let it be sufficient to say, that a reconciliation took place between
those two branches of the O'Hallaghan and O'Callaghan families, in
consequence of John's heroism and Rose's soft persuasion, and that there
was, also, every perspective of the two factions being penultimately
amalgamated. For nearly a century they had been pell-mell at it,
whenever and wherever they could meet. Their forefathers, who had been
engaged in the lawsuit about the island which I have mentioned, wore
dead and petrified in their graves; and the little peninsula in the glen
was gradationally worn away by the river, till nothing remained but
a desert, upon a small scale, of sand and gravel. Even the ruddy,
able-bodied squire, with the longitudinal nose, projecting out of his
face like a broken arch, and the small, fiery magistrate--both of whom
had fought the duel, for the purpose of setting forth a good example,
and bringing the dispute to a peaceable conclusion--were also dead. The
very memory of the original contention! had been lost (except that it
was preserved along with the cranium of my grandfather), or became so
indistinct that the parties fastened themselves on some more modern
provocation, which they kept in view until another fresh motive would
start up, and so on. I know not, however, whether it was fair to expect
them to give up at once the agreeable recreation of fighting. It's not
easy to abolish old customs, particularly diversions; and every one
knows that this is our national amusement.
“There were, it is true, many among both, factions who saw the matter in
this reasonable light, and who wished rather, if it were to cease, that
it should die away by degrees, from the battle of the whole parish,
equally divided between the factions, to the subordinate row between
certain members of them--from that to the faint broil of certain
families, and so on to the single-handed play between individuals. At
all events, one-half of them were for peace, and two-thirds of them were
equally divided between peace and war.
“For three months after the accident which befell Rose Galh O'Hallaghan,
both factions had been tolerantly quiet--that is to say, they had no
general engagement. Some slight skirmishes certainly did take place on
market-nights, when the drop was in, and the spirits up; but in those
neither John nor Rose's immediate families took any part. The fact was,
that John and Rose were on the evening of matrimony; the match had been
made--the day appointed, and every other necessary stipulation
ratified. Now, John was as fine a young man as you would meet in a day's
traveling; and as for Rose, her name went far and near for beauty: and
with justice, for the sun never shone on a fairer, meeker, or modester
virgin than Rose Galh O'Hallaghan.
“It might be, indeed, that there were those on both sides who thought
that, if the marriage was obstructed, their own sons and daughters would
have a better chance. Rose had many admirers; they might have envied
John his happiness; many fathers, on the Other side, might have
wished their sons to succeed with Rose. Whether I am sinister in this
conjecture is more than I can say. I grant, indeed, that a great portion
of it is speculation on my part. The wedding-day, however, was arranged;
but, unfortunately, the fair-day of Knockimdowny occurred, in the
rotation of natural time, precisely one week before it. I know not from
what motive it proceeded, but the factions on both sides were never
known to make a more light-hearted preparation for battle. Cudgels
of all sorts and sizes (and some of them, to my own knowledge, great
beauties) were provided.
“I believe I may as well take this opportunity of saying that real
Irish cudgels must be root-growing, either oak, black-thorn, or
crab-tree--although crab-tree, by the way, is apt to fly. They should
not be too long--three feet and a few inches is an accommodating length.
They must be naturally top-heavy, and have around the end that is
to make acquaintance with the cranium three or four natural lumps,
calculated to divide the flesh in the natest manner, and to leave, if
possible, the smallest taste in life of pit in the skull. But if a good
root-growing _kippeen_ be light at the fighting-end, or possess not the
proper number of knobs, a hole, a few inches deep, is to be bored in
the end, which must be filled with melted lead. This gives it a
widow-and-orphan-making quality, a child-bereaving touch, altogether
very desirable. If, however, the top splits in the boring--which, in
awkward hands, is not uncommon--the defect may be remediated by putting
on an iron ferrule, and driving two or three strong nails into it,
simply to preserve it from flying off; not that an Irishman is ever at a
loss for weapons when in a fight, for so long as a scythe, flail, spade,
pitchfork, or stone is at hand, he feels quite contented with the lot
of war. No man, as they say of great statesmen, is more fertile in
expedients during a row; which, by the way, I take to be a good quality,
at all events.
