Richard Pococke's Irish Tours

Book excerpt: Richard Pococke (1704-65), archdeacon of Dublin, and later bishop of Meath, was an obsessive traveller whose journeys into Egypt and the remoter Alps earned him a European reputation. His extensive travels through Ireland from the 1740s to the 1760s included a circuit of the Irish coastline in 1752 and a journey through west Cork and Kerry in 1758. These were more explorations than tours, and they included excursions to many of the offshore islands then almost completely unvisited by English or other travellers. Pococke kept a detailed written record of all his travels. His Irish journals, never before collected, are here published complete for the first time. They offer a fascinating insight into the life of mid-eighteenth century Ireland.