Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger

In May of 1844, the Vermont educator, reformer, and social worker Asenath Nicholson set out from New York on a fifteen-month visit to Ireland determined to ""investigate the condition of the Irish poor."" On the eve of the Great Famine, she traveled on foot with her polka coat, velvet bonnet, and black bearskin muff through the west and southwest singing hymns and reading the Bible to the local people and sharing their hospitality. Nicholson describes a rural people struggling with poverty and chronic unemployment who received their American visitor with generosity and kindness. Her account is a unique and compelling glimpse into Ireland just before the catastrophe of the famine, which she later described in a similarly powerful narrative, Annals of the Great Famine. ""One of the two best descriptions of the period.""-Frank O'Connor. ""Nicholson was one of the most intelligent of all observers.""-Sean O'Faolain