Verily, Donnybrook fair is, to all intents and purposes, “dead and gone;”
for the modern wretched assemblage of hungry-looking cattle, dogs’-meat
horses, measly swine, and forlorn-looking human creatures, obliged to
content themselves with staring at the exterior of the show-booths, for
want of the means to visit the interior, no more resembles the Donnybrook
of the past, than a troop of the old “bulkies,” armed with their Arcadian
crooks, and helmeted with their old woollen nightcaps, resembled a
squadron of lancers.
Alas! alas! how every thing is altered! No longer does the quiet citizen
dread the approach of Trinity Sunday; no longer does he think it necessary
to barricade his windows, and postpone exterior painting for a week or
two, in order to save his glass and the decorator’s labour from the
nocturnal industry of the gentle College students.
The students never mustered in much force at Donnybrook, because it
unluckily came during the long vacation; but there were enough at any time
to kick up a shindy or scrimmage (by modern innovators called “a row”),
for, between those who resided in town, and such as for various reasons
kept the vacation within the College walls, a pretty decent muster could,
upon an emergency, be called together.
It was upon the 26th of August--isn’t it strange that I should recollect
the day of the month, though I forget the year!--that Bob O’Gorman, Dan
Sweeny, Dick Hall, and a few other under-graduates of T.C.D., resolved to
go to the fair and have a spree.
Dick was a little, delicate, effeminate-looking “ould crab,” and so
smock-faced that he would easily pass for a girl, and a rather
good-looking one, if dressed in female attire.
But Dick’s effeminacy was confined to his looks, for his muscular power
far exceeded that of any man an inch or two more in stature, or a stone
more in weight. He was a perfect master of the small-sword, had no match
at single-stick; and woe to the unhappy wretch who fell under the
discipline of his little bony fists, for he was an accomplished amateur in
the science of pugilism, then but little known and less practised than
subsequently by gentlemen.
On the present occasion it was resolved that Dick should sustain the
character of a girl, and much fun was anticipated from the punishment that
the remainder of the party would inflict upon any presumptuous individual
who should dare to molest the modest fair one.
At the end of the double range of tents called “Dame-street,” was one
called “the Larkers;” and as this was uniformly crowded by citizens of
Dublin, it was scarcely possible for any one, residing but for a month in
town, not to be recognised by some person present, who immediately passed
the name of the new-comer round, and he was surprised (if a raw one) to
hear himself addressed by name, by persons whom he never saw in his life
before.
It was at the entrance of this tent that a countryman stood, attired in
the usual large frieze over-coat (which, from its being worn in summer as
well as winter, might lead a stranger to suppose that there seldom or
never is a hot day in Ireland), and accompanied by a pretty,
bashful-looking girl, apparently fresh from the “interior.” After gaping
for a considerable time, some gentlemen, amused by the wonderment that he
exhibited, and probably somewhat touched by his companion’s charms, called
to him to “come in.” With some reluctance he accepted the invitation, and,
fearful of intruding upon the “gintlemin,” seated himself awkwardly upon
the end of a form; up _it_ tilted, and down _he_ went, to the great
delight of the beholders. Having gathered himself up, he reseated himself
more firmly, placing “Biddy” near him, she having declined all offers of
other accommodation pressed on her by the company.
Paddy O’Neill (the name by which he announced himself), having been pretty
well plied with punch, had grown very voluble, and seemed to be beginning
to feel himself quite at home, had told many queer stories, and made his
entertainers laugh very heartily, when two elderly gentlemen, closely
muffled, entered rather stealthily, and sliding over, suddenly seated
themselves behind Paddy. Biddy, who had been hitherto quite silent,
answering every compliment or remark addressed to her only with a smile,
gave Paddy a nudge, and whispered something into his ear, that caused him
to turn and gaze at the new arrivals.
