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Select documents XLI: Johann Friedrich Hering’s description of Connacht, 1806–7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

C. J. Woods*
Affiliation:
Department of Modern History, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth

Abstract

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Select documents
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1987

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References

page no 311 note 1 It is mentioned briefly in Hennig, John, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Irlandkunde bis zum Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts’ in Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 35 (1961), p. 618 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Studien zur deutschsprachigen Irlandkunde im 19. Jahrhundert’ in ibid., xlvii (1973), p. 173. No copy has been found in any Irish library. It is not listed in B.L.C., National union catalogue or Gesamtverzeichnis des deutschsprachigen Schrifttums. The copy I have examined, the original stamp of which reads ‘Ex bibliotheca Regia Acad. Georgiae Aug.’, is held by the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen. I am highly indebted to the Goethe Institute, Dublin, for locating and borrowing this copy for me.

page no 311 note 2 Beamish, N.L., Geschichte der Königlich Deutschen Legion (2 vols, Hanover, 1837), ii, 112.Google Scholar Cf. idem, History of the King’s German Legion (2 vols, London, 1832–7), ii, 602.

page no 311 note 3 Erinnerungen, ‘Vorwort’ and passim.

page no 312 note 4 This distinction is made in ibid., p. xv

page no 312 note 5 Beamish, , History, 2, 602.Google Scholar

page no 312 note 6 Erinnerungen, p. xvii.

page no 312 note 7 In the narrative of a non-commissioned officer stationed in Ireland during the 1820s there is mention of guarding jails and places of execution, searching for arms, breaking up faction fights, patrolling streets by day and the countryside by night, and raiding illegal whiskey stills ( The diary of Colour-Sergeant George Calladine, 19th foot, 1793–1837, ed. Ferrar, M.L. (London, 1922), esp. pp 107, 109–10, 113, 133).Google Scholar

page no 313 note 8 I am compiling for publication a check-list of some thirty to forty Irish travel accounts by Germans. For an assessment of early German writings on Ireland, see Hennig, John, ‘Some early German accounts of Schomberg’s Irish campaign’ in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 3rd ser., 11 (1948), pp 6580 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Irish-German literary relations’ in German Life and Letters, iii (1950), pp 102–10.

page no 313 note 9 Clement’s narrative is discussed in Hennig, John, ‘A Danish student of Irish folklore’ in Béaloideas, 15 (1945), pp 251–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Clement, a native of Schleswig and therefore a subject of the king of Denmark, was German in culture.

page no 313 note 10 Rix, Walter T, ‘Ireland as a source of German interest in the early nineteenth century from politics to literature’ in Zach, Wolfgang and Kosok, Heinz (eds), Literary interrelations: Ireland, England and the world (3 vols, Tübingen, 1987), i, 2131.Google Scholar

page no 313 note 11 Nearly fifty accounts by French visitors to Ireland are recorded in Woods, C.J, ‘A check-list of accounts in French of Irish tours’ in Etudes Irlandaises, new ser., 9 (1984), pp 367–72.Google Scholar For a discussion of nineteenth-century French travellers’ narratives, see Pauly, Marie-Hélène, Les voyageurs français en Irlande au temps du romantisme (Paris, 1939).Google Scholar

page no 313 note 12 One such continental visitor was Böll, Heinrich, whose Irisches Tagebuch (Köln, 1957),Google Scholar translated by Vennewitz, Leila as Irish journal (New York, 1967),Google Scholar contains a record of everyday life in north Connacht in the mid 1950s.

page no 313 note 13 Cf. Woods, C.J., ‘American travellers in Ireland before and during the Great Famine: a case of culture-shock’ in Zach, & Kosok, (eds), Literary interrelations, 3, 7784.Google Scholar

page no 314 note 14 Bayard Taylor, J., Views a-foot; or Europe seen with knapsack and staff (2 vols, London, 1847), i, 115.Google Scholar

page no 314 note 15 Ger ‘In Irland Genügsamkeit bei Armuth; in England der größte Luxus bei Reichthum, und wenig Unterschied im Aeußern der verschiedenen Stände, während der gemeine Irländer dem Wilden gleicht’ (Erinnerungen, p. 116).

page no 314 note 16 I am grateful for encouragement, advice and assistance to David Dickson, Keith Jeffery, Bríd McGrath, Patrick Melvin and Penny Woods, and especially to Eva Ó Cathaoir but for whom my inelegant translation would have been seriously inaccurate.

page no 315 note 1 The Dublin Society in 1792 voted £1,200 for the purchase of the mineralogy collection formed by Nathaniel Gottfried Leske of Marburg University, and subsequently lodged it in its house in Hawkins Street, Dublin ( Berry, H.F, A history of the Royal Dublin Society (London, 1915), pp 156–7).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page no 316 note 2 About 142 English miles or 230 kilometres. One Irish mile is equivalent to 2.05 kilometres.

