3-052-438 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

An Irish obstructionist: a sketch on the road, Connemara, 1880. 'The general condition of the country exhibits symptoms of decided improvement, though there are some very sad exceptions, and severe distress is felt in many places...Our Special Artist, who has lately visited the distressed parts of the country, furnishes some characteristic sketches of the general appearance of the rustic people...The stranger travelling even through Connemara, where the state of most of the population in these days is very sad, may have his melancholy mood relieved in some degree by such queer incidents as that which our Artist met with on the road, in the shape of an "obstructionist" stopping the car that conveyed him across the country. He would have been glad to have seen pigs and other signs of comfort and prosperity far more abundant than they were'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.