“Arrah, thin, Docthor M----, agrah, who’d ha’ thought o’ meetin’ _you_
here?” said he, addressing one of them, who sprang at the mention of his
name, as if he had sat on the point of a stray nail; he and his companion
Dr H----, both senior fellows of Trinity College, having disguised
themselves, as they thought effectually, for the purpose of seeing, for
the first time in their lives, the fair, and the fun of it, without being
recognised in such an uncanonical assemblage. With this object they had
avoided exposing themselves to the risk of walking down the tent, but had
merely slipped in to reconnoitre from behind the shelter of the
frieze-coated customer, who now, so inopportunely and innocently, had
announced the name of one of them.
“Hold your tongue, sir!” said Dr M.; “you mistake me, sir.”
“Arrah, docthor darlint, sure iv I mistake ye, ye need’nt get into sich a
comflusthration about id; bud sure I know ye too well to mistake ye. Sure,
aint I the boy that had the misforthin to dhrop yer honor’s riverince into
the bog-hole, whin ye wint out to make believe ye were snipe shootin’,
down at Colonel Thrench’s, last Candlemas was a twelmonth.”
“I don’t know you, sir!” roared the doctor in an agony, hoping by his
ferocity to overawe the countryman into silence; but Paddy had taken too
much punch to notice the tone, and seemed incapable of entertaining or
following up more than one idea at a time, and the one now before him was
that of forcing himself, will he nill he, upon the recollection of the
worthy doctor.
“Ye don’t know me!--well, listen to that!--ye don’t know me!--oh, well, iv
that does’nt flog! Arrah, thin, maybe ye don’t recollect the bog-hole that
ye wanted me to carry ye over, an’ ye war so mortial heavy that my fut
slipped, an’ I had the luck to fall an my face, jist at the very edge iv
the slush, an’ ye pitched right-over, head foremost, into the very middle
iv id; an’ iv id was’nt for the good luck that yer legs stuck out, jist
the laste taste in life, by which I got a hould iv ye, sure would’nt ye be
lost intirely? An’ don’t ye”----
“Hold your tongue, you infernal scoundrel!” roared the enraged doctor, who
saw that every eye was fixed upon him, and every one’s attention drawn to
the spot, from the eagerness of manner and stentorian voice of Paddy,
whose reminiscence had produced a roar of laughter. Escape, too, was
utterly hopeless, for the tent had been filling, and the doorway was
blocked up by those who were pressing forward from the outside to get a
view of the speaker. “Hold your tongue, sirrah; you mistake me for some
one else. I never was thrown into a bog-hole in my life.”
“Oh! pillelieu! meellia murther! listen to that--as iv any one that iver
seen Docthor M-- ov Thrinity College could iver mistake him agin; bud sure
Docthor H-- there ’ill may be help out yer mimory [Dr H-- gave a writhe,
for he had hoped to have escaped, at least]; sure he was at the colonel’s
whin ye war brought home in the muck.”
This announcement of the names and address of both the unfortunate
betrayed, was received with a shout, whilst Paddy’s earnestness to free
himself from the charge of having blundered, increased every moment, and
reminiscence followed reminiscence, each in a louder tone than the
preceding, until his argument became a perfect shout, whilst the unlucky
S.F.T.C.D.’s strove to out-bellow him with their denials, and the audience
laughed, shouted, and danced with glee at the fun.
“I protest,” bawled Dr H--, “that I do not know Colonel Trench. You
mistake, my honest man; I never was at his place in my life. My friend
here, Dr M--, knows him, and has been there often; but I have not, I
assure you.”
“Oh! you ass,” bellowed Dr M--, “what do you acknowledge my name for? ’Tis
no wonder they call you ‘Leatherhead H--.’”
A renewed roar followed this piece of blundering recrimination.
“Never at Colonel Thrench’s!--not you!--oh! ye desavin’ ould villain!”
screamed the hitherto silent Biddy. “Not you!--Do ye know me!--do ye!--do
ye!!--Do-o-o-o-o ye!!!” every repetition of “do ye” being louder and
longer than the last, until she finished in a terrific long shriek,
squeezing her hands together upon her knees, and stamping alternately with
her feet, with a rapidity that gave the effect of a shake to her voice.
“I do protest and declare,” shouted the worthy doctor, “that I never, to
my knowledge, saw your face before.”
