SNIPPET: Victorian Englishman Richard LOVETT's descriptions of a leisurely visit to Ireland were published that same year (1888) by "The Religious Tract Society." This was the great age of railway travel, before the coming of the motorcar and aeroplane. Per LOVETT -- " Passing first Mullingar, that Mecca of anglers, then Athlone, already described, and finally Athenry, with its ruined castle, ancient gateway, and, if seen on market day, picturesque throng of Galway peasants, the train steams into the spacious Galway terminus, adjoining which is the huge hotel built in the hope that Galway would become, what it doubtless ought to be, a great port for the American trade. The curious man may ramble about Galway, and find much to interest him at every turn. The streets are for the most part narrow, winding and irregular. The houses form a strange jumble. Side by side with substantial buildings of the most approved ninetieth century type, stand houses which carry the observer back to the sixteenth century, and if in their courtyards he were to see a group of Philip the Second's Spaniards, he could hardly be surprised. There is the same strange variety in the faces to be seen. Here, if nowhere else, the supposed typical Irishman is to be met, in tall hat and knee-breeches, with the short up-turned nose, small forehead and receding chin. Here also in the crowd follow faces that recall one after another the Dane, the Saxon, the Spaniard and the Celt. Here more, perhaps, than in most popular centres in Ireland the mixed character of the Irish people becomes evident. There are but few buildings in the town of any special merit' Eyre Square contains the best of the modern structures. Lynch's mansion in Abbeygate Street is a fine example of the kind of house the Spanish merchants lived in three centuries ago. St. Nicholas Church is well worth a visit; the requirements of modern education are met by the Queen's College, a fine Gothic building which stands on the western bank of the River Corrib, in the northern suburbs. The town possesses a very fine harbour, and around it centres much of the business. Into this harbour empties the Corrib, the outlet of the two great lakes, Lough Mask and Lough Corrib, a shallow, rocky, rushing stream, in which at certain seasons of the year the salmon are to be seen in such numbers that - to use the colloquial phrase - 'you might walk across upon their back.' The current is too rapid and the bed too shallow for navigation through the town, and the Eglinton Canal connects the harbour for traffic purposes with the upper part of the Corrib. Few rivers rival the Corrib in the abundance of salmon, and while every facility is afforded for legitimate sport, a good deal of poaching ... is there carried on, if report in this instance speaks truly. At the mouth of the harbour, and forming the southernmost quarter of the town, is the Claddagh, a district inhabited solely by a clan of fishermen and their families; they live in low thatched huts, and are engaged for the most part in the herring fishery. By some authorities they have been considered of Spanish descent, while others, with more reason, hold that they are of Celtic origin. 'The commerce between Galway and Spain was, no doubt, at one time very extensive and important. The Spanish style of many of the houses now in ruins, the traditions and authentic records, prove that Galway was in old times a very thriving, busy, gay, and luxurious city. No doubt many Spanish merchants lived in Galway, and intermarried with natives long before the stern old Warden condemned his own son to death for slaying a Spanish rival. A Spanish face may still be seen in and about Galway - once a week or so; but it appears to me quite certain that the Claddagh, above all other people, had no intermarriage with Spaniards. In proof of this, their present names are nearly all Irish, such as Connolly, O'Connor, O'Flaherty; there are some English and Welsh, as Jones, Brown and Barrett; those first mentioned, however, form the great majority. The Christian names are generally Scriptural, as John, Matthew, Michael, Paul, also Patrick, Catharine, &c.; but they have this remarkable peculiarity, that there are so many persons of the same name that they are distinguished (in the Irish language) by the names of "fishes"; thus, Jack the hake, Bill the cod, Joe the eel, &c. The men and women of the Claddagh, and indeed of Galway County generally, are very fond of gay dress and bright colours; the country women often wear red cloaks, but the Claddagh women wear blue cloaks and red petticoats; the fishermen wear jacket, breeches and stockings home-made and light blue. The women often go bare foot and war the short blue cloak, bed-gown and red petticoat; the head dress is a kerchief of bright colours. ... The appearance of the village of Claddagh is dirty, but the houses are clean enough inside; and be it known that before the famine their houses were models of cleanliness; and we must recollect that those manure heaps which frequently offend the eye in Irish villages have no offensive odour, on account of the deodorizing power of the peat which forms a large portion of the compost. The men and women have generally clean linen, although often covered with rags. It is a general fact worthy of note that in Ireland a dirty outside generally covers a clean heart. Among the groups gathered at the fish market or clustering around Galway Harbour, the stranger will occasionally see a man exhibiting a facial type not common in the crowd, he wears very distinctive knee-breeches or knickerbockers, and his shoes, technically known as pampootas, are made of untanned cowhide with the hair left on, cut low at the sides, with a narrow pointed piece to cover the toes. It is said that experience has proved that such shoes or sandals as these are best suited for the rocky soil such men have to tread. And when the stranger, his curiosity aroused, desires to known whence these men come, he discovers that they are from the Arran Islands. These are three rocky islands lying off the mouth of Galway Bay, abounding in ruins of the most remarkable kind, and inhabited by a simple and kindly race of peasant fishermen." ....