IRISH CHARACTERISTICS
It's the proudest boast of my life that I am an Irishman, and the
compliment which I have most appreciated in my time was being called
'the poor man's friend,' for I love Paddy dearly though I see his
faults. Yes, perhaps one of the reasons why I love him is because I do
see the faults, for the errors of an Irishman are often almost as good
as the virtues of an Englishman, and are far more diverting into the
bargain. You must not judge Paddy by the same standard as you apply to
John. To begin with, he has not had the advantages, and secondly,
there's an ingrained whimsicality, for which I would not exchange all
the solid imperfections of his neighbour across the Irish Channel.
You would not judge all Scotland by Glasgow, and so you should not fall
into the error of judging all Ireland by Belfast. Kerry is the jewel of
Ireland, and it is with Kerry that I have fortunately had most to do in
my life.
Whilst I am alluding to the mistake of generalising, let me point out
how erroneous it is ever, historically, to talk of Ireland as one
country. When Henry II. annexed the whole land by a confiscation more
open but not more criminal than that instigated by Mr. Gladstone, there
were four perfectly separate kingdoms in the island. Now there are four
provinces which are quite distinct, and an Ulster man, or a Munster man,
or a Connaught man, knows far more, as a rule, of England, or even
Scotland, than he does of the other three provinces of his native isle.
For one Ulster man who has been in Munster, three hundred have been to
Liverpool or Greenock, and until lately there was no railway between
Connaught and Munster, so that you had to go nearly up to Dublin to get
from one to the other.
There is much that is incomprehensible to the Englishman who comes among
us taking notes, and not the least is that no one wants his
cut-and-dried schemes of reforming what we do not wish to reform. As for
conforming to his method and rule by vestry and county council autocracy
in a methodical manner, it is utterly at variance with the national
temperament. Very often, too, the stranger falls a victim to the
Irishman's love of fun, and goes back hopelessly 'spoofed' and quite
unaware what nonsense he is talking when he lays down the law on Ireland
far from that perplexing land.
'Don't you want three acres and a cow?' asked an enthusiastic tourist
from Birmingham, soon after Mr. Jesse Collins had provided the
music-halls with the catch-phrase.
'As for the cow I would not be after saying it would not be a comfort,
but what would the pig want with so much land?' was the peasant's reply.
And that suggests an opportunity to give as my opinion that the most
practical measure England could take to benefit Ireland would be to
drain the large bogs and so improve fuel. In some places the bogs are
likely to be exhausted, but in others there is plenty of turf (turf, O
Saxon, is not the grass on which you play cricket or croquet, but is the
Hibernian for peat). Indeed, there is ample for all the needs of Ireland
for a hundred years to come, but it should not be used in the shamefully
wasteful way so often noticeable. It is no excuse that the heat it
contains is not so great as in coal.
If coal were to run out in England, to what a premium would turf rise in
Ireland!
Formerly turf could be picked up free, and even now it is very cheap,
the chief expense to the consumer being the cost of transport from the
bog to the turf rick behind the cabin.
The mineral rights of Ireland are most deceptive. There are plenty of
indications of minerals, but they are of too poor a nature to warrant
working.
Personally, I tried working coal-pits near Castleisland for three
months, and silver lead was worked for six months near Tralee by a
company which was more successful in working its own way with the
bankruptcy court. I firmly believe the reputed mineral wealth of Ireland
to be greatly exaggerated, and should never advise any one to invest
money in a syndicate for its discovery. Smelting was largely perpetrated
in olden times in Ireland, which entailed cutting down the oak forests,
that then crossed the country, to obtain fuel, the ore being brought
from England. But the introduction of the coke process in the north of
England settled that industry, which was one of the earliest Irish ones
doomed to extinction.
An Irish industry which as yet shows no sign of losing its commercial
importance is the blessed institution of matrimony, a holy thing which
in Ireland is particularly beneficial to the pockets of the priest, who
pronounces the blessing, and to the distiller, who sells the whisky, in
which the future of the happy pair is pledged.
The matrimonial arrangements of Irish farmers in Kerry may sound queer
to an English reader, but are the outcome of an innate, though
unwritten, law that the whole family have a vested interest in the
affair.
For example, when the family is growing up, the farm is handed over to
the eldest son, who gives the parents a small allowance during their
lives, while the fortune that he gets with his wife goes, not to
himself, but to provide for his younger brothers and sisters.
