by Michael Byrne

Poverty in Ireland existed in plenty in the Famine years. It was not something that came and went with the Great Famine of 1845 - 49. An American writer has left us with a vivid impression of Tullamore and much of the rest of Ireland in a book published in London in 1847 entitled Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger; or, Excursions through Ireland in 1844 and 1845, for the purpose of Personally Investigating the Condition of the Poor. The author was Asenath Nicholson, born in Chelsea on the New England frontier in 1788, she died in 1855. Dr. Rolf Loeber of Pittsburgh sent me the extract from her book about Tullamore, reproduced below and I have since had an opportunity to examine a copy of the old volume. I was aware of Mrs. Nicholson but only through an abridged edition of her work published in New York in 1927 under the title The Bible in Ireland, Ireland's welcome to the stranger or excursions through Ireland in 1844 - 45. This version was edited and introduced by Alfred Tresidder Sheppard. His introduction told us little about Asenath Nicholson and a lot about the editor's preoccupation with Burrow's, The Bible in Spain and related matters.

More recently two books have been published which throw light on Nicholson. The first by Helen E. Hatton, The largest amount of good: Quaker relief in Ireland, 1654 - 1921 (Canada, 1993) and Chris Morash and Richard Hayes (eds.) Fearful Realitites: new perspectives on the Famine, (Dublin, 1996).

Hatton in her first class study of Quaker relief methods adverts to Nicholson in passing and describes her as a remarkable American woman who at one time ran a vegetarian boarding house in New York. "Unattended and unafraid" she travelled throughout Ireland to investigate the condition of the poor, staying with the peasants in their pitiful cabins. At the height of the Famine in 1847 she returned to Ireland as the field agent of the New York Irish Relief Society. "Full of blunt Yankee common sense, Nicholson was not a ranter and did not approach her task from a "missionary" frame as did some of the relief officers of the evangelically based agencies."

Her second book on Ireland arising from this experience was published in London in 1850 as Lights and Shades of Ireland and the Famine section was re-issued in New York in 1851 as Annals of the Famine in Ireland in 1847, 1848, and 1849.

Nicholson was not herself a Quaker. She also refuted the idea that the Famine was "God's will" as some evangelical preachers had said. "Was there a God's Famine in Ireland in 1846-7-8-9"...."No, it is mockery to call it so". She saw that religion helped people to accept their sufferings but as Hatton points out she also saw that the people had a degree of political awareness.

In Fearful Realities Margaret Kelleher has written an essay on Nicholson's narrative 'The Female Gaze: Asenath's Nicholson's famine narrative" (pp 119 - 130). The article is about "re-reading" the old account of the Famine of Nicholson from the perspective of feminist studies. Instead of male accounts and "male gaze which objectifies the woman" where woman has the quality of "to-be-looked-at ness" i.e. "women as image and man as the bearer of the look" Nicholson's study of the Famine is seen as the "female gaze".

In 1998 an edited version of Nicholson's Annals of the Famine in Ireland was published by Maureen Murphy . Originally published in 1851 it provides a valuable account of that tragedy and according to Murphy is 'the extraordinary narrative of Nicholson's work and witness in Dublin and in the west of Ireland.'

Mrs. Nicholson departed New York in 1844, arriving at Liverpool and eventually at King's Town or Dun Laoghaire. After visiting some of the sites in Dublin, including an asylum for unmarried ladies, she made her way to Tullamore because of an obligation to deliver letters to the mother of a young girl who had stayed with her in America. She mentions in her book staying at a terrace in Tullamore and that there were twins in the house aged 11. I looked through the parish registers for the Catholic parish of Tullamore to see what twins were born in 1833 and in fact there were three or four sets that could have fulfilled Mrs. Nicholson's description and at such it was not possible to identify the family that she visited.

She travelled by [Grand canal] fly-boat and gives an interesting description of the voyage from Dublin to Tullamore which she reached in eight hours. Her description of the poor of the town bears out what Francis Berry, Lord Charleville's agent had said about poverty in correspondence of that time and which has survived in the Charleville correspondence in Nottingham university. Asenath Nicholson wrote as follows:

Tuesday, July 2d 1844 - Must leave for Tullamore. I had removed my lodgings from the first kind house where I stopped, and had found in the second all that hospitality which is so congenial to a stranger, and was becoming much attached to Dublin; but rest was not my errand to Ireland, and the kind daughters of the family accompanied me at seven in the morning to the [Grand Canal] fly-boat, where I was packed as tight as livestock could be in any but a slave ship. Here I found a company of would-be intelligent Irish and English aristocrats, who, on "both sides of the house," were professed enemies to the poor Irish, calling them a company of low, vulgar, lazy wretches, who prefer beggary to work, and filth to cleanliness. How much of this may be true I pretend not to decide, but this may be safely hazarded, that it is an established law of our nature to hate those we oppress. The American slaveholder, while he keeps his foot upon the slave, despises him for his degradation, and while he withholds a knowledge of letters, and closes the Bible against him, hates him because he is ignorant and a heathen. In eight hours we reached Tullamore, a distance of fifty miles, and the first novelty was the market-place.

The appearance of the people here was not prepossessing, for there was not one among them decently clad, and everything indicated that a last effort had been made to set off the merchandise to the best advantage, while the looks of the seller seemed to say, "We have toiled all day, and caught nothing."

A son of the lady to whom I had letter, conducted me to the terrace, and as the letters were from her daughter in America, I expected a cordial reception, and was not disappointed. Tinctured a little with aristocracy, well educated, and disciplined by family disappointments, her mind had become chastened, and she appeared as if struggling to support an independence which a heart sinking under silent grief could not long sustain. The children were well trained, and had been educated mostly at home by herself. Her husband was of a good family, and had speculated her property away, and as the last resource fled to that "house of refuge," America; and an absence of three years, without sending her any relief, left suspicions on her mind that all was not well. I had seen her daughter in New York, who had followed her father thither, and she begged me to search out the family in Ireland, and do what I could to comfort her mother. My errand was a painful one, - family troubles can seldom be mitigated by foreign legislation; and while this noble minded afflicted woman made full, meaning, but indirect inquiries, her voice faltered, the tear was in her eye, and for a moment I regretted that I had complied with her daughter's request. Her well regulated family being assembled around the family altar, she read an appropriate prayer with practical observations, adding suitable ones of her own, which made the devotions pleasant to me, for it savored of a heart that had been made better by the things it had been called to suffer.
The next morning, the twin daughters of eleven years accompanied me into a lane to see the poor. Here I found these lovely girls had long been acquainted, for they inquired of a poor old man about the growth of a pig, and kindly patted the well known pets of donkeys, goats, and dogs, calling them all by name, while the mistress went into the garden to pluck a bouquet for the fine girls, who, she assured me, were the smartest in the parish.

I had always heard the Irish were celebrated for giving the pig an eminent birth in their cabins, and was a little disappointed to find that though it was really so, yet there was some nicety of arrangement in all this; for in two cabins I found a pig in a corner snugly cribbed, with a lattice work around him, a bed of clean straw under him, and a pot of food standing near the door of his house, to which he might go out and in at option. And in both these huts, though the floors were nothing but the ground, yet these were well swept; a peat fire was smouldering on clean hearths, and the delf was tastefully arranged upon the rude shelves. An old cobbler sat with his lap-stone, and said he could make one and six and one and ten pence a day, and he took care of the bit of ground at the rear of the cabin for the rent of it. "My wife, praise be to God, is dead, but I can get a comfortable bit for my children." An old blind man of seventy-two, sitting at the door of his cabin, thanked God that he had no right to complain, though he had seen better days; for he had "two kind girls, who, when they had done all in and out of the cabin, got little jobs now and then, which kept the bread in all their mouths." On looking into the cabin, nothing could be cleaner. Here, too, the family pig was snoring snugly in his crib in one corner of the room; and here, in all justice, I must say that these pigs were well disciplined, for when one of them attempted to thrust his nose into a vessel not belonging to him, he was called a dirty pig, and commanded to go to his own kettle, which he did as tamely as a child or a dog would have done.

Another cabin attracted us by the tidy white aprons upon two little girls who were standing at the door, and their nicely attired mother, with clean cap and handkerchief, who welcomed me heartily to Ireland. On my commending her for her cleanliness, she said, "Plase God, poor folks should be a little tidy who have nothing else to set' em off. Would ye walk into the garden? May be ye'd like a rose or two." We willingly complied, and found an acre of kitchen garden well cultivated, with a few flowers interspersed, which they rented for nine pounds, and sold the avails for the support of the family. She plucked her fairest roses and ripest gooseberries, and bade me God speed, long life, and a safe return to my own country.

I returned for this lane much gratified by the cleanliness, simplicity, and comfort of this humble people, for I had ever associated a mud wall, a thatched roof, and a pig as an inmate, with all that was wretched in the extreme; and I had so far as this lane could speak, abundant evidence that a very little will made the Irish content, and even happy.

Tullamore jail and workhouse
In the afternoon I visited the jail, a building, with its appendages, including an acre and a half of land. It contained eighty-one prisoners; seventeen had been that morning sent to Dublin for transportation. They were all at work; some cracking stones, some making shoes, and others tailoring or weaving. Their food is one pound of stirabout, and milk in the morning, and four pounds of potatoes for dinner. There are two hospitals, one for males and the other for females. The drop where criminals are executed is in front; four had suffered upon it within the last two years.

From the prison I went to the poor-house, [ erected at Arden Road in 1841 and demolished in 1978] which was conducted on the same principle as that of Dublin; but the funds were so low that but three hundred could be accommodated, and multitudes of the poor were suffering upon the streets. A flourishing school was in operation, the specimens of writing doing honor to the teachers. The children are fed three times a day; they get a noggin of milk at each meal, with porridge in the morning, potatoes at noon, and bread at night.

The next day rain kept me within doors, and I had the painful annoyance of seeing beggars constantly walking back and forwards before the parlor window; nor would they depart, though often told they could have nothing. The sister, who supported the family of her brother-in-law, now returned from Dublin. She was a woman of some worth, and apparently possessing much piety. The poor afflicted wife and mother, as soon as her sister returned, and the excitement abated became unwell, imputing the cause to her visit at the poor-house; but sickness of the heart was the mover of it all. In the morning, when I went to bid her adieu, she answered not a word, but looked as if in a state of deep despondency:-

"When woman droops, she droops in silence;
The canker grief gnaws stealthily, but sure;
The pallid cheek, the sunken eye alone
Give note of death's dire work within."

Report has said something of the class of beggars in Ireland; but her busy tongue, extravagant as she often is, could not exaggerate here. It was scarcely eight o'clock when I reached the coach, but the beggars had assembled before me; for the going out of this vehicle is the hey-day of expectation. To them a foreigner, or a stranger, whom their shrewdness will readily detect, is a kind of common plunder, and escape is a hopeless undertaking. The coach was to leave at half past eight, and while I stood waiting, I saw some half dozen of men with spades standing in a cluster, and inquired if they had to work for the day. "Not a haporth, but we are hoping to get some." I asked what was the price of labor. "From six to ten pence and we don't get work half the time at this." And does this support you?" "O ma'am," said an old man, leaning on his shovel, "we hope to see better days, plase God; it's but a sorry bit this gives us." Father Mathew has done much for you." "Yes, praise be to God, as early as now in the morning, the people round here, standing as they do now, would be cursin' and fightin'; but now, thank God, there's not a word from their lips."

The chief centre of attraction was now where we stood, as I was a stranger. They attacked me with, "God bless you," "a penny, if you plase, lady" "a ha'penny for the poor woman and child, whose father is dead this twelvemonth," " one haporth for an old man," and "the price of bread for a poor boy;" the boy grasping my clothes, and holding fast, in spite of my efforts to disengage myself- the cries and importunities redoubling, while, like swarming bees, they sallied out from every quarter, till the crowd was immense. In vain I preached loyalty to the government, temperance, and peace; my voice was lost in the clamor of "plase, lady, it's the haporth ye'll give us, thank God." The overseer of the coach, from his window seeing my dilemma, hastened out, and kindly begged me to get upon the coach, where they could not annoy me so seriously. He helped me aloft. Labourers and beggars, some on crutches, some with two legs, and some with one, mostly clad in coats of divers colors, variegated with all shades and hues; boys with a garment suspended from the hips, hanging in strips, making a kind of frill - these all followed in pursuit. By the time I was well adjusted, a sea of upturned faces, some with hats and caps in hasd, to catch the falling penny, lavished all sorts of blessings on America and the kind lady who had come to see them, who as yet had not given them a farthing. Waving my hand for a moment, all was silent. I endeavoured to count them; there were about two hundred and twenty, one half at least beggars. The huddling became so confused that I could not proceed, and I resorted to exhortation, telling them to be true to their young queen; that they had a Father Mathew to keep them sober; a never-tiring friend in O'Connell, who said he would "rot in prison for them if need be;" and under all these encouragements, they must be patient. "That we will , lady and the blessin' of Almighty God be on ye, and the prayers of the blessed Virgin, if ye'll give us a penny." The scene had now become, to say the least, ludicrous, painful, and unseemly. I had travelled by sea and by land among the savages of my own country, the poor abused slaves on the plantations, the degraded, untutored native Canadians; but this eclipsed the whole. I looked down upon the forbidding mass, and saw every lineament of talent, every praiseworthy and noble quality, every soul-speaking glance of the eye, every beauty of symmetry, that God's image ever possessed, united with every disgusting, pitiable incongruity that imagination could depict. Much did I wish that the good queen would leave her throne for the one on which I was sitting, and see for a few moments her subjects, her loyal Irish subjects, as they really are, disgusting to refined eyes as it might be. She must, she would pity, and though her administration had done nothing to produce this state of things, yet her administration should and could produce something better. I begged the coachman to make speed, knowing that a few pennies dropped among them would endanger faces and eyes, if not pull me from the coach; and the promise was given, that when my bag of money should come from America, part of it at least should be poured down upon them. "Faith", cried a poor woman with a dirty urchin hanging to her, "and ye'll be here no more, if the bag's to come with ye." The coachman attached his horses, leaving the whole town with the troop of ragamuffins swinging hats and caps, cheering America and the queen, shouting and calling for a penny till we were out of hearing.

