Anonymous.
- A hardy race, inured to toil,
But proud of heart, impatient of offence,
With passions strong, and bold, and full of fire,
Yet kind in speech, and to the stranger's call
Their doors are never closed.
From the relative situation of the northern and eastern parts of Ireland to Scotland and Wales, it is evident, even were history and tradition silent on the subject, that these districts became the first settlements of adventurers from the shores of Britain. The original inhabitants gradually retired, as the invaders, either by conquest or treaty, extended their dominion, which was distinguished by a line of demarcation called the Pale: and all who remained without the Pale were excluded from the protection of the English laws. The project of confining the native Irish within the province of Connaught, by the boundary of the Shannon, has been ascribed to Cromwell, and hence the phrase but too well remembered in Ireland ‘To Hell, or Connaught with the rebel!’
The southern and western counties are, therefore, unquestionably those in which, at present, national peculiarities should be sought, and where primitive manners have been least affected by foreign innovation, although the intercourse between the south of Ireland and Spain appears to have been extensive from the earliest period to the close of the sixteenth century. Both the fanciful eye of the antiquary and the more sober one of the agricultural tourist have observed the Spanish contour of feature in the peasantry of Kerry, and, indeed, it is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance; but the discussion of the colonization of remote ages does not fall within the object of this chapter, which is rather an attempt to detail such customs amongst the Irish peasantry as will appear most striking to the English reader, and to illustrate them with any occasional anecdotes they may suggest. The difference of costume and personal appearance in the lower orders of different districts can scarcely fail of being remarked, and the inhabitants of one barony are easily distinguished, by their peculiar dress, from those of another. On the border of the counties Cork and Limerick, the women are generally short and plump figures; the men well-proportioned, tall and rather handsome. In some of the southern parts of Cork and Kerry the very reverse is the case; and, in the latter county, the race of small and hardy mountaineers, with light hair, gray eyes and florid complexion, added to a circular form of countenance, are strangely contrasted with the tall, spare persons of the Spanish race, if I may so term them, with sallow visage, dark, sunken eye, and jet-black hair, falling loosely over their shoulders; wearing the great-coat in the fashion of a mantle, fastened by one button under the chin, and its sleeves hanging down unoccupied by the arms.
In the county Limerick, the men's dress is invariably of a gray (or pepper and salt colour) produced by a mixture of black and white wool without any process of dying. In the eastern parts of the
The cloak is a part of dress apparently never superfluous to an Irish woman, and is constantly used with the hood over the head, even during the hottest days of summer; those who are not so fortunate as to possess a cloak turn the skirt of their gown or an apron over their shoulders, and in this huddled style proceed about their out-door occupations with as little alacrity as might be expected. A brown stuff gown and green petticoat is the popular costume, with stockings of the brightest blue, but these latter are by no means an indispensable part of dress, and, truth to say, are not often seen; neither are shoes considered of any importance, but rather a fatiguing incumbrance, gladly dismissed when opportunity offers, and scarcely ever worn but on the Sabbath and other holidays. Journies are invariably performed barefooted, the shoes and stockings tied together and thrown across the arm. There is, however, a strong desire to possess a pair of silver buckles or a silver clasp for the cloak, such ornaments being considered as marks of consequence, and they are handed down from mother to daughter with the greatest care. Bonnets are quite unknown, the hood of the cloak answering all demands for the head, which is, however, sometimes adorned by a high cauled mob cap. The fodaheen, or little
The custom of greeting with a benediction has been practised in Ireland from time immemorial. It is perhaps of eastern origin. (General Vallancey would certainly have derived it from thence.) Persons on a journey are saluted with various and peculiar phrases, appropriate to the time of day, the nature of the road they are pursuing, or other circumstances. Early in the morning, or on the approach of night, you hear such as ‘God speed you,’ ‘God and the Blessed Virgin attend you,’ ‘The blessed Patrick go with you,’ &c.; but if the traveller has to apprehend danger on his route, the expressions are more energetic, as ‘Safe home to you by the help of God,’ ‘God guide and protect you, and lead you in safety to your own home, with the blessing of all the Saints.’
