Penelope's Irish ExperiencesWiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
General
Penelope's Irish Experiences
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
Ireland -- Fiction
When the celebrated Mrs. Delany, then Mrs. Pendarves, first saw it, the
centre was a swamp, where in winter a quantity of snipe congregated,
and Harris in his History of Dublin alludes to the presence of snipe
and swamp as an agreeable and uncommon circumstance not to be met with
perhaps in any other great city in the world.
A double row of spreading lime-trees bordered its four sides, one of
which, known as Beaux' Walk, was a favourite lounge for fashionable
idlers. Here stood Bishop Clayton's residence, a large building with a
front like Devonshire House in Piccadilly: so writes Mrs. Delany. It was
splendidly furnished, and the bishop lived in a style which proves that
Irish prelates of the day were not all given to self-abnegation and
mortification of the flesh.
A long line of vehicles, outside-cars and cabs, some of them battered
and shaky, others sufficiently well-looking, was gathering on two sides
of the Green, for Dublin, you know, is 'the car-drivingest city in
the world.' Francesca and I had our first experience yesterday in the
intervals of nursing, driving to Dublin Castle, Trinity College, the
Four Courts, and Grafton Street (the Regent Street of Dublin). It is
easy to tell the stranger, stiff, decorous, terrified, clutching the
rail with one or both hands, but we took for our model a pretty Irish
girl, who looked like nothing so much as a bird on a swaying bough. It
is no longer called the 'jaunting,' but the outside car and there
is another charming word lost to the world. There was formerly an
inside-car too, but it is almost unknown in Dublin, though still found
in some of the smaller towns. An outside-car has its wheels practically
inside the body of the vehicle, but an inside car carries its wheels
outside. This definition was given us by an Irish driver, but lucid
definition is not perhaps an Irishman's strong point. It is clearer to
say that the passenger sits outside of the wheels on the one, inside on
the other. There are seats for two persons over each of the two
wheels, and a dickey for the driver in front, should he need to use it.
Ordinarily he sits on one side, driving, while you perch on the other,
and thus you jog along, each seeing your own side of the road, and
discussing the topics of the day across the 'well,' as the covered-in
centre of the car is called. There are those who do not agree with its
champions, who call it 'Cupid's own conveyance'; they find the seat too
small for two, yet feel it a bit unsociable when the companion occupies
the opposite side. To me a modern Dublin car with rubber tires and a
good Irish horse is the jolliest vehicle in the universe; there is a
liveliness, an irresponsible gaiety, in the spring and sway of it; an
ease in the half-lounging position against the cushions, a unique charm
in 'travelling edgeways' with your feet planted on the step. You must
not be afraid of a car if you want to enjoy it. Hold the rail if you
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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