The Giant’s Causeway, Portrush, near Belfast
The Giant’s Causeway, Portrush, near Belfast
In one place on the cliff there has been a landslide, which has thrown the pillars in that locality into horizontal positions, but elsewhere along the coast they are upright. At what is called the Giant’s Loom the columns are exposed for about thirty feet, but the rest of them form a curious and extraordinary mosaic flooring, stretching out into the sea and extending for several miles with remarkable regularity. Each column is absolutely distinct from the rest of the forty thousand; none of them are monoliths so far as can be seen, but theyare divided into drums about two feet in thickness, which fit into each other like a ball and socket. The geologists generally agree that these extraordinary forms are the result of the contraction and division of the lava in cooling, and the process may be illustrated by the experiments with ordinary laundry starch, which takes the form of similar miniature columns when it cools.
Mr. S.S. Knabenshue, American Consul at Belfast, has been searching out the ancestry of the late President McKinley, who lived in the village Conagher in County Antrim in the north of Ireland. The family were Scotch Presbyterians and came over at some date unknown, and settled upon a little farm of forty-two acres. Generation after generation were born and lived and died there, leaving no record but that of honest, hardworking, God-fearing tillers of the soil. The family burying lot is in Derrykeighan Churchyard, where, among others, rest the remains of Francis McKinlay, who was executed for participation in the Revolution of 1798, and those of his wife and daughter. Francis J. Bigger, a widely known Irish archæologist and historian, has traced the descent of the late President from a great-great-grandfather who emigrated in 1743 and settled in York County, Penn. His son David McKinley emigrated to Ohio in 1814, and had a son named James whose son, William McKinley (Senior), was the father of the late President.
The cabin in which the family lived for generations is now used as a cow-shed, the present owner of the property having built himself a more pretentious residence. It has three windows and a door facing on the street. The door opens directly into a large room, which was the dining room and kitchen; the two bedrooms on each side of the fireplace have been turned into cow stables, the windows being cut down and replaced by doors so that the animals can enter from the outside.
In the Irish village at the recent Franco-British Exposition in London the McKinley cottage was reproduced, and theoriginal doors, door frames, windows, attic floor, staircase, and the iron crane and the big pot from the fireplace all came from the real cottage, having been sold to the owner. Consequently there is nothing left of the original cottage except the stone walls and the thatched roof.
Bishop’s Gate, Derry
Bishop’s Gate, Derry
A gentleman from Erie, Penn., who had been traveling about Ireland for several weeks made a suggestion which seemed to me to be worth adopting, and I proposed it to several organizations for promoting the welfare of Ireland without exciting much enthusiasm. There seems to be an apprehension that somebody will make political capital out of it, and very little is done without such motives. Politics and whisky are the curses of Ireland. However, the plan is to apply to Ireland the principle of “the old home week” that has been so popular and successful in New Hampshire and other parts of New England, only it is proposed to make it a month instead of a week and have special days set apart for reunions in the different counties, at which as many natives of those counties and children of natives as possible may come over from the United States to visit their old homes and birthplaces. They can thus renew their acquaintances with their former neighbors and the playmates of their childhood, revive their interest in Irish affairs, and stimulate the patriotism and love of “the ould sod” which are marked characteristics of the race.
It would be easy to make arrangements with the different steamship lines to give low rates, not only those which touch regularly at Queenstown, but also the Holland, Antwerp, Italian, Scandinavian, and other lines which go by but do not stop at Irish ports. The tide of emigration is westward and there are comparatively few steerage and second-class passengers going east on the Cunard and White Star steamers that touch at Queenstown. The steamship companies would make a low rate for the round trip which would give anopportunity for thousands of Irish-born citizens of the United States to spend a short vacation across the sea visiting their old homes and the homes of their fathers. The fact that everybody is doing the same would be a great incentive, and for a few weeks Ireland would be crowded with her former sons and daughters.