The maledictions of the peasantry are very powerful, and embrace a climax of evils, gradually ascending to the most dreadful imprecations, from ‘May the grass grow upon the threshold of your dwelling,’ or ‘May you stand friendless and alone in this world.’ Their exclamations and apostrophes are singular and figurative, often poetical, and sometimes touching on the sublime. An Irish appeal is ever made to the feelings, not to the judgment, and the passions are assailed by a burst of thought that, Like unexpected light, surprises.’’
Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye to the melody of 'Nora Creina'
An instance of the effect produced by one of these vigorous exclamations occurred in an affair at a place called Ballyhacket, where some men were attacked by a party of police, sent to deprive them of a farm of which they were keeping forcible and illegal possession. On their trial at Limerick, it appeared in evidence that
There is something remarkable in the ideas of freedom and independence vaguely floating in the mind of an Irish peasant; they seem only inferior to his pride, which exists in a degree wholly irreconcilable with his condition; a thousand evils are the result. ‘I would, since your honour bids me, but that I scorn to demean myself,’ is a reply proof against any argument that reason or propriety can suggest — Bishop Berkeley has mentioned a kitchen wench in his family who refused to carry out cinders, because she was descended from the ancient kings of Ireland; and it would be ludicrous, were it not melancholy, to observe the consequence derived from this ‘pride of ancestr.’. The usual language of condolence on a change of fortune is ‘He, whose father was a real and undoubted gentleman, and whose mother was born and bred a gentlewoman, aye, and her mother before her.’ Every person therefore in Ireland is a gentleman, or was a gentleman, or is related to a gentleman;26 and hence unfortunately arises a self-conviction that they are privileged to the enjoyment of ‘otium cum dignitate,’ and that their ancestors having formerly possessed estates, they are therefore entitled to them. Commenting on this visionary importance, the writer of a memoir of Lord Ormond acutely remarks; ‘it may well deserve the diligence of politicians, to inquire whether the
Poor, proud and sensitive, the Irish character is one to excite our pity, were not those feelings in some measure deadened by the counteraction of others, and yet, no doubt can be entertained of their innate existence. In communicating with the peasantry, every account given by them is in a strain of hyperbole; I have heard the resident of a mud cabin speak with perfect assurance of his ‘drawingroom’ — an apartment in the roof, to which he ascended by means of a ladder; and the foot-way through his half acre of cabbage garden, has become the ‘road through his farm.’ As a fair specimen of what Mr. Bush not unaptly terms ‘Hibernian importance,’ perhaps I may be excused for the introduction of the well known answer, ‘Timber and fruit,’ given from a coasting-vessel freighted with birch-brooms and potatoes, when hailed by a revenue cruizer off Cork Harbour to ascertain her cargo.
The letter of a village piper requesting payment for his professional exertions at some little fête given by the lady of the manor, is a curiosity in its way, and I can vouch for its genuineness, being acquainted with the parties.
To the Hon. Mrs. B — .Madam,
The Bearer hereof is the piper that played for your Lordable family at the Terrace on the 12th inst., and I am referred to your Honour for my hire. Your Ladyship's pardon for my boldness would be almost a sufficient compensation for my labour.
Patrick Walsh.
It is to be hoped the ideal consequence which this strain of hyperbole produces may lighten at least the mental wretchedness of the Irish labourer's condition; for to whatever causes the present abject state of the peasantry has been ascribed, no one can doubt the fact; nor can it be more effectively pictured, than in the account given me by one of those speculative wanderers who annually migrate to England in search of harvest work.
