Humorous story of Father O’Leary and a bear—Mistaken notions respecting
Ireland on the Continent—Lord Ventry and his tenant: an anecdote
characteristic of the Irish peasant.
I frequently had an opportunity of meeting at my father-in-law’s, Mr.
Grogan’s, where he often dined, a worthy and celebrated priest, Father
O’Leary;—and have listened with great zest to anecdotes which he used to
tell with a quaint yet spirited humour quite unique. His manner, his
air, his countenance, all bespoke wit, talent, and a good heart. I liked
his company excessively, and have often regretted I did not cultivate
his acquaintance more, or recollect his witticisms better: but I was
then young, not a public person, and somewhat out of his line in
society. It was singular, but it was fact, that even before Father
O’Leary opened his lips, a stranger would say, “That is an _Irishman_,”
and at the same time guess him to be a priest.
One anecdote, in particular, I remember his relating with singular
animation. Coming from St. Omer, he told us, he stopped a few days to
visit a brother priest in the town of Boulogne sur Mer (who lives there
still). Here he heard of a great curiosity which all the people were
running to see,—a curious _bear_ that some fishermen had taken at sea
out of a wreck; it had sense, and attempted to utter a sort of lingo
which they called _patois marine_, but which nobody understood.
O’Leary gave his six sous to see the wonder, which was shown at the port
by candle-light, and was a very odd kind of animal, no doubt. The bear
had been taught a hundred tricks, all to be performed at the keeper’s
word of command. It was late in the evening when O’Leary saw him, and
the bear seemed sulky: the keeper, however, with a short spike at the
end of a pole, made him move about briskly. He marked on sand what
o’clock it was with his paw, and distinguished the men and women in a
very comical way; in fact, our priest was quite diverted. The beast at
length grew tired; the keeper hit him with the pole; he stirred a
little, but continued quite sullen: his master coaxed him—no! he would
not work! At length, the brute of a keeper gave him two or three sharp
pricks with the goad, when he roared out most tremendously, and rising
on his hind legs, cursed his tormentor in very good Irish. O’Leary went
immediately to the mayor, whom he informed that the blackguards of
fishermen had sewed up a poor Irishman in a bear-skin, and were showing
him for six sous! This civic dignitary, who had himself seen the bear,
would not believe it: at last O’Leary prevailed on him to accompany him
to the room. On their arrival the bear was still upon duty; and O’Leary,
stepping up to him, says, “_Gand e tha hawn, Pat?_” (How do you do,
Pat?)—“_Slonger a mahugouthe_,” (Pretty well, thank’ee,) says the bear.
The people were surprised to hear how plainly he spoke: but the mayor
directly ordered him to be ripped up; and after some opposition and a
good deal of difficulty, Pat stepped forth (stark naked) out of the
bear-skin wherein he had been fourteen or fifteen days most cleverly
stitched. The women made off; the men stood astonished; and the mayor
ordered the keepers to be put in gaol unless they _satisfied_ the bear
and the authorities, which was presently done. The bear afterward told
O’Leary that he was very well fed, and did not care much about the
clothing, only they worked him too hard. The fishermen had found him at
sea on a hen-coop, which had saved him from going to the bottom with a
ship wherein he had a little venture of dried cod from Dungarvon, and
which was bound from Waterford to Bilboa. He could not speak a word of
any language but Irish, and had never been at sea before. The fishermen
had brought him in, fed him well, and endeavoured to repay themselves by
showing him as a curiosity.
O’Leary’s mode of telling this story was quite admirable. I never heard
any anecdote (and I believe this one to have been true) related with so
much genuine drollery, which was enhanced by his not changing a muscle
himself, while every one of his hearers was in a paroxysm of laughter.
Another anecdote he used to give, though dry enough in itself, with
incomparable dramatic humour. By-the-bye, all his stories were in some
way _national_; and this affords me occasion to remark, that I think
Ireland is at this moment nearly as little known on many parts of the
continent as it seems to have been then. I have myself heard it more
than once spoken of in Brittany as an _English town_.
At Nancy, where Father O’Leary, as he told us, was travelling, his
native country happened to be mentioned; when one of the _société_, a
quiet French farmer of Burgundy, asked in an unassuming tone, “If
Ireland stood _encore_?”—“_Encore!_” said an astonished John Bull, a
courier coming from Germany, “_encore!_ to be sure she does: _we have_
her yet, I assure you, Monsieur.”—“Though neither very safe nor very
sound,” interposed an officer of the Irish brigade, who happened to be
present, looking over significantly at O’Leary, and not very
complacently at the courier.—“And pray, Monsieur,” rejoined the John
Bull to the Frenchman, “why _encore_?”—“Pardon, Monsieur,” replied the
Frenchman, “I heard it had been worn out, (_fatigué_) long ago by the
great number of people that were living in it!”
The fact was (I believe it not at all exaggerated), the Frenchman had
been told, and really understood, that Ireland was a large _house_ where
the English were wont to send their idle vagabonds, and from whence they
were drawn out again as they were wanted to fill the ships and army:—and
(I speak this from my own personal knowledge,) in some interior parts of
the continent the existence of Ireland, _as a kingdom_, is totally
unknown; it is at best considered as about a match for Jersey, or some
other little island. On the sea-coasts they are better informed. This
need not surprise us, when we have heard of a native of St. Helena
formerly, (who never had been out of the island,) who seriously asked an
English officer “If there were many _landing-places_ in _England_?” This
may be a _standing jest_, but it is highly _illustrative_.
Some ideas of the common Irish are so strange, and uttered so
unconsciously, that in the mouths of any other people they might be
justly considered profane. In those of my countrymen, however, such
expressions are _idiomatic_, and certainly spoken without the least idea
of _profanity_.
The last Lord Ventry was considered, before his father’s death, the
oldest heir-apparent in the Irish Peerage, to which his father
(originally low enough) had been raised in 1800, in consequence of an
arrangement made with Lord Castlereagh at the time of the Union. He had
for many years been bed-ridden, and had advanced to a _very_ great age
latterly without any corresponding utility: yet little apprehensions
were entertained of his speedy dissolution, and the family were in
despair.
A tenant on the estate, the stability of whose lease depended entirely
on the son surviving the father, and who was beginning to doubt which of
them might die of _old age_ first, said seriously to the heir-apparent,
but without the slightest idea of any sort of impropriety either as
respected God or man—
“Ah, then, Master Squire Mullins, isn’t it mighty strange that my poor
ould landlord (Heaven preserve his noble Lordship!) shou’d lie covered
up in the bed all this time past?—I think, plase your honour, that it
would be well done to take his Lordship (Lord bless his honour!) up to
Crow-Patrick, and hold him up there as high as could be—just to _show_
his Lordship a bit to the _Virgin_. For I’m sure and sartin, plase your
honour, if God Almighty hadn’t quite _forgot_ his Lordship, he would
have taken him home to _himself_ long and many a day ago.”
The relation of this anecdote appears to have been ominous, as my Lord
the son was also carried off to his forefathers (if he could _find_
them) a few months after the first edition of this work was published.
The eccentric traits of the genuine Irish character are certainly
wearing fast away; and if some _contemporary_ of by-gone persons and
customs did not take the trouble of recording those traits, they would
be considered (if related in future times) as ridiculous fabrications.