ABSTRACT
In Mrs S. C. Hall's Victorian melodrama The Groves of Blarney (1838), an ingenuous Cockney visitor, Peter Swan, has no sooner landed in Ireland for the first time than he exclaims: ‘Well! such a set of savages, I never did see! all real origional Hirish; the haborigines of the soil … Well, here I am at last, so far safe on my tower [i.e. tour] in search of the picturesque in this dangerous country.’ 1 The outsider's instant familiarity with the finer points of Irish life and character is subsequently explained when he drops his portfolio of sketches while taking leave of his Irish cousin Flo:
