A large portion of the ground at Blackrock being held under a precarious ecclesiastical tenure, has no doubt prevented its improvement. The total want of places of worship for a district so numerously inhabited is very striking, there being neither church nor chapel, until within a few months, when, through the exertions of Doctor Murphy, the Titular Bishop of Cork, a Roman Catholic chapel was erected.

Adjoining the Blackrock road, in a field about a mile from Cork, amethysts have been found, but of an inferior quality to those procured in foreign countries. The quarry was discovered more than twenty years since, and after being worked for a short time the question of proprietorship got into Chancery, where it still remains.

Many tons of earth were thrown over the excavations which had been made, and a guard placed to prevent farther search; but notwithstanding these precautions, I have seen some good crystals recently picked up there.

It is the opinion of those more conversant than myself with geology,

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that a few months further work would have completely exhausted this amethystine mine, as from its situation it cannot be extensive.

Many curious anecdotes are told relating to its first discovery, which of course created what may be termed a sensation in Cork, and induced some of the jewellers to speculate largely in the purchase of amethysts. One of these stories partakes so much of the spirit of waggery ever superabundant in Cork, that I cannot resist its insertion. A lump of sugar-candy was procured by two or three of those mortals who are fond of enjoying a laugh at the expense of others, and carefully bedaubed with clay, through which the delicate glistening points of its crystals projected. This, being placed in the hands of a boy well instructed in his part, was offered for sale to a lapidary, who had, for some days previous, eagerly bought up every amethyst brought into his shop. “Some of them find purple stones,” said the boy, with an air of simplicity, “but here is a yellow stone, and I’ll not sell it under a guinea.” The bargain was soon struck, the money paid, and the lapidary, imagining he had obtained a fine topaz, and rejoicing in his good fortune, hastened to throw it into a basin of water to soften the clay which concealed its lustre. His astonishment and dismay were somewhat great on finding the gem dissolved, and the muddy water delicately sweetened! - but all was not lost he received an invitation that evening to a supper provided with his guinea, and on the entrance of a bowl of punch was asked if he did not usually sweeten it with “syrop of topaz.” Finding the laugh against him, he had no resource but to join in it with the best grace he could.

The beauty of Cork Harbour renders it an exceedingly attractive excursion for strangers, and one no less agreeable than easy in its performance, as steam-vessels, for the accommodation of passengers, ply between Cork and Cove.

Rising immediately from the northern shore of the river, below Cork, a richly wooded hill extends about three miles, studded with

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elegant mansions and villas; and at the head of a romantic valley that interrupts its continuance, the village of Glenmire is situated, on a small river of the same name which flows through this picturesque defile.

The probable derivation of the name Glenmire appears to be from two Irish words signifying the Vale of Pleasantry, although Dr. O’Brien in his Irish Dictionary has drawn it from a less obvious source. The village of Riverstown, formerly called Bally rosheen, or the Town of the Little Rose, joins that of Glenmire, and is principally inhabited by poor weavers and other manufacturers.

A severe skirmish took place here, on the 16th January, 1716, occasioned by a mutiny amongst the garrison of Cork, who left their barracks and encamped on the north side of the city for a few days, whence they proceeded to Glenmire, where they took up a position. On being attacked by some troops with two field-pieces that had arrived in the harbour the same morning, the mutineers, headed by a Dutchman named Garvy, made a desperate stand near the bridge, and their supply of ball cartridge failing, they made use of their buttons as a substitute for bullets, but were obliged at last to give way, and retreated in disorder. Garvy was afterwards tried and shot, with two others of the ringleaders. Numerous relics of this action were ploughed up in 1807, of which I remember having seen a rusty halberd and several grapeshot.

Glenmire with its surrounding scenery affords many pleasing subjects for the pencil, which, although excellent studies, are without any important or peculiar feature. The old parish church, about a mile distant from the village, is called Rathcooney, or the Rabbit’s Rath, probably from the number of raths or intrenchments to be seen in its neighbourhood. This church is in ruins and has been long disused for service, yet the little burial-ground attached to it continues to be a favourite place of interment.

The oldest date I could find amongst the tombs was 1680, on the

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Galway vault; but the following inscription appeared worth transcribing for the enigmatical account of a blind man, respecting whom I am unable to gain any further information.
“IHS
Erected by Jn[ordm ] Mac Nemara
Silk & his brothers for
a memorial of their burial
place. Their parents are
entard here & their Uncle
Cornelius Mac Nemara Silk
the most wonderful blind
man, worked at his trade
40 years; being blessed with
sight thow perfect blind.
God be mercifull to all
their souls.”

A small volume, purporting to be a picturesque description of Glenmire, was published at Cork in 1814, by a singular personage named Alexander, and is perhaps the most extraordinary literary compound in existence. This person, who is since dead, held some inferior situation under the excise, which had been bestowed on him as a reward for his conduct as Town Major of New Ross in the rebellion of 1798. He had been, as he once told me, a soldier and a sailor, a methodist preacher and a player, an excise officer and the author of many excellent and moral works - had been in the four quarters of the globe, and was the esteemed and acknowledged cousin-german of Sir W. S - , Bart, and Lord Mayor of the city of Dublin.