When we had well escaped, "What is this?" I begged the coachman to tell me. "It is the case of all Ireland wherever you travel; a fine country but cursed with bad laws." "But when could all these miserable objects that swarmed around the coach proceed?" "From the mountains and places around; they all know the time that the coach goes out, and are always in readiness; they are not all street beggars, only trying their hand at the coaches and canal-boats."

Tullamore is the assize town of the King's county; it is situated nearly in the centre of the bog of Allen, and the proprietor, the Earl of Charleville, has done much to improve it. Good schools are established and the poor in the town are more comfortable that in many others in the vicinity. The road lay from Tullamore through a part of King's county and Kildare, to Dublin, a distance of fifty miles; and forty five of this it was lined on each side with hawthorn and cinnamon-briar hedges. The briar was in full bloom; the air had been purified by the preceeding day's rain; and the fragrance of the sweet brier, united with that of the new-mown grass, which lay here and there as we passed, made a day's ride of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed, so far as sweetness of air and beauty of scenery were concerned. But the beggars we had left, and the beggars that met us at every village where the coach stopped, made me dread the appearance of a human creature. We passed the most beautifully cultivated fields, where not a stone or a stump could be seen, and saw gardens joined to the most forbidding-looking hovels, where roses were blooming upon the walls, and even upon many a thatch were waving flowers of variegated beauty; so that the unaccustomed stranger must ask, "What means this strange contradiction? How can such taste for farming and gardening be blended with such unseemly rags, such debased minds, and such a lack of self-respect as many of these beings manifest? What must be the state of that people, who can walk and breathe in such a paradise of delights, and not be assimilated in some measure to the more than enchanting prospects around them?"(from pp 24- 31 of the London edition of 1847).

Roscrea and Birr October 1844
On returning to Dublin, Nicholson visited the counties of Wicklow, Kilkenny, Tipperary and eventually reached Birr via Roscrea. Before leaving Roscrea she went up to the top of the castle to see the town. She noted that the old building was now used as a barrack and that she was shown over the place by Dr. Downer who told her that "you see what remains of its former greatness and what a lesson it gives of the frailty of human grandour." It was the end of October 1844 when she reached Birr to stay first of all in what she described as a miserable Protestant lodging house. She wrote as follows:

My walk of five miles was not tedious; the air was wholesome, the lark was singing, the road smooth, and the scenery pleasant. The town of Birr was the residence of Lord Rosse and his telescope, [completed in 1844], and here I had hoped to have a feast of some other worlds of light but this, on which I had so long figured to so little advantage. It rained as I entered the town, and turning into a neat little cottage, found a kind welcome by the cleanly master and mistress, who are Roman Catholics, and was invited to eat, and then they directed me to a Protestant lodging-house. I say Protestant, because the Catholics knowing me to be one, generally selected this sort, supposing I should be better pleased. They told me the people were kind and respectable; this was true, but the rooms were dark and without floors, and two enormous hogs which were snoring in an adjoining closet were called out to take their supper in the kitchen, which made the sum total a sad picture. (A cabin-keeper near Roscrea, who kept her pigs in the room, told me, "An' throth, ma'am, I'd take him into my bed wid me, if he'd thrive any better." Her bed was curtained and her cabin was clean.) I was kindly urged to take supper, and sat down with them, took an apple, and passed a solitary evening. Not that I was sorry for my undertaking, but the lack of all social comfort, where comfort should be expected. When I went into my bed-room I felt like bursting into tears; every thing looked so forbidding, and so unlike cleanliness about the bed. Clean sheets were begged, and clean sheets were granted; yet it was a doleful night, and in the morning, after taking some potatoes, and asking for my bill, four pence was the answer. Cheap indeed! I paid her more.

A drunken Birr distiller
The morning was dark; the rain poured fast. At six, a hearse passed, bearing the corpse of the son of a distiller, [probably Robinson of the Castle Street distillery. The surviving records indicate that this refers to Robert Robinson a distiller of Castle street Birr, probably son of Arthur Robinson also a distiller. Death records for the period are poor but there is a record of a Robert Robinson of Birr dying in 1844. who fell from his horse, and was killed, when intoxicated. The keeper of the lodgings remarked, that he had seen the father, and twelve sons grown to manhood in church together. Seven of these sons have died by intemperance. Are whiskey-making, whiskey-selling, and whiskey-drinking attended with a blessing?

I set off in the heavy rain to find the house or castle of a rich man, who was considered a great eccentric. He was owner of three domains, but had divested them of all their frippery, and put on a frieze-coat and brogues, and literally condescended to men of low estate in dress and equippage. He had taken many orphans into his house, and provided them food and clothing. When I reached his dwelling, my clothes were profusely drenched. Mr. S.___ was not at home. I asked the housekeeper if I might step in till the rain should abate, and dry my clothes. She allowed me to do so; and I followed her through a long gangway of desolated halls, to a kitchen, and found a company about to dine in the same way and on the same materials as the cabin people do. The rain continued, and an invitation to stop over night was not needed a second time. A fire was made in a parlour, where no carpets or supernumeraries met the eye. Tea, bread, and butter were offered, and the housekeeper made everything pleasant. She had embraced the principles of her master, who had taken her, when but two years old, begging her from a widowed mother, who was embarking for England. He had been a father, indeed, she said, and the care of the house was entrusted to her.

When I was comfortably prepared in my lodging-room, with a fire and clean bed, and contrasted it with the preceding night, in what extremes do I find myself, from cabin to castle, tossed like a "rolling thing before a whirlwind," yet never destroyed. I slept in peace, and thanked God that in Ireland one rich godly man could be found, who called all mankind his brethern.

In the morning, I took my breakfast, was kindly invited to come when Mr. S. should be at home, and went out, and called at the lodge-house, where was a godly-woman, poor in this world, but rich in faith. A pleasant hour was passed with her, for with such, lessons are to be learned which the rich cannot teach. The rain had deluged the country the preceding night; and many a poor cabin was swept away with the miserable furniture, and the affrighted inmates had fled, with their children in their arms, naked as they were, from their beds of straw.

The lawn containing the telescope of Lord Rosse was open, and passing the gate, the old lady who presided in the lodge asked me to go through the grounds, which were free to all. Much did I regret that clouds obscured the sky the whole time I was in Birr, so that not one gaze could I have through that magnificent instrument. The pipe is fifty-two feet in length, and six and a half in diameter. The earl is mentioned as a man of great philanthropy, and much beloved by the gentry and poor.

Sabbath - Heard the baptist minister preach to an audience of five, and he likewise broke bread to three. He observed, when he went out, that he felt it his duty to keep the light a burning, the more so, as there were but a few tapers kindled in the island. In the intermission, heard a sermon in the neat Methodist chapel, and that day and evening heard four good sermons. At the house of Mr. W. heard a Roman Catholic, who had been converted from Popery, relate his exercises of mind. A few others had renounced the doctrines, and united with Protestant churches. The priest at whose chapel he attended had left also, and became a Presbyterian clergyman [Father Crotty], that when any become converts from that church, they are the most spiritual Christians of all others, and we must take great stride to keep up with them. ( From pp 146-49)

November 4th - Early on foot I commenced a walk to Ballinasloe.

After spending much of November walking about the county of Galway, Nicholson was at Eyre Court towards the end of that month which she described as a beautiful little place and she passed on through it and walked the five miles into Banagher [pp 181-95]. She wrote: "I reached a beautiful little place called Eyrecourt, toasted my piece of bread, and went on at two o'clock to walk five miles to Banagher. The road was quite muddy, and my feet were now blistered. I was obliged to wear course shoes and my feet, never having been accustomed to them, were tender. Darkness overtook me, and the way became quite difficult. I enquired of all I met the distance to the bridge, and the distance to the town; and the way lengthened in proportion as I passed on, till I found myself upon the bridge; and meeting a woman, she led me to a lodging-house, which she assured me was as "clane and dacent as I could find in a day's walk."

This lodging-house in Banagher has associations which will live in grateful rememberance while memory lasts. Did they say, when I entered wet and weary, (for I had walked for hours in a heavy rain) did they say, "Who is this strange woman, at this late hour asking for lodgings she must be mad?" but "Come in, come in, ye're wet and wairy. How far have ye walked in the stawrm? Come into the kitchen and dry yer clothes, and yer must be a stranger, and we'll get ye the cup of tay; ye must be hungry." All this was said and more, before I had told them who I was, and what brought me there. When this was known, if possible the kindness was redoubled. I told them I had but sixpence-halfpenny in my purse, and could only get a night's lodging and two or three potatoes. "And that you will get; and a week's lodgin' in welcome. Not a hap'orth of them two crippled feet shall go out of my house till they're hailed," answered the man. The servant was called to fetch water to bathe my feet, "and we'll do what we can for ye, the cratur!" And faithfully did they perform their promise; they were kind to a fault. They were Catholics, but they listened to the Word of Life with the most profound attention, and without any opposition. They told their neighbours they fully believed I was inspired of God to come to Ireland, and do them good. What was this good? Certainly not money, and this they well knew.

They gathered about me in the evening in crowds; and when I had read two hours, such a breathless silence was in the room, that I looked about to ascertain whether all who were behind me had not left it, when I saw the place was filled to crowding, sitting upon the floor; and so quietly had they entered that I knew it not. Till one o'clock I read, a peasant woman, sitting at my feet, holding a candle; and when I said, "you must be tired," "And that I ain't, the long night wouldn't tire me, to be listenin' to ye."
"Ain't she a Protestant?" an old man whispered. "She's a Christian sent here to discoorse us, and do ye think the like of her would crass the ocean to see the poor, and discoorse' em as she does, if God hadn't sent her?" The old man seemed satisfied, and the point was settled by "Aw ! there's no use in tawkin'. The like of her couldn't be found in all Ireland." This last was said audibly, while I was turning the leaves of my book for a new chapter.

Mrs Nicholson wrote:
Among this group was a peculiarly interesting woman of forty-five, who had been the mother of twelve children. Six of them, she said, had "gone innocently to heaven." She was endowed with good talents, had been well bred, and was quite engaging in her manner. But the desire she manifested for her children, their education, and their eternal good, almost exceeded belief. She raised her hands, he full grey eyes glistening with tears, and said,"Can you, will you tell me how I can get to your country, where I can place my children under a good and virtuous influence, and where they will be taught the way to heaven as they should be ? We are here in darkness, darkness! Our clergy are good for nothing; they go to the altar, and say mass, but they preach no sermons. They give no other instructions, and who is any better? We have schools, where they learn more that is bad than is good. I go to bed at night, and I pray, pray. I wake up, and do the same, and here I am. Will you talk to my husband, and tell him what privileges you have in America. I can do nothing with him; he does not feel the accountability of training the children, as I do, and could I persuade him to go from this dreadful place, I would work night and day, not for myself, but for my children." I heard her through, and said "You say you are all in darkness, and I say to you, Christ and his word can give you light. Believe me, you must read the Bible; your children must read the Bible; or they never can reach those high attainments which you so greatly desire. There is a science in that Book of books that can be found no where else, and this science cannot be taught except by the Holy Spirit." "Is it so?" she eagerly said. "Have you a Bible?" I enquired. "No; we have never had one." The mistress then remarked, "There are but two Catholic families in all Banagher that have a Bible." "Well you may be in darkness, if you have not the chart that God has given to guide you to heaven." The company now dispersed, when she entreated again. "Do say what you can to my husband. He may listen to you." "That woman," said one, when she had gone, "has always been goin' on in this way. Her children, she says, are goin' wrong, and her husband cares nothin' about it."

A little clean, curly-headed girl called the next day, the youngest of this doting, anxious mother, and led me round the corner to show me her home.

"Welcome", said the mother; "you find me in this dirty cabin, where the pig and the shoemaker's bench are always with me. I live in wretchedness: I was not so rair'd. But my husband will have it so; he is a passionate man; but it was a runaway match; and though he often beats me, yet I am fond of him still. Forgive me for making so free with a stranger, but these dear, dear children; my heart is burning up; it is scalded for them, and I cannot get rid of it. We are not poor, though we live here in this humble cabin with pigs. I can spin, weave, and make all kinds of cloth." She then went up a ladder, and brought down two nice specimens of worsted and flannel cloths which she had manufactured. "And could any such work as this do any good in America for my children? I believe", she added, "Almighty God has put this in my heart, and what shall I do at the day of judgement when I meet my children?" I listened to this woman with the full conviction that the Spirit of God had enlightened her, and would yet bring her further out of darkness into his marvellous light.

I went to church, and found a small congregation; but so engrossed was my mind with the sermon I had heard from the woman, that I was but little improved by what I heard there.

The evening introduced me to a family, where I was invited by the father to see a daughter of seventeen years of age, who had three weeks before had a leg amputated. She was sitting upon the bed, and looked to me uncommonly interesting. She was handsome, becomingly dressed, and received me with a dignified cheerfulness that would have suited maturer age and higher education. She was mistress of the tidy cabin; her mother was dead, and she was the eldest of a pretty group of cleanly dressed children, who looked to her as their guide. When I spoke of her misfortune, she cheerfully answered, "I must submit to what the Almighty puts on me." I went away, and was told more fully the cause of this sad misfortune, of which no mention was made by the family.

The father had a mill of some kind, and was in the habit of taking his dinner in it. This daughter had prepared it, and carried it to the mill; but it was later than the usual hour. The father was angry at the delay, and lifted his hand to strike the faithful child. She, to avoid the blow, stepped aside; her dress caught in the wheel, and her leg was torn nearly off. This family discipline needs no comment. The cheerful girl, it is said, has never been heard to reproach the father.