A very important result of such a visitation would be to leave in Ireland large sums which would quicken business, increase the demand for labor, create a market for everything that is made or grows, and flood Ireland with money. Each visitor would contribute his share, although it might be a little, but the total of the expenditures of such pilgrims would be enormous and create a condition of prosperity greater than Ireland has ever seen. Five million dollars has been expended in New Hampshire by visitors from other States since the Old Home Week celebrations and the advertisement of abandoned farms were first undertaken. If that amount of money should be spent in Ireland it would be of everlasting benefit to the people. If ten thousand visitors came from the United States and spent only a hundred dollars each, which is a very low average, it would leave a million dollars in circulation here.
It might be natural also, as has occurred in New Hampshire, that many natives who went to the States in their childhood and have become wealthy and are now approaching the period of their rest and leisure would purchase homes in Ireland and spend their declining years in the scenes of their youth as Mr. Croker is doing, and three or four other persons I met. There was a man at the hotel from Chicago looking for a country place. He expects to invest a hundred thousand dollars in an Irish home somewhere near Dublin. Then, think of the contributions that would be made in aid of the churches, the benevolent institutions, and other charities as well as to insure the comfort and happiness of individuals in whom the visitors might be interested. One might suggest many other ways in which Ireland might be benefited by such celebrations, and those who participate in them will certainly have a deep senseof gratification for their share. Perhaps the most important result would be to correct the misapprehensions that are almost universal concerning the material condition of Ireland. Things are much different in many respects from what Irish-Americans have been led to believe by newspaper articles and other publications, and it is right and necessary that misapprehensions should be corrected.
If the month of July, three or four years ahead, were selected for reunions of the sons of Ireland, it would give sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements, and local organizations in the different countries could fix their own dates most convenient for reunions of those who would come from those particular localities. Irishmen in Australia, Canada, South Africa, and other parts of the world would be glad to join their American cousins in carrying out such a plan. I met an American priest at Cork who was enthusiastic over the suggestion and declared that twenty families in his own parish would undoubtedly come over on such an occasion to visit their old homes. And he expressed the surprise that I felt about the improved conditions of the Irish people and the prospects for peace and happiness and prosperity in the island.
There are now nearly two million natives of Ireland in the United States, and nearly six million people whose parents were born there or who were born there themselves.
The following statement will show the number of natives of Ireland in the United States as returned by each census since 1850:
The census of 1900 shows 3,991,417 citizens of the United States both of whose parents were born in Ireland.
Since the census of 1900 was taken the average arrivals from Ireland have been about thirty-eight thousand per year, which has added at least three hundred thousand to the total of 1900, and, making due allowance for deaths and departures, increased the number of natives in the United States to nearly two millions.
The improved conditions in Ireland during the last few years have caused a considerable decrease in emigration. At the present time a smaller number of people are seeking work in other countries than ever before since the famine of the ’40s. This is the most significant evidence of the prosperity of the country and the success of the government in promoting contentment and improving the condition of the peasants by the enactment of the land laws and the work of the Congested Districts Board, of which I have written at length in previous letters.
Low tide in emigration was reached during the first six months of 1908, when the total number departing from Ireland was only 13,511, being a decrease of 8,713 in comparison with the corresponding period of 1907. Of these 9,974 went to the United States and 1,598 to Canada; 1,868 went from Leinster Province, 3,762 from Munster, 4,611 from Ulster, and 3,270 from Connaught.
The total number of emigrants from Ireland in 1907 was 39,082, but unless something extraordinary happens the total for this year will fall below 25,000.
During the last fifteen years the population of Ireland has decreased 292,370, and during the last fifty years it has fallen off three and one half millions. During the last fifteen years the population of Scotland has increased 689,825 and that of England and Wales has increased 5,461,197. The birth rate in Ireland is larger than it is in either England or Scotland, and the death rate is about the same, so that the decrease in population has been entirely due to emigration.
Since the distribution of the great estates in Ireland among the tenants in small farms there is a growing complaint concerning the lack of labor; and the emigration of young men to the United States and the migration of farm laborers who spend from five to nine months in Scotland every year where wages are higher than in Ireland are creating a very serious problem.
