[..]

In setting down peasant speech, Carleton had several problems to contend with. First, his comment in the preface raises the question of how much “Doric” speech his readers would relish. Second, when he had decided how much to include, how was he to represent it? Carleton at his best was able to indicate Irish speech quite simply and effectively in English words, often by word-order and implied intonation.But, particularly on his earlier works, he was preoccupied with setting down actual sounds. Where the word or phrase was Gaelic he usually approximated some sort of English spelling. (p.26.)

At that time, Irish peasants would have been very much closer to their native tongue and they would naturally have used many Irish words, phrases and derivatives when they spoke English (p.190.)

[...]

It was not until 1842 that Carleton at last explained his reasons for abandoning the fireside narrative: “on looking into the matter more closely, he had reason to think that such a plan .... would ultimately narrow the sphere of his work, and perhaps fatigue the reader by a superfluity of irish dialogue, and its peculiarities of phraseology”, and resolved “to abandon his original design, and leave himself more room for description and observation.” (Traits & Stories, 1842.) This late appendage to the story [i.e., “The Battle of the Factions”] illustrates Carleton’s equivocal attitude to Irish dialect and those “peculiarities of phraseology” which he sometimes exaggerates, sometimes diminishes, in his characters’ speech. the argument that the fireside form might “narrow the sphere of his work” is convincing, not all subjects or comments being suitable for the peasant speakers. Carleton had embarked on a scheme of stories within stories, involving voices imitated by other voices. He had already the ability to handle voices (as in Ned M’Keown’s account of Jack and the lady in “The Three Tasks”) and was to develop it further. The departure from the group of narrative allows more authorial intevention, and addresses to the reader, and abstract generalizations, not always Carleton’s strong points. Whether or not he was right to escape the limits of the convention, the lack of explanation in this edition [1830] leaves the fireside section curiously open-ended. (p.5.)

[In a lengthy note, Hayley explains that Carleton ‘must have experienced some awkwardness here because in the second edition of the First Series of Traits and Stories [2b] he gives “The Battle of the Factions” the subheading “composed into narrative by a hedge schoolmaster”, suggesting a story by him or by the mysterious O’Callaghan, “ghosted” by the hedge schoolmaster. This subtitle remained for two or more editions, until the 1842 “New edition” [15a], when in a new introduction Pat Frayne, the hedge-schoolmaster, explains that he is “not bright, however, at oral relation” and has “composed into narrative the following tale, which is appellated ‘The Battle of the Factions’.” The actual story begins: “My grandfather, Connor O’Callagh ...”. Presumably this was a maternal grandfather - but the storyteller’s claim to be an O’Callaghan is by now unfathomable.’ (Traits & Stories, 1842, A New Edition [15a], Vol. I, p.144; Hayley, Notes, p.398.)

[...]

The story now placed next, “The Station”, obliterates the fireside scene with its first words: “Our readers are to suppose the Reverend Philemy M’Guirk, parish priest of Tir-neer, to be standing upon the altar of the chapel ...” This abandoned “original design”, which marred the first edition of the first Series, has thus been carried right through to Carleton’s grandest presentation of the Traits and Stories. It is a serious flaw in the workmanship; what might have been excusable in an apprentice author in his first work written for book publication is not so in an experienced writer. Carleton does not continue the whole book within the framework he at first proposes, nor rewrite all the stories without it, nor round off the fireside group of stories with its own conclusion. The main problem for Carleton was probably not the superfluity or fatiguing quality of the dialogue but the narrowing of the sphere; clearly Carleton’s philosophical and historical comments could not have been uttered by Ned’s customers. But the belated parenthetical excuse is lame, again obtruding the author as a manipulator, and bringing the mechanics of writing too closely to the reader’s attention.