“Arrah, Biddy, avourneen, is this the ould Turk that ye tould me about,
bud would’nt mintion his name, that was so imperant to ye? Scraub his
face, the ould thief! and let me see iv he dar purvint ye, my darlin’.
Tache him to behave himself to unpurtected faymales!”
Biddy, who seemed quite inclined to forestall her companion’s orders, had
sprung upon the unlucky doctor before the sentence was half finished. He
strove in vain to shake her off; she clung to him like a wild-cat,
screaming, shrieking, scolding, biting, scratching, and tearing, until at
length she maddened him past all endurance by pulling two handfuls of hair
successively out of the little that remained on his skull, for which he
repaid her with two furious blows.
The spectators, who had hitherto looked on, and merely laughed at the
entire affair as an excellent joke, had undergone a change of sentiment
upon hearing the innuendo contained in Paddy’s last speech; and, no longer
considering the old gentlemen as a pair of innocents amusingly “blown,”
they now looked upon them as a pair of wicked old profligates, worse than
young ones; and one, more zealous than the rest, shouting out “shame! to
strike the girl,” stretched Dr H-- with a blow.
Dr M., irascible at all times, now lost all self-possession, and, unable
to reach his friend’s new assailant, turned furiously upon the cause of
all his woe, and bestowed a shower of blows with his stick upon Paddy,
before the latter had time to bring his cudgel to parry them. He soon
recovered himself, however, and from defendant quickly became assailant.
Many of the bystanders indignantly called out, “Murder the ould
villain--knock out his brains, Paddy. That’s right, Biddy; flitther him!”
and several proceeded to give a helping hand to the good work; but others
thought it was a shame for a whole lot of people to fall upon two, and in
their love for justice they ranged themselves alongside the reverend
doctors, shouting, “fair play’s a jewel!” The fight thickened, volunteers
joining either rank every moment, in the laudable endeavour to keep up the
balance of power. Biddy had quitted her grip of the doctor, and was now,
to the surprise of those who had time to look about them (and they were
few), engaged in the endeavour to wrench a stick out of the hands of a
huge hulk of an Englishman, who, having merely gone to see the fun at
Donnybrook, without the most remote idea of joining in a fight, could not
be persuaded of the necessity of giving his stick, as he did not intend to
use it himself, to one who _did_, and that one “a female!” At first he
laughed; but he was quickly obliged to put forth all his strength to
retain it, and, whilst twisting about, he caught a stray blow that floored
him; he fell against a table, which of course overset; the confusion
increased, when a shout suddenly arose, “Hurrah for Dr M--! Hurrah for Dr
H--! College to the rescue!--Trinity!--Trinity!”
At the well-known war-cry of the students, several changed sides; those
who had just been defending the doctors now turned upon them, whilst many
of their late assailants ranged themselves on their side. The citizens,
thinking that the number of students must be small, rushed to the spot, to
pay off sundry old scores; but one would imagine that the cry of “Trinity!
Trinity!” which resounded on all sides, was a sort of spell, or
incantation, that raised spirits from the earth, so many voices responded
to the call.
The unfortunate doctors, who had just expected nothing short of utter
annihilation, felt their spirits rise at the prospect of aid and rescue,
and bellowed with might and main, “Trinity! Trinity!” and in a few minutes
they were the nucleus of a fight in which the whole fair had joined.
“The poliss!--the poliss!--here come the bloody poliss!” was now the cry;
and the horse police dashed into the mob with their customary ardour,
their spurs fastened in their horses’ flanks causing them to plunge, and
bite, and kick most furiously, and laying about them with their swords,
cutting at every thing and every one within their reach; luckily they did
not know the sword exercise, and, therefore, when they struck with the
edge, it was only by accident. In a jiffy, the reverend seniors, caught in
the very act of shouting “Trinity!” were handcuffed, as were also the
Englishman, who got a blow of a sabre from a policeman that nearly took
off his ear, for attempting to expostulate; Paddy, who submitted quietly;
and Biddy, after a severe tussle, in which she reefed one policeman’s
face, and nearly bit the thumb off another. They were all put together
into a jingle, and conducted by a mounted escort to town; the police
hurrying them for fear of a rescue, by keeping continually whaling the
driver with the flats of their swords, and prodding the horse with the
points, which so enraged the jarvy, that when he got near the corner of
Leeson-street, Stephen’s-green, where two or three hundred of his
brethren were assembled, having whipped his Rosinante into a gallop, he
drove against a brewer’s dray, by which his traces were smashed, his horse
set free, the jingle locked fast, and he, springing off his perch, shouted
out, “down with the bloody poliss!”