Hence, if the eldest son were to marry the Venus de Medici with ten
pounds less dowry than he could get with the ugliest wall-eyed female in
the neighbourhood, he would be considered as an enemy to all his family.
A tenant of a neighbour of mine actually got married to a woman without
a penny, a thing unparalleled in my experience in Kerry, and his sister
presently came to my wife for some assistance.
My wife asked her:--
'Why does not your brother support you?'
And she was answered:--
'How could he support any one after bringing an empty woman to the
house?'
There was a tenant of mine, paying about twenty-five pounds a year rent,
who died, and his son came to me to have his name inscribed in the rent
account.
I asked him what will his father had made.
He replied that he had left him the farm and its stock.
'What's to become of your brother and sister?' says I.
'They are to get whatever I draw,' says he.
'That means whatever you get with your wife?'
'That is so.'
'Well, suppose you marry a girl worth only twenty pounds, what would
happen then?'
'That would not do at all,' very gravely.
'Is there no limit put on the worth of your wife?'
'Oh,' says he, 'I was valued at one hundred and sixty pounds.'
I found out afterwards he had one hundred and seventy with his wife.
A tenant on the Callinafercy estate got married, and the mother-in-law
and the daughter-in-law did not agree. So the elder came to complain to
the landlord of the girl's conduct, and after copiously describing
various delinquencies with the assistance of many invocations of the
saints, she wound up with:--
'And the worst of all, Mr. Marshall, is that she gives herself all the
airs of a three hundred pound girl and she had but a hundred and fifty.'
Filial obedience in the matter of marriage is as uniform in these
classes in Kerry as it is conspicuous by its absence in old English
novels and comedies. The sons never kick at the unions, the daughters
are never hauled weeping to the altar, while an elopement or a refusal
to fulfil a matrimonial engagement would arouse the indignation of the
whole country side.
Decidedly these marriages turn out better than the made-up marriages in
France. I will go further, and seriously affirm my belief that the
marriages in Kerry show a greater average of happiness than any which
can be mentioned. To be sure there is the same dash after heiresses in
Kerry that you see in Mayfair, and the young farmer who is really
well-to-do is as much pursued as the heir to an earldom by matchmaking
mothers in Belgravia. But the subsequent results are much more
harmonious in Kerry, and though the landlord's advice is often asked to
settle financial difficulties in carrying out the matrimonial bargains,
less frequently is he called upon to settle differences between man and
wife.
'Sure, he's well enough meaning, your honour, with what brains the
Blessed Virgin could spare for him,' is the sort of remark a wife will
make on behalf of her lazy husband.
Fidelity is the rule; so is reasonable give and take, though each, being
human, likes to receive better than to give. And one thing which
impresses a stranger is the rarity of illegitimate children out of the
towns. This is, of course, partly due to the influence of the priests,
but partly also to the innate purity of the Irish character, as well as
by the standard of respectability:--
'Ah, he's a strong man,' you will hear said of So-and-So.
'How do you prove that?' says I.
'Why, has he not his farm, and his family with one son a priest, and one
daughter in a convent, and he with a bull for his own cows?'
Could you want more to get him on the County Council if he has no
conscience and a convivial taste in the matter of whisky?
There can be no doubt that the Irish take better care of their children
than the parents of similar position in either England or Scotland.
Cases of cruelty, which so constantly disfigure the police courts in
both the latter countries, are very rarely heard in the sister isle.
It is true that in many cases they cannot do much for their offspring,
but what little they are able to do is done with a good will and
ungrudgingly.
I remember a Saharan explorer telling me that in the desert he came
across some tribe, stark naked, utterly poor, but all on apparently
affectionate terms. He was much impressed with the love shown by the
children of all ages for their parents, and inquired what the latter did
to inspire such enviable emotion.
'We give them a handful of dates, when there are any.'
It was apparently their sole form of sustenance.
The Irishman is very good to his wife, although the courting is a matter
of business, as I have shown. Wife-beating and even more ignoble forms
of marital cruelty are almost unknown.
This is surely a big national asset.
Furthermore, the Irish are a very moral people; and this in spite of the
close proximity and confinement necessitated by the crowded condition of
many cabins.