When I returned from this cabin, a new era, opened. A company of Connaughtmen, in rags and dirt, returning from their potato digging in the county of Kilkenny, had turned in hither for the night. They wanted a pot of potatoes; they wanted them cheap and they wanted them in "God speed." All this could not be accomplished without some bustle, and the good man offered the potatoes for two pence half-penny a stone. That, they, in plain language, declared they would not pay. This took some time to settle, and ended by their going out and purchasing the article elsewhere. This adjusted, then came the lodging. They must be up at two, to pursue their journey; they must lodge in one room; and this room must be the one occupied by me, as no other was of sufficient length and breadth. I cheerfully relinquished all claim, as I was but a guest, and the floor was spread with et ceteras for the lodgers to lie down. The clamour and clatter which commenced and continued were somewhat peculiar to themselves. I had quietly put my Polka coat upon a chair managed to make myself a bed; and as this bed, like the other, was gratis, I had no right to complain. The peat fire was dimly burning at twelve o'clock, when the master came in, and hearing the tumultuous jabbering, and feeling the house to be shaking to the centre, he ran up stairs, telling them to be off, every blackguard of 'em, as it was two o'clock, and not a minute more should they stop in his house, disgracin' the divil himself. They declared they had paid for lodging till two o'clock, and they had not slept a ha'porth. He drove them up, and they tumbled down stairs to the kitchen. I had placed myself in an upright position, and was in a corner. They, as if by consent, all stopped short in a semicircle about me, and in perfect silence surveyed me attentively, and my condition for a few moments was not an enviable one.

There were nine of these nondescripts, not one of them with a whole garment or a clean face, standing in array. The room was nearly dark, and the master not in it. I seriously thought of my sixpence-halfpenny, but before having time to offer it, the good man of the house entered, and poured them out of the house at once. They had the kindness to give the man a timely caution when they were on his steps, for they told him seriously that the stranger in his house was a man in disguise, and that he had come to do some great mischief in the country, and they had not a hap'orth of a doubt but that he had hapes of sovereigns. He added, "Some of the blackguards would not hesitate to take your life, should they meet you alone."

These men certainly are distinct in their appearance from the provinces of Ulster, Munster, or Leinster. Yet I should not feel authorised to say that they are more malicious or dangerous than their neighbours. They are more coarse in appearance and manners; but they do not lack either shrewdness or hospitality. In justice I must say, I have experienced more real kindness from these people, than from many of more refined education and fashionable appendages.

Reader, if you are prone to be incredulous; if you are but a nominal Christian; if you know not how to believe in God without doubting; if you cannot trust him with your body as well as your soul; if you are not willing to deny yourself, and never have done it, and if you do not believe in "particular providence," in particular exigencies, you may as well lay down this book, - at least pass over a few succeeding days, for they will appear like fairy tales, and the teller of them as a silly if not wicked imposter.

Monday: - These Banagher friends wished me "God speed," without taking a farthing, and told me their house should be welcome as long as I would stay. Others in the town did the same: but the time had come; new things were before me, and these new things I must meet.

On leaving Banagher and her account of her stay there, Mrs. Nicholson was back in Birr dining with a Mr. Walsh who insisted that she should go that very evening to visit the good Mr. S., whom she mentioned in her earlier visit to Birr. She had hoped to stay with this Mr. S. at his castle at Rathmore but things did not work out and he refused to see her. Mr. S. was apparently formerly a member of the Church of Ireland and appears to have become a Catholic and did not accept Mrs. Nicholson, who would have been considered a Protestant with a small 'p' - probably a Baptist but certainly not a Quaker. The identity of Mr S. is not disclosed by Nicholson but at a guess it may be Edward Synge who is listed as a landowner in Griffith's Valuation under Rathmore barony of Clonlisk p. 37 and in Burke's Irish Family Records (1976) at p. 1087 is described as born 1788 son of George of Rathmore and residing at Syngefield Birr and Dysart Co. Westmeath. He died unmarried. This was to be Nicholson's last stay in Offaly, at least during the course of the 1844 - 45 visit. She passed out of the town on the way to Roscrea where she recounts further difficulties in obtaining suitable basic accommodation. As she says herself, she had an unfortunate departure from Roscrea in that she had met a Quaker near the town who had provided her with accommodation and helped her to get to Urlingford. Money had arrived for her from America and a young man who was to call and collect her to bring her to Urlingford told her that "uncle has the letter for you at Urlingford, money in it from America; but he found the seal broken at the office, and thought it might be unsafe to send it on to Galway".

"Breakfast was prepared. I passed the day in making repairs in garments, sadly racked by storms and trials before knowing, the next morning the boy and car were sent to carry me to Urlingford. My money was in waiting, my friend was as kind as when I left, and I sat down to rest and reflect".

It appears unlikely that Mrs. Nicholson visited the county in the context of her volume on the Famine, which appeared in London in 1850. Her work is quite distinct from that of previous travellers, nearly all of whom are from a well-to-do background and stayed with the wealthy while on their visit. She afterwards visited Wexford, Tipperary, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Galway and Mayo, following the coast route. Writing at the conclusion of her trip she recorded: "I visited Ireland to see it as it is, so I reported as I found it. I have stayed to witness that which, though so heart-rending and painful, has given me the proof of what common observation told me in the beginning - that there must need to be an explosion of some kind or another. But awful as it is, it has shewn Ireland who are worthy ones within her and who are her friends abroad, it has shown her greater things than these". She completed her preface to the book in June 1847 and noted in the introduction her thanks to the Hibernian Bible Society, which had given her the Word of God, in English and Irish and it also procured suitable books for distribution on her tour. She wrote that nothing had been added to her description of Ireland to meet the state of the Famine in 1846 and 1847. "Facts are related as they occurred and were described in 1844 and 1845. These facts then indicated that an explosion must soon take place and that Ireland was to be turned inside out". In many ways that is why her book is so useful in that it is a pen-picture from an observer who lived among the poor just prior to the Famine years.

A Tullamore Schoolboy's Diary of Episodes During the Troubles

P. A. Wrafter, uncle of Paul and Shaun Wrafter, kept a diary relating to Tullamore events. The period 1921-25 is reported on here. For its simplicity and directness, it is very useful. It gives a flavour of what were exciting if dangerous times and times which were sad for Ireland. P. A. Wrafter joined the Williams company in April 1925 at which point the diary concludes. He later became company secretary and died in 19....

A diary by Patrick Wrafter, Church Street, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, 3rd March 1921.

Michael Hennessy, one of the Cork hunger-strikers, died on the 18th October 1920 after 67 days without food. R.I.P.

Terence McSweeney, Lord Mayor of Cork, died in Brixton Prison on the 25th October 1920, after 74 days without food. R.I.P.

Joseph Murphy, aged 17, died in Cork Prison on 26th October, 1920, after 76 days without food. R.I.P.

Kevin Barry was hanged in Mountjoy Gaol on the 1st November 1920. R.I.P.

Sergeant Cronin, Tullamore, was shot dead in Henry Street on the 31st October 1920. R.I.P. Reprisals followed, resulting in the burning of the I.N.F. Picture Hall.

Curfew was put into force in Tullamore, from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. on the 6th November 1920.

Father Griffin was kidnapped on the 14th November, and was found buried in a bog outside of Galway a week later. R.I.P.

Twelve Officers were shot dead in Dublin Hotels on the 14th November 1920. Later in the day, soldiers opened fire on the people at a football match and killed 18 or more persons. R.I.P.

Joe got his Xmas holidays on 17th December 1920 and went back on 14th January 1921.

Our car ran over Alec Wrafter in William St. on the 15th January - no bones were broke[n].

Started to build the Electric Light Shed over in the The Square on the 3rd January 1921. The same day as we went back to school.

Alo Brennan, Church St., Tullamore, was arrested on the 18th January 1921.

Masked and armed men entered the Post Office in Tullamore on the 20th January 1921 and took away the mails for the R.I.C..

Joseph Murphy of Cork was found not guilty for being in an ambush. He was sentenced to gaol for life.

An aeroplane was burned near Kilfinane by armed and masked men on the 11th February 1921.

Francis Telling, Messrs. Donnelly and Steward escaped from Kilmainham Prison on the 14th February 1921. Francis Telling was to be executed the next day.

Peadar Bracken was arrested in Mucklagh on the 17th February 1921. He was on the run since 1916.

Mr. Bready, Church St., Tullamore died in Dublin on the 20th February 1921. R.I.P.

Father Burbage of Geashill was arrested on the 15th January 1921.

Father Smith of Rahan was arrested on the 25th February 1921.

Fairs and markets and trains were prohibited in Tullamore following the cutting of the roads on the 3rd March 1921.

Father bought Hand's fields out in Ballyduff on the 26th Feb. 1921. He paid £1,775 for it.

Six civilians were executed in Cork Prison for having arms on the 23rd Feb. 1921. R.I.P.

A man named Cornelius Murphy was executed under Martial Law regulation for having arms on the 1 Feb. 1921.

A. Brennan was sentenced to 15 months hard labor for kidnapping J. Hannon on the 5 March 1921.

Nan Gowran and Joe Ryan were married after the holy hour on the 6th March 1921. Joe Ryan went away to America a few days later.

The Mayor and ex-Mayor of Limerick were shot dead in their own homes on 6 March 1921. R.I.P..

Messrs. Whelan, Moran, Flood, Doyle, Bryan and Ryan were executed in Mountjoy Prison on the 15 March 1921. Some of them not guilty.

The train from Kenmare to Hedford was ambushed at Hedford and 9 Crown forces were killed.

Mat (Caine) Kane shot dead while doing his duty on the 1st April 1921. He was a member of the I.R.A..

Most Rev. Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin died on 9th April 1921. R.I.P..

Thomas Traynor of Dublin was executed in Mountjoy Prison on April 16th 1921.

(Sean Allen), Patrick Sullivan, Pat Ronayne, Thomas Mulcahy, and Maurice Moore were executed in Cork Prison on April 28th 1921.

Daniel O'Brien was executed in Cork Prison on the 17th May 1921, for having a revolver. R.I.P.

Rev. Father O'Callaghan was shot dead by armed men in the house of Ald. De Roiste on the 15th May 1921.

The Custom House, Dublin was set on fire and destroyed by the I.R.A. on the 25th May 1921.

Thomas Keane was executed in Limerick on the 4th June 1921. R.I.P.

Edward Foley and Patrick Maher were executed in Mountjoy Prison on the 7th of June 1921. R.I.P.

Mr. D. E. Williams died on the 2nd July 1921. R.I.P.

Peace Conference started on July the 3rd 1921, in the Mansion House, Dublin.

Mr. D. E. Williams, Tullamore died on the 3rd July 1921 aged 72 years. R.I.P.

At least 80 prisoners escaped from the Rath Camp, Curragh by a subterranean tunnel 50 ft. long dug by themselves with pieces of iron etc. Sept. 1921.

Joe went to the bank in Mullingar on 13th October 1921.

Electric light was lit in the streets and houses on September the 27, 1921.

Truce declared in Ireland in July 1921.

James J. Daly, Tyrrellspass, Westmeath executed in India in connection with a mutiny against the treatment of his friends in Ireland. 2nd November 1921. All Souls Day.

Peace signed in Dublin in Dec. 1921.

A. Brennan came home from Hull Prison on 14th Jan. 1922.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XV died at 6 a.m. on Sunday 22nd Jan. 1922. R.I.P.

M. Collins took possession of Dublin Castle on Jan. 6th 1922.

Cardinal Ratti elected Pope Pius XI on Feb. 6th 1922.

Ard Feis Meeting was held in Dublin on Feb. 21, 1922.

Tullamore Gaol was taken over by the I.R.A. on Feb. 28th 1922. Athlone Barracks taken over the same day.

Tullamore barrack taken over by the I.R.A. on the 7th March 1922.

Brigadier Adamson a F.S. soldier was shot dead in Athlone on the 25th of April 1922. R.I.P.

Ormonde Castle and various other buildings in Kilkenny which were occupied by the Executive forces, were stormed and captured by the F.S. forces. May 3rd 1922.

Truce declared in the Mansion between the Republicans and the treatyites on May 4th 1922.

War started in Dublin between the Free State soldiers and the republicans, during which the Four Courts was destroyed. The fighting lasted 4 days when the republicans surrendered. Fighting started throughout the country.

M. Collins was killed in an ambush near Bandon by the republicans Aug. 1922. J. Mulcahy was made C.I.C.

A. Griffit [sic] died in Dublin about a week before M. Collins. Was succeeded by W. Cosgrove. R.I.P.

Various executions took place by the Free Staters on the bolshies having been found with arms.

A big fight took place in Dublin on St. Patrick's night 1923 between McTigue the Irishman and Battling Siki the black in which McTigue won on points.

Started to build the Forster's Picture Hall in the square, May 1923.

Joe got new motor bike, Royal Enfield, £50, on May 26th 1923. Kilbeggan Races May 28th.

Feis in Mountmellick Sunday 10th June 1923. ..cool hurled Port Laoighse, resulted with a draw, 2 goals each.

Intermediate examination in Convent School 2 June 1923.
Passed Junior Grade Examination 12th Sept. 1923.

Elections held August 27th 1923. F. Bulfin and P. Egan elected for Offaly.

Grandmother in Ballyduff died at 2.20 pm Friday the 13th February 1925. R.I.P. Funeral on Sunday the 15th Feb. to Durrow. Very large crowd laid offerings, the amount obtained being £31.8.0.

I was out playing football same evening in Ballyduff, and never heard about it until I came home.

Went to work in D. E. Williams' Head Office on Mon. 20th April 1925. St. Columba's College reopened same day after the Easter Holidays. Began work at the Stocks Department at 30/- per week.

[The following entries appear to be additional, if similar, entries:]

The pope, Benedidict XV died on Sunday 22nd January 1922.

Alo Brennan was released from Hull Prison on 13th January 1922. Arrived home on Saturday 14th.

6th December: Irish peace signed in London at 2 am. Terms published on the 7th.

3rd December: The men in Williams Egans and Goodbodys shops and yards went out on strike.
Kevin Barry was hanged All Saints day, November 1st 1920.

21st November: 14 British officers shot dead in Dublin, police attacked Croke Park, 12 civilians were shot dead.

