'The light-hearted daughters of Erin,
Like the wild mountain deer they can bound;
Their feet never touch the green island,
But music is struck from the ground.
And oft in the glens and green meadows,
The ould jig they dance with such grace,
That even the daisies they tread on,
Look up with delight in their face.'
James M'Kowen.
One of our favourite diversions is an occasional glimpse of a
'crossroads dance' on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, when all the young
people of the district are gathered together. Their religious duties are
over with their confessions and their masses, and the priests encourage
these decorous Sabbath gaieties. A place is generally chosen where two
or four roads meet, and the dancers come from the scattered farmhouses
in every direction. In Ballyfuchsia, they dance on a flat piece of road
under some fir-trees and larches, with stretches of mountain covered
with yellow gorse or purple heather, and the quiet lakes lying in the
distance. A message comes down to us at Ardnagreena--where we commonly
spend our Sunday afternoons--that they expect a good dance, and the
blind boy is coming to fiddle; and 'so if you will be coming up, it's
welcome you'll be.' We join them about five o'clock--passing, on our
way, groups of 'boys' of all ages from sixteen upwards, walking in twos
and threes, and parties of three or four girls by themselves; for it
would not be etiquette for the boys and girls to walk together, such
strictness is observed in these matters about here.
When we reach the rendezvous we find quite a crowd of young men and
maidens assembled; the girls all at one side of the road, neatly dressed
in dark skirts and light blouses, with the national woollen shawl over
their heads. Two wide stone walls, or dykes, with turf on top, make
capital seats, and the boys are at the opposite side, as custom demands.
When a young man wants a partner, he steps across the road and asks
a colleen, who lays aside her shawl, generally giving it to a younger
sister to keep until the dance is over, when the girls go back to their
own side of the road and put on their shawls again. Upon our arrival we
find the 'sets' are already in progress; a 'set' being a dance like
a very intricate and very long quadrille. We are greeted with many
friendly words, and the young boatmen and farmers' sons ask the ladies,
“Will you be pleased to dance, miss?” Some of them are shy, and say
they are not familiar with the steps; but their would-be partners remark
encouragingly: “Sure, and what matter? I'll see you through.” Soon all
are dancing, and the state of the road is being discussed with as much
interest as the floor of a ballroom. Eager directions are given to the
more ignorant newcomers, such as, “Twirl your girl, captain!” or “Turn
your back to your face!”--rather a difficult direction to carry out, but
one which conveys its meaning. Salemina confided to her partner that she
feared she was getting a bit old to dance. He looked at her grey hair
carefully for a moment, and then said chivalrously: “I'd not say that
that was old age, ma'am. I'd say it was eddication.”
When the sets, which are very long and very decorous, are finished,
sometimes a jig is danced for our benefit. The spectators make a ring,
and the chosen dancers go into the middle, where their steps are watched
by a most critical and discriminating audience with the most minute and
intense interest. Our Molly is one of the best jig dancers among the
girls here (would that she were half as clever at cooking!); but if you
want to see an artist of the first rank, you must watch Kitty O'Rourke,
from the neighbouring village of Dooclone. The half door of the barn is
carried into the ring by one or two of her admirers, whom she numbers
by the score, and on this she dances her famous jig polthogue, sometimes
alone and sometimes with Art Rooney, the only worthy partner for her in
the kingdom of Kerry. Art's mother, 'Bid' Rooney, is a keen matchmaker,
and we heard her the other day advising her son, who was going to
Dooclone, to have a 'weeny court' with his colleen, to put a clane
shirt on him in the middle of the week, and disthract Kitty intirely by
showin' her he had three of thim, annyway!
