Account (1852) -- "I took a car for Westport. Stopped at Newport, Sir Richard O'Donel and his lady have established schools on liberal principles. The lady herself teaches two or three days in a week, and Sir Richard has an admirably well-fitted schoolroom, where he teaches a Sabbath school himself. The effects of a fair on Monday showed that Ireland is not emancipated from the effects of whisky. Rioting and fighting lasted through the night. I walked to Westport with the peasantry, and at six in the morning was on a car for Castlebar. Called a few moments on a Baptist minister there, who presented me with a bundle of tracts, which were quite too sectarian to suit my purposes in visiting Ireland. I stayed twenty-four hours in Sligo, and talked to many of the poorer people. I find in all Ireland the labouring classes, when I first speak to them, are ever praising their master. Just as in America, although the slaves may be often under the lash or in the stocks, yet to a stranger they durst not speak out, lest some "bird of the air should tell the matter." So the peasantry of Ireland are in such suffering, that lest they should lose their sixpence or eightpence they occasionally get while employed, they will make an imperious landlord an angel to a stranger. My next day's ride on the top of a coach was eighty-one miles to Dublin, some part of it romantic. The sea-coast was rocky and wild, and presented little that was inviting for the abode of man. The road took us through a part of Leitrim, Westmeath, and Longford. At the latter place, while waiting for a change of horses, the beggars seemed to have rallied all their forces, followed by the rags and tatters of the town. I told them I had nothing but books to give." -- Asenath Nicholson, "The Bible in Ireland," 1852.