[2] _Souper_ is a term applied to the few Irish Catholic peasants who,
during famine years, professed Protestantism in order to obtain the
relief, often intrusted for distribution to the clergy of the then
Established Church, who occasionally made a grant conditional upon
attendance at their services, etc., though as a rule acting impartially
and humanely.
(A.D. 184-)
I
Sure he’d never ha’ done it, not he, if I’d on’y but held o’ me tongue;
Och, the fool that I was, the black fool--for the same I’d deserve to be hung;
But, bedad thin, the tongue o’ ye’s harder than aught in the world else to hould,
An’ that mornin’ we all was disthracted an’ perished wid hunger an’ could.