Protestant Whiskey-Selling

Asenath Nicholson

Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger

1847

Chapter XIX (17) | Start of Chapter

When the services closed, I inquired of a gentleman if he could direct me to a comfortable lodging-house. He was the parochial school-teacher, and quite a favorite in the parish, and he sent me with a girl whose parents were Protestants and sold whiskey; a house not a whit before the one I had left, either in cleanliness or morality. It is a stubborn fact, that where this traffic in ardent spirits is carried on, there is confusion and every evil work.

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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