Hall's Ireland, Dante

Hall's Ireland by Mr and Mrs C. Hall, an account of a tour in 1840, underlies my map of Ireland, I realise when I re-read the first section. 'Our work commences with Cork', they write. I imagine Mrs C. Hall dominating the writing, even if her husband dominates her name. Surely she is the one who finds the picturesque, the spectacular and the frequent beauty of the landscape, if it is he who emphasises why they are able to see it and to say so, he who dictates their reaction to the people they meet. Uneasy symbiosis. The beggars of Cork or Macroom, the wheedling and the drama, the attempt at fairness by the visitors.

In the small town of Macroom, about which we walked one evening, desiring to examine it undisturbed, we had refused in positive terms to relieve any applicant, but promised however to bestow a halfpenny upon each who might ask of it the following morning. Next day it cost us exactly three shillings and ten pence to redeem the pledge we had given, no fewer than ninety-two having assembled at the inn gate.

They are even-handed in their observations. That's one of their privileges. Another is the ability to see the beauty of landscape, to experience perfect solitude. You're not inclined to find beauty or relish solitude when you're hoicking spuds; when you harbour resentment and enjoy a fight, you're inclined to fear.

The highest of the Galtee mountains, called the Galtee Mor, and sometimes Dawson's Seat, rises over a gloomy lake which is said to be the residence of a Pooka [...] and which is believed to be unfathomable [....] let the slightest breeze arise on the warmest day of summer, and the cold around the lake will be intense.

Gougane Barra brings 'utter loneliness, stern grandeur and savage magnificence'. The Beara peninsula is a wild and primitive district, abounding in picturesque and romantic scenery. Glengariff is close to the 33rd canto of Dante's Paradiso.

Language utterly fails to convey even a limited idea of the exceeding beauty of Glengariff—the rough glen—which merits to the full the enthusiastic praise on it by every traveller by whom it has been visited.

The etchings in the book often show rivers or bays or mountains, with Breughel-like figures in the foreground, or a cottage or inn. The reproductions are very grey, but that only confirms how far away this is. Academic, almost. About as close to Cork Today as a load of seaweed.