Taking leave of a good man

Asenath Nicholson

Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger

1847

Chapter XV (4) | Start of Chapter

Friday.—A day's ramble through mud and rain made me but little wiser and no better, and stopping at Father Mathew's I dined with him for the last time. He expected to leave town the next day, and I to do the same, never to return. I felt at leaving this good man, that I was leaving one whose like I should not meet in any other place. "I hope to meet you again," was the simple farewell, with a "God bless you." The remembrance of his unabating kindness can never die, and the least I can do is to leave one page in my journal as a just memorial of his worth.[13]

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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