From Recollecting John Clarke Sullivan, Nemasket, Mass. USA
http://nemasket.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-clark-sullivan.html
Bantry was typical of Irish towns of the era, with great disparities between the Anglo-Irish population and that of the Native Irish. The great scenic beauty of the region contrasted sharply with the poverty of a large number of its inhabitants. English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray captured this contrast in The Irish Sketch Book of 1842. Describing Bantry a year prior to Sullivan’s birth, Thackeray wrote:
The harbour is beautiful. Small mountains in green undulations rising on the opposite side; great grey ones further back; a pretty island in the midst of the water, which is wonderfully bright and calm. A handsome yacht, and two or three vessels with their Sunday colors out, were lying in the bay. It looked like a seaport scene at a theatre, gay, cheerful, neat, and picturesque. At a little distance the town, too, is pretty…
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West Cork History 
Thackeray is not always so complimentary. On his way to Bantry he says,”In regard of pretty faces, male or female, this road is very unfavourable. I have not seen one for fifty miles; though as it was market day all along the road, we have had the opportunity to examine vast number of countenances. The women are, for the most part, stunted, short, with flat Tartar faces; and the men are no handsomer.” The Irish Sketch Book. O.U.P. p.97
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