There are in Ireland about 400,000 farms, of which 165,000, embracing three-fourths of the total area, average more than thirty acres, and that is all one man can cultivate. All farms more than thirty acres in extent, and many of smaller area, require hired labor, which has usually received about 12 shillings per week until the last two or three years, when farm wages were advanced to 14 shillings and 16 shillings a week—that is, $3.50 and $4. The recent census shows that 217,652 men are employed as laborers upon these 165,000 farms and that an average of 76,870 extra hands are employed during the harvest. During the last three years, although the area under cultivation has been growing smaller annually, it has been difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of labor to carry on the harvests, and wages, in many cases, have advanced to 18 shillings a week.
Notwithstanding the demand for home labor, 24,312 persons, including 750 women, left Ireland in May, 1907, and went to England and Scotland, where they remained to work on the farms until the following November. Most of them went from the northwestern part of Ireland, from counties Mayo, Roscommon, Donegal, Galway, and Sligo, which have the least land under cultivation in the country.
An investigation made by the estates commissioners showed that 3,245 of these persons had holdings of five acres, 987 had holdings of between five and ten acres, 912 between ten and fifteen acres, 458 between fifteen and twenty acres, 471 between twenty and twenty-five acres, 93 between twenty-five and thirty acres, 102 between thirty and forty acres, and 75 had farms of more than forty acres. Most of them left their little farms to be cultivated by their wives and sons and daughters during their absence. Among the migrants were 9,308 sons of farmers, who work on their father’s farms when they are in Ireland, but go to England and Scotland because they are able to make more money than by staying at home.
The average wages of these migrants was 26 shillings a week, and they varied from 20 to 30 shillings, according tointelligence, with food, lodging, and in many cases their traveling expenses one way. It is customary for the Scotch and English farmers to pay the railway fare over and leave the migrant to buy his ticket home in the fall. Most of the migrants save the larger part of their wages. It is estimated that the average net savings was £12, or $60 per person, and that the total amount taken back to Ireland at the end of the season was about £275,000, or $1,375,000 in American money. These savings are sufficient to keep their families through the rest of the year with the aid of their small farms, fishing, weaving, lacemaking, and other home industries.
According to the reports of the estates commission, the number of farm hands employed in 1871, in addition to the owners of the land and their families, was 446,782, or more than twice as many as are employed at present. In 1881 the number was 300,091. The number of occasional laborers or extra harvest hands employed in 1871 was 189,829, as against 76,870 employed in 1907, which indicates in a striking manner the decay of agriculture in Ireland.
At the same time wages have increased 30 per cent and the cost of boarding farm hands has increased 40 per cent. The hands now demand better accommodations and better food, and everything they require is much more expensive than it was thirty years ago. The average wages for steady farm hands in Ireland with board, according to the official statistics, is $12 a month, while ten years ago labor was plenty at $9 a month. Wages of household servants are about the same and have advanced as rapidly.
The census statistics of Ireland are quite interesting and show that for the last ten years the population has remained fairly stationary, the excess of births over deaths making up the loss by emigration. The latest vital statistics available are for the year 1905, which show a population of 4,391,565, an excess of births over deaths of 27,671; an emigration of 30,676, and a net decrease in population of 2,915. The following table shows the number of births, deaths, and emigrants for ten years:
Through the efforts of Mr. Boland, M.P., the foreign commerce of Ireland is now given independently in the statistical reports of the United Kingdom, and the following table shows the imports and exports for recent years:
It will be noticed that there was a considerable increase every year in both columns, but the increase in exports was considerably greater than in imports. This increase was particularly noticeable in live stock shipments to England. In 1905 there were 1,852,423 head of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and swine shipped from Ireland to England, and in 1907 the shipments had increased to 2,025,292 head.
The exports of butter also increased, and Ireland now has the lead among the nations that contribute to the British poultry market. In 1907 the value of the poultry exported from Ireland to Great Britain was £725,441.
Ireland ought to furnish all the bacon that the British people eat. Irish bacon is the best in the world, and brings the highest prices, but, notwithstanding that fact, more bacon was imported into England from the United States, from Denmark, and from Canada than from Ireland.
The exports of manufactured goods—linens, woolens, and other textiles—from Ireland during the fiscal year 1907, exceeded £20,000,000. The imports of similar articles amounted to £27,000,000. The Irish import a vast amount of bacon from the United States when they ought to supply their own market.