“I remember the fair-day of Knockimdowny well; it has kept me from
griddle-bread and tough nutriment ever since. Hard fortune to Jack Roe
O'Hallaghan! No man had better teeth than I had till I met with him that
day. He fought stoutly on his own side; but he was ped then for the
same basting that fell to me, though not by my hands, if to get his jaw
dacently divided into three halves could be called a fair liquidation of
an old debt--it was equal to twenty shillings in the pound, any how.
“There had not been a larger fair in the town of Knockimdowny for years.
The day was dark and sunless, but sultry. On looking through the crowd,
I could see no man! without a cudgel; yet, what was strange, there was
no certainty of any sport. Several desultory skrimmages had locality,
but they I were altogether sequestered from the great factions of the
O's. Except that it was pleasant and stirred one's blood to look at
them, or occasioned the cudgels to be grasped more firmly, there was no
personal interest felt by any of us in them; they therefore began and
ended, here and there, through the fair, like mere flashes in the pan,
dying in their own smoke.
“The blood of every prolific nation is naturally hot; but when that hot
blood is inflamed by ardent spirits, it is not to be supposed that men
should be cool; and God he knows, there is not on the level surface of
this habitable globe, a nation that has been so thoroughly inflamed by
ardent spirits of all kinds as Ireland.
“Up till four o'clock that day, the factions were quiet. Several
relations on both sides had been invited to drink by John and Rose's
families, for the purpose of establishing a good feeling between them.
But this was, after all, hardly to be expected, for they hated one
another with an ardency much too good-humored and buoyant; and, between
ourselves, to bring Paddy over a bottle is a very equivocal mode of
giving him an anti-cudgeling disposition. After the hour of four,
several of the factions were getting very friendly, which I knew at the
time to be a bad sign. Many of them nodded to each other, which I
knew to be a worse one; and some of them shook hands with the greatest
cordiality, which I no sooner saw than I slipped the knot of my cravat,
and held myself in preparation for the sport.
“I have often had occasion to remark--and few men, let me tell you, had
finer opportunities of doing so--the differential symptomatics between a
Party Fight, that is, a battle between Orangemen and Ribbon-men, and one
between two Roman Catholic Factions. There is something infinitely more
anxious, silent, and deadly, in the compressed vengeance, and the hope
of slaughter, which characterize a party fight, than is to be seen in
a battle between factions. The truth is, the enmity is not so deep
and well-grounded in the latter as in the former. The feeling is not
political nor religious between the factions; whereas, in the other, it
is both, which is a mighty great advantage; for when this is adjuncted
to an intense personal hatred, and a sense of wrong, probably arising
from a too intimate recollection of the leaded black thorn, or the
awkward death of some relative, by the musket or the bayonet, it is apt
to produce very purty fighting, and much respectable retribution.
“In a party fight, a prophetic sense of danger, hangs, as it were, over
the crowd--the very air is loaded with apprehension; and the vengeance
burst is proceeded by a close, thick darkness, almost sulphury, that is
more terrifical than the conflict itself, though dearly less dangerous
and fatal. The scowl of the opposing parties, the blanched cheeks, the
knit brows, and the grinding teeth, not pretermitting the deadly gleams
that shoot from their kindled eyes, are ornaments which a plain battle
between factions cannot boast, but which, notwithstanding, are very
suitable to the fierce and gloomy silence of that premeditated vengeance
which burns with such intensity in the heart, and scorches up the vitals
into such a thirst for blood. Not but that they come by different means
to the same conclusion; because it is the feeling, and not altogether
the manner of operation, that is different.