I was going to add that the light food may have something to say to
this, but as the Irish are not remarkable for their small families, this
would be an unwarrantable aspersion.
Of course in the big towns there are women of no importance, and Dublin
has always borne rather a lively reputation in this respect, though that
in no way affects the general high standard of morality.
The climate of the country, despite the moisture, is one conducive to
good health, owing to the absence of any extreme vicissitudes.
It may be asked why, considering the overcrowding and insanitary
conditions of living in the miserable cabins, there is not more disease,
and my reply is that the peat which is burnt is so healthy as to act as
a disinfectant.
Indigestion, like lunacy, is, however, largely on the increase.
Nearly any old woman--or old man for the matter of that--as well as a
sad majority of younger people, will tell you:--
'I have a pain in the stomach,' with the accent on the second syllable
of the locality.
This is due to excessive consumption of tea.
Nearly twenty times as much tea must be drunk now in Kerry as in the
early sixties, and so far as I can recollect tea was unknown, not only
in the cabins but among the farmers until after the famine.
Fairly good tea is obtained, for the Irish will never buy tea unless
they are asked a high price, and for that price they usually, owing to
competition, obtain an article not too perniciously adulterated.
What is highly injurious is the method of making the tea.
A lot is thrown into the pot on the fire in the cabin in the morning,
and there it stands simmering all day long, that those who want it may
help themselves.
This is in sharp contrast to the method employed by Dr. Barter, the
famous hydropathic physician at Cork, one of the cleverest men I ever
met and one of the very few who never permitted medicine under any
circumstances, relying on water, packing, and Turkish baths, with strict
attention to diet.
He used to make tea by putting half a teaspoonful into a wire strainer
which he held over his cup, and pouring boiling water upon the leaves,
the contents of his cup became a pale yellow, to which he added a little
milk and instantly drank it off, the whole process lasting but a few
seconds. I remember he equally disapproved of the Russian method of
drinking tea in a glass with lemon, of the fashionable way of letting
the water 'stand off the boil' upon the leaves in a teapot, and of the
Hibernian stewing arrangement alluded to above.
Personally I regard all hydros as so many emporiums of disease, an
opinion in which I am singular, but that does not convince me I am
wrong.
A bailiff once went to St. Ann's Hydro to serve a writ, and he told me
afterwards that he served it on his victim in a Turkish bath,
remarking:--
'And your heart would have melted within your honour in pity for the
poor creature not having a pocket to put the document in.'
Which observation recalls to my mind the story of a gentleman in a
Turkish bath asking a friend to dinner, and saying:--
'Don't mind dressing; come just as you are.'
Another misunderstood answer was that of the absent-minded man who
entered a hansom and began to read a paper.
'Where to?' at last cabby asked laconically.
'Drive to the usual place.'
'I'm afraid I have too much on the slate there, sir, unless you pay my
footing.'
'Oh, go to hell,' retorted the other in a rage.
'It's outside the radius, sir, and it will be a steep pull for my old
horse after we've dropped you.'
The light-heartedness of the Celt is another feature which strikes the
least observant stranger.
An Irishman has been described as a man who confided his soul to the
priest, and his body to the British Government, whilst he holds himself
devoid of any vestige of responsibility for the care of either.
Here is another tale, illustrative of his contentment.
A philosopher, in search of happiness, was told by a wise man that if he
got the shirt of a perfectly happy man and put it on, he would himself
become happy.
The philosopher wandered over the world, but could find no man whose
happiness had not some flaw, until he fell in with an Irishman; with
whom he promptly began to bargain for his shirt, only to find he had not
one to his back.
From philosophy to the deuce is not a big stride, according to the view
of those folk who jibe at political economy and all the abstract of
virtues and governments. So, on the tail of their fancy, I am reminded
of another story about the devil--a very large number of Irish stories
are connected with him, because in a very special sense he is the
unauthorised patron saint of the sinners of the country, and he has had
far too much to say to its government into the bargain.
An Englishman, in the witless way in which Saxons do address Irishmen,
asked a labourer by the wayside:--
'If the devil came by, do you think he would take me or you?'
The labourer never hesitated, but replied:--
'He'd take me, your honour.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Oh, he would,' says he, 'because he's sure of your honour at any time.'
