GALWAY OF THE TRIBES
IT was in the dusk of early evening that our train started westward from
Athlone, and we soon found ourselves traversing again the dreary bogs
which we had crossed on our way from Athenry. I have seldom seen a more
beautiful sunset than the one that evening, and we watched the changing
sky and the flaming west for long hours; and then, just as darkness
came, the great reaches of Galway Bay opened before us, and we were at
our journey's end--Galway of the Tribes, the beautiful old town which is
the gateway to Connemara.
There is a good hotel connected with the railway, and we had dinner
there, and then went forth to see the town. We were struck at once by
its picturesqueness, its foreign air. The narrow curving streets do not
somehow look like Irish streets, nor do the houses look like Irish
houses; rather might one fancy oneself in some old town of France or
Belgium. We were fascinated by it, and wandered about for a long time,
along dim lanes, into dark courts, looking at the shawled women and
listening to the soft talk of the strolling girls.
* * * * *
Nobody knows certainly how Galway got its name. Some say it was because
a woman named Galva was drowned in the river; others maintain that the
name was derived from the Gallaeci of Spain, who used to trade here; and
still others think that it came from the Gaels, who eventually occupied
it in the course of their conquest of Ireland. Whatever the origin of
the name, the town was but a poor place, a mere trading village of
little importance, until the English came. Richard de Burgo was granted
the county of Connaught by the English king in 1226, and six years later
he entered Galway, rebuilt and enlarged the castle which had been put up
by the Connaught men, threw a wall around the town, and so established
another of those centres of Norman power, which were soon to overshadow
the whole of Ireland. It was a very English colony, at first, with a
deep-seated contempt for the wild Irish. Over the west gate, which
looked toward Connemara, was the inscription,
FROM THE FURY OF THE O'FLAHERTIES
GOOD LORD DELIVER US.
and one of the by-laws of the town was that no citizen should receive
into his house at Christmas or on any other feast day any of the Burkes,
MacWilliamses, or Kelleys, and that "neither O' nor Mac shalle strutte
ne swaggere thro the streetes of Gallway."
The years wore away this animosity, as they have a fashion of doing in
Ireland, and by Cromwell's time, the citizens of the town had become so
Irish that they were contemptuously called "the tribes of Galway" by the
Puritan soldiers. But, as was the case of the Beggars in Holland, a name
given in contempt was adopted as a badge of honour, and the "Tribes of
Galway" became a mark of distinction for men who had suffered and fought
and had never been conquered. There were thirteen of these tribes; and
the Blakes and Lynches and Joyces and Martins who still form the greater
part of the old town's population are their descendants--but how fallen
from their high estate!
For many years, Galway had a practical monopoly of the trade with Spain,
there was always a large Spanish colony here, and it is to this
long-continued intercourse that many persons attribute the foreign air
of the town. I have even seen it asserted that the people are of a
decided Spanish type; but we were unable to discern it, and I am
inclined to think the Spanish influence has been much exaggerated. Its
period of prosperity ended with the coming of the Parliamentary army,
which took the place and plundered it; and the final blow was struck
forty years later, when the army of William of Orange, fresh from its
victories to the east, laid siege to it and captured it in two days. The
old families found themselves ruined, trade utterly ceased, the great
warehouses fell to decay, and the mansions of the aristocracy, no longer
able to maintain them, were given over to use as tenements. There is
to-day about Galway an air of ruin and decay such as I have seen
equalled in few other Irish towns; but there are also some signs of
reawakening, and it may be that, after three centuries, the tide has
turned.
* * * * *
We found the streets crowded, next morning, with the most picturesque
people we had seen anywhere in Ireland, for it was Saturday and so
market day, and the country-folk had gathered in from many miles around.
The men were for the most part buttoned up in cutaways of stiff frieze,
nearly as hard and unyielding as iron; and the women, almost without
exception, wore bright red skirts, made of fuzzy homespun flannel, which
they had themselves woven from wool dyed with the rich crimson of
madder. The shaggier the flannel, the more it is esteemed, and some of
the skirts we saw had a nap half an inch deep. They are made very full
and short, somewhat after the fashion of the Dutch; but the resemblance
ended there, for most of these women were barefooted, and strode about
with a disregard of cobbles and sharp paving-stones which proved the
toughness of their soles.