The following table will show the commerce between the United States and Ireland during the last three years:
The falling off of the exports from Ireland in 1908 was due entirely to the panic of that year in the United States, which caused an almost total stagnation of trade for several months.
There is no limit to the demand for Irish agricultural produce at good prices, but the cultivated area of the island continues to diminish annually, and the area given up to pasturage and the breeding of cattle and sheep increases. The Irish farmer has an unlimited market for bacon, hams, butter, eggs, poultry, potatoes, and other vegetables in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, and other great manufacturing cities which are now very largely fed by Holland and Denmark. More eggs and poultry, more butter and bacon, are imported into England from Denmark than from Ireland, notwithstanding the difference in distance and cost of transportation. The provision dealers of the great manufacturing cities of England always have agents in Ireland, and the Department of Agriculture and the Irish Agricultural Organization Society are both active and efficient in securing and cultivating markets for Irish products. They are advancing large sums of money to establish co-operative dairies and to improve the dairy cattle, the swine, and poultryof Ireland, but many of the farmers are indifferent to their opportunities and with the happy-go-lucky characteristic of the Irish race are happy and satisfied so long as they have enough to feed their own mouths.
Sir Horace Plunkett, who has been especially active in trying to improve the condition of the farmers of Ireland, says: “The settlement of the land question and the new system of governmental aid to agriculture are proceeding rapidly and doing great good, but along neither of those two lines of national advancement, nor along both combined, is agricultural prosperity to be attained. The result depends entirely upon voluntary individual effort and co-operation. The British market will take all the produce we can send, and the more we send of uniform quality—and this can be done by co-operation—the more it will pay for our produce. It follows that every dairy farmer in Ireland is not only interested in seeing that every farmer in his district forwards the best butter he can produce, but he is also concerned to see that farmers in other districts do the same. The ownership of the land by the occupier, which has been brought about by legislation, will not of itself give the Irish farmer the prosperity he hopes for. It is not only the farms, but the habits of the people upon the land which need improvement. Capable under certain influences of surprising industry, they lack the qualities which secure the fruits of industry, because their education and economic circumstances have not developed the industrial habit. They are surely clever in their resourcefulness and shrewd in their bargainings, but as a rule in the management of their farms and commercial dealings they display a total lack of the most elementary principles of either technical or business knowledge. In spite of a passionate devotion to their country, they emigrate to America whenever they can obtain the money to pay their passage, and seem to have no fixed purpose or ambition to develop the resources that lie around them.”
The factories of Ireland are confined almost entirely to the northern province of Ulster, although a few mills and othertextile manufactories are scattered in other parts of the island. The textile and other manufacturing industries have enjoyed unprecedented and extraordinary prosperity for eight or ten years.
Household industries, particularly the manufacture of handwoven tweeds and various kinds of lace, received a gratifying impetus from the advertising obtained at the Irish village at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, under the patronage of Lady Aberdeen, who for twenty years had interested herself in the practical and successful development of lacemaking and hand weaving of woolen fabrics. Her energetic efforts have been supplemented by the Royal Irish Industries Association and the Royal Dublin Society, both of which hold annual exhibitions, offer prizes for excellence of design and workmanship, and provide agencies for the sale of homemade and convent-made products in London and other cities.
The Congested Districts Board has given much practical aid and encouragement by loaning money to people who cannot afford to buy looms, by sending teachers in industries throughout the island into the households, by establishing fixed schools at central points, and by furnishing thread and other materials to lacemakers and weavers, for which it collects payments after the product is sold. All through the poor districts of Ireland, where for centuries there has been a desperate struggle for existence, thousands of looms and spinning-wheels may now be found in the cottages of the poor peasants, where both the parents and the children have been instructed in spinning and in weaving by government teachers. And in almost every village on the west coast there is a lace school attended by from twelve to fifty young women under the instruction of a patient and tactful teacher working with thread advanced to them without payment by the Congested Districts Board. The lace produced is sold for them at the agencies of the board, and they are thus enabled to contribute several pounds a month to the incomes of their families.