My informant had travelled from near Limerick to Dublin, on foot, with another young man; they had saved up twelve shillings and sixpence for their travelling expenses, and he and his companion had paid 2s. 6d. each for their passage from Dublin to Liverpool, and would have double that sum to pay on returning. Some, he told me, made money by coming to England — others did not — for his own part, he had been better than a week in the strange country, and had only got one day's work, for which he received two shillings. ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a bachelor, but married men also come over to make the harvest. In my own country I should have at this time (Midsummer), if I could get work, ten-pence or a shilling a-day, besides my bit and sup (potatoes and milk); but, indeed, your honour, I looked to better myself by seeking my fortune this side the water — the times are so bad at home, although I have no wife — and the people, God help them, so poverty struck. When a married man comes over,’ (he replied to my interrogatory,) ‘he leaves his wife and family enough of the potatoes to last them during his absence, and lets them get the kitchen (that's any relish, your honour, in the shape of a herring or so) the best way they can. Should their stock of potatoes not last till his return, the wife and children have just to shut up their bit of a cabin and go about the country begging for God's sake.’
The average annual rent of a cabin may be about forty shillings, or, with a patch of ground, perhaps fifty shillings. These hovels have been already described; yet miserable and destitute of comfort as they are, the benighted peasant or houseless mendicant, who raises
Intemperance is the result of indiscriminate hospitality, and it has too frequently happened, that the tranquil comforts of domestic life are sacrificed to the glory of occasional drunken triumphs. Sir Richard Cox relates an anecdote of Turlogh Lynogh, an Irish chieftain, in the reign of Elizabeth, who went to Newry to meet the Lord Deputy for the purpose of swearing submission to the Queen of England, bringing with him no less a sum than 400l. in money, ‘the entire of which, he and his followers spent in tippling and carousing in three days time’ — ‘and so,’ continues that historian, ‘having received some small presents from the Deputy, he returned joyfully home,’ to meet the poverty occasioned by this excess: but we need not turn to the page of history for instances where acres of paternal
It is, however, only just to remark, that such occasions of display are long remembered; an English tourist, who visited Ireland in 1748, mentions, that hearing frequently, during his stay at Kilkenny, the expression ‘I have not seen or done such a thing since the Review at Bennett's bridge,’ became curious to learn what this review was, that it should be referred to as an era; when he was informed, ‘that the Duke of Ormond reviewed the army there in 1704, during which period he resided in the Castle of Kilkenny, with all the splendour of a royal court,’ and that no officer was wanting that may be found in the palaces of sovereign princes.
A love of drinking, which is said to be a prevailing passion with the Irish, may readily be ascribed to a variety of causes; to a natural fondness of excitement, to convivial feelings, or the extravagant notions too generally encouraged of universal hospitality. Added to the causes already enumerated, the cheap rate at which illicit spirit is sold in Ireland, and the facility of procuring this potent beverage, which comes
are strong temptations to indulgence; and indeed the patrons, or meetings on saint days, equal, if not exceed, the riot of an ancient Bacchanalia.
- From a still,
Just under the hill,
Where the eye of the ganger saw it not,
A peasant, after suffering from the ill consequences of intoxication, will often forswear liquor of any kind for a given period; or will take an oath not to taste spirits within a certain barony, or ‘in any house,’ or ‘either in or out of a house,’ and though these vows are sometimes religiously observed, yet are they as frequently avoided by various and amusing stratagems: for instance, a man will walk ten
It is not surprising that wine or spirits should be considered an infallible remedy for every complaint, since the seat of every disease is believed to be in the heart. The universal comment beside the bed of an invalid is — ‘His poor heart just wants a little drop of comfort to nourish it;’ and accordingly, the doors of the country gentry are daily beset with squalid applicants, each presenting a vial bottle and beseeching a drop of wine ‘for a poor man lying down in his sick bed yonder;’ and, whatever may be the state of his pulse, a refusal is considered as little short of barbarity. This faith in the medicinal properties of wine reminds me of a story related by Stanyhurst, respecting a dispute concerning the Ormond title, between Sir James of Ormond and Sir Pierce Butler, it having been assumed and the annexed property seized by the former, notwithstanding its rightful descent to the latter. In 1518, Sir Pierce, who was afterwards the eighth earl, became reduced to extreme indigence; and his wife, the Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, (now remembered as the great Countess of Ormond,) falling ill, requested him to procure some wine for her; unable to comply with her wishes, and affected by her miserable condition, he vowed that she should have wine within four-and-twenty hours, or that she might look forward to sup on milk alone, without a husband. Sir Pierce accordingly went in search of the usurper of the Ormond title, attacked and slew him, and succeeded to his inheritance.