The Irishman is not so black as he may seem to the Saxon, who reads with
disgust the horrors that mar the beauty of the Emerald Isle, and I
should say that his finest trait is patience under adversity. No nation,
for example, could have more calmly endured the terrible sufferings of
the famine, more especially as the high-strung nerves of the Celt render
him physically and mentally the very reverse of a stoic.
Again, in no other nation are the family ties closer.
The first thought of those who emigrate to America is to remit money to
the old folk in the cabin at home. So soon as the emigrants have
obtained a reasonable degree of comfort they will send home the passage
money to pay for bringing out younger brothers or sisters to them.
Did you ever hear the story of the homesick Kerry undergraduate at
Oxford, at his first construe with his tutor, translating _contiguare
omnes_ as 'all of them County Kerry men'?
It was a true home touch, though not exactly a classical reading of the
passage.
In the same way, in my boyish days at Dingle, we all of us firmly
believed that King John had asked in what part of Kerry Ireland was.
That question was our local Magna Charta, though what the origin of the
tradition was I have no idea.
But then things do differ according to the point of view, and ours of
history was not stranger than many others of far more importance.
As an example of lack of comprehension I would cite the following
incident.
An English gentleman was shooting grouse in Ireland. He got very few
birds, and said to the keeper:--
'Why, these actually cost me a pound apiece.'
'Begorra, your honour, it's lucky there are not more of them,' was the
unexpected answer.
This allusion to sport reminds me of the Frenchman's description of
hunting in Ireland, which was to the effect that about thirty horsemen
and sixty dogs chased a wretched little animal ten miles, which resulted
in seven casualties, and when they caught the poor beast not one of them
would eat him.
The French do not always appreciate our institutions. One of them
landing at Queenstown in the middle of the day asked if there was
anything he could amuse himself with between then and dinner-time.
'Certainly,' said the waiter; 'which would you like, wine or spirits?'
By way of amusing the reader, before going any further, I will give him
a chance of reading a genuine, but unique testament in which I figured,
and which is not a bit more queer than many which have been as formally
proved.
'I Robert Shanahan in my last will and testament do make my wife
Margaret Shanahan Manager or guardian over my farm and means provided
she remains unmarried if she do not I bequeath to her 2 shillings and
sixpence I leave the farm to my son Thomas Shanahan provided he conducts
himself if not I leave the farm to my son Robert Shanahan I also wish
that there should be a provision made for the rest of the family out of
the farm according as the following Executors which I appoint may think
fit Mr. Hussey Esq. Revd. Brusnan P.P. and James Casey of Gorneybee.
Given under my heand this 7th day of February 1872.
his
ROBERT X SHANAHAN.
mark
Witnessed by
JOHN O'BRIEN.
JEREMIAH CONNOR.'
I have a few tales to tell of Kerry landlords, a race who would have
furnished Lever with a worthy theme, men as humorous as they are brave,
as diverting as they can stand, loyal to the Crown despite much
disparagement, and proud to be Irishmen, though so unappreciated by the
paid agitators and their weak tools.
However, as I wish to be on good terms with all my neighbours in this
world, and with the ghosts of the departed ones when I meet them in the
next, I am not going to give many names or rub up susceptibilities.
Of Kerry landlords, Lord Kenmare naturally suggests himself to be first
mentioned. He has been somewhat unjustly attacked more than once about
the condition of Killarney as though the town was his private property.
As a matter of fact, he is utterly powerless there, as it was all leased
away for five hundred years by his grandfather. About the town the
following may be worth telling:--
A very neat plan was drawn up for improving it, which included a gateway
between every double block of houses to lead down to the stables and
garden, but as it was not thought necessary to put a subletting clause
into the lease, the actual consequence was that all these passages were
converted into filthy lanes. Outside the town Lord Kenmare has built
some nice cottages, but within its confines he could effect nothing.
To show you how short-lived is Irish gratitude, ponder over this:--
When Mr. Daniel O'Connell, son of the great Dan, stood for West Kerry as
a Unionist, he was warned by the police officer that he could not be
answerable for his life if he came into Cahirciveen, for he had only
twenty constables to protect him; and his wife--a most charming
woman--when driving through the town was surrounded by an insulting mob,
members of which actually spat in her face.
That reminds me of a similar experience which befell the wife of Mr.
Cavanagh, the man without arms and legs, who, until denounced by the
Land League, was exceptionally popular.