The Little Island or Lisle, so called in opposition to the Great Island or Barrymore, is situated below Glenmire, and forms, with the Great Island, the north-east shore of the Cork river. Behind these islands, which are separated from the main land by a shallow and scarcely navigable channel, lie Carrigtohill, an inconsiderable

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village, and Middleton, a poor town of one street about a quarter of a mile in length. Beyond these, on the eastern side of the harbour, is Castle Martyr, a neat and rather picturesque village, apparently thriving without manufactures; every house and person in the place wore a cleanly and happy appearance, which may be justly ascribed to the residence of Lord Shannon, whose extensive pleasure grounds and gardens are objects of much local celebrity.

On the 16th October, 1679, Lord Broghill (then Earl of Orrery), so frequently mentioned in this volume, died at Castle Martyr: I am induced to mention the circumstance from having procured accidentally some singular verses on his death, with other old papers, at a cottage in this neighbourhood. These verses were printed in London, for Rowland Reynolds, at the Middle Exchange in the Strand, 1680, and are entitled “Minerva’s Check to the Author, for attempting to write an Elegy upon the Right Honourable and much to be lamented Roger, first Earl of Orrery.” A few lines will probably be quite sufficient to satisfy the reader’s curiosity:

1. That news hath wings, we every day do find,
And ill doth ever leave the best behind;
Admire not then the death of Orrery,
Renown’d all ’s days, should in a moment flie
Both far and near, the world to terrific,
At Cork, at Dublin, London, and at Paris
Too soon ’t arrives, and Rome, but there ne’er tarries,
Till at both Indies, or where e’er more far is.

§

His care to breed brave horses thou wouldst write,
In peace for pleasure, and in war for fight:
Thou fain wouldst talk on ’s victory at Knockny Clarshy,
And praise him (next to God) the God-a-mercy.

 

§

His sacred Poems, now but in the press,
Will speak his noble praise in fairer dress.

 

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Manners and customs
1. 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.

Anonymous.

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!”

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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

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county Cork, dark blue is the predominant colour; whilst, in the western parts and in the county Kerry, light or powder blue is almost universally worn. The same peculiarity, but in a less degree, extends to female dress. In the eastern baronies of the county Cork and county Limerick, cloaks of the brightest red are seen. In the west of Cork and Kerry, dark blue and gray prevail. Previous to the rebellion of 1798, the former colour was more commonly worn than it has been since, and about that period red became generally disused. A contemptuous expression of the English soldiers at that time, after any contest, was “now a woman seen at a distance in her scarlet cloak would strike a panic throughout the whole country.”

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

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hood, is also a favourite head-dress, more particularly with those advanced in life, and is formed by a handkerchief carefully folded round the head and tied in a knot under the chin.

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

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the resistance was chiefly owing to the interference of a woman, who, perceiving the advance of the peace-officers and military, ran towards her husband and his brothers, “shouting out,” said the witness “Ballyhacket for ever, with the blue sky over it!” Thus calling forcibly into their minds the gloomy contrast of imprisonment, and sweeping, with a wild and rapid touch, the strings of freedom that master-chord of an Irish heart!

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 ancestry.” 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

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remembrance of high birth and remains of hereditary honours, unsupported by wealth and power, have not been more frequently incentives of daring wickedness, than motives of heroic actions, and whether more have not endeavoured to restore the dignities of their families, by shaking the government of their country, than by studying its interest or promoting its welfare.”

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.

.

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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

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the latch with the benediction, “God save all here!” is confident of receiving shelter and every rite of hospitality as far as it is in the power of the inmates to bestow them. He is welcomed to the best seat the cabin affords, the largest potatoe is selected from the dish and placed before him, and that “reserve towards strangers which alike characterize the Englishman and his mastiff,” is unknown. This hospitality is not confined solely to the cottage, but seems a national trait, which those who have visited the country, whatever may be their condition, are bound in gratitude to acknowledge. Smith, in his History of Cork, tells us of a stone which was formerly set up on the west side of the high road near Dunusky, not far from Macroom, bearing an inscription in Irish, desiring all travellers to repair to the house of Mr. Edmund Mac Swiney for entertainment. “This stone,” adds Dr. Smith, “now lies in a ditch, and the Irish say that the person of this family who overthrew it, never throve after.” A later period has witnessed the hospitality of Mr. Mathews, at Thomastown, in the county of Tipperary, a gentleman of moderate fortune, who constructed a mansion and maintained an establishment for the reception of forty guests; to whom, no doubt, the prolonged visit of Dean Swift, in company with Dr. Sheridan, is remembered.

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

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property have been yielded to gratify an inordinate desire of popularity.

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

1. From a still,
Just under the hill,
Where the eye of the ganger saw it not,

are strong temptations to indulgence; and indeed the patrons, or meetings on saint days, equal, if not exceed, the riot of an ancient Bacchanalia.