The violent proceeding of Sir Pierce Butler will not appear remarkable in the unsettled reign of Elizabeth, when the anecdotes of
Amongst the most striking remains of feudal manners are the contests between clans or factions, which so frequently occur, in open defiance of the civil authority. A fair, a patron or other public meeting seldom concludes without a pitched battle, and the loss of three or four lives; the weapons are commonly cudgels and stones; but in 1813, I witnessed ‘the gathering,’ as it was called, of a faction, for the purpose of deciding some matter of right, which had been thus disputed annually for more than forty years; where about
After the patron (a meeting particularly described in a subsequent paper) has concluded, it is not unusual to seek a quarrel sufficient to authorise a general fight, and so inherent is the spirit leading to this kind of pastime, that rather than remain an idle spectator of moderate enjoyment, or return quietly home with a head unbroken, a man will sometimes, from a mere love of combat, and without any malice, take off his coat, and holding it by the collar, trail it through the assembly, challenging or beguiling any one to step on it; which insult he no sooner succeeds in obtaining, than he feels justified in knocking down the offender, and the sport begins. The pleasure derived from this sort of occupation may doubtless be felt by men
The mode in which a farmer obtains his supply of fuel for the winter is somewhat singular. His intention of cutting turf on a particular day in the ensuing week is generally announced at the parish chapel, and on the appointed morning all his neighbours and friends (some of whom have perhaps travelled ten or twelve miles) assemble for the purpose of assisting in the labour. Emulation produces exertion, and, owing to the number of hands employed, the work is quickly performed — four or five hours being the usual time devoted to the purpose. No wages are given on these occasions, but, to compensate for non-payment, there is always a feast (if it may be so called) prepared, with the addition of a piper. These are termed Mihill meetings and the same custom prevails at haymaking.
A gentleman resident in the west of county Cork described to me a meeting of this kind which occurred in 1820, and subsequent transactions have impressed the account on my memory. He represented that a party of horsemen, about five-and-twenty, each carrying his spade on his shoulder, arrived at full trot at the house of a farmer, who had announced the cutting of his turf for that day; the order in which this band rode my friend remarked as being particularly regular; three a-breast, and having altogether an air of military discipline, but little in accordance with their avocation. On coming up to the door of the house, the word halt was given by the leader, who was styled captain, and instantly obeyed, when he advanced to the farmer and apologized for the lateness of his visit, by stating, that he and his merry men had been detained at another Mihill meeting six miles off, but that, having finished their work there, they had come to help him with his.
The festivities and customs peculiar to certain seasons of the year are many of them curious, and may be novel to the English reader.
On the last night of the year, a cake is thrown against the outside door of each house by the head of the family, which ceremony is said to keep out hunger during the ensuing one; and the many thousand practical illustrations of the fallacy of this artifice have not yet succeeded in producing conviction of the same. On the anniversary of St. Stephen, (the day. after Christmas day,) it is customary for groups of young villagers to bear about a holly bush adorned with ribbons, and having many wrens depending from it. This is carried from house to house with some ceremony, the ‘Wren boys’ chaunting several verses, the burthen of which may be collected from the following lines of their song.
A small piece of money is usually bestowed on them, and the evening concludes in merry-making with the money thus collected.
- The Wren, the Wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family's great,
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.- My box would speak if it had but a tongue,
And two or three shillings would do it no wrong,
Sing holly, sing ivy — sing ivy, sing holly,
A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy.- And if you draw it of the best,
I hope in Heaven your soul may rest;
But if you draw it of the small,
It won't agree with the Wren boys at all. [&c &c.]