Kitty is a beauty, and doesn't need to be made 'purty wid cows'--a feat
that the old Irishman proposed to do when he was consummating a match
for his plain daughter. But the gifts of the gods seldom come singly,
and Kitty is well fortuned as well as beautiful; fifty pounds, her own
bedstead and its fittings, a cow, a pig, and a web of linen are supposed
to be the dazzling total, so that it is small wonder her deluderin' ways
are maddening half the boys in Ballyfuchsia and Dooclone. She has the
prettiest pair of feet in the County Kerry, and when they are encased in
a smart pair of shoes, bought for her by Art's rival, the big constable
from Ballyfuchsia barracks, how they do twinkle and caper over that half
barn door, to be sure! Even Murty, the blind fiddler, seems intoxicated
by the plaudits of the bystanders, and he certainly never plays so well
for anybody as for Kitty of the Meadow. Blindness is still common in
Ireland, owing to the smoke in these wretched cabins, where sometimes a
hole in the roof is the only chimney; and although the scores of
blind fiddlers no longer traverse the land, finding a welcome at all
firesides, they are still to be found in every community. Blind Murty
is a favourite guest at the Rooney's cabin, which is never so full that
there is not room for one more. There is a small wooden bed in the
main room, a settle that opens out at night, with hens in the straw
underneath, where a board keeps them safely within until they have
finished laying. There are six children besides Art, and my ambition is
to photograph, or, still better, to sketch the family circle together;
the hens cackling under the settle, the pig ['him as pays the rint')
snoring in the doorway, as a proprietor should, while the children are
picturesquely grouped about. I never succeed, because Mrs. Rooney sees
us as we turn into the lane, and calls to the family to make itself
ready, as quality's comin' in sight. The older children can scramble
under the bed, slip shoes over their bare feet, and be out in front of
the cabin without the loss of a single minute. 'Mickey jew'l,' the baby,
who is only four, but 'who can handle a stick as bould as a man,' is
generally clad in a ragged skirt, slit every few inches from waist to
hem, so that it resembles a cotton fringe. The little coateen that tops
this costume is sometimes, by way of diversion, transferred to the dog,
who runs off with it; but if we appear at this unlucky moment, there
is a stylish yoke of pink ribbon and soiled lace which one of the girls
pins over Mickey jew'l's naked shoulders.
Moya, who has this eye for picturesque propriety, is a great friend
of mine, and has many questions about the Big Country when we take our
walks. She longs to emigrate, but the time is not ripe yet. “The girls
that come back has a lovely style to thim,” she says wistfully, “but
they're so polite they can't live in the cabins anny more and be
contint.” The 'boys' are not always so improved, she thinks. “You'd
niver find a boy in Ballyfuchsia that would say annything rude to a
girl; but when they come back from Ameriky, it's too free they've grown
intirely.” It is a dull life for them, she says, when they have once
been away; though to be sure Ballyfuchsia is a pleasanter place than
Dooclone, where the priest does not approve of dancing, and, however
secretly you may do it, the curate hears of it, and will speak your name
in church.
It was Moya who told me of Kitty's fortune. “She's not the match that
Farmer Brodigan's daughter Kathleen is, to be sure; for he's a rich man,
and has given her an iligant eddication in Cork, so that she can look
high for a husband. She won't be takin' up wid anny of our boys, wid
her two hundred pounds and her twenty cows and her pianya. Och, it's a
thriminjus player she is, ma'am. She's that quick and that strong that
you'd say she wouldn't lave a string on it.”
Some of the young men and girls never see each other before the
marriage, Moya says. “But sure,” she adds shyly, “I'd niver be contint
with that, though some love matches doesn't turn out anny better than
the others.”
“I hope it will be a love match with you, and that I shall dance at your
wedding, Moya,” I say to her smilingly.
“Faith, I'm thinkin' my husband's intinded mother died an old maid in
Dublin,” she answers merrily. “It's a small fortune I'll be havin' and
few lovers; but you'll be soon dancing at Kathleen Brodigan's wedding,
or Kitty O'Rourke's, maybe.”
I do not pretend to understand these humble romances, with their
foundations of cows and linen, which are after all no more sordid than
bank stock and trousseaux from Paris. The sentiment of the Irish peasant
lover seems to be frankly and truly expressed in the verses:--
'Oh! Moya's wise and beautiful, has wealth in plenteous store,
And fortune fine in calves and kine, and lovers half a score;
Her faintest smile would saints beguile, or sinners captivate,
Oh! I think a dale of Moya, but I'll surely marry Kate.
. . . . .
'Now to let you know the raison why I cannot have my way,
Nor bid my heart decide the part the lover must obey--
The calves and kine of Kate are nine, while Moya owns but
eight,
So with all my love for Moya I'm compelled to marry Kate!'
I gave Moya a lace neckerchief the other day, and she was rarely
pleased, running into the cabin with it and showing it to her mother
with great pride. After we had walked a bit down the boreen she excused
herself for an instant, and, returning to my side, explained that she
had gone back to ask her mother to mind the kerchief, and not let the
'cow knock it'!
Lady Kilbally tells us that some of the girls who work in the mills deny
themselves proper food, and live on bread and tea for a month, to
save the price of a gay ribbon. This is trying, no doubt, to a
philanthropist, but is it not partly a starved sense of beauty asserting
itself? If it has none of the usual outlets, where can imagination
express itself if not in some paltry thing like a ribbon?