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

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miles with the whiskey in his hand until arrived without the prescribed boundary; or, in the second case, drink it in the open air; and even where he has pledged himself to drink “neither in nor out of a house,” his ingenuity has devised a mode of doing so, with one foot within the door and the other without; and, when he swears by all he considers holy, to drink “not a drop at all at all,” he surmounts his difficulty by eating the bread he has sopped in “the cratur.”

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

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O’Leary the outlaw and Morty Oge O’Sullivan, related in this volume, are sufficient to prove the want of legal restraint in Ireland within the last century. The feudal system survived in the hearts of the people to such an extent, that the laws were seldom carried into effect without the most violent popular excitement; “Might, not Right,” was the motto of the times; many estates were seized by force, and held until possession constituted a claim which could not be successfully opposed. Tracts of ground were granted to leading men for their protection, and compromises for seizure were often made by the weaker party. Of this, one instance is lying before me in an indenture dated at Cashel, 1734, where a farm of 85 acres, with the privilege of cutting turf on an adjoining common, is granted for 999 years, in consideration of the sum of one penny and the future security of several lands in the counties of Tipperary, Cork and Limerick. Nor was personal security more certain than that of property. Females were carried off by force from their dwellings, and compelled to become the wife or mistress of the man in whose power they were. It was enough that any farmer’s daughter was supposed to possess a dowry (one of five guineas being often considered a sufficient inducement); she was immediately seized and taken forcibly away from her father’s house, by some young man at the head of a gang of twenty or thirty associates. With the peasantry, this violent measure was commonly adjusted by marriage, and it was sometimes the conclusion of a rustic courtship.

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

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twenty men were armed with muskets and fowling-pieces, and others with scythes and bayonets stuck on poles. I think it was three years afterwards the same parties met at Ballyvourney, [27] in the west of the county Cork, when the sub-sheriff, having notice of their intended meeting, arrived with a few dragoons for the purpose of preserving the peace: on his appearance, the contending parties seemed to forget their former animosity, and uniting into one body, made so unexpected an attack with stones and other missiles, (the women and children even joining in the assault,) that the officers empowered to disperse the assembly were compelled to make a rapid retreat.

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

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who will tell you, they carry a cudgel “just to keep the cold out of their hands.”

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.

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They resemble in a great degree those of the Scottish peasantry, and are, as in the Highlands, more vigorously observed than in England, where civilization has destroyed most of the ancient and mysterious feelings productive of such rites.

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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.]

A small piece of money is usually bestowed on them, and the evening concludes in merry-making with the money thus collected.

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

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twilight from one cabin to another, and suddenly pushed in at the door. The alarm or surprize occasioned by this feat produces some mirth.

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,

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it is only those that seeks to belye me that spreads the report; but Honny for all that is as proper and clean a girl as any in the country, and if your honour did but know her, you’d not say that was a bold word, for nobody could gainsay it.”

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 buckaugh is a solitary and isolated being, one who seems to stand alone in the world without apparent occupation or pursuit.

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He is met travelling both on the high road and in unfrequented paths, at all hours and in all seasons, his beard unshaven, and his body encased in a garment composed of, shreds and patches, or, to use the more expressive local idiom, “a coat all stitches and packthread.” Loaded with innumerable bags and wallets, he strides on, assisted by a long walking pole shod with iron, and terminated by a formidable spike. “In the evening the buckaugh is seen seated beside the turf fire of the poor cottager’s hearth, partaking of his humble fare, the wallets and staff deposited in a corner of the cabin, and at night he reposes beside them on a bundle of straw. It is not uncommon to find these men with considerable literary acquirements; they are generally the possessors of several books and Irish manuscripts, which they have collected, and bear about from place to place with incredible fondness, nor can money always purchase part of their travelling library; their knowledge of writing renders them acceptable guests to many farmers, whose correspondence is often entirely carried on by such agency. By the younger members of the family, buckaughs are looked upon with much regard, and made the mutual confidant of their rustic amours. These persons write love-letters and then secretly deliver them, commend the youth to his mistress and the girl to her lover, and are consequently caressed and consulted by all parties. A buckaugh is the umpire of rural disputes, and the ambassador from one clan or faction to another, in which diplomatic capacity he is termed “the spokesman.” The superabundance of potatoes and broken victuals bestowed upon them from motives of gratitude or charity, they usually sell to the family of the poor peasant or to city mendicants, whom they consider as an inferior order of persons, and in fact they are so, as their respective means of gaining a livelihood are essentially at variance. Deeply conversant with character, this singular class of mendicants are quick, artful and intelligent, but assume a careless and easy

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manner, seldom hesitating when it is for their own advantage, duping those who have confided in them, and yet I have heard instances of the almost chivalrous honour of a poor buckaugh.”

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.

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Cloyne
Suche temporal war and bate
As nowe is made of late
Against holy Church estate!

§

God of his miseracion
Send better reformacion.

 

Skelton.