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When William Makepeace Thackeray wrote his Irish Sketch Book in 1842 maybe it wasn't that different a place from it is now?
Let us know what you think! Favourite quote even if it is about the unfortunate residents of the poorhouse is "Cleanliness, the matron said is more intolerable to most of the inmates than any other regulation of the house, and instantly on quitting the house they relapse into their darling dirt "
Here Is the bit about Newry...
Newry, Armagh, Belfast — from Dundalk to Newry.
My kind host gave orders to the small ragged boy that drove the car to take “particular care of the little gentleman,” and the car-boy, grinning in appreciation of the joke, drove off at his best pace, and landed his cargo at Newry after a pleasant two hours’ drive. The country for the most part is wild, but not gloomy; the mountains round about are adorned with woods and gentlemen’s seats; and the car-boy pointed out one hill-that of Slievegullion, which kept us company all the way — as the highest hill in Ireland. Ignorant or deceiving car-boy! I have seen a dozen hills, each the highest in Ireland, in my way through the country, of which the inexorable Guide-book gives the measurement and destroys the claim. Well, it was the tallest hill, in the estimation of the car-boy; and in this respect the world is full of car-boys. Has not every mother of a family a Slievegullion of a son, who, according to her measurement, towers above all other sons? Is not the patriot, who believes himself equal to three Frenchmen, a car-boy in heart? There was a kind young creature, with a child in her lap, that evidently held this notion. She paid the child a series of compliments, which would have led one to fancy he was an angel from heaven at the least; and her husband sat gravely by, very silent, with his arms round a barometer.
Beyond these there were no incidents or characters of note, except an old ostler that they said was 90 years old, and watered the horse at a lone inn on the road. “Stop!” cries this wonder of years and rags, as the car, after considerable parley, got under weigh. The car-boy pulled up, thinking a fresh passenger was coming out of the inn.
“Stop, till one of the gentlemin gives me something,” says the old man, coming slowly up with us: which speech created a laugh, and got him a penny: he received it without the least thankfulness, and went away grumbling to his pail.
Newry is remarkable as being the only town I have seen which had no cabin suburb: strange to say, the houses begin all at once, handsomely coated and hatted with stone and slate; and if Dundalk was prosperous, Newry is better still. Such a sight of neatness and comfort is exceedingly welcome to an English traveller, who, moreover, finds himself, after driving through a plain bustling clean street, landed at a large plain comfortable inn, where business seems to be done, where there are smart waiters to receive him, and a comfortable warm coffee’ room that bears no traces of dilapidation.
What the merits of the cuisine may be I can’t say for the information of travellers; a gentleman to whom I had brought a letter from Dundalk taking care to provide me at his own table, accompanying me previously to visit the lions of the town. A river divides it, and the counties of Armagh and Down: the river runs into the sea at Carlingford Bay, and is connected by a canal with Lough Neagh, and thus with the North of Ireland. Steamers to Liverpool and Glasgow sail continually. There are mills, foundries, and manufactories, of which the Guide-book will give particulars; and the town of 13,000 inhabitants is the busiest and most thriving that I have yet seen in Ireland.
Our first walk was to the church: a large and handsome building, although built in the unlucky period when the Gothic style was coming into vogue. Hence one must question the propriety of many of the ornaments, though the whole is massive, well-finished, and stately. Near the church stands the Roman Catholic chapel, a very fine building, the work of the same architect, Mr. Duff, who erected the chapel at Dundalk; but, like almost all other edifices of the kind in Ireland that I have seen, the interior is quite unfinished, and already so dirty and ruinous, that one would think a sort of genius for dilapidation must have been exercised in order to bring it to its present condition. There are tattered green-baize doors to enter at, a dirty clay floor, and cracked plaster walls, with an injunction to the public not to spit on the floor. Maynooth itself is scarcely more dreary. The architect’s work, however, does him the highest credit. The interior of the church is noble and simple in style; and one can’t but grieve to see a fine work of art, that might have done good to the country, so defaced and ruined as this is.
The Newry poor-house is as neatly ordered and comfortable as any house, public or private, in Ireland; the same look of health which was so pleasant to see among the Naas children of the union-house was to be remarked here: the same care and comfort for the old people. Of able-bodied there were but few in the house; it is in winter that there are most applicants for this kind of relief; the sunshine attracts the women out of the place, and the harvest relieves it of the men. Cleanliness, the matron said, is more intolerable to most of the inmates than any other regulation of the house; and instantly on quitting the house they relapse into their darling dirt, and of course at their periodical return are subject to the unavoidable initiatory lustration.
Newry has many comfortable and handsome public buildings: the streets have a business-like look, the shops and people are not too poor, and the southern grandiloquence is not shown here in the shape of fine words for small wares. Even the beggars are not so numerous, I fancy, or so coaxing and wheedling in their talk. Perhaps, too, among the gentry, the same moral change may be remarked, and they seem more downright and plain in their manner; but one must not pretend to speak of national characteristics from such a small experience as a couple of evenings’ intercourse may give.
Although not equal in natural beauty to a hundred other routes which the traveller takes in the South, the ride from Newry to Armagh is an extremely pleasant one, on account of the undeniable increase of prosperity which is visible through the country. Well-tilled fields, neat farm-houses, well-dressed people, meet one everywhere, and people and landscape alike have a plain, hearty, flourishing lock.