Galway, as well as most other Irish towns, boasts a number of millinery
stores, with windows full of befeathered and beribboned hats; but one
wonders where their customers come from, for hats are a luxury unknown
to most Irish women, who habitually go either bareheaded, or with the
head muffled in a shawl. All the women here in Galway were shawled, and
beautiful shawls they were, of a delicate fawn-colour, and very soft and
thick.
We went at once to the market, and found the country women ranged along
the curb, with great baskets in front of them containing eggs and butter
and other products of the farm. How far they had walked, that morning,
carrying these heavy burdens, I did not like to guess, but we met one
later who had eight miles to go before she would be home again. A few
had carts drawn by little grey donkeys; and the old woman in one of
these was so typical that I wanted to get her picture. She was sitting
there watching the crowd with her elbows on her knees, and a chicken in
her hands, but when she saw me unlimbering my camera, she shook her
head menacingly.
[Illustration: THE MARKET AT GALWAY]
[Illustration: "OULD SAFTIE"]
There was a constable in the crowd, and he offered to clear the
bystanders away, so that I could get a good picture of her. I remarked
that she seemed to object, and he said that he didn't see why that made
any difference, and that it wouldn't do her any harm. But I preferred
diplomacy to force, and finally I asked a quaint-looking old man
standing by if I might take his picture.
"Ye may, and welcome," was the prompt response.
So I stood him up in front of the cart and got my focus.
"Will ye be seein' the ould saftie!" cried the woman. "Look at the ould
saftie standin' there to get his picter took." And she went on to say
other, and presumably much less complimentary things, in Irish; but my
subject only grinned pleasantly and paid no heed. If you will look at
the picture opposite this page, you can almost see the scornful
invectives issuing from her lips. My subject was very proud indeed when
I promised him a print; and I hope it reached him safely.
Eggs are sold by the score in Galway, and the price that day was one
shilling twopence, or about twenty-eight cents--which is not as cheap as
one would expect them to be in a country where wages are so low. But
perhaps it is only labour that is cheap in Ireland!
One row of women were offering for sale a kind of seaweed, whose Celtic
name, as they pronounced it, I could not catch, but which in English
they called dillisk; a red weed which they assured us they had gathered
from the rocks along the beach that very morning, and which many
people were buying and stuffing into their mouths and chewing with the
greatest relish. It did not look especially inviting, but the women
insisted, with much laughter, that we sample it, and we finally did,
somewhat gingerly. The only taste I detected in it was that of the
salt-water in which it had been soaked; but it is supposed to be very
healthy, and to be especially efficacious in straightening out a man who
has had a drop too much. No matter how tangled his legs may be, so the
women assured us, a few mouthfuls of dillisk will set him right again;
and no man with a pocketful of dillisk was ever known to go astray or
spend the night in a ditch. I regret that we were not able to experiment
with this interesting plant; but if it really possesses this remarkable
property, it deserves a wider popularity than it now enjoys.
While I was talking to the women and the constable--who was a Dublin man
and very lonesome among these Irish-speaking people, who regarded him
with scorn and derision--Betty had been exploring the junk-shops of the
neighbourhood, and presently came back with the news that she had
discovered a Dutch masterpiece. Now we are both very fond of Dutch art,
so I hastened to look at the picture; and, indeed, it may have been an
Ostade, for it was a small panel showing two boors drinking, and it
seemed to me excellently painted; but when the keeper of the shop saw
that we were interested, he named a price out of all reason, and I was
not certain enough of my own judgment to back it to that extent. I
intended to go back later on and do a little bargaining; but I didn't;
and the first connoisseur who goes to Galway should take a look at the
picture--it is in a little shop just a few doors from the cathedral--and
he may pick up a bargain.
We went on down the street, and crossed the Corrib River to the
Claddagh--a picturesque huddle of thatched and whitewashed cottages, the
homes of fishermen and their families, Irish of the Irish, who, from
time immemorial have formed a unique community, almost a race apart.
