Eyewitnesses
Pictures and writings from the past can tell us a lot about people's impressions of their surroundings. Let's take a look at some accounts from around 200 years ago to help us imagine what life must have been like in Queen's County at that time.
Read the following passage. It is taken from a travel book from the late 1770s, written by a man named Arthur Young.
"Pass Durrow [Queen's Co.] the country for two or three miles continues all inclosed with fine quick hedges, is beautiful, and has some resemblance to the best parts of Essex. Cross a great bog, within sight of Lord De Verci's plantations. Slept at Ballyroan, at an inn kept by three animals who call themselves women; met with more impertinence than at any other in Ireland. It is an execrable hole."
What is Arthur Young's impression of the countryside in Queen's County? Do you think Young seems objective in the way he describes the innkeepers at Ballyroan?
Take a look at the following picture. It was drawn by Arthur Young during his trip to Ireland. He called it 'An Irish Cabin'.
An Irish Cabin, by Arthur Young
What kind of people do you think lived in this house? What do you think it was built from?
Let's read another description of life in Queen's County from this time:
"In many places we find the whole stock of domestic animals and the peasant's family herd together, under one miserable shed, with perhaps, no better covering than sods or weeds, and from their extreme filth alone what ravages has sickness made through a whole district."