Martin Ross

Through Connemara in a governess cart Martin Ross

Somerville and Ross were busy professional writers apart from their novels and stories, capable of turning out a competent travelogue or a well-written article on a variety of subjects. This rather slight work is now over a century old - it was written originally as a series of articles for the Ladies' Pictorial and was published in book form in 1893.

Only one sign of civilisation did we see between Recess and Kylemore, and it was of a wholly unexpected type. A middle-sized house, bow-windowed, gabled, stucco-covered, hideous beyond compare, standing in the middle of a grass plot at the foot of one of the hills, and looking as if some vulgar-minded fairy had transported it bodily from Brixton or Clapham Rise. And so the famous two cousins, Edith Oenone Somerville and Violet Florence Martin, observe the sights and sounds experienced on their week-long travels in Connemara. Their adventures begin with their buying of a neat governess cart and a mule called Sibbie to pull it and from there we read the delightful misadventures of the two ladies. The strange characters they meet, the habits of Sibbie, the isolated hotels they stay in are all described with the laconic wit and sharp eye that make this into an exquisite jewel of travel lore.