page no 316 note 3 In fact it was divided between the counties of Westmeath and Roscommon.

page no 316 note 4 Exodus, xvi, 3.

page no 316 note 5 Hering gives these two words in English. They were commonly seen beside a cabin door, variations being ‘Good dry lodgings’ and ‘Dry lodgings and tobacco’ (The compleat Irish traveller (2 vols, London, 1788), i, 53).

page no 317 note 6 In County Galway.

page no 317 note 7 This spelling, as well as the modern spelling, ‘Dunmore’, was used in contemporary documents.

page no 317 note 8 Ger. dumm und stumm.

page no 317 note 9 This is probably the earliest allusion in a traveller’s account to the presence of asses in Ireland. Virtually unknown before the nineteenth century, asses were brought into Ireland from Scotland during the Napoleonic wars in order to replace horses, which lately were in much greater demand for military purposes. They appeared first in Ulster, and then in Connacht, where they were easily fed on furze tops and proved especially suitable for carrying small loads on rough terrain. ( Mahaffy, J.P, ‘On the introduction of the ass as a beast of burden into Ireland’ in R.I.A. Proc, 33 (1916–17), sect. C, pp 530–38.)Google Scholar

page no 317 note l0 Cf. Wilson, William, The postchaise companion (Dublin, [1806]), cols 173–4:Google Scholar ‘Dunmore contains eighty-six houses, a parish church, built on the site of an old abbey, the great aisle and steeple of which are still entire; a large, new Romish chapel and very good market house .; it has four fairs yearly’

page no 317 note 11 Ger. Unruhstiftern. This is an allusion to the Threshers.

page no 317 note 12 Lord Ross sold it in the 1790s for use as a military barracks, which it remained until the 1920s ( Greaney, James, Dunmore (n.p., 1984), pp 37, 68).Google Scholar

page no 318 note 13 Possibly John Orr (d. 1837), rector of Dunmore, 1796–1837 ( Leslie, J.B., ‘Biographical succession list of the diocese of Tuam’, N.L.I., MS 2687, p. 177).Google Scholar

page no 318 note 14 Not identified.

page no 318 note 15 On 26 May 1806.

page no 318 note 16 Ger. Garnmarkt, apparently a linen-fair in this case.

page no 318 note 17 Stalls of this description can be seen in Joseph Peacock’s painting, The patron, or the festival of St Kevin at the Seven Churches, Glendalough (1813), held by the Ulster Museum and reproduced and discussed in Crawford, W.H., ‘The patron, or festival of St Kevin at the Seven Churches, Glendalough, County Wicklow, 1813’ in Ulster Folklife, 32 (1986), pp 3747.Google Scholar

page no 318 note 18 On 29 May 1806 (Gentleman’s and Citizen’s Almanack, 1806, p. 191).

page no 318 note 19 Ger. Johannisfest. ‘Lighting fires .on the eve of St John was, according to Τ Crofton Croker, who describes in vivid detail the celebration at Gougane Barra, County Cork, on 23 June 1813, ‘a popular custom of remote antiquity and a remain of pagan rites in honour of the sun ( Croker, , Researches in the south of Ireland (London, 1824), pp 277–82).Google Scholar

page no 319 note 20 Charles Étienne Coquebert de Montbret 15 years earlier had found Ballinrobe ‘a small town at least as attractive as any other country capital’ and especially pleasing on account of the proximity of lakes; its cavalry barracks were in a charming park traversed by a river containing gillaroo trout and flowing into Lough Mask ( Chinnéide, Síle Ní, ‘A Frenchman’s tour of Connacht in 1791’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., 35 (1976), p. 54)Google Scholar.

page no 319 note 21 Recte Humbert.

page no 319 note 22 Denis Browne and Henry Augustus Dillon, both of whom received 3768 votes to become members of parliament for County Mayo; the unsuccessful candidate was Sir John Browne, who received 1240 ( Walker, B.M., Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1801–1922 (Dublin, 1978), pp 13, 231).Google Scholar

page no 320 note 23 These were in the Aillie cave, about 1 kilometre in length, through which the Aillie river flows on its way from its source in the Partry Mountains to its outlet at Lough Mask, which drains into Lough Corrib and so ultimately into Galway Bay; they are no longer accessible ( Coleman, J.C., The Aillie river and cave, Co. Mayo’ in Ir Geog., 2, no. 2 (1950), pp 5860).Google Scholar

page no 320 note 24 The judge was Charles Osborne (c. 1759–1817), who on the morning of 26 March 1807 arrived at Ballinrobe from Sligo to open the Lent assizes next day. Two men were found guilty of robbery. Osborne became unwell and was unable to go on to Galway. (Hibernian Journal, 1, 8 Apr. 1807; Ball, F.E., The judges in Ireland, 1221–1921 (2 vols, London, 1926), ii, 335).Google Scholar No further information about this assizes has been found in newspaper sources.