A Shebeen House

Asenath Nicholson

Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger

1847

Chapter IX (15) | Start of Chapter

This being a public house where I was lodging, it was common plunder for all. Sack and bags, geese, turkeys, pigs, asses, horses, and cows, were all brought in, and lodged in the kitchen, or carried into the yard, while the owner went out to make fresh purchases. The landlord was a tetotaler, but the good woman, more bent on gain, was selling her whiskey without a license, and many a glass on that rainy market day not only replenished both the tea-canister and snuff-box of the seller, but gave a new and a happy zest to the wits of the buyer.

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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