ABSTRACT
The individual 'Letters from Ireland' were published in the Daily News from 13 August through 14 October 1852; they were collected and published in volume form by John Chapman later that year. Her preface to the collected edition stresses the spirit of spontaneity typical of all her writing and particularly appealing in a travel narrative. She offers the letters, simply, 'for what they are a rapid account of impressions received and thoughts excited from day to day'. Agricultural schools and model farms are of interest, as are flax cultivation and linen manufacture, public works like railroads and bridges, and the restoration of decimated forests. The episode illustrates Martineau's general concern about 'Irish Industry', wherein she aggressively defies racist stereotypes condemning the 'shiftless' Irish by demonstrating that the spirit of ennui characterising the Irish poor stems from unrelieved futility and hopelessness rather than inherent depravity or bad character.
