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1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
90
Even
less
interest
attaches
to
the
early
annals
of
the
Irish
Post-Office.
During
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
centuries,
it
was
certainly
more
remunerative
than
the
Scotch,
though
much
less
remunerative
than
the
English
departments.
Previous
to
the
introduction
of
mail-coaches,
all
mails
were
conveyed,
or
supposed
to
be
conveyed,
by
the
postmasters,
to
whom
certain
special
allowances
were
made
for
each
particular
service.
"There
were
no
contracts,
and
no
fixed
rules
as
to
time.
Three
miles
and
a
half
(per
hour)
seems
to
have
been
the
pace
acknowledged
to
have
been
sufficient.
The
bags
were
usually
conveyed
by
boys.
In
the
immediate
neighbourhood
of
the
metropolis,
some
sort
of
cart
was
used,
but
with
this
exception
the
bags
were
carried
either
on
ponies
or
mules,
or
on
foot."[50]
The
same
authority
tells
us
further
that,
"at
this
time,
the
bags
were
carried
to
Cork,
Belfast,
Limerick,
and
Waterford,
six
days
a
week;
and
three
days
a
week
to
Galway,
Wexford,
and
Enniskillen.
There
were
three
posts
to
Killarney;
but
for
this
the
Government
refused
to
pay
anything.
The
postmaster
had
a
salary
of
3l.
a-year,
but
the
mail
was
carried
by
foot-messengers,
who
were
maintained
at
the
cost
of
the
inhabitants
and
of
the
news-printers
in
Cork.
Carrick-on-Shannon
was
the
only
town
in
county
Leitrim
receiving
a
mail,
and
this
it
did
twice
a
week.
Now
it
has
two
every
day.
Except
at
the
county-town,
there
was
no
post-office
in
the
whole
county
of
Sligo;
and
there
were
but
sixteen
in
the
province
of
Connaught,
where
there
are
now
one
hundred
and
seventy-one."
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