It is a familiar joke that our principal imports from Ireland are priests, politicians, policemen, and baseball pitchers, but they are not all by any means. I do not know what other country has furnished so many famous Americans—generals, admirals, statesmen, politicians, financiers, merchant princes, actors, writers, lawyers, and other professional men too numerous to mention. If you will look through the list of the generals during our Civil War, if some one will make up a catalogue of millionaires and mining kings and empire-builders and captains of industry they will realize that all the Irishmen who have come to the United States have not gone into politics or pugilism or baseball teams. I must say, however, that the Irish have almost the monopoly of the prize ring and the baseball diamond.
Cardinal Logue made a speech upon his return from America in 1908, in which he discussed this subject at length and related what he had himself seen of Irish millionaires and other successful business men in the United States. He spoke particularly of New York City, and alluded with gratification to the fact that the subway of New York City and the new tunnel under the Hudson River were both built by Irishmen.
“I was proud to know,” he said, “of the vast number of our countrymen who were honored citizens of the United States. They have asserted themselves, especially in New York, and occupy the leading positions there. You find Irishmen prominent in every walk of life, you find them among the most distinguished of the judges on the bench, you find them among the most successful barristers, you find them among the most eminent in medicine and in the other learned professions, and then I found that the largest contracts in New York [and he might have said in the entire country] had been allotted to Irishmen, because of their ability to organize and carry out great works. I visited the tunnel under the Hudson and was proud to think that that great work had been carried out by an Irishman who had carved out his own advancement and had made his own way in life by his nativetalent and genius. Then, again, when they were undertaking the stupendous work of building subways under the city of New York they gave that contract to an Irishman, who succeeded in completing it to the satisfaction of everybody, and it was one of the greatest works ever undertaken by man.
“And they succeed in other branches of life also, equally well,” continued the cardinal. “As I was sailing up the Hudson River one day we passed a city called Hoboken, and I was told that it was inhabited exclusively by Germans with the exception of two solitary Irishmen, and one of them, Lord, is mayor of the city and the other is prefect of police. That is an indication of how our people are going ahead in America. And even in the humbler walks of life I found them hard working, well educated, and giving every sign of having retained their own faith and that love for Ireland which is the characteristic of our race in every part of the world. Some of them of the third and fourth generations were as warm and as strong in their love for Ireland as those born in this dear old land of ours.”
Cardinal Logue forgets that the ancestors of the men he speaks of in America were once kings of Ireland, and they have the right to success; but I often wonder what would have happened if all the great Irishmen we read about—the Duke of Wellington, Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, General Sheridan, A.T. Stewart, John W. Mackey, John McDonald, Thomas F. Ryan, and the thousands of other famous Irishmen—had remained here instead of going out into a wider field of fame and usefulness. The result would be incomprehensible.
And there is a good deal of truth in the joke about the kings of Ireland. At the time of St. Patrick and up to the Norman invasion in the twelfth century Ireland was divided into many little kingdoms in addition to the four grand divisions which correspond to the provinces to-day. The O’Connors were kings of Connaught, the O’Brians of Munster, the O’Neills of Ulster, the McMurroughs of Leinster, the Kavanaughs of Wexford,the O’Carrolls of Tipperary, the MacCarthys of Cork, the O’Sullivans and the O’Donaghues ruled in the southwest, the O’Flahertys in Galway—and so on through a long list. What is a county now was a kingdom then, and the descendants of the rulers still bear their names.
If any one should write a book on Irish characteristics, I think he should rank good humor as the most prominent, and that makes up for a great many defects. We were on the island for nearly three months and visited more than half the counties, seeing a good deal of both city and country life, and coming in contact with all classes of people, and it is safe to say that no one uttered a cross or an unkind word to us, but everywhere and under all circumstances and from everybody we received a most cordial welcome and the most courteous treatment. And when we asked questions which many times must have seemed silly and unnecessary to the people to whom they were addressed, the replies have always been polite and considerate.
