In the 1830s, Frenchman Gustave de Beaumont visited Ireland and published an ominous account of what he witnessed: Misery, naked and famishing, that misery which is vagrant, idle, and mendicant, covers the entire country; it shows itself everywhere, and at every hour of the day; it is the first thing you see when you land on the Irish coast, and from that moment it ceases not to be present to your view; sometimes under the aspect of the diseased displaying his sores, sometimes under form of the pauper scarcely covered by his rags; it follows you everywhere, and besieges you incessantly; you
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