THE SHILLELAGH
As the Yorkshireman is said to sport on his escutcheon a flea, a fly,
and a flitch of bacon, so in the popular imagination an Irishman of the
real old sort is usually conceived in association with a pig, a pipe,
and a shillelagh. Rightly considered, one supposes that the shillelagh
is a survival of the pre-historic club. In any case, it is a weapon
of some character, chiefly notable for its handiness in the matter of
skull cracking, and believed to be the pride and joy of every Paddy
worth his salt. The shillelagh has undoubtedly earned for the Irish
a reputation for roguish and heroic delight in battle. “Tread on the
tail of my coat, now,” is supposed to be forever on Irish lips, with
immediate results in the article of broken heads. And when we English
wish the use of a metaphor for rows and scuffles, free fights and so
forth, we have a habit of remarking that the affair amounted to “a
regular Donnybrook”—Donnybrook, of course, being a sort of feast of
shillelaghs to which all Ireland was wont annually to repair. Of the
number of shillelaghs in Ireland at the present moment the blue books
give no account. It seems to me doubtful whether there are a thousand in
the whole country. One may travel through Ireland for weeks on end, and
come across nothing of the sort. The only shillelagh I had the pleasure
of seeing in the course of a recent, lengthy Irish journey was in the
hands of a very ill-clad youth who looked more like a Lancashire cotton
operative out of work than a broth of a boy. And the shillelagh in
question was of polished black wood without knots, and the top of it had
a nickel silver knob, like a beau’s cane. The weapon, indeed, reminded
one of nothing so much as a Salmon & Gluckstein, silver-headed, ebony
walking-stick, cut short. The owner proudly assured me that it was his
bit of a blackthorn, and the finest for miles around. It seems more
than probable that the shillelagh-notion of an Irishman had at one time
something in it. While Donnybrook Fair has been suppressed, there can be
no getting away from the fact that there once was a Donnybrook, and a
pretty warm one to boot. Says the poet:
“Who has e’er had the luck to see Donnybrook Fair?
An Irishman, all in his glory, is there,
With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green!
His clothes spic and span new, without e’er a speck,
A neat Barcelona tied round his neat neck;
He goes to a tent, and he spends half a crown,
He meets with a friend, and for love knocks him down
With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green!”
“And for love knocks him down” is quite in the “rale ould” spirit. A
spectator[1] of the Donnybrook held on the 29th August 1828, described
it as follows: “I rode out again to-day for the first time, to see the
fair at Donnybrook, near Dublin, which is a kind of popular festival.
Nothing, indeed, can be more national! The poverty, the dirt, and the
wild tumult were as great as the glee and merriment with which the
cheapest pleasures were enjoyed. I saw things eaten and drunk with
delight, which forced me to turn my head quickly away, to remain master
of my disgust. Heat and dust, crowd and stench made it impossible to stay
long; but these do not annoy the natives. There were many hundred tents,
all ragged, like the people, and adorned with tawdry rags instead of
flags; many contented themselves with a cross on a hoop; one had hoisted
a dead and half-putrid cat as a sign. The lowest sort of rope-dancers and
posture-makers exercised their toilsome vocation on stages of planks,
and dressed in shabby finery, dancing and grimacing in the dreadful heat
till they were completely exhausted. A third part of the public lay, or
rather rolled, about drunk; others ate, screamed, shouted and fought. The
women rode about, sitting two or three upon an ass, pushing their way
through the crowd, smoked with great delight, and coquetted with their
sweethearts.” It is notable, however, that our eye-witness continues:
“My reverence for truth compels me to add, that not the slightest trace
of English brutality was to be perceived; they were more like French
people, though their gaiety was mingled with more humor and more genuine
good-nature; both of which are national traits of the Irish, and are
always doubled by poteen.”
Not only is Donnybrook gone, but the whole atmosphere which rendered
Donnybrook possible appears to have gone with it. The knocking down of a
friend for love or out of sheer gaiety and volatility of soul no longer
ranks among the Irishman’s accomplishments. If he fights at all, which
is seldom, he fights now with clenched teeth and a fierce hatred at his
heart, and usually it is about religion and has nothing whatever to do
with either fun or poteen. In Dublin no more fighting goes on than occurs
in the average English city of the same size. In Belfast the fighting is
frequent, but it is eminently Scotch, and therefore not to be charged
against Ireland. Out of Ulster, there is scarcely any fighting at all,
poteen or no poteen. At the same time in one city out of Ulster, which I
will not name, I was advised by the proprietor of an hotel to prolong my
stay because “we are expecting riots on Monday.” Whether the riots came
off or not I do not know, but I saw no accounts of them in the papers.
It is, of course, common knowledge that, shillelaghs laid on one side,
the Irishman makes an admirable soldier. In point of fact he is a much
better soldier than the Scot, though he has never had the credit for it.
The best English generals from Wellington to Lord Roberts have been
Irishmen, which is paradox, not a “bull.” The Irish never run away; in
our late wars certain non-Irish regiments, which were neither English nor
Welsh, did run away. It is significant that Mr. Kipling’s soldiers—in
_Soldiers Three_ for example—are Irish, Cockney, and Yorkshire, and that
the Irishman is set down for the smartest man. I have seen it remarked,
and I believe it can be justified out of the military histories, that
while the Irish and English regiments have usually done the rough
and tumble hand-to-hand fighting in our most famous engagements, the
gentlemen with the bare knees have had the good fortune to be sent in
at the tail end of the trouble, merely to execute a little ornamental
sweeping up. To the eye of officers and women “nothing looks nicer” than
kilts and spats. To disarrange them were a pity; therefore wherever
possible we shall hold them “in reserve.” On the parade ground and in
processions the same thing applies; the plaudits of the crowd being
invariably forthcoming for the “bonnie bare-legged laddies” newly
enlisted, mayhap, out of Glasgow and Dumfries, while “seasoned Irish
warriors” go past without a hand-clap. But it is the kilts that do it.
There may be nothing in this, and anyway I do not suppose that the Irish
care twopence. But the points for us to remember while we are on this
part of our subject are, that the shillelagh is an effete weapon, that in
Irish differences the principle of “a word and a blow” does not prevail,
and that the Irish soldier is very competent and very courageous.
[1] Prince Pückler Muskau, quoted by Croker.