Postcards from the edge: Harriet Martineau's views on ...

Potatoes:

"We can safely say that we did not see one healthy ridge of them between Dublin and Galway; and we believe there is not one ... It makes the imagination ache, like the eye."

Galway:

"Whatever we may find that is strange in the wild part of Ireland, we shall hardly find anything stranger than this town of Galway. If we should encounter a wilder barbarism in remote places, it will, at least, not be jumbled together with an advanced civilisation."

Leaving for America:

"A man, his wife, and three young children were going to America [via the Castlebar public car on which the Martineaus were travelling] ... All eyes were fixed on the neighbours who were going away for ever. The last embraces were terrible to see ... All the while this lamentation was giving a headache to all who looked on, there could not but be a feeling that these people, thus giving vent to their instincts, were as children, and would command themselves better when they were wiser."

Tourism:

"We were told a million of money enters Ireland annually, in the shape of tourists; and of these nearly all come to Killarney."

Alcohol:

"The relapse of people into intemperance is indubitable and very rapid. Everywhere we are told that the temperance, began in superstition and political enthusiasm, was maintained only by the destitution of the famine time; and everywhere we see too plainly that the restraint was artificial and temporary."