Galway, within its walls on the other side of the river, was very, very
English; here on this strip of land next to the bay, the despised Irish
built their cabins, and formed a colony which made its own laws, which
was always ruled by one of its own members, where no strangers were
permitted to dwell, and whose people always intermarried with each
other. That old semi-feudal condition is, of course, no longer strictly
maintained; but the Claddagh people still keep to themselves, the men
follow the sea for a living just as they have always done, and the women
peddle the catch about the streets of Galway, as has been their custom
ever since the English settled there. They wear a quaint and distinctive
costume, one feature of which is the red petticoat I have already
described, and common to all Connemara women. But in addition to this is
a blue mantle, and a white kerchief bound tightly round the head, and
then over this, if the woman is unusually well-to-do, a fawn-coloured
shawl. The feet are usually bare, and so are the sturdy legs, some
inches of which, very red and rough from exposure to every weather, are
visible below the short skirts.
The houses of the Claddagh have been built wherever fancy dictated, and
in consequence form a most confusing jumble, for one man's back door
usually opens into another man's front yard. How a man gets home from
the tavern on a dark night I don't know, but I suspect that the
consumption of dillisk is large. We stopped to talk to a woman leaning
over a half-door; and her children, who had been playing in the dirt,
gathered around, and there is a picture of her quaint little house
opposite the next page. Then while I foraged for more pictures, Betty
sat down on a stone, and a perfect horde of children soon assembled to
stare at her. They were very shy at first and perfectly well-behaved;
but gradually they grew bolder, and finally, under careful
encouragement, their tongues loosened, until they were chattering away
like magpies.
The people of the Claddagh are said to be a very moral and religious
race, who never go to sea or even away from home on any Sunday or
religious holiday; and these dirty, unkempt, neglected, but chubby and
red-cheeked children were capital illustrations of Kipling's lines:
By a moon they all can play with--grubby and grimed and unshod--
Very happy together, and very near to God.
They were certainly happy enough; and, whether they were near to God or
not, they had all evidently been taught their catechism with great care,
for when Betty took from one of them a little picture of the Madonna and
asked who it was, they answered in chorus, without an instant's
hesitation, "The blessed Virgin, miss."
The Claddagh people are dark as a rule, though here and there one sees a
genuine Titian blond, and Spanish blood has been ascribed to them; but
they probably date much farther back than the Spaniards--back, indeed,
to that ancient, original Irish race, "men of the leathern wallet,"
antedating the Milesians or Gaels who now form the bulk of the Irish
people. The older race took refuge in the bleak Connemara hills before
the stronger invaders, to come creeping down again and found their
colony here at the mouth of the Corrib when the invaders had swept on
eastward to the kindlier and more fertile country there. Their whole
life is bound up in this topsy-turvy little settlement, where they live
just as they have lived for centuries, undisturbed by the march of
civilisation.
[Illustration: THE CLADDAGH, GALWAY]
[Illustration: A CLADDAGH HOME]
We tore ourselves away, at last, from this primeval place, and recrossed
the river to the turf market, with its familiar little carts piled high
with the dark fuel.
"The bogs are very wet this year, are they not?" I asked an old man.
"They are, sir, God save ye," he replied, his wrinkled face lighting up
at the chance to talk to a stranger. "There never was such a year for
rain. I'm sixty year, God bless ye, and I've never seen such another."
And then he went on to relate the story of his life, with a "God save
ye" to every clause. A hearty old fellow he was, in spite of his sixty
years; and he had driven his cart of turf down ten miles out of the
mountains, that morning, and would drive ten miles back that night; and
if he was lucky he would get half a crown--sixty cents--for the load of
turf which had taken a hard day's labour to cut, and numerous turnings
during a month to dry.
We went on past some fragments of the old walls, with a most romantic
arched gateway, and through the fish market, over which the red-skirted
women from the Claddagh presided--great strapping creatures, with broad
hips and straight backs and shining, good-humoured faces. Most of them
were selling an ugly, big-mouthed, unappetising-looking fish, whose name
I couldn't catch; but they told us it was a fish for poor people, not
for the likes of us, God bless ye--full of bones and scarcely worth the
trouble of eating, but plentiful and therefore cheap.