January 3rd 1921, The electric light shed was started.

Francis Teeling and two other prisoners escaped from Kilmainham gaol 13th February 1921.

28th February 1921: 6 men shot dead in Cork prison for having arms and amunition.

26th February 1921: Father bought 23 acres of Hand's land, Ballyduff, paid £1775-0-0.

March 15th 1921: 6 men hanged in Mountjoy prison.

April 1st 1921: Lieut Matt Kane IRA was shot dead by crown forces.

April 8th 1921: Did my first piece of fretwork.

Monday, October 3rd 1921: I went to Dublin and came home on 6th October.

Friday, 15th September 1921: Mother and Father went to Llandudno for a fortnights holidays and stayed a week in Dublin.

The original of the memoir or account is held at the Library of the Society of Friends, Dublin. In her Guide to Irish Quaker Records, 1654-1860, (Dublin, 1967), Olive Goodbody wrote:

'Robert Goodbody, ancestor to nearly all the family of that name in Ireland, was the second son of Mark and Elizabeth (Pim) Goodbody of Mountmellick. He married (first) Margaret, daughter of Jonathan and Sarah (Robinson) Pim, by whom he had six sons; (2nd) Jane daughter of James and Deborah (Bewley) Pim (no issue). In the 74th year of his age he wrote a full retrospective account of his life. The early part contains much of local interest, of marriages into, and visits between other Friends' families, and details of life of the period. There is a full and vivid account of the Rebellion of 1798, with many details of happenings in Rathangan, Mountmellick and Wexford. Mention is made of the precautions taken and help given by Friends in the very wet summer of 1799, when the timely purchase of potato and other seed, resold at a reasonable price, averted distress.

Robert Goodbody did not follow his father's trade of a tanner, but became a flour miller and baker. Following the death of his wife, he moved in 1826 to Clara, in King's Co., having bought a partnership in the Brusna Flour Mills.

Amongs visiting Friends noted in this life are Job Scott, Thomas Scattergood, William Crotch and Hannah Barnard whose preaching, in 1800, was the cause of closing Sycamore Alley Meeting House for a period. The visit of John Wesley to Mountmellick, about 1798, is also noted.'

I am grateful to the Michael I. A. Goodbody for the typescript issue of the Memoir. I have not compared this typescript with the original.

Being now within three months of seventy-four years old [written at Tullamore on 22nd January 1855], I think it would possibly afford satisfaction to some of my children, if I should note down some occurrences of my life.

I was born the 9th of 4th month 1781. My father’s name was Mark Goodbody, and my mother Elizabeth the eldest child of Robert and Alice Pim. My father was born in the year 1749, and my mother in 1753. They were married early in the year 1777 - They had a son before me, born in 1779, who died of the small-pox at the age of 4½ years - I don’t recollect him, as I was for some time previous at Tullylost, in the County Kildare, and was continued there for some time to avoid infection. My grandfather Robert Pim died while I was at Tullylost, both he and my brother died early in 1784. I suppose that if I had been at home I would have remembered them both, as I well remember the year 1784. My father removed that year to the house on the ground where Thos. Pims’ house now stands.

I was born in the house where my father-in-law Jonathan Pim lived. He raised it and improved it in 1792. All my children were born in the house where Thos. Pim built.

I recollect Rebecca Jones and Sarah Grubb being in MtMellick in the summer of 1785, but I don’t recollect their persons.

I think the first time that I was at Meeting was in that year at the marriage of Jane, the daughter of John Halton by his first wife. She married a friend from England named Tucket. She died soon after. He had a sister who travelled here as a minister about 1820. She was a well qualified minister. I well recollect the provincial school being set up perhaps in 1786, and Aunt Shannon’s soon after. Mary Ridgeway, an eminently good woman and a powerful minister, had been travelling in England and being at Ackworth School admired it so much that soon after she came home, she introduced the great want of education among friends in low circumstances in the women’s meeting at a Qy. Meeting, and offered to go into the men’s quarterly meeting where she laid her concern with such weight that the meeting took it up and agreed to have a school established, this was the origin of the Provincial School. I had this from good authority.

The first school that I went to, perhaps early in 1785, was to Sally Thompson who then had a large school of boys and girls near opposite to where Ann Strangeman lived. She was a very good hand at teaching girls good needle-work. She taught me my letters and I don’t think I quit her school until I could read pretty well. I never was very apt at any other learnings. I went for several years after to John Taylor, first in the old thatched Women’s meeting house, which was rebuilt in 1787. Anthony Pim was then the tallest boy in the school and perhaps I was the lowest. There was then several girls at the school one of which was very kind to me often giving me nice white bread, her name was Mary Shannon a handsome girl. She afterwards had three husbands, the latter and herself still living.

Flogged at school

I think she must be 80 years old and probably she and I are the only persons of that large school now living. John Taylor was a great man for flogging and often whipped me for bad writing, which the terror that it put into me, often prevented me from improving in anything. The fact was that I think I had a dull capacity, and dislike to school which flogging produces, made me worse. I think I must have also been very childish for a boy of my then age, as I often took great delight with my sisters in their baby-house.

In the fall of the year 1788 I had the small-pox naturally, one brother and two sisters. My brother Thomas took it first, when he was better my sister Sarah and I were down, lying in two beds in the same room. We were both very ill, I was covered over in all parts of my body with confluent pock, and was blind for many days, with a very sore throat. I don’t think I ever was stout for many years after, and I lost my eye-lashes, never having them good to this day. I well recollect old Betty Jackson (Mary Thacker’s mother: of all that family were very intimate with ours, and were a very good natured family), but to return, she was sitting by my bedside, I was listening to her saying that I was grinding my teeth, and that it was a sign of dying. That did not alarm me, the very probably that I might be really like to die, but I set to grind my teeth as long as I could. When I was getting better I had a great appetite but having a very sore throat I could take nothing but flummery then called sowings, which word calling for was never out of my mouth like a cry. I being blind, and well remember the first objects that attracted my sight when recovering it. My sister Ann had but a few spots, but made more noises crying than us all: she was then about two years old. All the rest of us were very badly marked, and I was a long time very red after it, and was annoyed by the boys calling me frosty face.

I ought to mention that I have a perfect recollection of my great-grandmother Wyly mother to my grandmother Pim, she died at the age of seventy seven in the 12th month 1786. I was frequently at her house perhaps before 1785, but from that time until her death she had me at meals. When at Tullylost she lived at Thomastown near that a fine old-fashioned place which she kept extremely neat. She was very neat also in her person. She wore one of these silk velvet black bonnets, which can be sat upon: It had also a cape or pillareen attached to it, which I don’t recollect having ever observed on any other person. I recollect her at Meeting in Rathangan. She had a four wheeled chair as it was then called, and her man, Larry Luck, riding a horse leading her horse. She used a stick with a crook on its head, and I remember her bringing me one morning after breakfast out to walk with her to see men she had turning a heap of manure. The field long after her death I remember, but perhaps about 40 years ago there was a Glebe House built on the same spot, Thomastown being a parish. While my family lived there there was an old ruin of a church there, and a burying ground, but since that there has been a new church built. I don’t think I ever went to Thomastown that my great-grandmother did not caution me against going to the well, which was the very means of my going to look down into it. It was a draw well very deep with a round house over it, covered with flags, and a windlass for drawing up the water. I think it was 80 feet deep, and I used to go to the door and look into it. Thomastown was in a valley and yet there was a great want of water on the land before that well was made. I have heard that in long dry weather the cattle would have to be driven near a mile to water. My great-grandmother was greatly respected by her neighbours and by friends who knew her. Her maiden name was Metcalf - It is very odd how dreams bring the features and persons of those long dead into recollection. Often have I on dreaming of her, had her person so renewed in my memory that when I awoke I felt as if I had just seen her.

1788

This year John and Mary Helton removed to Bristol from Mount Mellick, having an auction before they went. They lived in the house where Anthony Pim since lives, and Jonathan went to live in after his son James’ marriage. John Helton and Jonathan Pim were partners in the tanning business. My parents had a great regard for John and Mary Helton and were sorry to lose them as neighbours when they went to England. They had two sons, John and William, the latter died, I think, of the small-pox very soon after they left Mount Mellick, a boy of very promising disposition. The other lived to grow up and married Anne Alexander. He died a few years since.

I may mention that I recollect seeing John Wesley coming out of the Methodist meeting in Mountmellick, it might be in 1789. His picture often reminds me of his person.

In the spring of 1789 my dear Grandmother Pim broke up house, and had an auction which lasted more than a week. She had a well finished house, and very neat; it was then, I think, the decentist, or best house among friends in Mountmellick. She and my three Aunts and Alice Simmons came to lodge at my father’s, he having previously raised the back part of his house to accommodate them. They paid well for their accommodation, and my Aunts done much in the house, also making clothes for us all. My grandmother was a tall woman, and lusty, made much like my Aunt Margaret. My Aunt Alice was a good book-keeper, and had articles in the shop to sell on her own account. She was generally in the shop until shortly before her marriage in 1800, and was very clever there, setting my father much at liberty when called by business from home. My Aunt Sarah had been brought up by her grandmother Wyly until her death, and only then came to reside with her mother. Alice Simmons also lived with her grandmother and came also with Aunt Sarah. My grandmother’s house stood where Jonathan Pim’s shop is now. Mary Ridgeway’s and Artistis Sparks her sister also lodged with my father when I and my brother was born, but on my father’s moving across the street she went to grandmother.

In 1789 Mary Ridgeway and Jane Watson went to America. I well remember her going round the town to bid farewell. She came to my father’s after meeting on a first day evening, and the family and her were both in tears. I don’t recollect that I ever witnessed such a parting scene. They set out next day for Cork, where they took shipping in a vessel of Anthony Harris’ who went with them, and afterwards brought them back in 1792. Mary Ridgeway had with her her daughter-in-law, the wife of her son John, who was then in Philadelphia. Her name was Elizabeth, a sister of Mary Thecker. She was a tall, handsome woman, and well beloved in Mountmellick. Her brother Nathaniel took her in a chair, now called a gig, to Cork, in company with her mother-in-law; but the grief of her family on parting with her was excessive. There was no parting of them until my father took her in his arms and carried out and placed in the carriage. She was a very nice woman, and much loved by her acquaintances. She died in a few years afterwards, perhaps about 1795, and her husband, of the yellow fever a few years afterwards. A son of theirs, named Joshua, was brought over by his mother’s family in 1803. He was very unhealthy but a nice sensitive lad, he died perhaps about twelve years after.

I think it was in 1792 that Richard Shackelton a well-known character among Friends, being much devoted to the good of the Society, came to Mountmellick in the 7th of 8th month to attend the school committee then the Annual Meeting. He rode from Ballintore on 3rd day. I recollect him coming to see our family after dinner, and seeming well, and telling my grandmother of the death of his 1st cousin, a Metcalf married to John Boardman, I think her name was Hannah. Richard Shackelton attended the monthly meeting next day, and in the 2nd meeting was so poorly that he had to go out of meeting, which was the last time I ever saw him. He took to his bed, and died a few days after of fever. It was said that he got it by being shaved by a barber who had previously shaved a corpse, who died of fever. Richard Shackelton was a remarkable character. I think that for years he attended the yearly meeting of London, which at that time was both expensive and troublesome. He always wore spectacles and even then had bad sight.

I recollect Samuel Neale of Cork well. He was a large minister, and was in much esteem among friends as such. He often was at meetings in Mountmellick, and largely engaged therein.

In the 9th month 1793 my brother Samuel, a handsome child, died of the small-pox, about three years old. I was fond of him and felt very much seeing him, for perhaps 12 hours dying very hard in convulsions. My sister Jane was then but about 5 months old, and had it very bad. My mother was nursing her. She was frightfully swelled in her face, near the size of two infants. I well recollect the care my mother paid to her, night and day, holding her on her lap, and trying to keep her nourished at the breast, although a loathsome object as well as offensive, but she recovered. That was the time my sister Alice had the complaint, but she was not very ill.

Job Scott was in Mount Mellick a few days after, but not at our house on account of the infection. On 1st day morning he spoke longly. He was a great minister, and in the evening Robert Thacker was married to Mary Jackson - There was a very large crowded meeting, and several clergymen there. He commonly gave the clergy a great dressing often saying in his discourse that the Church of England Hierarchy would soon fall. I remember him afterwards at the winter meeting in Dublin saying on the same subject that the child was now born would see its downfall. I fear friends are sometimes led astray when they attempt to predict. However he died a few weeks afterwards of the small-pox, at the house of Elizabeth Shackelton of Ballitore.

Weddings

In the spring of 1794 there was two weddings at my father’s house. The first was Lucy Wyly a beautiful young woman, 1st cousin of my mother, to Joseph Malone, an ordinary pock-marked man. She died a few years after. She got acquainted with him at Clonmel. She left children after her, but it turned out a foolish match.

The other was the marriage of Cooper Clibborn to Alice Simmons. There was a very large wedding company. Sally Cooper, his Aunt, acted as a mother to him, and James Clibborn then a very handsome man acted as his father. James Clibborn was then a minister in good esteem, and a very plain dressed friend, which he never departed from afterwards. My grandmother acted as Alice Simmons’ mother and perhaps my uncle Joshua Pim as father, but I am not certain whether he was there or not. Sally Clibborn afterwards Metcalf, was then a most beautiful young woman and I presume it was there Francis Metcalf first got acquainted with her. They were married the next year. There was great grief the morning after when Alice Simmons was leaving us with the whole family. She was of a most amiable disposition. I sometimes think what a job there must have been to get up a large dinner in two rooms, and also a large supper. The tea was taken in a room upstairs, or rather two rooms, both which are still standing, the bedstead being taken down and it converted into what is called a drawing room, but how such a thing would now appear. But still everything was of the best, both of eating and drinking, and also variety of dishes, but at that day the sweets, some of them, were laid on the table with the meat.