Irish retorts are proverbial. For “reppartay” the race is famous, and we have had numerous illustrations. Wit is spontaneous. It doesn’t take an Irishman long to frame an answer, and it is generally to the point. “Blarney” is abundant. Every old woman calls you her “darlin’,” and every man calls you “me lud” or “yer honor.” The insidious flattery that is used on all occasions does no harm to the giver or the receiver. It makes the world brighter and happier, though it may be flippant and insincere.
Irish Market Women
Irish Market Women
The man who “always said the meanest things in such a charming way” must have been an Irishman, although I do not remember to have heard a mean thing said of anybody over there. The Irish race are not diplomatic in their actions; history demonstrates that, but no race is so much so in conversation, and the tact and taffy shown in the treatment of strangers are admirable. Nor does the Irish peasant wear his heart uponhis sleeve. He may be frank and sincere in his expressions, but it is quite as probable that he is otherwise. He has the faculty of concealing the bitterest malice under the gentlest smiles and flattering compliments.
It is always difficult to get a serious answer from a native in Ireland. The peasant is always suspicious, and, while he will make himself agreeable and amuse a stranger with his wit and humor, it is difficult to get deeper into his confidence and seldom safe to place any reliance upon what he says. This, I am told, is the result of centuries of persecution, treachery, and danger, so that the Irish race from necessity learned to wear the mask, until it is now a habit.
Notwithstanding their ready replies and their apparent frankness, you are never satisfied with the information they give you when you question them upon serious topics. You are convinced that they are not expressing their real opinions. I make it a rule to discuss the land laws and political policies with car drivers and other people I meet of the working class, but have never been able to get an opinion from them. I have never yet heard an Irish peasant express an unkind opinion of anybody. After talking with them about politicians, landlords, and others, I feel like the child in the cemetery who asked where bad people were buried.
But what you most admire is the witty and ingenious way in which they turn a mistake. A young Irishman stepped up to a gentleman the other day, and with a musical brogue inquired:
“I’m thinkin’, sir, that you are Mr. Blake.”
“You’re thinkin’ wrong,” was the surly reply.
“I beg yer honor’s pardon; I sez to mysilf, when I seen you, sez I, that must be Mr. John Blake for whom I have a missage; but if it’s not, sez I to mysilf, it’s a moighty fine upsthanding young gintleman, whoiver he may be.”
Sometimes there is a tinge of sarcasm, as when an old hag asked: “Won’t yer lordship buy an old woman’s prayers for a penny; that’s chape.”
“The hivins be your bed, me darlin’,” was the way an old beggar woman expressed her thanks.
Sir Walter Scott says: “I gave a fellow a shilling on one occasion when a sixpence was the proper fee.
“‘Remember you owe me a sixpence, Pat,’ I said.
“‘May yer honor live till I pay ye!’”
When he was leaving the ruins of the Seven Churches at Glendalough, Lord Plunkett, his escort, whispered to the custodian:
“That’s Sir Walter Scott; he’s a great poet.”
“Divil a bit,” was the reply, “he’s an honorable gintleman, an’ he gave me half a crown”—when the fee was a shilling.
Very often we hear poetic expressions from the most unexpected sources. As we were driving down to Ballyhack from Waterford, the jaunting car driver pointed at a mile stone with his whip and remarked:
“The most lonesome thing in Ireland; without another of its kind within a mile of it.”
The common use of the name of the Creator is often shocking to strangers and seems blasphemous, but it is an unconscious habit. The word is constantly on the tongue of the poor and not always in a profane sense. You hear, “God bless you,” “God prosper you,” “Praise God,” and similar expressions continually. One neighbor seldom greets another good morning or good night, without an appeal to the Almighty or the Redeemer or the Holy Virgin. “Howly Mother” is the commonest of ejaculations, but Irish profanity is always associated with blessings and not with curses. You never hear the anathemas that are so common in the United States. Nobody ever damns you; if the name of the Almighty is appealed to it is always for his blessing and not for condemnation.