The principal street of Galway is called Shop Street--a name so
singularly lacking in imagination that it would prove the English origin
of the town at once, were any proof needed--and about midway of this
stands a beautiful four-storied building, known as Lynch's Castle, once
a fine mansion but now a chandler's shop. The walls are ornamented with
carved medallions, and there is a row of sculptured supports for a
vanished balcony sticking out like gargoyles all around the top; and
over the door there is the stone figure of a monkey holding a child,
commemorating the saving of one of the Lynch children from a fire, by a
favourite monkey, some centuries ago.
The Lynches were great people in old Galway, and another memorial of
them exists just around the corner--a fragment of wall, with a doorway
below and a mullioned window above, and it was from this window, so
legend says, that James Lynch Fitzstephen, sometime mayor of Galway,
hanged his son with his own hands. The principal inscription reads:
This memorial of the stern and unbending justice
of the chief magistrate of this city, James Lynch
Fitzstephen, elected mayor A. D. 1493, who
condemned and executed his own guilty son, Walter,
on this spot, has been restored to its ancient
site A. D. 1854, with the approval of the Town
Commissioners, by their Chairman, Very Rev. Peter
Daly, P. P., and Vicar of St. Nicholas.
Below the window is a skull and crossbones, with a much more interesting
inscription:
1524
REMEMBER DEATHE VANITI OF VANITI
AND AL IS BUT VANITI
[Illustration: A GALWAY VISTA]
[Illustration: THE MEMORIAL OF A SPARTAN FATHER]
The story of the very upright Fitzstephen runs in this wise: He was a
merchant, prominent in the Spanish trade, and fortunate in everything
except in his only son, Walter, who was as bad a nut as was to be found
anywhere. But he had shown some fondness for a Galway lady of good
family, and it was hoped she might reform him; when, unhappily, she
looked, or was thought to look, too favourably upon a handsome young
hidalgo, who had come from Spain as the guest of the elder Fitzstephen.
So young Walter waited for him one night at a dark corner, thrust a
knife into his heart, and then gave himself up to his father, as the
town's chief magistrate.
Walter, as is often the way with rake-hellies, was a great favourite in
the town, and everybody interceded for his pardon, but his father
condemned him to death. Whereupon a number of young bloods organised a
rescue party, but just as they were breaking into the house, the
inexorable parent put a noose about his son's neck, and hanged him from
the window mullion above the crowd's head--the same mullion, I suppose,
which you can see in the picture opposite the preceding page.
Just behind the reminder of this fifteenth-century Brutus, stands the
fourteenth-century church of St. Nicholas, a venerable and beautiful
structure, with good windows and splendid doorways, and containing some
interesting tombs--one of them in honour of Mayor Lynch, the hero of the
tragedy I have just related. On the south wall is a large tablet to
"Jane Eyre, relict of Edward Eyre," (I wonder if Charlotte Bronte ever
heard of her), who died in 1760, aged 88. At the bottom of the slab the
fact is commemorated that "The sum of 300L was given by the Widow Jane
Eyre to the Corporation of Galway for the yearly sum of 24L to be
distributed in bread to 36 poor objects, on every Sunday forever." The
sexton told us that the yearly income from this bequest was now
thirty-six pounds, but that the weekly distribution of bread had
occasioned so much disturbance that it had been discontinued, and the
income of the bequest was now divided equally among twelve deserving
families.
As we stood there, the peal of bells in the tower began to ring for
service, but their musical invitation went quite unheeded by the crowd
in the market-place outside, all of whom, of course, were Catholics. One
woman, clad in black, slipped into a pew just before the curate began to
read the lesson. We waited a while to see if any one else would come,
but no one did, and at last we quietly took ourselves off.