In the 4th month of 1794 after the quarterly meeting my brother Thomas and I went to Ballitore School. My father’s man went with us to bring home our horses, as we rode. In our company we had Sarah Shackelton and Jane Thomas, also Abraham Shackelton, of course 6 horses. All those persons except myself are long since dead.

The first time my brother Thomas and I was in Dublin was at the winter meeting in the 11th month 1793, Job Scott being there. We thought Dublin a very great place then. We lodged at Thomas Pim’s and Robert Simmon’s, No. 34, Back Lane. It was then a good new house. They were wholesale Woollen Drapers. That part of the city is wonderfully reduced since. I passed it lately and could hardly recognise the house, the canal being then under repair.

My aunt Goodbody, and some other of the family I don’t recollect, both went and came in a chaise, and the first inn I ever was at was in the town of Naas. I staid near two years at Ballintore School, leaving it sooner perhaps in 2nd month 1796, on account of illness. My father and mother came with a hack chaise and brought me home, my brother being with us, but he staid at the school another year.

The quarterly meeting in Mountmellick in 3rd month 1796 was uncommonly large, perhaps none since so large. Thomas Scattergood was his companion was a traveller. Alexander Wilson was with him. There was also a number of ministers there. William Cratch from England, a powerful minister, but Thomas Scattergood was an extra-ordinary man, (a small thin man) a large minister, and something peculiar in his loving addresses, and his countenance also was indicative of his being of the right stamp - He dined at my father’s after the meeting. Being a tanner he inspected my father’s tanyard. Mary Ridgeway was also with him at dinner, as she often was with us. I recollect that Mary Ridgeway had a scruple to drink out of silver. We had a mug for her to take her beer, in which there was always put a bit of hot toast for her. She also had a dislike to see a great display of glasses and wine at the table after the cloth was removed, but still she used to take one glass of wine. What would she say now to be told that it was wrong to take any fomented liquor? I hope she would not have found fault with anything for which there is scripture authority for. I think it is a very dangerous thing to set ones judgement over scripture, if once done there is no end to the errors it brings in.

Death of Robert Goodbody's grandmother

On the 26th of 9 mo. 1796 my dear grandmother died suddenly in her 63rd year. (My grandmother died on the 26th of 9 mo. 1796 of a 2nd day, and was buried at Rathangan the 6th day following).

She had been for some time in declining health. Her husband dropped dead twelve years before, and she never after had good spirits, which was increased by her only son Robert marrying out of Society to an Elizabeth Palmer, a person well connected, but of some very loose living family, then living in Ossery, which at that time was famous for viscious living. He settled with his wife’s family. I don’t think his mother ever saw him afterwards, but once a short time before her death, when he breakfasted at my father’s in her company. He was naturally a good-natured man, but had little firmness or sense. He died in Dublin in 1806 leaving a widow and family. To return to my grandmother, she was going up stairs after dinner, perhaps 1½ hours afterwards, and was in the act of speaking to my aunt Alice, enquiring something of her, when she dropped dead on the stairs. My poor aunt called in great fright to get help to lift her up, I heard her call and with others run up, but she was dead and her jaw fallen. Except my aunt and I all the rest of the family were from home at the meeting of Edenderry. The day before was the first day, and I recollect well her getting us children into the back parlour and she sitting in the window reading to us the conclusion or summing up by William Penn, of No Cross no Crown. The family that were from home were sent for immediately, and came back that night about 12 o’clock. I was awake in bed not having slept, and my father came to see me. I recollect Fanny Bewley, and Margaret Pim, afterwards my wife, coming to lay my grandmother out. She was buried on the 6th day following at Newtown near Rathangan, having a very large funeral leaving Mountmellick, and we met on the road at or near Cushina most of the friends of Edenderry, and Rathangan, Joseph Inman and Ruth, Joshua Wilson and Hannah, Samuel Neale and Debby, Abm. Neale and Whelan’s carriages. At the burying ground was the first place I ever saw Samuel Emlin who was there with Mary Ridgeway. There was a very long silence, but no speaking. I went with my aunt Margaret to Tullylost that night, and home next day, all the rest returning the day before. Dorah Harvey, Mary Pim’s sister died and was buried the same day I got home at Rossenaless [sic]. Next day Samuel Emlin was at the meetings in Mountmellick, and several meetings afterwards as he and Mary Ridgeway entered on a family visit in Mountmellick. He was a large powerful minister. I recollect one of his texts was, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously, out of Isaiah: he seemed to have the scriptures all by heart.

I think that it was in 1797 or 8 that Elizabeth Pim, my wife’s sister died of galloping consumption. She was a sober young person aged about 16. My uncle Richard’s only child Sussanna, who had been several years at Clonmel school came home, in the 11th month 1797. In about a year afterwards he placed her at my father’s to diet and lodge, I suppose to perfect her education. Perhaps she might be then 16 years of age, but in a few weeks afterwards in the 1st mo. she became ill, and it turned out the small-pox. My uncle took her home, in great trouble about her, but they were aware that she never had the disease before. I think that she died at the end of four weeks afterwards, having suffered greatly, and at times in great anxiety about her well being, but died peacefully. Her mother, a weak-minded woman at the best (her maiden name was Ester Gatchell) soon after got astray in her mind, and died a few months after, leaving my uncle very desolate, but a sister-in-law of his continued to reside with him. He afterwards in the year 1800, married my aunt Alice Pim.

Rebellion of 1798

The rebellion of 1798 was a memorable time. There was a very disturbed winter before, taking arms and robbing houses of the Protestants. In the spring a proclamation by Government was put out, that the country people that had arms, if they would deliver them up, and take the Oath of Allegiance, they would be protected. Perhaps the lower orders about Mountmellick pretended that they were innocent. I don’t recollect that they gave up any arms, but I was on a visit at Uncle Pims in Rathangan (as that family had moved in from Tullylost for safety a short time before), and perhaps the Co. Kildare was under Martial Law, but I there saw in the 4 mo. numbers of men perhaps hundreds, giving up their arms and taking the Oath of Allegiance, and getting out their protections. But in 6 weeks after, when the rebellion broke out, the same people in fact the country with few exceptions, all R. Catholics came in as rebels, and murdered every protestant man they could lay their hands on, perhaps upwards of twenty – The protestants got into a house next William Pims who was then ill in bed, and thought to defend themselves there but before that the rebels had murdered several of the protestants. They also murdered James Spencer, the landlord of the town, in a barbarous manner in his own house and cut his head off. They afterwards brought up his affected widow at their head, getting her to speak to the protestants in their garrison, and to request that they capitulate and that their lives would be spared: which she did, but almost immediately after they were all murdered.

My cousin Joshua Pim knowing that he was obnoxious to the rebels, brought his man with him over to Mountmellick on 5th day to my father’s, and sent back his man with a horse, a man that had been reared under the family at Tullylost. But when he came back he gave a double rap at the hall door, and gave in the bridle and saddle to Jane Pim who opened the door for him. The rebels were then in possession of the town. Besides other friends living in the town, there was of our family – my uncle and aunt Pim, their daughter Jane and Hanna, and my aunt Margaret, William Pim and his wife at next house with their apprentices. William was ill in bed with fever. I have heard my aunt Margaret say that at the back windows they could see people hiding their valuables in the ground in their gardens, expecting the rebels in, and when they came they at once set to plundering, ripping up the feather beds to store things in the ticks. She said the quantity of feathers thrown out in the streets made the streets look as white as snow. However my uncle’s family were wonderfully preserved, and though the lower part of the house was at all times full of rebels and their wives; they killing sheep in abundance and dressing them in the kitchen where they sat and drank all the time they had had possession of the town, which was four or five days. The family, however, had a man, a Catholic, perhaps between 50 and 60 years old, a follower of the family, (I wish that I could recollect his name) but he made it his business to keep the rebels down in the kitchen story and prevented them from roving over the house. My uncle Pim was then confined to his bed, helpless and perhaps childish, when one day a parcel of the rebels got in at the hall door, he lying in the room opposite, and going into the room where were all the females of the family, of course much terrified; but on their coming in and looking at him lying on his bed, they said that he was a good man and immediately turned about and left the house. A few days after two of the blackhorse drove on their horses through the town in a gallop, but I think one of them and his horse were both shot. But soon after the army came in by the Dublin road and the rebels soon took to their heels, after dancing round their tree of liberty for several days and committing many murders, some of the bodies of which were brought and laid in the churchyard for burial, the weather being uncommonly hot and fine. But one of those bodies came to life in the night, and escaped with his life, his wound not being mortal, got home and was afterwards called the “Resurrection”, but when the army came in many of themselves were shot, in fact everyone in coloured clothes was in danger as supposed rebels. The soldiers naturally thinking all the loyalists were murdered. It was on this occasion that the kind man who had exerted himself to keep the rebels from pillaging my uncle Pim’s house, was taken up by the soldiers near the bridge, and about being shot when some women brought word of it to my aunt Pim, and she immediately with my aunt Margaret Pim went through the streets full of furious soldiers, many of them intoxicated, and as soon as possible spoke to the officer who had him in custody, and begged his life telling them how kind he has been to them. They got him off and brought him up to the house under guard. The servant man that had become their master now had to hide himself for days on their concern, often imminent danger of his life. At the next house at William Pims there was, all the time the rebels were in possession, a protestant man under an empty sugar hogshead in the yard, often with crowds of the rebels lying about with their pikes, but escaped. It is surprising that neither of the houses was plundered, except of trifling articles, but when the army came in, Robert Woodcock, a very handsome lad, being in coloured clothes, a soldier seeing him, run after him to take his life, he ran upstairs and the soldier after him. He met Elizabeth Pim on the landing place and run behind her, she shifting over to save him, and shouting to the man not to fire, but he did, and I think by the shot broke his arm, but Elizabeth Pim had marvellous escapes as the garrison of the loyalists was next door to them. I don’t think that in either of the houses even the plate or house linen was disturbed, but many of those who looked to the arm of flesh to save them lost very heavily.

One young man, Thomas Gatchell, my schoolfellow, had been much with the army before the rebellion broke out, and consulted with E. Pim what he had best do, but he did not take her advice, took up arms and went to the garrison, and when they capitulated he escaped with another out backwards, and got into a large empty house built by John Pomeroy. He probably also got up a chimney on the upper storey. But both of them were murdered very soon after, and I saw afterwards the marks of their blood and brains on the hearthstone.

My uncle Pim died about 5 weeks after this.

I now return to Mountmellick where there never was any regular break out, but all only willing to do so. The rebels broke out at Monasterevan, and if I recollect right, set fire to some houses near Portarlington, but I don’t think they ever got possession of either of these towns. But on the day of the attack on Monasterevan there was great alarm over the town of Mountmellick, and about dusk in the evening a young lad rode out of the town, and after a while brought in word that the rebels were collecting at the Rock of Debycot, but it was then so dark that he might have made a mistake, which I believe was the case, but on that there was a terrible hubbub in the town, men, women and children running about, and the Yeomanry all getting under arms, but about 12 o’clock all became quiet but guards sat up all night and from that for several weeks. But that evening my father being inside his shut shop door, overheard two men who would be very sorry not being counted loyal, saying that they would have fine fun if there was a row, plundering the Quackers’ shops. A few days after the army came into Mountmellick perhaps a hundred of I think the Downshire Militia and with them two nine pounder cannon, which were placed in the market house immediately opposite to our house, and a regular guard there night and day. I think it was on the 7th day of this week that my father and Joshua Pim went to near Ardry Mills about 65 miles from Rathangan to see if they could hear anything from their friends there, but they were advised to go no further or they would be murdered, but they saw several houses in the town on fire. I suppose thatched ones. They came back with a heavy heart thinking it likely that all their friends were murdered. I recollect Jos. Pim in great distress, indeed the whole family, but the excitement and the possibility of each of us being in the rebels’ hands kept people from sinking too much. But in a few days order was restored by the Government proclaiming martial law and a military force. The tables were now turned, and orders came down from the castle to have Jerry Dunn and two or three more taken up and flogged. No doubt that they had been informed of, and the event proved that they were guilty. Jerry Dunn was a fat big man, he was father of Patrick Dunn a stone mason. I think he was flogged twice at the pump near our house. The women said the Virgin Mary was supporting him. Joseph W. Pim was just then born, and James, his father, got them to take the flogging to the pump. But on Jerry Dunn being brought out the third time he confessed to being a captain of the rebels, and gave the names of the persons he had sworn. I know nothing of this, but on going down the garden I found all the men in the tanyard had decamped, and soon after found them hiding about the place. I, however, brought them down and put them out through the hedge in the garden, but in a few days after they were all taken up and confined in the riding house, a large place that would hold many hundreds of people. They were kept there many days, and several tried by Court Martial. One a horse yeomanry, his name was Brock, a son of Edward Brock, a handsome young fellow, was condemned for selling pikes in his father’s shop. Though very young yet having taken the oath as a yeoman, he was condemned to be hung, but on application to be shot he was shot, and 11 others hung on the gallows in Pound Street, nearly opposite the lane, 7 one day and 4 another. There were several other sentenced to be hung, among others John Ryan a brogue maker who dealt with my father for leather, and then owed him a large sum. But the night before he was to be hung my father brought me with him as witness, he made a will and arranged for my father to be paid. He then fully expected to be hung and several others next day, but next day a reprieve came from Lord Lieutenant Cornwallis, and after a while the whole were liberated on condition that they would show themselves every day, and answer to their names. They were then collected on a dunghill which was then on an open space near Sally Simpson’s in Barrack Street. They went in crowds through the streets every evening back and forward and was called the dunghill parade. But except one or two persons, at least a very few, the whole of the lower order of R. Catholics that were all deep in the rebellion – A short time before the rebellion in a fight returning from a funeral some persons that died in Mountmellick and was buried near the Heath, then quarrelled on the road home in a house and killed a man. It was afterwards proved on a trial by court martial that it originated about the broguemakers and others dividing among themselves the houses and business of the houses in Mountmellick, of respectable Protestants, who were of course to be put out of the way. One of these rebels was the very man John Ryan that escaped hanging. He and another of his trade were disputing which should have my father’s tanyard and shop, that Ryan afterwards defrauded me of near £100, between him and his wife, a short time before I quit business in Mountmellick: and after I came to Clara thinking that he was dead, I met him on the footpath opposite my field looking well, and accosted me to help him, but I refused as I have always discouraged persons coming after me, for when I have given assistance I found that it only encouraged them to come perhaps repeatedly.