In an instant the mob rushed upon them. Paddy and Biddy, with an alacrity
and agility truly astonishing, sprang from the lofty vehicle, plunged into
the crowd (where there were plenty of willing hands to free them from the
handcuffs), and escaped. Nor were the worthy doctors slow in following
their example, the only prisoner that remained being the bewildered
Englishman, who suffered “only” a three months’ incarceration in his
majesty’s jail of Newgate for going to see Donnybrook, and the fun at it,
his sentence having been mercifully mitigated, in consideration of its
being his first offence!
“Well,” said Dr H--, when he went with his head bandaged up, a shade over
his right eye, and about twenty bits of sticking plaster stuck over his
face, to visit Dr M-- (who was unable to leave his bed for a week), “well,
what a fool I was to be persuaded by you to go to Donnybrook fair! what a
pretty exhibition we would have made at the police office this morning!
Was it not most fortunate that we made our escape?”
“I have been thinking,” said (or rather groaned) Dr M--, “who that
scoundrelly country fellow could be. I never fell into a bog in my
life--that was all a lie; and still the blackguard’s face was familiar to
me.”
“I think he was very like that scapegrace Robert O’Gorman, only that he
had light hair; and though I could take my oath I know nothing of that
infamous little wretch that they called Biddy, yet I do think I have seen
her face before--hum”--
“Could it have been that he disguised himself, eh! I’ll inquire into it,
and if he did, by”--
“I think, my dear M--, you had better let it alone; the less _we_ say
about it the better. You know we really led the fight--that’s a fact that
can’t be denied; though it surprises me how we were hooked into it.”
A rustle at the door, followed by a loud knock, announced that the
newspaper had been thrust into the letter-box, from which Dr H--
immediately extracted it; and as he glanced over the page, the following
paragraph met his eye. It was headed “Disgraceful and fatal riot at
Donnybrook:”
“It is with mingled feelings of indignation, horror, and contempt, that we
feel bound, in discharge of our imperative, onerous, and painful duty to
the public, to give publicity to one of the most astounding, frightful,
and overwhelming facts which it has ever fallen to our lot, as faithful
journalists, to record. The peaceable, gentle, and innoxious inhabitants
of the village of Donnybrook, and the casual visitors who sought a little
innocent recreation at the fair now being holden, were yesterday evening
thrown into a state of the utmost alarm, confusion, and dismay, by a
barefaced attempt to carry off by brutal force a young girl from the
guardianship and protection of her brother. It appears that they had gone
into a tent to rest and refresh themselves (having probably over-exerted
their light fantastic toes), when their savage assailants (respecting
whose rank and station various rumours are afloat, which for the present
we forbear from mentioning) rushed upon them, and endeavoured to force her
away. The indignant bystanders interfered to prevent the outrage,
when--will it, can it be believed? our pen trembles, and a cold thrill
runs through us as we write it!--the worse than Indian war-whoop, the yell
of the collegians, was raised, and their numbers would in all human
probability have succeeded, but for the timely interference of the police,
to whose humanity, promptitude, and forbearance, upon the trying occasion,
too much praise cannot be given. The riot was not quelled until the
military were called out, and by three o’clock this morning all was again
quiet. Up to the time of going to press we had only heard of sixteen lives
being lost.
Second Edition.--We stop the press to announce that no lives have been
lost; but Sir Patrick Dunn’s, the Meath, and Mercer’s hospitals, are
crowded with wounded. N.B. The soldiers were not called out.
Third Edition.--Dr Fitzgerald has just informed us that there are no
wounded in either Sir Patrick’s, the Meath, or Mercer’s.”
“Well,” said Dr H--, “if they are not there, we at least know where some
of them are.”