A fascinating letter written by a young Quaker, Susanna Pim, in late summer 1748, has provided historians with a first-hand account of the preachers’ early activities in Cork.

“The Methodists are here these some weeks. There is a great reformation wrought amongst the people. They preach twice a day, at five in the morning and seven in the evening. It is thought there were ten thousand yesterday. They go every day to the jails to preach to the prisoners. They are now gathering money to release the poor debtors. Yesterday, after they had done preaching, they desired that the people might contribute to it, and lest it should be imagined that it was for themselves, they appointed men to stand one on each side of the [Hammond’s] Marsh where they preached to collect the money. They collected yesterday evening upwards of twenty pounds, which was the first time of gathering.”