After the rebellion was over it was surprising how soon the respectable people got up their spirits, and perhaps went in some instances, by exuberance of spirits into licentiousness, drinking etc. In the 6th mo. 1799 my mother took me to drive her in the chair to Enniscorthy then a near after the battle of Vinegar Hill. When we got near Enniscorthy having lodged the night before at Ballyealey at Betsey Lockey’s, but going into the town we could scarcely see a person to enquire the way. All the suburb’s long streets in all parts of that town then mud walls were without roof or inhabitants they themselves having set fire to them on the rebellion breaking out, and went to the hill men and women to gain the camp. But when we got into the body of the town, there was plenty of the other party about the streets, but numbers of houses which had been thatched burned down, and in ruins, as was also the Protestant Church.

There was a number of military and yeomen about the streets all as merry as possible, while I was there music etc. When we went to meeting on first day morning at which there were many ministers, and a large meeting, but when we came out we found the Protestant Church of England persons waiting outside for us to break up in order for them to commence their service in the same house. Some friends said it was wrong to accommodate them, but I thought it would be a most unchristian act to have prevented them. I rather think that at and before that time, there was no regular meeting of friends in Enniscorthy, but that the few friends who lived in the town attended Cooladine meeting. John Rudd was then rebuilding his Inn, Government having paid him his losses. A number of other houses was also building from the same source, but friends made up a collection among their body to help those that had lost nearly all they had in the rebellion. Nearly all those losses were confined to the Co. Wexford. Friends from America also sent over a handsome sum, which not being wanting they were noticed of it and I think instead of taking it back, they ordered it to some other public fund, but perhaps in England. But in the American war relief was sent from England to friends there. I forgot at commencing my account of the rebellion to say that the way the rebels took to give notice to their party in the country, was to attack all the mail coaches and the passage boats. They stopped them all. The Limerick Mail was attacked at Cherryville Hill near Kildare, at the very place where the Carlow and Cork Railway now unites, and a gentleman inside was shot dead, I think his name was Blood; I think the horses also were shot.

In the 8th mo. 1799 my aunt Pim, Hannah Pim’s mother, came in a declining state of health to see us for the last time. She had been very poorly in the Spring. It was thought that her decline was brought on by getting a sad fall. She was going out of her hall door at night to see her son William next door, and fell perhaps 9 feet into the area, the rails not having been put up, but though stunned she was soon taken up and did not appear to have received much injury. But however she very soon became unwell with some inward complaint. She died in the 11 mo. aged 63. My brother Thomas being nearly despaired of at the same time of typhus fever. My mother took me with her to see her in the 9th mo., she having gone home after staying a few weeks with us. This was the last time I saw her. She was at all times very kind and much attached to my mother, and I was fond of her.

Death of Mark Goodbody, father of Robert

In the year 1800 my father and mother and myself and several of the family were at the yearly meeting in Dublin, at which was Hannah Bernard, an artful woman, endeavouring to instil principles of infidelity into her hearers. She was quite an orator. She and her party had Sycamore Alley meeting house, a large meeting, but I was at Meath Street in the morning, where the old lights met. At that time both houses used to be open on 1st day during the meeting, but after that meeting seeing the use that was made of it, it was discontinued for the future. It was at this meeting that my mother was hit by a man in the street, in the breast, a man carrying a trunk which hit her in that tender part – Very soon after she came home she felt a lump in her breast, which was painful. My father brought her to Dublin, and had the best advice he could get for her, from a surgeon, who gave her remedies, a principal of which was dandelion juice, and some ointment to rub on her breast, but to keep her mind quiet and use mild exercise, but if she got worse to see him again. She was under this treatment and getting better until the illness of my father in the 8th mo. of which he died. My father left home for Dublin on a first day evening going to Rathangan to lodge at Jos. Pim’s. It was then very warm weather, as the whole summer had been, and my father leaving home had on him a thin jane vest, and small clothes, but the next day was very cold in the canal boat, and it was thought that he got cold. However William Pim was then ill in a fever, but not supposed to be in danger. It was said that my father got it from him: he might have been in the house, but I doubt if he was in his room. My father was fearful of fever, however, after he went to Dublin he kept his bed several days at R. M. Jacksons, where he always lodged. My mother might have heard of his getting safe, but never heard of his being ill, and not getting letters by post as she used to do regularly before from my father, she became very uneasy, and every morning she was telling us how uneasy she was and having frightful dreams, seeing him at the point of death and that she was certain he was ill. Nothing could persuade her that he was going to die. I suppose it was to keep her from fretting, on account of her breast, that they did not write. However on the 7th day morning we got directions to send the chair for them to Rathangan, they being to leave Dublin by the boat that day, but until my father and aunt Alice came home we did not know how ill he had been, or ill at all. They got home in the evening about 7 o’clock, he came in and I helped him off with his coat, and he kissed me, but never sat down until he went upstairs, and to bed at once. I never saw him to speak to after, but Dr. Jacob was sent for immediately to Knockfin where he then lived 20 miles off, but did not come till next morning first day. He said when he saw him that it was fever, and his spirits much affected that he should be kept very quiet, being very nervous and fearing that seeing us would make him worse. Neither my brother or I went near him, but my mother did for a day or two, and told us that he said he was resigned but had nothing to trust in but the mercy of God through Christ, but as she could not control her feelings in his presence she gave up seeing him, but my aunt Alice and Sarah stayed with him to the last, also Ann Richardson, and her sister Elizabeth Shannon, his cousins, but our house was not entered by any friend in the town for fear of fever. Only cousin Ann Paisley would come and sit by my mother, but she having lodgings in a house who were friends, but had her own rooms, they threatened to keep her out if she would pay visits to us. I at that time was foolishly afraid of fever. My uncle Richard also sat up with my father and stayed much with him through the following week. He was sometimes better and oftener worse, but never was delirious. But on 1st day morning he was much worse, constipation having set in, and his belly greatly swelled. Many things were tried, hot baths, and strong remedies, but about ten minutes before three in that day he departed it being a very hot day, and immediately after he died the obstruction in his bowels gave way, which if it had done before he might have had a chance. He was interred on 3rd day evening following. William Pim died the day week before him. My father’s death was a severe loss to his family, a loss to the town and to the meeting. I don’t think there was a more upright man in the town, he was also a public spirited man. That summer in consequence of the wet weather of 1799 all the wheat being malty and the potatoes very wet, and bad, much of them about Mountmellick being spoiled by the floods and water lying on them, so that in the markets potatoes rose to 20/- aft Barrel – the oats were also very bad and malty, also the wheat. I think about the 4th mo. the poor were so much distressed by the high price of provisions that there was a subscription set on foot to buy in oatmeal at a distance most of which was purchased at Waterford. A large sum was collected and also a large sum lent to purchase food. A store was opened for the sale of food, the poorest got for nothing, others at reduced prices, and those able to pay full price got at that cost, which most of the summer was 6/6d. per stone, but none were allowed to get more than two stone even at full cost, unless they were known to have large families, but many hundreds from the town, and all parts of the country partook of the charity. The weaving trade was then very good, and high prices paid them for their labour. There was a large and respectable committee sat twice a week, for the purchase and distribution of food. There was also a public oven built or rather two ovens to bake brown bread, which was sold at cost price. I did not belong to that committee, but my father was active on it. Us young men attended to the sale and receiving the money, and I think on some days used to receive one hundred pounds. Most of that summer was hot and dry, and the harvest came in very early. The wheat was ripe month, which I don’t recollect happening since, until the year 1826. The committee also purchased potatoes that spring at a very high price, and gave away to those that had gardens but could not buy, by which means there was much more potatoes planted than usual. Plenty of them was ripe and good for use in the 7th month by which means famine was over in that month.

Overly Concerned Father

I think it right here to mention that my parents begun early with us to keep us from wrong things. Often do I recollect when perhaps not five years old, my father taking me aside to advise me. He used those occasions to tell me what obligations he was under to the Almighty for providing for him in the way that he was in, mentioning his giving him a good wife and enabling him from small beginnings to provide for us so that no children were better clad, fed or cared for than us. My mother also took much pains with us, and both were constantly warning against pride and high mindedness. They would not allow the servants to call us master, but as to drinking to excess, as we grew up it was there constant subject to warn us against it, and any of their acquaintance who gave up to that vice, they showed their disapproval of it by not entertaining them or associating with them. I often think of the care our parents bestowed on us to keep us from vice. We owed them much, but in that day fathers I think went to the extreme of restraint. I think my father often erred on that head.

A surgical operation for his mother

Soon after my father’s death my mother had to go to Dublin to administer, in the 10th month, and also to speak to the surgeon as her breast was giving her more trouble. He told her not to mind it, but if it got worse to come to him and he would see what was to be done. It continued to get worse and in the end of the 12th month she went again to him. He then told her that it was much too late, and recommended her to go home. She was much alarmed, fearing that she would have a very painful death. After that she called in Dr. Jacob. His opinion was that it was not too late but recommended a consultation with an army surgeon living in Kilkenny, a Dr. Bathwick, a rough scotch man. I think it was in the 1st month 1801 that they met in consultation, and concluded on performing an operation next day, which was first day, which my mother made up her mind at once to submit to. Next day while friends were at first meeting it was done. Of course none of us went to meeting, and several women friends were in the house. I think my aunt Sally was in the room and Mary Bewley. The doctors proposed that my mother’s arm should be bound as she sat on a chair, for the knife being used but she objected. Mary Bewley stood by her all the time, and she bore it without attempting to raise her hands. It might be ten minutes before they were done. They did not take away much of the outer skin, perhaps 1½ inches square, but scraped out the lump about the size of a large potatoe. My mother was then put to bed, and perhaps she was three weeks confined there, but in the end her breast healed, yet she was for months after in poor health, and very nervous. She went to the salt water in summer but after that a gland extended under her arm, became diseased and cancerous which Dr. Jacob and Bathwick afterwards extracted, perhaps in the 10th month after the first operation. The second was full as bad as the first operation, besides her life being in much danger from a sudden bleeding of an artery the part to be taken away adhering to an artery, but in the end she was favoured to recover, as her death would have been a sore loss to her young family.

Mountmellick's new meeting house

The old meeting house in Mountmellick was taken down in 1804 (the old meeting house was built in 1709, the first on the site) after the quarterly meeting, the last sitting of which owing to snow on the roof being thawing the wet was pouring down in many places. There was in the centre of the house lengthways five wooden pillars and a beam over them all in oak. From them there were oak girders to the walls at each side. Perhaps 50 years before owing to the girders decaying there was nice brackets put under them at the walls to support them, but when it was taken down it was providential that the roof did not tumble in or at least the heavy ceiling, for the girders were rotten before they rested on the girders. I mention this that persons should inspect public buildings and see that they are safe. The new house was rebuilt in the same year, much of the old walls being left standing. I drew the plan as it now stands, windows and all, I fixed the size of them. In the old house the gallery was lengthways at the left hand side as you go in by the door where it is now, with porch outside having two doors. There was also a door in the centre opposite the gallery, which in large meetings was always opened on the meeting breaking up, (I mean in crowded meetings). The meeting house is 54 feet long and 38 feet broad. The present gallery handrail is made of the handsome old Irish oak of the old house. It being the only visible relic of the old house. The new house was first used in the 6th month 1805, and the first minister that spoke in it was Martha Smith of Doncaster, her companion was Elizabeth Heyland who spoke after her.

Marriage to Margaret Pim in 1807

I am now going to relate the most important act of my life, my marriage with Margaret Pim, which took place on the 22nd of 11th month 1807. I had previously asked for her in the summer of 1802, soon after I was of age, but she was influenced to refuse me at the time. I made two attempts afterwards, which was unsuccessful, the last in 1804. Her mother perhaps had an objection to it, but her daughter afterwards told me that she was influenced by others. I know whom, but as he is dead I wish to avoid it. But her mother said she ought not to marry, but take care of her parents. However she got into bad health in the spring of 1805 and died in Dublin at her son Thomas’ house in William Street, the first week in the 6th month. I cannot say that on no occasion I never thought of any other person for a wife but I never asked for any other young woman. I felt restrained from doing so, believing that M. P. was the right person for me. After her mother’s death she continued to reside with and take care of her father. She was always a favourite with her father but he was easily influenced by others. However in 1807 I proposed again for her and was accepted which I have always looked upon as a great blessing to me and her children. We continued to reside with her father until after the yearly meeting of 1808, her father not having got anyone until the 3rd month previous, when Alice Russell came to live with him, being his relation. She remained with him while he lived, which was when he died the 8th of 2nd month 1824. My dear wife had at different times after she was married very serious illnesses, and was often reduced to great debility. In the spring of 1821 we went to reside at Grange Lodge, a nice healthy residence. When in tolerable health she was generally very cheerful, and was much loved and respected by all our connexion, and the public generally. There is good reason to conclude that her ill-health was owing to loss of blood. She had naturally a florid complexion, and at many times for ten years before her death she from that cause would be as pale as death for days together, or I may say weeks. She has often told me that when persons would congratulate her on looking well it reminded her that she would soon be ill again. But from loss of blood she at different periods evinced symptoms of water in place of blood, her weakness at those times being often alarming. But still she often rallied again and for a while would enjoy tolerable good health. She was present at her father’s death with myself and Alice Russell. Little did I think that she would herself be taken in a few months after. She and I were at the yearly meeting in 1821 (I was not with her in 1824). But frequently thro’ the summer she was poorly and often better again. I don’t think that I was aware that she was worse than usual. I think that it might be about the 6th month that when we were retiring to rest one summer’s evening I remarked on hearing of some failures in Waterford and Clonmel which she mentioned, and these good and respectable friends. I remarked that when such as these got into trouble and difficulties, how could we expect to escape. She replied in a peculiarly, impressive manner, that if she was taken from her children she had the confidence to trust that her children would be provided for. I think that on a previous occasion some short time before, on something being proposed about some of her children being sent to school, that she would wish to keep her children with her while she lived. And on another occasion speaking of their sleeping apartment, she said she would like them to sleep near us, while she was with them. We then slept in the large room upstairs.

