
no imputation could be more groundless than this, and
that there never was a reform undertaken with a more
single eye to good than this temperance movement,
incomparably the greatest efforts of modern
philanthropy, after that of education.
I
learned from the conversation of this gentleman, what
was confirmed from various other sources subsequently,
that many of the proprietors of the encumbered estates
already sold, had been enabled to repossess themselves
of much of their property by certain arrangements made
with the principal creditors, and by borrowing money to
effect the re-purchase at a depreciated value.
Source:
Terry Curran & Google Books
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