Mrs. Cavanagh was walking along the road in Carlow carrying broth and
wine to a poor sick woman, when she found herself the target for a
number of stones and had to run for her life amid a shower of missiles.
Despite his exceptional infirmities Mr. Cavanagh could do almost
anything. He used to ride most pluckily to hounds, strapped on to his
saddle. On one occasion the saddle turned under him, and the horse
trotted back to the stable-yard, with his master hanging under him, his
hair sweeping the ground, bleeding profusely; he merely cursed the groom
with emphatic volubility, had himself more safely readjusted, and then
rode out once more.
He always wore pink when hunting. One day a pretty child of ten years
old was out with her groom, who followed the scent so ardently, that he
forgot all about his charge, who was left behind, and finding herself
lost in a wood, began to cry.
Suddenly there swooped out on a very big horse, the armless and legless
figure of Cavanagh in his flaming coat, and seeing her predicament, he
seized her rein somehow--she never seems quite clear how--saying:--
'Don't be frightened, little girl, for I know who you are, and will take
care of you.'
He was as good as his word, but the high-strung, sensitive child, so
soon as she was in her mother's embrace, went from one fit of hysterics
to another, crying:--
'Oh, mummy, I've seen the devil, I've seen the devil.'
In after years they became great friends, and he often dined with her
after she married and settled in London.
Reverting to Lord Kenmare, the following story, which in another version
recently won a railway story competition in some newspaper, really
pertains to his son Lord Castlerosse.
On a line in Kerry there is a sharp curve overhanging the sea. An old
woman in a great state of nervous agitation was bundled at the last
moment into a first-class compartment.
Lord Castlerosse, the only passenger in the compartment, by way of
relieving her obvious agitation, tried to calm her by telling her she
could change at the next station.
'Is it me that can be aisy,' she replied, 'when it's my Pat is driving
the engine, and him having a dhrop taken, and saying he'll take us a
shpin round the Head?'
After all, to my mind, for sheer humour of a quiet sort, nothing beats
the observation of the late Sir John Godfrey, who never got up before
one in the day, and invariably breakfasted when his family were having
lunch. Being asked one day to account for this rather inconvenient
habit, he replied:--
'The fact is, I sleep very slow.'
I commend this to every sluggard who wants an excuse to resume his
slumbers when awakened too soon.
There was a gentleman who had rather a red nose, and some one remarked
that it was an expensive piece of painting, to which some one else
significantly added, that it was not a water-colour.
'No,' said Sir John, 'it was done in distemper.'
One night a landlord in Kerry, who shall be nameless, though he has
passed over to the great majority, went to bed without having much
knowledge how he got there.
Two of his sons crept to the neighbouring town, unscrewed the sign
outside the inn, and put it at the end of their parent's bed.
When he awoke, he looked at the sign for some time in a bewildered way.
Then he observed aloud:--
'I thought I went to sleep in my own bed, but I'm d----d if I have not
woke in the middle of the street.'
A certain roystering gentleman named Jack Ray got drunk and fell asleep
in the woods of Kilcoleman. Some of the Godfrey boys, seeing him
prostrate and with foam on his lips, ran to summon their father, saying
to him:--
'There's a man dead in the wood.'
Sir William hastened to the spot, and having put on his glasses to get a
view of the corpse, observed:--
'Come away, my boys, this man dies once a week.'
Another Kerry landlord, who was also a baronet, dealt with the National
Bank, the local manager of which was an arrant snob, who loved a title,
and bored everybody with his pretended intimacy with the impecunious
baronet. But at last even his patience was exhausted, and he sent the
squire a pretty stiff letter about the arrears due.
The other received the letter at breakfast, and showed it to his son
just come down from a University, who whistled and ejaculated:--
'O tempora! O mores!'
His father instantly retorted:--
'You get me the temporary, and I'll promptly see we have more ease.'
In the bad times, an old woman came into the office at Tralee to pay her
rent. Mr. Francis Denny was in a real bad humour with somebody else who
had defaulted, and he was raging along in a manner qualified to display
his intimate acquaintance with the florid embellishments of the
language. The old woman listened with evident admiration for some time.
At last she ejaculated:--
'Ah, the nate little man.'
And with that slipped out, without settling her account.
