“Is it not extraordinary, Michael,” said I one day (as a great number of
labourers were making up hay in one of the meadows, and Michael and
myself were seated on a heap of it), “that those poor fellows can
scarcely pronounce a sentence without some oath to confirm, or some
deity to garnish it with?”
“Master Jonah, (he never said ‘please your honour’ to any body but his
master,) sure its their _only_ way of talking _English_. They can speak
very good _Irish_ without either swearing or cursing, because it’s their
own tongue. Besides, all their forefathers used to be cursing the
English day and night for many a hundred years; so that they never used
the Sassanagh tongue without mixing curses along with it, and now it’s
grown a custom, and they say that the devil himself could not break them
of it—poor crethurs!”
“I should think the devil won’t try, Mick Heney.”
“It’s no joke, Master Jonah.”
“But,” said I, (desirous of drawing him out,) “they never fail to take
the name of J—s on every silly occasion. Sure there’s no reason in
_that_?”
“Yes, but there is, Master Jonah,” said Heney: “in the owld time, when
the English used to be cutting and hacking, starving and burning the
poor Irish, and taking all their lands, cattle and goods from them, the
crethurs were always praying to Jesus and his holy Mother to save them
from the Sassanaghs: and so, praying to Jesus grew so _pat_, that now
they can’t help it.”
“But then, Michael,” said I, “the commandments!”
“Poo-o! what have the crethurs to do with the commandments? Sure it’s
the Jews, and not the poor Catholics, that have to do with them: and
sure the parliament men make many a law twice as strong as any
commandments; and the very gentlemen that made those said laws don’t
observe their own enactments, except it suits their own purposes—though
every ’sizes some of the _crethurs_ are hanged for breaking one or two
of them.”
Heney was now waxing warm on the subject, and I followed him up as well
as I could. “Why, Mick, I wonder, nevertheless, that your clergy don’t
put a stop to the practice: perpetually calling on the name of our
Redeemer, without any substantial reason for so doing, is certainly
bad.”
“And what better name could they call on, Master Jonah?” said Heney.
“Why should the clergy hinder them? It’s only putting them in mind of
the name they are to be saved by. Sure there’s no other name could do
them a pennyworth of good or grace. It’s well for the crethurs they have
that same name to use. As father Doran says, pronouncing the glorified
name puts them in mind every minute of the only friend any poor Irish
boy can depend upon; and there can be no sin in reminding one of the
place we must all go to, and the Holy Judge we’ll be all judged by at
the latter end. Sure it’s not Sergeant Towler,[14] or the likes of him,
you’d have the crethurs swearing by, Master Jonah. He makes them
remember _him_ plentifully when he comes to these parts.”
-----
Footnote 14:
Toler, now Lord Norbury, of whom the common people had a great dread.
-----
“And even the schoolmasters don’t punish young children for the same
thing,” remarked I.
“Why should they?” rejoined Michael Heney. “Sure Mr. Beal, though he’s a
Protestant, does not forbid it.”
“How so?”
“Why, because he says if he did, it would encourage disobedience to
their parents, which is by all clergy forbidden as a great sin as well
as shame.”
“Disobedience!” said I, in wonder.
“Yes; the fathers and mothers of the _childer_ generally curse and swear
their own full share every day, at any rate: and if the master told the
childer it was a great sin, they would consider their fathers and
mothers wicked people, and so despise and fly in their faces!”
“But, surely you are ordered not to take God’s name in vain?”
“And sure,” said Heney, “its _not_ in vain when it makes people believe
the truth; and many would not believe a word a man said in this country
unless he swore to it, Master Jonah.”
“But cursing,” persisted I, “is ill-natured as well as wicked.”
“Sure there’s no harm in cursing a _brute beast_,” said Heney, “because
there’s no soul in _it_; and if one curses a _Christian_ for doing a bad
act, sure its only telling him what he’ll get a taste of on the day of
judgment.”
“Or, perhaps, _the day after_, Michael Heney,” said I, laughing.
“The devil a priest in the county can tell that,” said Heney; “but,
(looking at his watch,) you’re playing your _pranks_ on me, Master
Jonah! the bells should have been rung for the mowers’ dinner half an
hour ago, and be d—d to them! The devil sweep them altogether, the idle
crethurs!”
“Fie to yourself, Mr. Heney!” cried I: but he waited for no further
argument, and I got out, I really think, the reasons which they all
believe justify the practice. The French law makes an abatement of
fifteen years out of twenty at the gallies, if a man kills another
without premeditation: and I think the same principle may apply to the
involuntary assemblage of oaths which, it should seem, have been
indigenous in Ireland for some centuries past.