“Now a faction fight doesn't resemble this at all at all. Paddy's at
home here; all song, dance, good-humor, and affection. His cheek is
flushed with delight, which, indeed, may derive assistance from the
consciousness of having no bayonets or loaded carabines to contend with;
but anyhow, he's at home--his eye is lit with real glee--he tosses his
hat in the air, in the height of mirth--and leaps, like a mounteback,
two yards from the ground. Then, with what a gracious dexterity he
brandishes his cudgel! what a joyous spirit is heard in his shout at the
face of a friend from another faction! His very 'who!' is contagious,
and would make a man, that had settled on running away, return and join
the sport with an appetite truly Irish. He is, in fact, while under the
influence of this heavenly afflatus, in love with every one, man, woman,
and child. If he meet his sweetheart, he will give her a kiss and a hug,
and that with double kindness, because he is on his way to thrash her
father or brother. It is the acumen of his enjoyment; and woe be to him
who will adventure to go between him and his amusements. To be sure,
skulls and bones are broken, and lives lost; but they are lost in
pleasant fighting--they are the consequences of the sport, the beauty
of which consists in breaking as many heads and necks as you can; and
certainly when a man enters into the spirit of any exercise, there is
nothing like elevating himself to the point of excellence. Then a man
ought never to be disheartened. If you lose this game, or get your
head good-humoredly beaten to pieces, why you may win another, or your
friends may mollify two or three skulls as a set-off to yours; but that
is nothing.
“When the evening became more advanced, maybe, considering the poor look
up there was for anything like decent sport--maybe, in the early part of
the day, it wasn't the delightful sight to see the boys on each side of
the two great factions beginning to get frolicsome. Maybe the songs and
the shouting, when they began, hadn't melody and music in them, any
how! People may talk about harmony; but what harmony is equal to that in
which five or six hundred men sing and shout, and leap and caper at each
other, as a prelude to neighborly fighting where they beat time upon
the drums of each other's ears and heads with oak drumsticks? That's an
Irishman's music; and hard fortune to the _garran_* that wouldn't have
friendship and kindness in him to join and play a stave along with them!
'Whoo; your sowl! Hurroo! Success to our side! Hi for the O'Callaghans!
Where's the blackguard to--,' I beg pardon, decent reader; I forgot
myself for a moment, or rather I got new life in me, for I am nothing at
all at all for the last five months--a kind of nonentity I may say, ever
since that vagabond Burges occasioned me to pay a visit to my distant
relations, till my friends get that last matter of the collar-bone
settled.
* Garran--a horse; but it is always used as meaning a bad
one--one without mettle. When figuratively applied to a man,
it means a coward
“The impulse which faction fighting gives to trade and business in
Ireland is truly surprising; whereas party fighting depreciates both. As
soon as it is perceived that a party fight is to be expected, all buying
and selling are nearly suspended for the day; and those who are not
_up_*, and even many who are, take themselves and their property home as
quickly as may be convenient. But in a faction fight, as soon as there
is any perspective of a row, depend upon it, there is quick work at
all kinds of negotiation; and truly there is nothing like brevity and
decision in buying and selling; for which reason, faction fighting,
at all events, if only for the sake of national prosperity, should be
encouraged and kept up.
* Initiated into Whiteboyism
“Towards five o'clock, if a man was placed on an exalted station; so
that he could look at the crowd, and wasn't able to fight, he could have
seen much that a man might envy him for. Here a hat went up, or maybe
a dozen of them; then followed a general huzza. On the other side, two
dozen caubeens sought the sky, like so many scaldy crows attempting
their own element for the first time, only they were not so black.
Then another shout, which was answered by that of their friends on the
opposite side; so that you would hardly know which side huzzaed loudest,
the blending of both was so truly symphonius. Now there was a shout for
the face of an O'Callaghan; this was prosecuted on the very heels
by another for the face of an O'Hallaghan. Immediately a man of the
O'Hallaghan side doffed his tattered frieze, and catching it by the
very extremity of the sleeve, drew it with a tact, known only by an
initiation of half a dozen street days, up the pavement after him.
On the instant, a blade from the O'Callaghan side peeled with equal
alacrity, and stretching his _home-made_ * at full length after him,
proceeded triumphantly up the street, to meet the other.
* Irish frieze is mostly manufactured at home, which
accounts for the expression here.
“Thunder-an-ages, what's this for, at all, at all! I wish I hadn't begun
to manuscript an account of it, any how; 'tis like a hungry man dreaming
of a good dinner at a feast, and afterwards awaking and finding his
front ribs and back-bone on the point of union. Reader, is that a
black-thorn you carry--tut, where is my imagination bound for?----to
meet the other, I say.
