Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3). Jonah Barrington

1

King William’s neck was not broken, only his collar-bone; his fall from a chesnut horse, however, hastened his dissolution.

2

Could his majesty, King William, learn in the other world that he has been the cause of more broken heads and drunken men, since his departure, than all his predecessors, he must be the proudest ghost and most conceited skeleton that ever entered the gardens of Elysium.

3

Sir Neil O’Donnel, who was present, first told me the anecdote. They fought with sabres: the whole company were intoxicated, and nobody minded them much till the German’s head came spinning like a top on the mess-table, upsetting their bottles and glasses. He could not remember what they quarrelled about. Colonel Doran himself assured me that he had very little recollection of the particulars. The room was very gloomy: – what he best remembered was, a tolerably effective gash which he got on his left ear, and which nearly eased him of that appendage: – it was very conspicuous.

4

A corruption of “Cottager;” the lowest grade of the Irish peasants, but the most cheerful, humorous, and affectionate. The word is spelt differently and ad libitum. Though the poorest, they were formerly the most happy set of vassals in Europe.

5

Arthur, Bishop of Waterford, was hung at Dublin for an unnatural crime – a circumstance which the prejudiced Irish greatly rejoiced at, and long considered as forming an epocha.

6

I have heard the battle of Moret told a hundred times, and never with one variation of fact or incident. It was a favourite legend with the old people, and affords a good idea of the habits and manners of those lawless times.

7

A gossoon was then, and till very lately, an indispensable part of a country gentleman’s establishment; – a dirty, bare-legged boy, who could canter six miles an hour on all sorts of errands and messages – carry turf – draw water – light the fires – turn the spit, when the dog was absent, &c. tell lies, and eat any thing. One of these gossoons took a run (as they call it) of ten miles and back for some person, and only required a large dram of whiskey for his payment.

8

It was formerly used by nuns, monks, &c. in the warm climates to temper their blood withal. There is a sort of cooling root sold at the herbalists in Paris at present, of which the young religieuses of both sexes are said to make a cheap, palatable, and powerful anti-satanic ptisan. It is displayed in the shops on strings, like dried lemon-peel.

9

I believe that most countries produce simple herbs, of a nature adapted to the cure of diseases prevalent in their respective climates. The old Irishwomen formerly had wonderful skill in finding and applying such remedies; they chewed the herbs into a sort of pap, and then extracted the juice, for the patient to take inwardly – whilst the substance was applied as a poultice.

Many of the rebels told me, after 1798, that having no doctors, the country bone-setters and the “Colloughs” (old women) soon cured their flesh-wounds and broken limbs: “but,” added they, “when a boy’s skull was smash’d, there was no more good in him.”

10

Here I wish to observe the distinction which occurs to me as existing between the attachment of the Scottish Highlanders to their lairds and the ardent love of the Irish peasantry to their landlords – (I mean, in my early days, when their landlords loved them.)

With the Highlanders – consanguinity, a common name, and the prescriptive authority of the Scottish chief over his military clan, (altogether combining the ties of blood and feudal obedience) exerted a powerful and impetuous influence on the mind of the vassal. Yet their natural character – fierce though calculating – desperate and decisive – generated a sort of independent subserviency, mingled with headstrong propensities which their lairds often found it very difficult to moderate, and occasionally impossible to restrain when upon actual service.

The Irish peasantry, more witty and less wise, thoughtless, enthusiastically ardent, living in an unsophisticated way but at the same time less secluded than the Highlanders, entertained an hereditary, voluntary, uninfluenced love for the whole family of their landlords. Though no consanguinity bound the two classes to each other, and no feudal power enforced the fidelity of the inferior one, their chiefs resided in their very hearts: – they obeyed because they loved them: their affection, founded on gratitude, was simple and unadulterated, and they would count their lives well lost for the honour of their landlords. In the midst of the deepest poverty, their attachment was more cheerful, more free, yet more cordial and generous, than that of any other peasantry to any chiefs in Europe.

The Irish modes of expressing fondness for any of the family of the old landlords (families which, alas! have now nearly deserted their country) are singular and affecting. I witnessed, not long since, a genuine example of this, near the old mansion of my family. – “Augh then! Musha! Musha! the owld times! – the owld times! – Ough! then my owld eyes see a B – before I die. ’Tis I that loved the breed of yees – ough! ’tis myself that would kiss the track of his honour’s feet in the guther, if he was alive to lead us! Ough! God rest his sowl! any how! Ough! a-vourneen! a-vourneen!”

Yet these peasants were all papists, and their landlords all protestants: – religion, indeed, was never thought of in the matter. If the landlords had continued the same, the tenantry would not have altered. But under the present system, the populace of Ireland will never long remain tranquil, whilst at the same time it is increasing in number – an increase that cannot be got rid of: – hang, shoot, and exile five hundred thousand Irish, the number will scarcely be missed, and in two years the country will be as full as ever again.

It is not my intention to enumerate the several modes recommended for reducing the Irish population, by remote and recent politicians; from Sir William Petty’s project for transporting the men, – to Dean Swift’s scheme of eating the children, and the modern idea of famishing the adults. A variety of plans may yet, I conceive, be devised, without applying to either of these remedies.

11

Formerly the chimneys were all covered with tiles, having scripture-pieces, examples of natural history, &c. daubed on them; and there being a great variety, the father or mother (sitting of a winter’s evening round the hearth with the young ones) explained the meaning of the tiles out of the Bible, &c.; so that the impression was made without being called a lesson, and the child acquired knowledge without thinking that it was being taught. So far as it went, this was one of the best modes of instruction.

12

The Cronaune had no words; it was a curious species of song, quite peculiar, I believe, to Ireland, and executed by drawing in the greatest