Mr. Francis Denny has the misfortune to be rather lame, and one day
another old woman, who liked him, observed:--
'If he had two sound legs under him, there'd be no holding him in
Tralee, but he'd be up at the Castle setting the Lord Lieutenant right
in his many errors, not to mention going over to London to give the
Queen herself a bit of his mind.'
In the bad times, one lady was left in her Kerry residence with her baby
boy and a pack of maidservants, her husband having been called over to
England.
She had sixty pounds of gold in her bedroom, and one night a housemaid
rushed in to say a party of moonlighters were in the house.
The lady threw a sovereign and some silver on to the dressing-table, and
hid the rest under her mattress.
In came the masked scoundrels asking for gold, and when she pointed to
the money that was visible, one replied that it was not enough.
'Very well,' she said, 'give me your name and I'll write you a cheque.'
On that they left precipitately, to her intense relief.
All moonlighters calculated upon the terrorism their appearance would
cause, and if this was apparently conspicuous by its absence they were
nonplussed, because they never felt over secure in their own hearts at
the best of times, and grew frightened directly others were not
frightened by them.
In all moonlighting affrays no one scoundrel ever became personally
conspicuous as a leader, and all the wisest leaders, such as Stephens,
Tynan, and Parnell, shrouded their movements in mystery. Fenianism in
Ireland since Emmett has never had one capable leader possessing the
physical courage to show himself in the forefront on all occasions.
On the other hand, it is a singular fact that nearly every general of
note in the army of the United Kingdom, since the time of Marlborough,
has come from Ireland. The Duke of Wellington was born in County Meath,
Lord Gough in Tipperary, Lord Wolseley in County Carlow, Lord Roberts in
Waterford, Sir George White in Antrim, General French in Roscommon, and
Lord Kitchener in Kerry.
The attempts of the English Government to manufacture an English general
in the South African war were a miserable fiasco. They only produced
one, Sir Charles Tucker, and he did his best to atone for the accident
of his English birth by marrying a Kerry lady.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Redvers Buller in Killarney, and after
he had been there a couple of days he proceeded to describe Kerry to me,
who had been managing one fifth of it for several years. His
agricultural reforms would have been as drastic as they were ludicrous
had any one attempted to carry them out, but when expatiating on them to
me, he was not even aware that there was any difference between an
English and an Irish acre. When I heard that he was taking charge of the
whole army in South Africa, I mentioned that as he had been unable to
command three hundred constabulary in Kerry, I was sceptical of his
ability to manage the British army. He was without exception the most
self-sufficient soldier I ever met, and his subsequent career has not
made me change my view.
Here is a soldier story which is mighty illustrative of Irish traits.
A peasant's son in Limerick enlisted in the militia for a month's
training, for which he received a bounty of three pounds. With part of
this money he bought a pig and gave it to his father to feed up. When
the pig was fattened, the father sold it and declined to give him the
price. So the son was seen by the police to take his father by the
throat, saying:--
'Bad luck to you, old reprobate, do you want to deprive me of my pig
that I risked my life for in the British Army?'
Everywhere I like to slip into this book instances of the injuries
suffered by Irish landlords, so here is another case _à propos des
bottes_, if you will forgive it.
The Knight of Kerry let nine acres of land to a tenant for a rent of
forty-five pounds. Having expended a large sum of money in roadmaking
and fences, at the tenant's request, he also borrowed thirty-five pounds
to build a small house for which he has to pay thirty-five shillings per
annum. The commissioners cut down the rent so heavily, that it has
resulted in the landlord having to pay five shillings a year for the
pleasure of looking at the man in occupation of his land.
Reverting to my reminiscences--or rather to what are for myself less
interesting portions, for I am a land agent by profession and an
anecdotist only by habit--I remember that an Englishman subsequently a
Pasha commanded the coastguard at Dingle in 1856, and then had an
encounter with a local Justice of the Peace in which he came off second
best.
Captain ---- occupied the Grove demesne. The J.P., who had been a Scotch
militia officer, had been in the habit of shooting crows over the
demesne, and continued to enjoy the sport, to which the Captain strongly
objected. After an angry correspondence the J.P. sent a challenge, which
the other did not seem to stomach, for he sent an apology by a
subordinate with full permission to continue the immolation of the
birds. If a cruiser had to capitulate to this bold blockade runner, the
Captain himself had to endure a similar humiliation at the hands of an
indignant Kerry man, though he was very popular in Dingle.