[Here Hayley quotes Thomas Flanagan in The Irish Novelists 1800-1850, N.Y., 1959, p. 292: ‘[Flanagan] approves Carleton’s dropping of the fireside narrative on the grounds that “the convention, which even then was stiff and a bit faded, is in every way alien to [Carleton’s] talents ... M’Keown’s public house is no shebeen, but an English wayside inn, and the storytellers are not peasants but ‘rustics’; but in my opinion the fireside peasants are well-handled, convincing, and capable of enhancing the stories they tell. “Shane Fadh’s Wedding” for example is a moving and well-written tale that gains from Shane’s first-person narrative and even from the interruptions of its audience, and much of the comedy in “The Three Tasks” comes from the peasant narrator’s naive idea of the mysterious lady’s fine talk. The fireside device had been embarked on and abandoned by Gerald Griffin in Hollandtide [1827]. He sets the scene, and one character says, ‘Gather round the fire, do ye, and let every body tell his story after his own way’, but then avoids the direct narrative: ‘Avowing the source from which his materials were taken, the collector thinks himself entitled to tell the stories after his own liking’. (Gerald Griffin, Hollandtide & The Aylmers of Ballyaylmer, Duffy, Dublin, n.d., p.10).]’

The alterations to the fireside group of stories not concerned with the setting itself are less intensive than in previous editions. [...; p.279.];[...];“The Lough Derg Pilgrim”, too [i.e., as well as “Neal Malone”], had had an independent existence before its inclusion amongst the Traits and Stories in the 1842 ‘New edition’ (Traits and Stories ... &c., 1842, Vol. 1, pp.236-70). It first appeared as “A Pilgrimage to Patrick’s Purgatory”, signed W., in the Christian Examiner and Church of Ireland Magazine, in the April and May issues of 1828. ( CE, Vol. VI, April 1928, pp.268-86; Vol. VI, May 1828, pp.343-62.) It was next published anonymously in book form by William Curry of Dublin in 1829, with another Christian Examiner story, as Father Butler. The Lough Dearg Pilgrim, being Sketches of Irish Manners (pp.201-320). Curry produced a second edition of the book in 1839, as Father Butler. The Lough Dearg Pilgrim, this time ‘by William Carleton, Author of “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry”, “Tales of Ireland”, &c.’ (pp.153-229).

“A Pilgrimage to Patrick’s Purgatory” was Carleton’s first published work; his introduction to the sketch in the 1842 ‘New Edition’ tells us that Caesar Otway suggested that he write down for the Christian Examiner his experiences on the pilgrmage to Lough Derg as a young man:

Carleton’s dates are hazy: the story had appeared in the spring of 1828, not the winter of 1829; Otway’s Sketches in Ireland had appeared in 1827 (viz., Sketches in Ireland descriptive of interesting, and hitherto unnoticed districts, in the north and south by ‘C.O’, Dublin: William Curry 1827). ; There was nothing new in the idea of a description of Lough Dearg, in this age of literary tours and topography. Otway’s own description in Sketches in Ireland had dwelt on Lough Derg, in the passage quoted by Carleton, as the symbol of ‘the monstrous birth of a dreary and degraded superstition, the enemy of mental cultivation, and destined to keep the human understanding in the same dark unproductive state as the moorland waste that lay outstretched around.’ (Quoted in Carleton, Traits & Stories, 1842, Vol. I, p.238.); Protestant periodicals frequently describe its bleakness, its dark superstition. ‘A day at Lough Patrick’ b ‘F.G’. for example, appeared in the Christian Examiner in January 1831, three years after Carleton’s sketch, when Otway was no longer editor. This describes crowds of horses, men, women, sheep and children, ‘not going to worship God but St. Patrick’, observed by Protestants who go to Lough Derg for amusement. On the day described, they were attacked, brutally ill-treated, left lying insensible, their arms broken. When the news of the attack spread, an Orange party came and fired upon the crowd, killing two or three. ‘On my way home I saw a party of devotees from my own parish coming out of a chapel ... most of them in a state of intoxication ...’ ‘Such was one day spent in the midst of Romish purity’, remarks F.G. of the ‘abominations of Lough Patrick’. Three years before Carleton, “E”, a contributor to another ultra-Protestant periodical, The Belfast Magazine and Literary Journal, had described Lough Derg as one of his ‘Excursions in Ulster’: ‘a situation more solitary and bleak can [335] scarcely be conceived, than that which has been chosen for this great religious station’ (BMLJ, Vol. 1, No. 5, June 1825, pp.387-95); but was more tolerant of what he found there. [Here Hayley quotes at length.]