There was one other sight in Galway we wanted to see--the most famous of
its kind in Ireland--and that was the salmon making their way up the
Corrib River from the sea to spawn in the lake above; and the place to
see them is from the bridge which leads from the courthouse on the east
bank of the river to the great walled jail on the west bank. Just above
the bridge is the weir which backs up the water from Lough Corrib to
afford power for some dozen mills--though all the mills, so far as I
could see, are decayed and ruined and empty. But below this weir the
salmon gather in such numbers that sometimes they lie side by side
solidly clear across the bed of the stream.
A number of fishermen were flogging the water, and we sat down under the
trees on the eastern bank to watch them for a while before going out on
the bridge. Two or three of them were stationed on a narrow plank
platform built out over the water just in front of us, and the others
were on the farther bank, in the shadow of the grey wall of the jail.
This is supposed to be the very best place in all Ireland to catch
salmon, and, in the season, more anglers than the short stretch of shore
can accommodate are eager to pay the fifteen shillings, which is the fee
for a day's fishing there. They fish quite close together, which is
somewhat awkward, but has its advantages occasionally; as, for instance,
on that day, not very long ago, when one enthusiast, having hooked a
noble fish, dropped dead in the act of playing it. The long account of
this sad event which the Galway paper published, concluded with the
following paragraph:
Our readers will be glad to learn that the rod
which Mr. Doyle dropped was immediately taken up
by our esteemed townsman, Mr. Martin, who found
the fish still on, and after ten minutes' play,
succeeded in landing it--a fine clean-run salmon
of fifteen pounds.
One cannot but admire the quick wit of Mr. Martin, who, seeing at a
glance that his fellow-townsman was past all human aid, realised that
the only thing to do was to save the fish, and saved it!
But no fish were caught while we were there. We had rather expected to
see one hooked every minute, but we watched for half an hour, and there
was not even a rise; so at last we walked out on the bridge to see if
there were really any fish in the stream.
The bridge has a high parapet, worn glassy-smooth by the coat-sleeves of
countless lookers-on, and there are convenient places to rest the feet,
so we leaned over and looked down. The water was quite clear, and we
could see the stones on the bottom plainly--but no fish.
"Look, there's one," said a voice at my elbow, and following the
pointing finger, I saw a great salmon, his greenish back almost exactly
the colour of the water, poised in the stream, swaying slowly from side
to side, exerting himself just enough to hold his place against the
current. Then the finger pointed to another and another, and we saw that
the river was alive with fish--and then I looked around to see whose
finger it was, and found myself gazing into the smiling eyes of a young
priest--not exactly young, either, for his hair was sprinkled with grey;
but his face was fresh and youthful.
"Of course you're from America," he said. "One can see that." And when I
nodded assent, he added, "Well, you Americans brag like hell, but you
have good reason to."
I glanced at him again, thinking perhaps I had mistaken his vocation;
but there was no mistaking his rabat.
"I have been to America," he went on. "I went there as a beggar for a
church here; and after my mission was done, I rested and enjoyed myself;
and I want to say that there is no country like America."
The words were said with an earnestness that warmed my heart; and of
course I agreed with him; and then, when he learned we were from Ohio,
he told us how he had crossed our State on his way to San Francisco, and
that seemed to establish a kind of relationship; and when we were
satisfied with looking at the fish, he insisted on taking us through the
marble works, just across the river, where some great columns of
Connemara marble were being polished. It comes from a quarry high on
Lissoughter, which we were soon to visit--though we didn't know it
then!--and it is very beautiful indeed, usually a deep green, but
sometimes a warm brown, and always gorgeously veined.
And then he asked us if we wouldn't like to see Queen's College, the
Galway branch of the National University of Ireland; and of course we
said we would, and so we started for it, he pushing his wheel before
him; and on the way, we met a handsome old man, who stopped when he saw
us, and smilingly asked for an introduction. It proved to be Bishop
O'Dee, and even in the short chat we had with him, it was easy to see
that he deserved his reputation for culture and scholarship. He has two
pet aversions, so our guide told us, as we went on together, bribery and
drunkenness. I don't imagine there is much bribery in Connaught, but I
fear the Bishop has a formidable antagonist in John Barleycorn.