Everybody in Ireland does not speak with a brogue. It has often been said that the purest English is spoken in Dublin and Aberdeen, but that is true to a very limited extent among the highly educated and the cultured classes with whom strangers do not often come in contact. In some places the brogue is so dense that a stranger requires an interpreter. It is difficult to understand an ordinary remark. And you hear the brogue in the pulpit as well as in the slums. There is no form ofspeech richer or more musical than the brogue of an eloquent Irishman, and his natural gifts of oratory enable him to convey the meaning of his words to the fullest degree by his accent. I never heard the service of the Episcopal church read in a more eloquent and impressive manner than by a young curate with a brogue “that you could cut with a knife,” as the saying is. There is nothing to compare with it except the “sweet, soft, southern accent in the United States.” When you inquire where the Irish got their brogue, the answer will be, “At the same shop that the Yankee got his twang.”
We know that one of the most conspicuous and charming traits of the Irish race is to have a pleasant word for everybody, no matter what is in their hearts, on the theory attributed to St. Augustine that a drop of honey will attract more flies than a barrel of vinegar. The Irish call it “deludering” and “soothering,” both very expressive words.
The pleasant way in which questions are answered is very gratifying, especially to a stranger. You never hear a gruff word in Ireland. An Englishman is brutally abrupt, but the Irish are always agreeable. The other day when I asked the guard of a railway train how soon it would start he replied promptly:
“Not till yer honor is aboard, sir.”
When I complained to the hotel porter that it was raining all the time in Ireland he replied apologetically:
“But it’s such a gintle rain, sir.”
Some of the retorts you hear from the common people are highly poetic. When I bought a bunch of flowers from an old woman in the street the other day she replied:
“God bless your kind heart, sir; your mother must have been a saint.”
“Good luck to your ladyship’s happy face this morning,” was the greeting of an old hag to my daughter.
“Oh, let me poor eyes look at ye, me lady, and your voice is as swate as your face.”
In a little book I picked up one day, I found a dialogue between a farmer and fox, as follows:
“Good morrow, Fox.”
“Good morrow, Farmer.”
“And what are ye ating, my dear little fox?” said the farmer insinuatingly. “Is it a goose you stole from me?”
“No, my dear farmer, it is the leg of a salmon.”
One day I was speaking to the jarvey who was driving us about in the jaunting car, of a neighbor I had met, who had spent some years in America. He had returned to his native place with a “tidy purseful” of money, and was looking around for some business in which to invest his little capital.
“He seems to think very well of himself,” I suggested.
“He acts as if he came over with Cromwell a thousand years ago, and he looks down on thim of us who was kings of all the counthry, even before the mountains was made.”
An American tourist said to his driver: “Why do you speak to your horse in English, when you talk Celtic to your friends on the road?”
“Sure, an’ isn’t the English good enough for a beast?” was the reply.
The term “himself” is used to describe the boss, the head of a family, the chief man in an association, the commander of a ship, or the colonel of a regiment. It is applied in the same way as the term “old man” that we are accustomed to in the United States. When a subaltern in the army speaks of “himself,” you may understand that he means the colonel of the regiment. When an employee of a railway company alludes to “himself,” it is the general manager. And when a sailor uses that term he means the captain of the ship. Wives use it to describe their husbands; children refer to their fathers in that manner and workmen to their superintendent or the boss of the gang:
“Did himself give yez the order?”
“I will not take any directions except from himself.”
“You’ll have to wait till himself comes in,” said a young boy behind the counter in a Dublin shop.
“We’re waiting for himself to come home to dinner,” was the remark of a good wife, when I inquired for her husband.
“Himself has not been very well lately.”
The word “Himself” is frequently written upon envelopes, where it has the same significance as the word “Personal” or “Private” with us, and is a warning that no one should open it but the person to whom it is addressed.
But these ancient customs are being abandoned, and most of the superstitions are dying out. The Irish people are the most highly imaginative and superstitious in the world, and the national schools are blamed for the change that is taking place among them in this respect. John Dillon told me in Dublin that he was not quite satisfied in his own mind whether this was a good thing for the country. Personally, he would much prefer that the people would adhere to the customs and preserve the superstitions of their ancestors. But there is more than one opinion on that subject. The superintendent of the insane asylum at Killarney asserts that the most prolific causes of insanity here are the imagination, the superstitions, and the habitual use of strong tea. But the national schools and the Christian religion have not been able to banish some of the most baneful spirits like the Banshee, which still gives notice of approaching death, sorrow, and misfortune, and still commands the faith and confidence of the great majority of the Irish people. Even those who ridicule the Banshee and deny its omens hate to hear the cry. The superstition is inborn. It is like the evil eye in Italy. People who do not believe in it will nevertheless dodge a person who is accused of carrying such a curse.