Death of Robert's wife in 1824

I don’t think was more than two months before her death, that soon after I went to sleep I dreamed that I saw her in the agonies of death, and suddenly awoke, but of course did not make any remark to her. She was then often very nervous and low spirited, and a thrush in the garden used to sing early in the morning , in which she took delight in listening to. But one morning she woke me remarking that she was afraid the thrush was killed as she missed his singing, and we never heard it after. Soon after this time her breathing was so affected by walking upstairs that the Drs. recommended that we should sleep in the drawing room, which we did perhaps for three weeks before her end, but even then she would have intervals of amendment. When I took her out for a few times before her death her breathing would be so affected by exertion that I used to carry her from the house and put her into the gig. I think it was about three weeks before her death, that an offer was made to me by John Pim to let me the Brusna Mills. She fully approved of it, and Anthony Pim and I went there. John Pim coming with us from Tullamore. But when we got there John Moore although he had agreed to do it previously, would not give up possession, and when we got home, when I told her she was visibly disappointed, and much concerned at it, and next morning I told her perhaps it was all for the best., but she did not seem of that mind. I think at that time she had made up her mind to wish to go to live there, and fully expected it, and it is probable that if she had not approved of it that after her decease I would never have thought of going there, for after she had gone I had given up all hopes of removing, yet when it did offer again I went merely on her full approval of it. In her lifetime, and on any other occasions or circumstances, I have often referred in my mind to what would have been her opinion, and followed that, and in no instance do I think that I was ever wrong in doing so. The last ten days before she died I felt uneasy at leaving her alone, and sometimes stayed with her while others were at meeting. The monthly meeting in the 9th mo. was on the 4th day before her death. I did not go to the first meeting, but went to the meeting of discipline. Yet on my sitting a few minutes I left the meeting and went home. Yet soon after her death Joe Pim and John Morris came on some appointment of the yearly meeting to read a minute and they both opened out at me about my non-attendance of meetings and mentioned my quitting that meeting soon after I sat down. I told them the course of it but it was useless, they were confident that I was wrong, yet I knew otherwise. Now if they had any right feeling they could not have made the remarks they did. I may on many occasions have absented myself from meeting, but it was never much my practise. I have often thought that some friends when they pay visits to those they consider delinquents, often depart from the spirit that they ought by right speak to such. Next day was 5th day and her eldest son Marcus left home that morning to go to Dublin to live with his uncle Thomas as an assistant in his business. His mother felt it keenly, but did not show it to him. After he was gone, in the course of the day, I took her out in the gig for perhaps a 5 mile drive which was the last she ever took. She seemed to enjoy it much, it being a fine day, and frequently said that she hoped Marcus would be preserved. I had to carry her into the gig and out of it on getting home, and laid her down in the parlour, where we found Rachel M. Jackson and understood that Mary Thacker called while we were out, and was much disappointed at not finding her at home. But R. M. J. stopped until we came in and I afterwards brought her home in the gig. Mary Thacker never saw her after that. Next day 6th day she was up and as well as for some days, but owing to an attack of bleeding in the night she kept her bed on 7th day but was very cheerful, having several visits from some poor women who called to see her. On 7th day she arranged that I should go on 1st day morning to the meeting of Edenderry, and return in the evening, bringing Jonathan with me. But early in the morning she got out of bed and the bleeding coming on, I helped her into bed, in a fainting state. When she revived I told her that I could not think of leaving her, and must give up going, but she was so anxious that Jonathan should not be disappointed that she proposed that George Bewley should be sent for to take home, which he did, and they returned in the evening. I got up and dressed after, and got her breakfast. Perhaps she ate an egg, but little else, but a letter coming in from Marcus by post, she told me to lay the tea on the hearth while she would read the letter. Very soon after she ate her breakfast she made an attempt to get out of bed, but fainted in the exertion. I lifted her into bed, and settled her, but seeing that she did not come to, soon after sent for the Dr., and for M. Thacker and A. Pim. They were all there shortly but after that turn she had little consciousness and spoke very little. The Dr. said it was an attack of serious apoplexy, and seemed to think that nothing could be done for her, as she could not be got to take stimulants. I don’t recollect whether she took any, but closed her eyes and begun to breathe very hard, like snoring. I think the last words she spoke was about 1 o’clock when she opened her eyes, and seeing me asked me was I there all day. These were her last words, but it seemed as if she was conscious of the time that had passed. After that she closed her eyes and continued breathing as before with loud rattles in her throat, which lasted until 3rd day; often sighing at intervals. There was not much change in her until just before she died, when she breathed shorter for a few moments and departed about ten minutes before 3 o’clock on 3rd day the 28th of 9th mo. I never went to bed during those days. Often she could be heard breathing and moaning through the whole house. She was buried on 6th day the 1st of 10th mo., having by far the largest and most respectable funeral that I ever saw in that or any other place.

His fortunate children

9th of 4th mo. 1855. I am this day 74 years old. I consider it a great mercy that I am still favoured with comparative good health for my now great age. I am feebler in my limbs than some years back and have now but little use of my right arm, it is said by rheumatism, but as to hearing and sight it is as good as ever it was in my life. I can without glasses read the smallest print by candle light. I don’t think that I ever had at any time good talents, perhaps at times I think I had not one, but I am conscious of never having improved what I had as I ought. I must acknowledge that through life I have been guilty of many sins of commission, and was it not for the trust I have in the goodness and mercy of God which followed me all my life, I should despair of my future happiness. I recollect when Samuel Emlin was attacked with illness a few hours before his death, he said “that he thanked God for the hope that he had in his mercy”. (I find now that it was at J. Gurney Bevens house in London that S. Emlin being ill in bed used these expressions. I find that I am mistaken in Samuel Emlin having spoken these words. His saying was of a very different character. I presume that I read of some other friend having expressed them). He was a person who spent a long life in the service of his maker. But on the contrary I have been a weak erring mortal, and it is wonderful to me to think that I can hold the same feelings respecting myself. I have been most wonderfully blessed with good children who live in love with themselves and I hope maintain a character for uprightness in their dealings. They, some at least, have been wonderfully blessed with the good things of this life, and I sincerely wish that they may not forget the giver nor allow themselves to be elated with riches, or train up their families in improper indulgence, which in the end will tend to their great loss. As to myself, I have been wonderfully blessed with independence in my old age, which if it had been otherwise I believe it would have gone very hard with me, and perhaps shortened my days. But such has been my manifold obligations to the Almighty that I often feel that I am very far from returning him the thanks that I ought. I often feel as if I was totally unworthy of the multiplied blessings showered down upon me, an unworthy erring creature.

Death of Sarah Pim

27th of 4th mo. I now revert to sundry deaths in my near connexions. The first after my father’s death in our family circle was my dear aunt Sarah Pim, who was found by my mother on the morning of the 27th of 4th mo. 1813 dead on her bed. She evidently had a struggle with death, as she had raised herself in the bed, and a pillow raising her head with the usual marks of a death struggle on her, but quite warm, and seemed to have very recently died. She was a sensible prudent woman, whom I much loved. Her body was opened as she had symptoms of heart disease, but nothing found to account for death. She was buried at Tinneel the first day following. She died on a 4th day morning. My uncle Richard Goodbody was then in poor health, yet got better in the summer of 1814. The last week in the tenth month he went to Monasteraven to see his cousin E. White who had recently lost a daughter, I think her name was Eliza. He spent a few days there, my aunt Goodbody being with him. I think it was on the 3rd of 11th mo. he came home, driving the gig himself. He did not complain of being ill or particularly fatigued, and ate his dinner as usual. After the cloth was removed he took some warm negus, and soon after was seized with a paralytic stroke all on one side. His intellects were also very much affected, so as that instead of being conscious of his ailment he fancied that it was the persons about him that were ill-using him, which was a severe trial to my aunt and her sister Margaret, who were hard set to hold him on the sofa with the assistance of the servants. My aunt sent for me and Dr. Armstrong. I soon got there, perhaps in 2 ½ hours after he was attacked. When I went in he complained to me of the way he had been used, but I at once saw that he must be put to bed, and without saying anything to him I put my arms under him and carried him upstairs myself, he not being satisfied but had no power to resist. He was a very tall man, and I have often been surprised that I could do it by myself. However, when I laid him on his bed, and with my poor aunt’s assistance took off his clothes he became much more like himself and quiet, but expressed great surprise at my strength. After some time the Dr. came and applied mustard plasters to his arm and leg, which rose quickly, but I don’t think he ever while he lived had any relief from the complaint. But his mind was perfectly as it ought to be, and he at different times spoke with great thankfulness and seemed conscious that his end was near. He died on the 17th of 11th mo. 1814, and was interred on the 20th.

My uncle Samuel Goodbody died on the 3rd of 5th mo. 1816, being a very kind uncle to our family and particularly so to me. He was poorly all that Spring with an evident decline owing to age. He was born 1741, and was entered his 76th year when he died. My uncle Richard had only attained his 70th year shortly before his death. They were both very upright men, but the latter was of much more religious turn.

I did not write anything after this until now, the 31st of 8th mo. 1855, since which I have been at the last yearly meeting of London, and was better in health on returning home. I may now return to the subject of deaths in our family. My dear aunt Alice Goodbody after building a new house which she called Grange Lodge, and living in it a year, but for some years in very poor health. About a week before she died I was called up to her, she being a long time subject to the disease termed Angina Pectoris. However, after a while by warm stuping she got better. She had previously to this had her clothes packed up in order to attend the ensuing yearly meeting in Dublin, but then gave it up. However, I went and some more of the family, and was in Dublin when on 2nd day night of the yearly meeting 1817 on third day morning, my aunt Margaret that slept in another bed in the same room got up and dressed herself, thinking that her sister was asleep, went down and when breakfast was ready went up to see whether her sister was ready for breakfast. She found her in bed and dead, and quite cold, with her hands in her usual way of sleeping. I don’t suppose that she ever awoke or had any struggle. She was a loss to our family and the neighbourhood, being a real gentlewoman. My aunt Margaret was sent for, being at home, and went sending word to Dublin. My mother and I with Marcus travelled all night in a chaise from Dublin, getting home about 5 o’clock in the morning. I felt my aunt’s death very much, being fond of her.

The next death in the family was my brother William who died in Dublin in the 10th mo. 1822 – my aunt Margaret Pim died at Nahad of a paralytic affliction, in the 3rd mo. 1828, and was buried at Moate. The next death was very trying to my feelings, being that of my dearly beloved son Richard. He had the scarletina very bad in the autumn of 1827. I don’t think he ever was stout after. He was after that several years at a boarding school, and I think came home in 1832, and remained at home for about a year, being very attentive to his business, particularly up early every morning sending out the bread carts. I think it was in the Spring of 1834 that I took him to Dublin and placed him at Samuel Bewley’s shop in Dame Street. He paid a visit home that Summer and again in the Summer of 1835, which was the last time he was ever at home. It was the time when the assizes was first held in Tullamore, the 1st day before the Quarterly meeting in Moate, 9th mo. 1835. I was at the meeting at Ballymunway with Cooper Clibborn, lodged in Moate that night and returned home next morning, when I found a letter from him which he only signed saying that he was ill. I forgot whether that was the 1st account I had of his illness, perhaps the signed letter came after. However I hoped that he was getting better but had no cause for it. On 2nd day there was no post. On 3rd day perhaps it was the letter I mentioned came, but I had a letter I think from Dr. Eustace saying that he heard he was ill and went to see him, that he found him ill, but hoped he would soon be better. I waited until 4th day when another letter came when I was so uneasy about him that I went to Dublin that day on the coach, getting there in the evening, and found him very ill, but very glad to see me. From that until his death in about 12 days after I suffered as much anxiety as I ever did in the course of my life. His complaint was gastric fever. He was sometimes better but often got worse, and was at different times so delirious that it was most trying to be with him At other times he would be quite rational and sensible and would do anything he would be advised to do. I had Dr. Marsh several times to see him and at times he seemed to have hopes of him, but I never saw at any time any real amendment in him. He never could bear the light or had any relish for food. My feelings at times were so severe that even at this distance I fear to renew them.

Death of his son in 1835 in Dublin at Bewleys of Dame Street

3rd of 9th Mo., reverting again to the unpleasant subject of my son’s illness, I ought to mention that I think it was the 7th day before his death that, thinking he would not recover and seeing him in distress from illness, I took an opportunity of his being sensible and recommended him to put his trust in the Almighty under his affliction. He immediately replied that his trust was in Jesus, in a very week voice, and perhaps he was never more quite himself after. I think it was a night or two before that he was so delirious that he took me for a policeman, preventing him from getting up, which I was doing and vexed him, so that I had in great distress to leave him to the Housekeeper, a nice friend ( I don’t recollect her name ), and went to lie on the bed in great distress. But on going to him about 5 o’ clock in the morning I found him quieter and rather better. He was very ill all first day before he died, and being exhausted I lay in the room with him, listening to his rambling and talking, always supposing he was in the shop selling things, or on the Railway. While I was on the bed Dr. Marsh and Eustace were in the room. I did not speak to them, they supposing that I was asleep, but I saw plainly they had no hopes of him. When they went I got up and staid with him to the last. He was rambling the whole night as if busy selling tea and coffee in the shop, until about an hour before he died, which was about 7 o’ clock on the 2nd day morning the 5th of the 10th Mo. 1835. Often did I tell him when he understood me that when he would be better I would bring him home to Charlestown which always pleased him, it being my determination as I did not expect him to recover that I would bring his body home; and the night that he dies as I sat beside him at one side of the bed, I cold not divert myself of the idea that his dear mother was sitting at the other side of the bed leaning over him. I believe that her guardian angel was there. We got a good coffin made for him on 2nd day, Marcus [a son] and I having previously laid him out, and about 6 o’ clock in the evening we put him into a shell when I left. But after the shop was shut the shell with the body in it was brought downstairs and in the hall put into the outer coffin, and fastened down, and at 6 o’ clock in the morning a hearse was brought and the body put into it, Marcus and I in another carriage following it, and got home I think about half past 8 o’ clock, put it into the drawing room at Charlestown where it lay until 5th day when we set out at nine o’ clock, and in the course of the day laid him over my Aunt Goodbody in her grave.

