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Replies to Minor Queries.
_Donnybrook Fair_ (Vol. vii., p. 549.).--ABHBA will find his answer in
D'Alton's _History of the County of Dublin_, p. 804.:
"About the year 1174, Earl 'Strongbow' gave Donnybrock (Devonalbroc),
amongst other lands, to Walter de Riddlesford; and in 1204, King John
granted to the corporation of Dublin license for an _annual eight-day
fair here_, commencing on the day of the finding of the Holy Cross (May
3rd), with similar stallages and tolls, as established in Waterford and
Limerick."
This scene of an Irishman's glory has been daguerreotyped in lines that may
be left in your pages, as being probably quite as little known to your
readers as is the work above cited:
"Instead of weapons, either band
Seized on such arms as came to hand.
And as famed Ovid paints th' adventures
Of wrangling Lapithae and Centaurs,
Who at their feast, by Bacchus led,
Threw bottles at each others' head;
And these arms failing in their scuffles,
Attack'd with andirons, tonges, and shovels:
So clubs and billets, staves and stones,
Met fierce, encountering every sconce,
And cover'd o'er with knobs and pains,
Each void receptacle for brains."