[...]

What is distinctive about Carleton’s sketch, as Otway, that excellent editor, had perceived, was that it was drawn from within. Most other descriptions of the pilgrimage were by observers who were either prejudiced Protestants, or topographical scene-hunters. It was a scoop for Otway to have secured not just a participant in the pilgrimage, but one who was now disillusioned by it: ‘It was that pilgrimage and the reflections occasioned by it, added to a riper knowledge and a maturer judgment, that detached me from the Roman Catholic Church, many of whose doctrines, when I became a thinking man, I could not force my judgment to believe.’ (Carleton, Autobiography, Fitzroy Edn., London 1968, pp.91-92.) Carleton himself often stresses the fact that he is giving us inside information. The preamble to the Christian Examiner account (omitted [336] from the other versions) claims that ‘A man must be brought up among the Irish peasantry and under superstition, before he can understand its form and character correctly. Even to live amongst them upon their own level, is not sufficient to enable a man to observe, through every stage of life, and in the private recesses of every family, the incredible dominion which this absurd principle exercises over them.’ (CE, Vol. VI, April 1828, p.268.)

And he often insists on the accuracy of this sketch, as in the preface to the first edition of Father Butler. The Lough Dearg Pilgrim: ‘With respect to the “Lough Dearg Pilgrim”, it exhibits a correct and faithful picture of that Romish superstition, and is the first satisfactory account of it which has gone before the public’, (p.iv.), or in the Autobiography: ‘My “Lough Derg Pilgrim” is probably one of the most extraordinary productions that ever appeared in any literature. It resembles a coloured photograph more than anything else. There is not a fact or incident, or a single penal step of duty - and God knows there is many a penal step to be to taken there - which is not detailed with the minuteness of the strictest truth and authenticity. There is not even an exaggeration of any kind in it’. (Autobiography, 1968 Edn., p.91-92.) He makes the same points in the ‘General Introduction’ to the 1842 ‘New edition’:

Ever since my boyhood, in consequence of the legends which I had heard from my father, about the far-famed Lough-derg, or St. Patrick’s Purgatory, I felt my imagination fired with a romantic curiosity to perform a station at that celebrated place. I accordingly did so, and the description of that most penal performance, some years afterwards, not only constituted my debut in literature, but was also the means of preventing me from being a pleasant, strong-bodied parish priest at this day; indeed, it was the cause of changing the whole destiny of my subsequent life.
 “The Lough-derg Pilgrim” is given in the present edition, and may be relied on, not so much as an ordinary narrative, as a perfect transcript of what takes place during the stations which are held there in the summer months. (Traits & Stories, Vol. 1, p.xvi.)

[Hayley goes on to describe the plot and the treatment of the Catholic church and Catholic superstition in ‘the purple Papist-baiting prose of the Christian Examiner’ (Hayley, p.339), noting that the ‘rotten prop’ passage survived up to the 1839 edition while and the vision of the Catholic church as a Juggernaut survived up to the 1842 edition. (Hayley, p.339.)]

˜

[ Note: The ensuing excerpt illustrates Hayley’s extensive examination of the contemporary critical response to the issued of the Second Series of the Traits in 1833, Vols. 2 and 3 of which were considerably delayed in reaching the reviewing organs with consequent signs of irritation on the part of English reviewers. (The reviews she canvasses are taken from ultra-Protestant, liberal Protestant, and Catholic journals - Irish and English.]