“'Where's the rascally O'Callaghan that will place his toe or his
shillely on this frieze?' 'Is there no blackguard O'Hallaghan jist to
look crucked at the coat of an O'Callaghan, or say black's the white of
his eye?'
“'Troth and there is, Ned, avourneen, that same on the sod here.'
“'Is that Barney?'
“'The same, Ned, ma bouchal; and how is your mother's son, Ned?'
“'In good health at the present time, thank God and you; how is
yourself, Barney?'
“'Can't complain as time goes; only take this, any how, to mend your
health, ma bouchal.' (Whack.)
“'Success, Barney, and here's at your sarvice, avick, not making little
of what I got, any way.' (Crack.)
“About five o'clock on a May evening, in the fair of Knockimdowny, was
the ice thus broken, with all possible civility, by Ned and Barney. The
next moment a general rush took place towards the scene of action, and
ere you could bless yourself, Barney and Ned were both down, weltering
in their own and each other's blood. I scarcely know, indeed, though
with a mighty respectable quota of experimentality myself, how to
describe what followed. For the first twenty minutes the general harmony
of this fine row might be set to music, according to a scale something
like this:--Whick whack--crick crack--whick whack--crick crack--&c,
&c, &o. 'Here yer sowl--(crack)--there yer sowl--(whack). Whoo for
the O'Hallag-hans!'--(crack, crack, crack). 'Hurroo for the
O'Callaghans!--(whack, whack, whack). The O'Callaghans for
ever!'--(whack). 'The O'Hallaghans for ever!'--(crack). 'Mur-ther!
murther!--(crick, crack)--foul! foul!--(whack, whack). Blood and
turf!--(whack, whick)--tunther-an-ouns'--(crack, crick). 'Hurroo! my
darlings! handle your kip-peens--(crack, crack)--the O'Hallaghans are
going!'--(whack, whack).
“You are to suppose them, here to have been at it for about half an
hour.
“Whack, crack--'oh--oh--oh! have mercy upon me, boys--(crack--a shriek
of murther! murther--crack, crack, whack)--my life--my life--(crack,
crack--whack, whack)--oh! for the sake of the living Father!--for the
sake of my wife and childher, Ned Hallaghan, spare my life.'
“'So we will, but take this, any how'--(whack, crack, whack, crack).
“'Oh! for the love of. God, don't kill--(whack, crack, whack).
Oh!'--(crack, crack, whack--dies).
“'Huzza! huzza! huzza!' from the O'Hallaghans. 'Bravo, boys! there's one
of them done for: whoo! my darlings! hurroo! the O'Hallaghans for ever!'
“The scene now changes to the O'Callaghan side.
“'Jack--oh, Jack, avourneen--hell to their sowls for murdherers--Paddy's
killed--his skull's smashed! Revinge, boys, Paddy O'Callaghan's killed!
On with you, O'Callaghans--on with you--on with you, Paddy O'Callaghan's
murdhered--take to the stones--that's it--keep it up, down with: him!
Success!--he's the bloody villain that: didn't show him marcy--that's
it. Tunder-an-ouns, is it laving him that way you are afther--let me at
him!'
“'Here's a stone, Tom!'
“'No, no, this stick has the lead in it. It'll do him, never fear!'
“'Let him alone, Barney, he's got enough.'
“'By the powdhers, it's myself that won't: didn't he kill
Paddy?--(crack, crack). Take that, you murdhering thief!'--(whack,
whack).
“'Oh!--(whack, crack)--my head--I'm killed--I'm'--(crack--kicks the
bucket).
“'Now, your sowl, that does you, any way--(crack,
whack)--hurro!--huzza!--huzza!--Man for man, boys--an O'Hallaghan's
done for--whoo! for our side--tol-deroll, folderoll, tow, row,
row--huzza!--fol-deroll, fol-deroll, tow, row, row, huzza for the
O'Callaghans!'
“From this moment the battle became delightful; it was now pelt and welt
on both sides, but many of the kippeens were broken: many of the boys
had their fighting arms disabled by a dislocation, or bit of fracture,
and those weren't equal to more than doing a little upon such as were
down.
“In the midst of the din, such a dialogue as this might be heard:
“'Larry, you're after being done for, for this day.' (Whack, crack.)