There is a great deal of regret, which all of us must share, that the common people of Ireland have abandoned many of the quaint and odd customs that gave them their individuality, and are taking up modern English notions instead. The old sports and games which were inherited from the Gaelic ancestors are becoming obsolete. The peasants never dance in the fields nowadays, and their festivals are very like those of the English yeomen. They are taking up cricket, golf, tennis, and other English games, which you see them playing in the parks and on the commons, instead of the distinctively Irishamusements that were so common in the past generation. The Celtic League is working for a revival with a little success.
A newcomer is always puzzled by the large number of names on the map beginning with the word “Bally.” In that amusing book called “Penelope’s Experiences in Ireland,” one of the girls suggested that in making up their itinerary they should first visit all the places called “Bally,” and after that all the places whose names end or begin with “kill.” That is the Gaelic word for a grove or a clump of trees.
The word “Bally” means “town,” and corresponds with the word “ville” in our geographical nomenclature. The map of Ireland is spattered with names with such a prefix. Here are some of them:
Each of these names has a significance. Ballyragget means a town where there is a ford, Ballyroe is a red town, Ballysallagn is a dirty town. Ballybunion was named in honor of a man called Bunion, Ballydoo is a black town, Ballykeel is a narrow town, Ballykill is the town of the wood or the town of the woods.
Kilcooly is the church of the corner, Kilcarne is the church of the carne or glen, Kilboy is a yellow church, Killduff is a church of black stone, Killroot is a red church, and so on. Almost every name in Ireland has some significance.
I saw only one harp during the three months we were in Ireland, and that was being played by a man in the street, who had an excellent touch and good expression. Street singers have almost entirely disappeared. The love of music and the love of fighting, however, cannot be eradicated fromthe race that has possessed them since creation, and the Celtic League is doing much to revive the ancient popular airs like “Home, Sweet Home,” “Annie Laurie,” and “Way Down on the Suwanee River.” All of these are adaptations from melodies that have been sung by mother and child among the peasants of Ireland for centuries. General Sherman used to tell of a joke on himself when he was visiting Ireland shortly after the war. Hearing a band coming down the street playing “Marching through Georgia” he naturally assumed that it was a serenade in his honor. He put on his other coat, brushed his hair and whiskers and sat down to await a summons which did not come. After the music had passed beyond hearing he asked his aid-de-camp to find out what had happened. Colonel Audenreid, who was with him, quickly returned to explain that a local military company had marched down the street to the music of an old Irish air which had been plagiarized for one of our war songs.
The last of the bards was Carolan, who died in 1788, and whose memory is preserved by a tablet in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. The ancient bards were more influential than warriors or priests or statesmen, and stood next in rank to the king. The praise or the censure of a bard was alike potent. Their satire was as much to be feared as the malediction of a priest, and their approval was as precious as the gifts of the gods.
South of Dublin, along the coast, is a string of summer resorts and bathing places which are attractive in their way, but ought to be very much more so. They are very different from what we are accustomed to. They look more like factory towns than summer resorts. Although land is cheap and there is plenty of it, the hotels and houses are built in solid blocks usually facing upon a highway that runs along the shore. There is no shade, no glorious groves like those which surround the country houses half a mile away; no lawns, no cozy green nooks; only masses of brick and mortar divided into tenements twenty-five feet wide, in the presence of the majesty of the sea. Across the roadway, on the beach, are rows of little frame houses painted dove color, that are called “bathing machines.” Each is independent of the other and is about four feet square, with a narrow door and, inside, a seat made of board resting on cleats nailed to the side, and hooks fastened above it on which the bather hangs his or her garments. When the bather is properly clad in the bathing suit, the “machine” is picked up by two stalwart attendants, who run poles through the sides of the house and carry it down to the edge of the water, where my lady may step into the surf.