[...] the New Monthly Magazine [Feb. 1833, p.239] disapproves very strongly, starting its mainly favourable review “We received the first volume of this publication time enough to notice it in the December Number of our Magazine; and we rather think it was expected of us so to do; but, though it may be in strict accordance with the habits and peculiarities of Irish publishers, to get out their works by bits and scraps, it does not suit the habits of Englishmen to give ex parte statements on the merits of any until they see it all”. The review concludes with a condescending “word or two to the Hibernian publishers in general”:

How is it that the moment you touch an Irish book it falls to pieces? - the cover either disdains any longer to protect the leaves, or the leaves take French leave and decamp of themselves; - the paper is either so thick that it breaks your paper-knife, or so thin that it won’t bear the knife at all - half-a-dozen of the pages are wanting at the most interesting part of the narrative, to be sure you find them in the next volume, where they are exceedingly mal-a-propos, in breaking off the thread of another story. Then an unfortunate volume is despatched on its travels solus - we beg the publisher’s pardon, not solus - for with it comes a note, stating that the others “were not quite ready, but would soon be on the road.” - But why the --, (there! - we were almost moved to wrathfulness,) were they not ready? What prevented it? or rather, why should anything prevent it? We are told in the preface that a fire consumed the volumes, or a portion of them, as they first came from the press, but that is no excuse for the blunder which accompanied the publishing. We are convinced that the unbusiness appearance of works issuing from the Irish press is exceedingly injurious to their English sale: they are ten to one more clumsily got up than the American books that are sold cheap, while these Irish “big” volumes are charged at full London prices. We wish Mr. Carlton [sic] would send forth a cheap edition, that Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry might be in the hands of people as well as peers.

This point turns out to be the main difference between the Irish reviews of the Second Series and the others. The mood of the Irish periodicals is self-congratulatory; they are pleased that any Irish publication should have emerged from the presses at all. As the University Review and Quarterly and the Dublin University Magazine were both making their own first appearances, it was natural that they should devote part of their reviews to observations on Irish publishing as related to the Traits and Stories. The University Review and Quarterly starts with what might be an answer to the New Monthly, a month before its criticism was to be made: it [380] rejoices to see the Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry reappearing “particularly in a manner so creditable to the character of our Press, and the exertions of this spirited Publisher.” (Jan. 1833, pp.40-41.) No longer will it be a sign of poverty or mediocrity to publish in Ireland. New periodicals are appearing, and publishers are becoming more far-sighted. Periodicals have failed before because they have offered inferior magazines at inflated prices; bad publishers “throw up their publication as a bad speculation, and attribute the effects of their own stupidity, self-sufficiency, and want of capital, to a lack of a literary taste in poor Irishmen”. But Carleton’s success is evidence that books written and published in Ireland need not fail (“what would furnish a more striking example than the first Series of Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, which has already run to a second edition?”) and they hope and are sure that “the volumes now offered to the public, and in every way so well worthy of their favour, will experience that degree of support from the Irish public that we have asserted they have given, and ever will give, to such works as are deserving o fit”. The Dublin University Magazine also hopes that Carleton will succeed in Ireland and stop the “export” from Irish shores of their “brothers of the quill”, as he continues to “work this valuable mine, in which he has discovered and partially wrought, a new and rich vein”. It too rejoices that publishers are at last “not unwilling to risk capital in promoting literary exertion in this country, and purchasers ready to sanction the risk”. Time was, when such an undertaking would be looked upon as a speculation; now “books are published and publishing in Dublin, which, in our youthful days, could only have found purchasers andpublishers at the other side of the channel”. (Jan. 1833, pp.41-42.) ;These two reviewer, as well as being more personally concerned with Carleton’s prospects, look at his work with a more specialist eye than the English or Scottish critics; they may have influenced one or two of the changes which Carleton subsequently made to the stories. [...].’ (pp.379-80.)