We came to the college presently--a fine Gothic building, with a good
quadrangle, and we went through its somewhat heterogeneous museum and
looked in at some of the halls. There are now about a hundred and forty
pupils, so our guide said, and the new seminary, which drew students
from all the west of Ireland, and which was just getting nicely started,
was certain to increase this number greatly.
The National University of Ireland was established in 1908, as I
understand it, for the purpose of affording Catholic youth an
opportunity for higher education. The act provides that "no test
whatever of religious belief shall be imposed on any person as a
condition of his becoming or continuing to be a professor, lecturer,
fellow, scholar or student" of the college; nevertheless it is well
understood that its spirit and atmosphere are Catholic, and such
Protestant youth as desire higher education usually enter Trinity
College, Dublin, or Queen's College, Belfast. There are three colleges
in the National University of Ireland--University College, Dublin, which
is the parent institution, Queen's College, Cork, and Queen's College,
Galway. All of them are maintained by state grants.
I am not quite clear as to the maintenance of the new seminary, to which
our guide next conducted us; but it is a mammoth building, with queer
squat towers, giving it an aspect quite oriental. Our guide said that
the architecture was Irish-Romanesque, but it reminded me of nothing so
much as of the pictures I had seen of the temples of ancient Syria and
Egypt. The seminary is really an intermediate school, and is planned on
a very extensive scale. Its promoters are hoping great things for it,
which I trust will come to pass. We mounted to the top of the main
tower, and looked out over the bay and the hills, and talked of America
and of Ireland, and of many other things, and then our guide asked us if
we wouldn't come and have tea with him.
"Ah, I hope you will come," he urged, seeing that we hesitated. "When I
was in America, the welcome I got was so warm and open-hearted, that I
feel I am forever indebted to all Americans, and it is a great pleasure
to me when I am able to repay a little of that kindness. It's few
opportunities I have, and I hope you won't refuse me this one."
So we accepted the invitation, telling him how kind we thought it, and
started back through the streets, with the women and children
courtesying to our guide as we passed, and he never failing to give them
a pleasant word.
"'Tis not to my own quarters I'll be taking you," he explained, "but to
those of a brother priest, who will be proud to have them put to this
use," and he stopped in front of a row of little houses, called St.
Joseph's Terrace, and opened the door of one of them, and ushered us in,
and called the old servant, and bade her get us tea.
It was served in a bare little dining-room--with bread and butter and
jam and cake--and very good it tasted, though the tea was far too strong
for us, and we had to ask for some hot water with which to weaken it.
Our host laughed at us; he drank his straight, without milk or sugar,
and he told us about the first time he ordered tea in New York. When he
started to pour it, he thought the cook had forgot to put any tea in the
pot, so he called the waiter and sent it back; and the waiter, who was
Irish and understood, laughed and took the pot back and put some more
tea in.
"It was still far too weak," went on our host; "but I was ashamed to say
anything more, so I drank it, though I might as well have been drinking
hot water. Indeed, I got no good tea in America. And I nearly burnt my
mouth off me once, trying to eat ice-cream. I took a great spoonful,
without knowing what it would be like, and I thought it would be the
death of me. And I shall never forget the first time they served Indian
corn. It was in great long ears, such as I had never seen before; and I
had no idea how to eat it, so I said it didn't agree with me; and then I
was astonished to see the other people at the table--educated, cultured
people they were, too--pick it up in their fingers and gnaw it off just
as an animal would! Ah, that was a strange sight!"
I do not know when I have spent a pleasanter half-hour; but he had to
bid us good-bye, at last, for he was due at some service; and he wrung
our hands and wished us Godspeed, and sprang on his bicycle and pedalled
off down the road, turning at the corner to wave his hat to us. And I am
sure his heart was light at thought of the good deed he had done that
day!
* * * * *
Galway possesses a tram-line, which starts at the head of Shop Street
and runs out to a suburb called Salthill; and as this happens to pass
St. Joseph's Terrace, we walked slowly on until a tram should come
along. And in a moment a woman stopped us--a woman so ragged and forlorn
and with such a tale of woe that, in spite of my dislike for beggars and
suspicion of them, I gave her sixpence; and she fairly broke down and
wept at sight of that bit of silver, and we walked on followed by her
blessings and thinking sadly of the want and misery of Ireland's people.
