Travels with Beth: Kenmare Heritage Walk

This was our free day to rest up! Maeve invited us to join her on a Kenmare Heritage Walk that she leads. So in spite of the rain, we hardy souls ventured out. It was well worth it! A wonderful day that included history, a funeral procession, shopping, great meals, and ended with the play, Agnes of God at the Carnegie Arts Centre of Kenmare.

The hardy walkers - Craig, Tom, Harlan, Peggy, Kris, Jane
Carol and Maeve

Tourist Office

Holy Cross Catholic Church

Rose Cottage

Poor Clare Convent

The office of W.S. Trench, Agent for Lord Landsdowne

Landsdowne's Estate Assisted Emigration Plan

Trench continues to be controversial due to his "forced emigration" plan.
"The broad sketch of the plan I laid before him was as follows: I showed him by the poor-house returns, that the number of paupers off his estate and receiving relief in the workhouse amounted to about three thousand. That I was wholly unable to undertake the employment of these people in their present condition on reproductive works; and that if left in the workhouse, the smallest amount they could possibly cost would be £5 per head per annum, and thus that the poor rates must necessarily amount, for some years to come, to £15,000 per annum, unless these people died or left - and the latter was not probable. I stated also, that hitherto the people had been kept alive in the workhouse by grants from the rates-in-aid and other public money; but that this could not always go on. That the valuation of his estate in that district scarcely reached £10,000 per annum; and thus that the poor rates necessary to be raised in future off the estate to support this number of people, would amount to at least thirty shillings in the pound. I explained further to him, that under these circumstances, inasmuch as the poor rates were a charge prior to the rent, it would be impossible for his lordship to expect any rent whatever out of his estate for many years to come. The remedy I proposed was as follows: that he should forthwith offer free emigration to every man, woman and child now in the poor-house or receiving relief and chargeable to his estate. That I had been in communication with an Emigration Agent, who had offered to contract to take them to whatever port in America each pleased, at a reasonable rate per head. That even supposing they all accepted this offer, the total, together with a small sum per head for outfit and a few shillings on landing would not exceed from £13,000 to £14,000, a sum less than it would cost to support them in the workhouse for a single year. That ir the one case he would not only free his estate of this mass of pauperisn which had been allowed to accumulate upon it, but would put th people themselves in a far better way of earning their bread hereafter, whereas by feeding and retaining them where they were, they must remain as a millstone around the neck of his estate, and prevent its rise for many years to come; and I plainly proved that it would be cheaper tc him, and better for them, to pay for their emigration at once, than to continue to support them at home."
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlker/lansdowne.html