There is nothing pusillanimous about the Irishman, except when in cold
blood he was expected to attack an agent, or landlord, or policeman,
armed to the teeth. In such cases, he remembered that his parents, by
the blessing of the Holy Virgin, had endowed him with two legs, and only
one skin, which latter must therefore be saved by the discretionary
employment of the former.
In other cases he is very brave, especially in verbal encounters.
Fighting is in his blood. That is what makes the Irish soldier the best
in the world, and that was why he used to revel in the faction fights.
As a paternal Government now prevents the breaking of heads, at all
events on a wholesale scale, the pugnacious instincts of the nation have
to be gratified by litigation, and certainly there never was such a
litigious race in history as the contemporary Ireland.
I know of a case on the Callinafercy estate, where a widow spent fifty
pounds 'in getting the law of' a neighbour whose donkey had browsed on
her side of a hedge. She took the case to the assizes, and when the
judge heard Mr. Leeson Marshall was her landlord, he said:--
'Let him decide it. He's a barrister himself, and can judge far better
than I could on such a subject.'
To this there are literally hundreds of parallels every year. Readers of
_La Terre_ will remember how much of the funds went into the hands of
the lawyer who thrived on the animosities of the family, and that sort
of thing is constantly reduplicated in Kerry.
'I'd sell my last cow to appeal on a point of law,' I once heard a
Killorgin farmer say; and that is typical of all the lower classes in
the South and West.
As for the solicitors, I am not going to say a word about them, good or
bad: there are men no doubt worthy of either epithet in a profession
that preys on the troubles of other folk. But I will tell one very brief
story on the topic.
Outside the Four Courts, a poor woman stopped Daniel O'Connell,
saying:--
'If you please, your honour, will you direct me to an honest attorney?'
The Liberator pushed back his wig and scratched his head.
'Well now, you beat me entirely, ma'am,' was his answer.
He had more experience than me, being one.
Talking of the Four Courts reminds me of Chief Baron Guillamore, who had
as much wit as will provoke 'laughter in court,' and a trifle over that
infinitesimal quantity as well.
A new Act of Parliament had been passed to prevent people from stealing
timber. A stupid juryman asked if he could prosecute a man under that
act for stealing turnips.
'Certainly not, unless they are very sticky,' retorted the judge.
His brother was a magistrate, and committed a barrister in petty
sessions for contempt of court. An action was brought against him, but
the Chief Baron raised so many legal exceptions, that it had finally to
be abandoned through the fraternal law-moulding. This action was pending
in the civil court, when a lawyer was very impertinent to the Chief
Baron in the criminal. Instead of committing him, the Chief Baron said
very quietly:--
'If you do not keep quiet, I shall send to the next Court for my
brother.'
Another judge had applied for shares in a company of which a friend of
his was secretary. Meeting him in Sackville Street, he stopped him to
inquire what would be the paid-up capital of the concern.
The other forgot whom he was addressing, and blurted out the truth by
replying:--
'Well, I really cannot tell you just yet, but the cheques are coming in
fast.'
The judge withdrew his application by the next post, and confidently
expected to see his friend in the dock. I believe in less than six
months he was not disappointed.
The poorer class in Ireland do not appear to be business-like in the
ordinary sense, however much they may develop commercial instincts after
emigrating. It is to promote the latent capacity obviously within their
power that creameries and other assisted promotions have been started in
various parts of the country, sometimes with great success. Sir Horace
Plunkett and others have dealt with all this in the most serious spirit.
I prefer to allude to it, and add one anecdote.
A lady asked a respectable old woman how her son was getting on as
manager of the creamery, and the reply came after the following
fashion:--
'Whisna the poor man and all the trouble he has, and him never able to
make the butter and the books scoromund,' which, being translated, is
'correspond.'
Another example I can cite of the difficulty in getting people to put
their intelligence to practical use in the south is to this effect:--
There was a certain widdy woman in a neighbouring parish who was making
great lamentation over her 'pitaties' to the priest, and in consequence
he lent her a machine for the purpose of spraying them. She professed
the profoundest gratitude as well as interest in the implement, but the
task speedily became too big an effort, for she subsequently informed me
that she had sprayed 'half the field to plase his Rivirence, but left
the rest to God.'
And that is the kind of negative piety which is distinctly a
characteristic Irish trait.