We had another instance of it, before long, for after we had got on the
tram, an old man stopped it and tried to clamber aboard, but the
conductor put him off, after a short sharp altercation, and he followed
us along the sidewalk, shaking his stick and, I suppose, hurling curses
after us. The conductor explained that the old fellow had no money to
pay for a ticket, but had proposed to pay for it after he had collected
some money which was due him in Galway. This he no doubt considered an
entirely reasonable proposition, and he was justly incensed when the
conductor refused to extend the small necessary credit.
"Them ones gave us trouble enough at first," the conductor added. "They
thought because the trams were owned by the town that they should all
ride free, and that only strangers should be made to pay. Even yet, they
think it downright savage of us to put them off just because they
haven't the price of a ticket. It costs us no more, they say, to take
them than to leave them, and so, out of kindness and charity, we ought
to take them. Och, but they're a thick-headed people!" he concluded, and
retired to the rear platform to ruminate upon the trials of his
position.
We got down at the head of Shop Street, and Betty went on to the hotel
to rest, while I spent a pleasant half-hour wandering about the streets
and through the calf-market. There were numbers of little red calves,
cooped up in tiny pens, and groups of countrymen standing about looking
at them, their hands under their coat-tails and their faces quite
destitute of expression. At long intervals there would be a little
bargaining; which, if the would-be purchaser was in earnest, grew
sharper and sharper, sometimes ending in mutual recriminations, and
sometimes in an agreement, in which case buyer and seller struck hands
on it. Then the calf in question would be caught and his legs tied
together, and a piece of gunny-sack wrapped about him, and he would be
carried away by his new owner. Or perhaps he might be sent somewhere by
parcel-post. Calves tied up in gunny-sacks with their heads sticking out
form a considerable portion of the Irish mail--how often have I seen the
postmen lifting them on and off the cars or lugging them away to the
parcel-room!
Betty rejoined me, after a time, and we got on the tram to ride out to
Salthill. Curiously enough, when we had climbed to the top of it, we
found sitting there the old man whom we had seen put off earlier in the
afternoon. I don't know whether he recognised us; but he at once
proceeded to relate to us the story of that misadventure, with great
warmth and in minutest detail--just as he would relate it, no doubt, to
every listener for a month to come.
"Why, God bless ye, sir, I told the felly he should have his penny," he
explained, with the utmost earnestness. "There was a man in the town
would be owin' me eight shillin's, and he had promised to pay me this
very evenin'--but it was no use; he put me off into the road, bad cess
to him, and it was in my mind to lay my stick across his head. But he
can't put me off now," he added triumphantly, and held up his ticket for
us to see.
And then he told us how he had five miles to walk beyond the end of the
tram-line before he would be home; but he seemed to think nothing of
having had to walk ten or twelve miles to collect his wages. Indeed,
most Irish regard such a walk as not worth thinking of; which is as
well, since many children have to walk four or five miles to school, and
men and women alike will trudge twice that distance in going from one
tiny field to another to do a bit of cultivating. Our new-found friend
seemed quite taken with us, for when the tram came to a stop, he asked
us if we wouldn't have a drink with him; and when we declined, bade us a
warm good-bye, with many kind wishes, and then shambled over to the
public-house for a last drink by himself. Twenty minutes later, we saw
him go past along the road, his face to the west, on the long walk to
his tiny home among the hills.
Salthill is a popular summer resort, and has a picturesque beach. The
view out over Galway Bay is very beautiful, and the wide stretch of
water seems to offer a perfect harbour; but there were no ships riding
at anchor there. Time was when the people of the town fancied their bay
was to become a world-famous port because of its nearness to America,
and a steamship company was formed, and the government was persuaded to
build a great breakwater and half a mile of quays and a floating dock
five acres in extent. But the company's life was a short one, for one
of its boats sank and another burned, and the other companies all
preferred to go on to Liverpool or London or Southampton, and the docks
and quays and harbour of Galway were left deserted, save for the little
hookers of the Claddagh fishermen.