"
In August of this year the Queen and Prince sailed in their favorite
yacht, the _Victoria and Albert_, for Ireland, taking with them
their three eldest children, the better to show the Irish people that
their sovereign had not lost confidence in them for their recent bit of a
rebellion, which she believed was one-half Popery and the other half
potato-rot. The Irish people justified that faith. At the Cove of Cork,
where the Royal party first landed, and which has been Queenstown ever
since, their reception was most enthusiastic, as it was also in Dublin,
so lately disaffected. The common people were especially delighted with
the children, and one "stout old woman" shouted out, "Oh, Queen, dear,
make one o' thim darlints Patrick, and all Ireland will die for ye!" They
afterwards got their "Patrick" in the little Duke of Connaught, but I
fear were none the more disposed to die for the English Queen. Perhaps he
came a little too late.
The Queen on this trip expressed the intention of creating the Prince of
Wales Earl of Dublin, by way of compliment and conciliation, and perhaps
she did, but still Fenianism grew and flourished In Ireland.
The passage from Belfast to Loch Ryan was very rough--a regular rebellion
against, "the Queen of the Seas," as the Emperor of France afterwards
called Victoria.
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