I ought to mention that the Bewleys’ tea shop was not shut, as in 2nd day I saw Joseph Bewley, and as Emond Haughton was to open a tea shop on 7th day, I told Joseph Bewley that I thought they need not shut the shop if poor Richard died, that I was determined to bring his remains to Clara, and keep them there a day or two, to which he made no objection, but approved of it. But on my first coming downstairs, the shop door from the hall being open, my seeing the boys, or lads, all busy gave me such a pang that I cannot describe, and on the body being brought out and put in the hearse I had similar feelings, and never since although I have repeatedly passed the house which I did not for years, I have never looked at the shop from that time to this.

Death of Robert's mother in 1834

A prior event to the above was the death of my dear mother, who died the 16th of 11th Mo. 1834, the subject of the death of my son so occupied my thoughts at the time that I set about writing about it at once, fearing that something might prevent my ever doing it, yet there was no cause for my passing over my mother’s decease. My dear mother often paid us a visit in Clara. She was there the time, of the cholera in 1832, and again in 1833, which was the last visit she paid us – She was with us the day she was 80 years of age, being the 16thof 5th Mo. 1833, that night she was seized with extreme pain at her heart which she had several times before, but that was the most serious she ever had. I think it continued very bad for two days, and went off gradually. We all expected her death as she had a bad intermitting pulse. She fully expected herself that she was dying, but on Dr. Eustace coming on the 1st day he order her nourishment of soup of which revived her and she gradually recovered, and the 10th Mo. Following went by boat to Dublin, but was very feeble from that to her death; never could walk fast up or upstairs without great caution. She lived one year and a half after she was 80, and was clear in her intellects to the last. When she was last attacked it did not last more than half an hour until she was gone. She died the 16th of 11th Mo. 1834. On 4th day, the 19th of 11th Mo., I brought her remains down to Mountmellick, and next day she was laid in her father’s grave at Tinneel. I put her in the coffin in the evening of 3rd day, my son Richard and Marcus helping me and the former came with us about two miles out of town when he got down to return to his business and Marcus came on with me. Marcus was in Dublin sometime in the 9th Mo. And wrote to me that he went to see his Grandmother, and found her sitting for her picture, which I am glad of, as I was hard set to persuade her to do so, she having an objection to it, until I reminded her that she ought to do it for the satisfaction of her children. The last time that I saw her was about six weeks before her death, at the time of the quarterly meeting in Dublin. She remarked to me, lying in bed one morning, that she was afraid it would be very troublesome to take her body to the country. I answered her that she need not trouble herself about it, that it would be no trouble. The day that she died a letter was handed to her from me, she being in bed at the time, and called for her spectacles, but not being brought immediately she sat up in bed and read it without them.

We continue this week with Robert Goodbody's account of his life. Over the past few weeks, we have dealt with his earlier memories, his accounts of the 1798 Rebellion and details of his family life.

28th of 9th Mo. 1855. Often during this day did I think of my dear wife who died this day 31 years, after two days of severe suffering of which I hope she was not conscious.

5th of 10th Mo. This morning a little after 7 o’ clock this day 20 years my dear son Richard died. Often did I think of him last night, of the night before he died and of his incessant ramblings until a short time before he died.

Second Marriage

9th of 11th Mo. 1855. I forgot to mention that I was married a second time on the 4th of 7th Mo. 1829, to Jane Pim, daughter of Jas and Deborah Pim of Rushin, and double first cousin to my former first wife. She was of great use to me in rearing my young children, and I think a pious well minded woman, but owing to a broken down constitution she was often in very poor health. Months before she died she was in a very infirm state. She died on 6th day the 10th of 8th Mo. 1838, and was buried by my former wife on the 13th of the same month at Tinneel. Her illness at last was I think about 10 days standing.

Death of Rebecca, wife of Robert's son Lewis

29th of 11th Mo. Since I wrote last I have a severe trial by the death of dear Rebecca, my son Lewis’ wife. However for a long time I feared that she would be short-lived. She was a most sensible and agreeable woman. She is not only a sore loss to her husband and children, but to all her connexions and acquaintances. She was a particular favourite of mine, in fact I loved her as if she was my own daughter. She made a very peaceful end. I never heard of her repining at being taken, tho’ she had everything the world calls happiness: independence as regards this worlds comforts, a good husband and children., a handsome residence,a good house neatly furnished, yet she resigned all under a fell belief that she was dying, without a murmer. I may soon follow her, but while I have my understanding I can never forget her. She died a few minutes after 8 o’clock on 7th day, the 24th instant, and was buried at Tinneel on the 3rd day the 26th, having a large and respectable funeral.

Robert returns to Clara

26th of 12th Mo. Before I have written the above, I had concluded that it was right for me to give up housekeeping and come to reside with my son Lewis. I may be very small comfort to him after his late severe trial, but it is possible that my company will help him at times to not feel so solitary as he otherwise would. I left lodging in Tullamore on the evening of the 9th instant. It is more than probable that my life may be very short, but while I have my senses I hope to look to his two dear sons, I think it is a duty that I owe to their dear departed Mother.

15th of 11th Mo. 1856. Since I wrote last I have been at the yearly meeting of Dublin, and the yearly meeting of London. I ought to be thankful for enjoying good health at my time of life, and my right arm is nearly as well as ever. This day week, the 22nd. Instant, I will be 49 years married. She lived only 17 years with me, but I have always considered that it was a great blessing to me being married to her. She was a truly sensible woman.

9th of 4th Mo. 1857. I am this day 76 years old, enjoying better health than had 20 years back, with all the Lord’s mercies extended to me both in the independence of my circumstances, and in any other respect. I often think that I am not half thankful of the very least of his mercies, I think I am not worthy of. Often do I think particularly at my time of life to enjoy good health when so many others are in great suffering from ill health.

22nd. Of 11th Mo. 1857. I was this day married 50 years. I often think that I am not half thankful for the many mercies that have been pured down on me. I am in good health at present, how long it may continue it is hid from me. It is not the least of the Almighty’s mercies that I have a very good income, sufficient for all my wants, and give to those that need it.

Captain Maxwell Fox was the owner of the fee simple of some 2864 acres in the Killoughy area carrying a valuation in the 1870's of £810. He also had lands in Co. Longford comprising of the fee simple of some 457 acres valued at £235. I say the fee simple interest because some of his lands may have been let on long leases with rental income accruing to Captain Fox.

Maxwell Fox descended from the old Gaelic family of Carney or Kearney. The head of the sept was called Sionnach or, i.e. The Fox. The late Canon Lamb of Clara pointed out to me many years ago the inauguration site of The Fox at Cloghatanny near Clara although some doubt has now been cast on this. The family was associated especially with the barony of Kilcoursey in Co. Offaly and the name is still numerous in Dublin, Longford, Tyrone and Leitrim. The immediate family of Maxwell Fox are described in Burke's Irish Landed Gentry, commencing with Sir Patrick Fox of Moyvore in Co. Westmeath who prior to 1560 is said to have purchased back from the O'Farrells lands at Rathreogh, near Fox Hall in Co. Longford. A descendant, Frances Fox is said to have financed the repair of Durrow church in the early 18th century, having married Edward Herbert, the last of the line of the Durrow Herberts. She died c. 1735. A later descendant was Richard Fox of Fox Hall, Co. Longford, who was born c. 1760 and married c. 1787, Lady Ann Maxwell, daughter of Barry, earl of Farnham. There were ten children of this marriage and the second son was Barry Fox, who was born in 1789. He served in the army and married in 1824 Sophia, daughter of the distinguished early Irish economist, landlord, Richard Lorelle Edgeworth, inventor and father of Maria and died in 1863, leaving issue, among others, Captain Maxwell Fox, of Annaghmore, high sheriff of Co. Offaly or King's County as it then was, and high sheriff of Co. Longford in 1885. He was born in 1826 and married first in 1865 Florence Jane, eldest daughter of Sir Andrew -2Buchanan BT, "Flo" died in 1882 and he married Edith Edgeworth of Kilshrewly, Co. Longford in 1886. He died on 14th September 1899 leaving issue by his second marriage. A daughter of Maxwell Fox, Charlotte, married the Rev. Maxwell Coote, son of Colonel Chidley Coote in 1865. He features in the 1868 diary because he lived at Ross, Screggan, Tullamore and was the rector of Killoughey parish.

It is uncertain when Barry Fox purchased Annaghmore, but it was probably in the late 1820s or early 1830s. He is mentioned in several letters of the second earl of Charleville and it would appear was friendly with the family and influential in King's County politics.

Annaghmore house and estate would have been one of a small but fine well wooded estate with a house which Maurice Craig would call of 'the middle size'. Interestingly William Garner in his study of Offaly churches and houses commissioned by the Offaly Historical Society in 1985, took the view that the house was circa 1835 and is probably of two dates. The rear appearing to be the earlier house and the present front of three bays and two storeys, with full height bow ends later. The original house was probably erected by the Curtis family. The late Fr. Shaw in his history of Killoughey parish states that the Killoughy lands passed from the O'Molloys to the planters, Sir Charles Coote, Charles Lyons and Colley Phillips. This is borne out by the Book of Survey. and Distribution for King's County (c. 1660), which shows that the Annaghmore/Annaghbrack lands were already in Protestant hands prior to the 1641 rebellion. An unattributed note I have suggests that the Annaghmore lands passed to Revd. Robert Curtis of Roscrea sometime before 1766 and that he willed the lands to his son Charles. In Vica's Prerogative Wills, are references to Revd. Robert Curtis of Inane, Co. Tipperary in 1786 and of the same name in 1799. Coote in his A General View of the King's County (Dublin 1801) describes the barony of Ballyboy in which Annaghamore is situate as having a wild and uncultivated appearance (page82). Among the few gentry who have invested in their estates he counted William Curtis of 'Annamore' who 'has been very conspicuous, and his expenses fall little short of £1,500 annually on his improvements. This gentleman has within the past seven years, changed the face of his part of the country, having drained and gravelled a great extent of moor, and planted above fifty acres.... all of which has given a woody appearance to the country ' Coote noted that Curtis principally farms his own estate meaning that it was not let to middlemen an a rental income basis and that he employed above one hundred men. It was noted that Curtis had reared all the trees in his own nursery. Adjoining Annaghmore was Lough Annagh, then two miles in circumference [and now almost dried up.] The other estates in the barony were that of Malone of Pallas and Connor of Mount Pleasant.

It is noted that Curtis had reared all the trees in his own nursery. Adjoining Annaghmore was Lough Annagh then two miles in circumference ( and now almost dried up ).

The Annaghmore bog is described in the Second Reprint from the Commissioners on the Nature and Extent of the Bogs in Ireland. From this report it would appear that Curtis through drainage lowered Lough Annagh at least three feet. William Curtis also played a part in 'consolidation of the bogs' by cultivation. Lough Annagh c. 1810 contained some 207 acres, the greater part of which was shallow having in general, 5 to 8 feet of water in summer.

The house is not featured in Brewer's review of King's County in the early 1820s which would tend to confirm that the house was insignificant at the time and did not fall to be noticed until the architectural improvements of the 1830s effected at the same time as Durrow and Kinnitty. At the time of the Lewis Topographical Dictionary (1837) the house was the residence of Captain Barry Fox. More about him may be found perhaps in the Edgeworth papers and in contemporary material such as Charleville Estate and Digby and Rosse papers.

Barry Fox, and later, his son - Maxwell Fox were leading landowners in the county with almost 3,000 acres to farm or to draw rent from. The enlarged house is shown on the 1836 six-inch map (sheet 24). It was valued in 1854 at £53.15s for poor law valuation purposes. To the north was the wooded demesne of Mullagh House, Killurin House, Clunagh House, Ross House and Brookfield House. To the west was Rathrobin and to the south Annaghbrack Glebe and Annaghmore Lough. Ralph Coote did not reside in the old glebe at Annaghbrack and it may be that this was left to a Francis Lamb. Ralph Coote lived as vicar of the parish of Killoughey from 1827 - 1868 and subsequently Maxwell Henry Coote from c .1868 - 1905. [See parish of Killoughey in Healy Diocese of Meath, vol. 2 p. 329.]. Ralph Coote lived at Brookefield in the parish of Lynally.

As stated in previously, Charlotte Fox, daughter of Barry Fox and sister of Maxwell Fox married Maxwell Coote in 1865. Ralph Coote seems at the time to have lived at Brookefield house at Lynally Parish where Barry Fox also had property. He was the landlord in the townland of Fertaun, Agall, Churchill, Currygurry, Derrinvillig, Oldtown, Rabbitburow, Roscore and Tullymore Rahan, all in the Civil Parishes of Lynally and Rahan. Barry Fox had 345 acres in Annaghmore in Killoughy Parish, but little else in that parish. (See diary entry 21st January 1868). Barry Fox died on the 6th November 1863 at 14, Esplanade, Dover, aged 74. It was noted that he was a grand juror of the county and one of the oldest and most respected of the Magistracy. He possessed considerable property in the neighbourhood of Tullamore.

Turning to the diary of 1868 it should be said that there is little touching on the public domain or the politics of the day save perhaps his account of the ceremonies for the judges on assizes. Nevertheless, it is interesting to observe the daily routine of an Offaly landowner in the days before fast transport or recreation other than cards and reading. Maxwell Fox had no children by his first marriage; born in 1826 he succeeded at the death of his father in 1863. Following the death of Florence, he married again in 1886 and had a daughter of the second marriage a year later and when he was 51.