From the diary of the Rector’s
daughter – Dorothea Herbert, in Carrick-on-Suir. A 1783
entry, by Seán O’Brien , Portlaw:
Whilst Dorothea’s handwriting was quite beautiful, her knowledge of
punctuation, capitalization of words, spelling, etc., was extremely poor. Thus,
the part-contents of her diary reproduced here are as she
wrote them.
My Brothers Now came home for the Christmas
Holidays and on Christmas Day commenced a Most terrible frost and Snow which lasted to the 21st of February
– Some Old People said it was bad as the Hard Frost in the Year 39 – At its
commencement we were in constant Alarm about the Boys who hunted over the Snow
fearless of Danger and the dreadful Event at Curraghmore (the accidental
death of Lord Waterford’s son in 1778) often occurd to our frightened
Immaginations-but the Snow soon became Mountainous high with consequent
Inundations that soon prevented Man or Beast from stirring-Many Cottages were
totally buried in the Snow or demolished by floods-All our people were
continually employ’d in keeping our Mansion habitable-sometimes we were driven
from the lower Regions by the Water pouring in to every Room in deep lakes-The
Trees were one Sheet of christialized Snow in which we lost all the Bays and
evergreens that abounded in Our Gardens -The Number of Lives lost and the
Damage done all over Europe could Not be Calculated-Every Newspaper brought the
most dismal Accounts foreign and domestic-And all Nature lay in Mourning.
The Snow however afforded great Sport to the two
Boys and almost made up for their loss of hunting-We sat the whole time wrapt
up in Great Coats over the fire not dabbling at the snow piled windows-We had
Mrs. O’Hara a Music Mistress in the House-but to play or do any kind of Work
was impossible. And we spent the whole 47 Days while the cold lasted playing Cards
and roasting Sprats in both parlours for we were forced to divide and have two
fires-The Sprats were driven in such plenty that heaps were thrown out everywhere-It
is astonishing we did not die of Dysenteries for from Breakfast till Bedtime we
had plates upon plates of them-Mrs. O Hara and we played Cards for them.
