The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland — John Shaqi
The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through IrelandNorah
History
The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland
Norah
Ireland -- Description and travel
The men's clothing, though poor, and in some instances patched in an
artistic fashion, was scrupulously clean. In the congregation were some
young men well dressed, bold and upright, whose bearing, cut of
whiskers, and watch chains, showed that they had lived among our trans-
Atlantic cousins of the great Republic.
The priest of the hills is the one man whom these people trust. The
prevailing type of landlord has been their enemy and oppressor. The
priest has been friend, counsellor, sympathizer, helper, as well as
clergyman, and so he is _soggarth aroon_.
The storm continues at intervals. I get one clear, cold bit of fair
weather to climb to the top of Doune hill, where the Ulster kings used
to be crowned, a sugar-loaf shaped hill with the top broken off, rising
in isolated grandeur up high enough to give one a breather to get to the
top.
The weather returned to its normal condition of storm, and I was shut up
again. I became a little homesick, had the priest to tea, and enjoyed
his conversation very much, but he had to go off in the storm on a sick
call. A priest in these mountains has not the easiest kind of life in
the world.
Illusions took possession of my brain. I fancied myself a great queen,
to say the least of it. A whisper got among the hills that a great
American lady with unlimited power had come seeking the welfare of the
country, and so any amount of deputations wafted on me. I will give a
few specimens.
Two men to see my lady in reference to a small still that had been
misfortunately found on the place of an old man upward of eighty. He was
fined L12, and would my lady do anything?
Two women under sentence of eviction, my lady (I saw the place of one of
these, the roof was on the floor, and a little shelter was in one corner
like the lair of a wild beast, and here she kept possession in spite of
the dreadful Captain Dopping; the agent). Would my lady send out their
two daughters to America and place them in decent places?
And here was old Roseen, old and miserable, without chick or child, or
drop's blood belonging to her in the wide world, and would my lady
remember her?
Here's the crature of a widow from the mountain with four small
children, and no man body to help her with the place, and not a four-
footed beast on it belonging to her; all went in the scarcity; would my
lady look to her a little, sure she was the neediest of all?
And here was the poor cripple boy that his reverence was so good to,
&c., &c., &c., in endless file.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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