File:The famous cities of Ireland (1915) (14593846438).jpg

Identifier: famouscitiesofir00gwyn (find matches)
Title: The famous cities of Ireland
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950
Subjects: Cities and towns
Publisher: Dublin, Maunsel & Co., New York, The Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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nd revolutionaryideas. It is in Derry that you can study the con-tribution which the Ulster plantation made to thedevelopment of Ireland. As a town Derry is without beauty, except thatwhich comes from its situation on rising groundbeside a very noble river; it possesses no buildingof architectural beauty, no trace of sculptors workthat a trained eye would rest on with pleasure. But—and this is no small matter—there are few placesin it that would offend the eye. It is not wholly amanufacturing town, and such traces of country lifeas Mr. Thomsons sketch indicates may be seenfrequently enough. As a whole, it is clean, tidy, well-kept, prosperous-looking, with many signs of well-doing and comfort, few of w^ealth and luxury. Thereare good serviceable shops, but not the shops ofexpensive wares that one sees, for instance, at an VI DERRY English watering-place. It is primarily a countytown; the county town in reality of Donegal as wellas of its own county; supplying the wants of a gentry
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The Boi^sidc. not rich but numerous, and of a farming populationwhich, using the plough, brings a good deal of customto traders. I90 THE FAMOUS CITIES OF IRELAND ch. It is a manufacturing town, too, but in a secondarysense; shirt-making employs chiefly women labourat low wages, and it is not a trade of large expansion.Derry has known nothing of the vast increase inpopulation of which Belfast is rightly proud; it haslittle of an artisan class. It is, in a word, like Corkor Wexford, mainly a town of traders with a manu-facturing element annexed. That is very much whatthe Irish Society designed it to be. I do not think anyone will deny that the IrishProtestant is a better trader than the Irish Catholic.Outside of Ulster the most flourishing shops inCatholic towns are managed by Protestants, generallyof Ulster extraction. The plantation probablybrought to Ireland better business habits than werepreviously existing there. The Derry traders never built up for their townany commerce having t

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