“'Only an eye gone--is that Mickey?' (whick, whack, crick, crack.)
“'That's it, my darlings!--you may say that, Larry--'tis my mother's
son that's in it--(crack, crack,--a general huzza.): (Mickey and
Larry) huzza! huzza! huzza for the O'Hallaghans! What have you got,
Larry?--(crack, crack).
“'Only the bone of my arm, God be praised for it, very purtily snapt
across!' (whack, whack).
“'Is that all? Well, some people have luck!'--(crack, crack, crack).
“'Why I've no reason to complain, thank God--(whack, crack!)--purty play
that, any way--Paddy O'Callaghan's settled--did you hear it?--(whack,
whack, another shout)--That's it boys--handle the shilleleys!--Success
O'Hallaghans--down with the bloody O'Callaghans!'
“'I did hear it: so is Jem O'Hallaghan--(crack, whack, whack,
crack)--you're not able to get up, I see--tare-an-ounty, isn't it a
pleasure to hear that play?--What ails you?'
“'Oh, Larry, I'm in great pain, and getting very weak,
entirely'--(faints).
“'Faix, and he's settled too, I'm thinking.'
“'Oh, murdher, my arm!' (One of the O'Callaghans attacks him--crack,
crack)--
“'Take that, you vagabone!'--(whack, whack).
“' Murdher, murdher, is it strikin' a down man you're after?--foul,
foul, and my arm broke!'--(crack, crack).
“'Take that, with what you got before, and it'll ase you, maybe.'
“(A party of the O'Hallaghans attack the man who is beating him).
“'Murdher, murdher!'--(crack, whack, whack, crack, crack, whack).
“'Lay on him, your sowls to pirdition--lay on him, hot and heavy--give
it to him! He sthruck me and me down wid my broken arm!'
“'Foul, ye thieves of the world!--(from the O'Callaghan)--foul! five
against one--give me fair play!--(crack, crack, crack)--Oh!--(whack)
Oh, oh, oh!'--(falls senseless, covered with blood).
“'Ha, hell's cure to you, you bloody thief; you didn't spare me with
my arm broke'--(Another general shout.) 'Bad end to it, isn't it a poor
case entirely, that I can't even throw up my caubeen, let alone join in
the diversion.'
“Both parties now rallied, and ranged themselves along the street,
exhibiting a firm phalanx, wedged close against each other, almost foot
to foot. The mass was thick and dense, and the tug of conflict stiff,
wild and savage. Much natural skill and dexterity were displayed in
their mutual efforts to preserve their respective ranks unbroken, and as
the sallies and charges were made on both sides, the temporary rash, the
indentation of the multitudinous body, and the rebound into its original
position, gave an undulating appearance to the compact mass--reeking,
dragging, groaning, and buzzing as it was, that resembled the serpentine
motion of a rushing water-spout in the clouds.
“The women now began to take part with their brothers and sweethearts.
Those who had no bachelors among the opposite factions, fought along
with their brothers; others did not scruple even to assist in giving
their enamored swains the father of a good beating. Many, however, were
more faithful to love than to natural affection, and these sallied out,
like heroines, under the banners of their sweethearts, fighting with
amazing prowess against their friends and relations; nor was it at all
extraordinary to see two sisters engaged on opposite sides--perhaps
tearing each other as, with dishevelled hair, they screamed with a fury
that was truly exemplary. Indeed it is no untruth to assert that the
women do much valuable execution. Their manner of fighting is this--as
soon as the fair one decides upon taking a part in the row, she
instantly takes off her apron or her stocking, stoops down, and lifting
the first four pounder she can get, puts it in the corner of her apron,
or the foot of her stocking, if it has a foot, and marching into the
scene of action, lays about her right and left. Upon my credibility,
they are extremely useful and handy, and can give mighty nate
knockdowns--inasmuch as no guard that a man is acquainted with can ward
off their blows. Nay, what is more, it often happens, when a son-in-law
is in a faction against his father-in-law and his wife's people
generally, that if he and his wife's brother meet, the wife will clink
him with the _pet_ in her apron, downing her own husband with great
skill, for it is not always that marriage extinguishes the hatred of
factions; and very often 'tis the brother that is humiliated.