On the eve of St. John and some other festivals, a broom stick dressed up as a figure, and called a Bredogue, is borne about in the
The superstitions of the Irish are generally of a harmless kind, that the mind rather lingers on with pleasure than turns from in disgust; but there is one superstition I have not yet named, of so horrible and diabolic a nature, it was long before I could believe in its extensive existence; of which fact, however, minute inquiry and subsequent evidence have fully convinced me. I allude to the belief that the left hand of a corpse, if dipped into the milk-pail, has the effect of making the milk produce considerably more cream and of a richer and better kind than it would have done without this spell. In the year 1816, I saw a woman who had been apprehended and taken into custody, on a charge of raising cream by means of a dead man's hand, and two hands, in a shocking state of putrefaction, were exhibited as evidences of the fact; it was afterwards, however, proved that these hands had been conveyed into the dairy by some persons who wished to injure the poor woman; but the circumstance was sufficient to prove the existence of the superstition, which then became a general subject of conversation in the neighbourhood where it occurred.
Courtship is generally commenced soon after the parties attain their teens, and the bashfulness of the youthful lover is sometimes very amusing.
‘As I was within three bits of miles of Tim Haggerty's cabin,’ replied a fine lad of fourteen, when asked why he had loitered on an errand, ‘and Tim Haggerty was a relation of mine, for his mother was a second cousin of my grandfather's gossip, and as I thought your honour would not be wanting me, I just stept across, I could'nt do less why! to inquire after his welfare; and finding only Honny at home, I could'nt but wait a little, as he would soon be in, she said; but as for my thinking of Honny, your honour, I that's not out of my time, and that has but less than nothing to begin the world with,
A numerous offspring is the result of early marriage; and it frequently happens that the appearance of father and son is more like that of brothers, and they associate together rather with a fraternal feeling, than with that usually existing between parent and child.
A house with three contiguous apartments is selected for a wedding; the reason of this is to preserve a distinction between the classes of company expected. The best apartment is reserved for the bride and bridegroom, the priest, the piper, and the more opulent and respectable guests, as the landlord, his family and the neighbouring gentry, who are always invited and usually attend on such occasions. The second apartment is appropriated for the neighbours in general; and the third, or an out-house, is devoted to the reception of buckaughs, shulers, and other beggars. When the marriage is celebrated two collections are raised amongst the guests, the first for the priest, the other for the piper. The assembly does not take place until late in the evening, when the marriage ceremony is performed, and the festivities seldom conclude before day-break the next morning.
Buckaughs are a description of mendicants that within these few years have considerably diminished. The name implies a lame or mutilated person; but vigorous young men may be found, who, having assumed the ragged garb, crave the privileges of the impotent and aged. In Ireland there are no gipsies, but their place is filled by buckaughs, who have the same wandering habits and adopt the same unsettled mode of life, without however entering into associations or troops.
A buckaughs is a solitary and isolated being, one who seems to stand alone in the world without apparent occupation or pursuit.
Beggars crowd round strangers at every town or village, in a manner that to the English traveller appears quite marvellous, always urging their demands in the imperative mood. ‘Ah then, if you have one half-penny in the world you shall give it me till I get some food for a sick child.’ ‘Remember the poor, your honour; and may God increase you; a fivepenny, your honour, would be nothing to the likes of ye; a tenpenny, your honour, amongst us, and we will not grumble.’ At least twenty of these demands at once assail you; and if you give to some, the reinforcement of applicants becomes so numerous as to be quite deafening, invoking the most singular blessings on you and yours for ever; but if you are ‘hard hearted,’ bestowing as liberally their curses. The eloquence of an Irish mendicant is very peculiar and sometimes incredible. I remember a poor blind woman, who for many years took her station every evening on George's Quay in Cork, whose appeals to the passengers were made in the most figurative manner, and never perhaps was more poetry on the subject of blindness uttered than I have heard from her lips.