Search Results for 'Clifden workhouse'

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A different type of politics was needed

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When Mitchell Henry entered Westminster parliament in 1871 he went with hope in his heart and a mission to tell the British people the precarious circumstances of the Irish tenant farmer. In many ways he resembled Jefferson Smith in the Frank Cappa film ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’ where a naive, idealistic young man has plans to change America.* Mitchell Henry, a liberal, kindly man, had plans to be a voice for the Irish tenant farmer within, what he believed, was a paternalistic landlord system, but he walked into a political cauldron, waiting to explode.

‘Can any romance equal the romance of real life?’

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After her Connemara tour Maria Edgeworth kept up a correspondence with the Martins. She followed their fortunes and misfortunes with all the attention of an enthralled novel-reader. There was plenty to hold her attention. In the spring of 1835 the Martins travelled to London where Mary was presented at court and moved in fashionable society, attending dinner parties and charity events, of which a cynical Lord Byron remarked that these galas were nothing less than a marriage market.

There was a story told of a mermaid seen at Killala Bay

Continuing his wry and sardonic observations on the personalities, and the heaving populated life that he encounters on the roads, towns and villages along the way, the young William Makepeace Thackeray continued his journey through Connemara. In 1842 he spent four months on an extensive tour of this island, and later published his observations in the well received Irish Sketch Book to which he added numerous drawings mainly of the people he met. Yet for all his sceptical comments he is genuinely moved by the landscape of Connemara, and writes eloquently on intimate moments.

There was a story told of a mermaid seen at Killala Bay

image preview

Continuing his wry and sardonic observations on the personalities, and the heaving populated life that he encounters on the roads, towns and villages along the way, the young William Makepeace Thackeray continued his journey through Connemara. In 1842 he spent four months on an extensive tour of this island, and later published his observations in the well received Irish Sketch Book to which he added numerous drawings mainly of the people he met. Yet for all his sceptical comments he is genuinely moved by the landscape of Connemara, and writes eloquently on intimate moments.

 

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