A Tour in Ireland in 1775
In 1775, an English gentleman called Richard Twiss (later FRS) spent some months in Ireland, and on his return home, wrote this account of his journey. It describes an itinerary from Dublin north to the giant's Causeway, thence to Londonderry, Donegal, and Leitrim; down by the Shannon to Limerick, Killarney, Cork, Waterford, Wexford and so back to Dublin. He was not impressed by what he saw; the general tone is contemptuous, and even when he praises something, he often qualifies this by saying that better examples can be found elsewhere. His disparaging remarks are many, and great offence was taken by the Irish, and attacks and lampoons on Twiss were published in prose and verse. There survives a fragment of a chamber pot with a picture of Twiss on the bottom, accompanied by the words "Let everyone p***/On lying Dick Twiss."
