Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
Troublous times those, and a "lord baron of Strabane" needed almost the
alacrity in turning his coat of a harlequin or a modern politician! It
is a comfort to know that at last, on the 16th of June 1655, he found
rest, dying at Ballyfathen, "a Roman Catholic and a papist recusant." As
we came back into the gardens and grounds, Lord Ernest showed me,
imbedded in the earth, a huge anchor presented to the present Duke by
the Corporation of Waterford, as having belonged to the French 28-gun
frigate, on which in 1689 James II. and Lord Abercorn sailed away from
Ireland for Prance. I believe that because of its weight the present
First Lord of the Admiralty avers that it is no anchor at all, but a
buoy fixture. It might have been ten times as heavy, and yet not have
availed to keep James from getting to sea at that particular time.
BARON'S COURT, _Friday, Feb. 10._--Here also, in County Tyrone, the
Irish women show their skill in women's work. Mrs. Dixon, the English
wife of the house-steward of Baron's Court, has charge of a woollen
industry founded here, after a discourse on thrift, delivered at a
temperance meeting of the people by the then Marquis of Hamilton, had
stirred the country up to consider whether the peasant women might not
possibly find some better and more profitable way of passing their
winter evenings than in sitting huddled around a peat fire with their
elbows on their knees, gossiping about their neighbours. Lord Hamilton
cited the women of Gweedore as proofs that such a way might by searching
be found.
The Duke and Duchess found the funds, the stewardess invested them in
buying the necessary yarn and knitting-needles, and the Marchioness of
Hamilton acted as corresponding clerk and business agent of the new
industry. The clothing department of the British army lent a listening
ear to the business proposals made to it, and the work began. From that
time on it has been the main substantial resource against suffering and
starvation of the families of some three hundred labourers in the hill
country near Baron's Court.
These labourers work for the small farmers from April to November; and
between the autumn and the spring their wives and daughters knit, and by
the Baron's Court machinery are enabled to dispose of, nearly twenty
thousand pairs of woollen socks. The yarns are brought from Edinburgh to
the store-house at Baron's Court. Thither every Wednesday come the
knitters. Mrs. Dixon weighs the hanks of yarn, and gives them out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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