John Francis Trotter, 1775-1818, was born in county Down and was the son of a Protestant minister. He took up the Catholic cause through letter writing to the Government. He lived in poverty and spent time in the debtors prison. In 1812 he began a series of letters based on his walks around the country. Unfortunately, what he experienced in these walks was his downfall because he died, destitute, a year after submitting his report from Quin. Clare was ravished by fever and he documented in detail its impact on the people he encountered.
Newmarket on Fergus (which being prettily seated on an inlet of the Shannon, is so called) has suffered dreadfully from the fever. At this town, and in its neighbourhood, it has, until this last week, raged like a plague. ‘We knew not,’ said our pleasing and intelligent guide, Mrs —, ‘in the morning, of what death we should hear; or, at night, who could be said to lie down in safety. Funerals were frequent, and mourning in every house. But when we were almost in despair, the hand of God arrested this malady, and we are now tolerably free from it.’
Photo from the Lawrence Collection W.L. 403
“We hasten from this princely place on our way to Quin Abbey, a very few miles distant. Our walk led us, by private roads, along the small river of Quin, to this ancient ruin. We were astonished at beholding it. Quin Abbey is one of the most perfect ruins in Ireland, and of wonderful beauty. Its tower, cloisters, and aisles, deserve great attention. There we saw an incredible quantity of bones and skulls, long blanched by time’s resistless hand – they were piled in great quantities in the abbey. . . How many busy and thinking beings were these whitened fragments of mortality once! Some devoted to war, some to religion, some to commerce, or agriculture! – all now silent. . . .
When we visit the abbey of Quin you will not be surprised at these thoughts. It is really very grand, and its aisles reminded us of West-minister Abbey. A new church is building near it, however, which will somewhat injure the lonely and grand picturesque of this most venerable scene. The village near the Abbey is wretched; the cabins very poor.
Leaving the abbey of Quin, we proceeded along a wild road, and as the day improved, saw many distant mountains. There is great poverty in Clare, and the miserable attempt to sell unlicensed spirits in their mud-cottages scarcely excites displeasure; in a country where there is no trade, where agriculture is over-whelmed, and the people too numerous, nature struggles to procure some livelihood, and labour and fatigue seeks some humble refreshment. ”
John Trotter, A Walk through County Clare, 1817
https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/strangers_gaze/strangers_trotter.htm
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