Beautiful Scenery

Asenath Nicholson

Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger

1847

Chapter III (7) | Start of Chapter

The battle of Arklow, while "seed-time and harvest remain," will live in the memory of all who saw it, or shall read of it. The prospect was both grand and awful; the river Avoca was at our feet, winding gracefully through the rich vale called by its name. At our right-hand lay the sea; at our left, the mountains of Wicklow; behind us the town of Arklow, and near where I stood was once the skull of Hackett, which had been fixed to the top of the castle, in the days of the rebellion. This man had killed many a Protestant, and in return they shot him, took off his head, and placed it upon the top of the castle, where it remained till a few years since, when a wren made her nest in his mouth, and it finally tumbled down, and received a burial in the side of the tower.

Ireland’s Welome to the Stranger is one of the best accounts of Irish social conditions, customs, quirks and habits that you could wish for. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, was an American widow who travelled extensively in Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine and meticulously observed the Irish peasantry at work and play, as well as noting their living conditions and diet. The book is also available from Kindle.

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An American widow’s account of her travels in Ireland in 1844–45 on the eve of the Great Famine:

Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger

Sailing from New York, she set out to determine the condition of the Irish poor and discover why so many were emigrating to her home country.

Mrs Nicholson’s recollections of her tour among the peasantry are still revealing and gripping today.

The author returned to Ireland in 1847–49 to help with famine relief and recorded those experiences in the rather harrowing: Annals of the Famine in Ireland.

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The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century. It relates the circumstances under which the great exodus to the New World began, the trials and tribulations faced by these tough American pioneers and the enduring influence they came to exert on the politics, education and religion of the country.

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