English As We Speak It in Ireland. P. W. Joyce
will you come on!' Just then unluckily Father Burke walked up behind: he had witnessed and heard all, and you may well say that Tom's heart dropped down into his shoes; for he felt thoroughly ashamed. The crime was not great; but it looked bad and unbecoming under the circumstances; and what could the priest do but perform his duty: so the black brows contracted, and on the spot he gave poor Tom down-the-banks and no mistake. I was at that station, though I did not witness the horse scene.
If a person pledges himself to anything, clinching the promise with an adjuration however mild or harmless, he will not by any means break the promise, considering it in a manner as a vow. The old couple are at tea and have just one egg, which causes a mild dispute. At last the father says decisively—'The divel a bit of it I'll eat, so there's an end of it': when the mother instantly and with great solemnity—'Faith I won't eat it—there now!' The result was that neither would touch it; and they gave it to their little boy who demolished it without the least scruple.
I was one time a witness of a serio-comic scene on the head of one of these blank oaths when I was a small boy attending a very small school. The master was a truly good and religious man, but very severe (a wicked master, as we used to say), and almost insane in his aversion to swearing in any shape or form. To say begob or begor or by Jove was unpardonably wicked; it was nothing better than blindfolding the devil in the dark.
One day Jack Aimy, then about twelve years of age—the saint as we used to call him—for he was always in mischief and always in trouble—said exultingly to the boy sitting next him:—'Oh by the hokey, Tom, I have my sum finished all right at last.' In evil hour for him the master happened to be standing just behind his back; and then came the deluge. In an instant the school work was stopped, and poor Jack was called up to stand before the judgment seat. There he got a long lecture—with the usual quotations—as severe and solemn as if he were a man and had perjured himself half a dozen times. As for the rest of us, we sat in the deadly silence shivering in our skins; for we all, to a man, had a guilty consciousness that we were quite as bad as Jack, if the truth were known. Then poor Jack was sent to his seat so wretched and crestfallen after his lecture that a crow wouldn't pick his bones.
'By the hokey' is to this day common all over Ireland.
When we, Irish, go abroad, we of course bring with us our peculiarities and mannerisms—with now and then a little meteoric flash of eccentricity—which on the whole prove rather attractive to foreigners, including Englishmen. One Sunday during the South African war, Mass was celebrated as usual in the temporary chapel, which, after the rough and ready way of the camp, served for both Catholics and Protestants: Mass first; Protestant Service after. On this occasion an Irish officer, a splendid specimen of a man, tall, straight, and athletic—a man born to command, and well known as a strict and devoted Catholic—was serving Mass—aiding and giving the responses to the priest. The congregation was of course of mixed nationalities—English, Irish, and Scotch, and the chapel was filled. Just outside the chapel door a nigger had charge of the big bell to call the congregations. On this day, in blissful ignorance and indifference, he began to ring for the Protestant congregation too soon—while Mass was still going on—so as greatly to disturb the people at their devotions. The officer was observed to show signs of impatience, growing more and more restless as the ringing went on persistently, till at last one concentrated series of bangs burst up his patience utterly. Starting up from his knees during a short interval when his presence was not required—it happened to be after the most solemn part of the Mass—he strode down the middle passage in a mighty rage—to the astonishment of everybody—till he got to the door, and letting fly—in the midst of the perfect silence—a tremendous volley of damns, blasts, scoundrels, blackguards, &c., &c., at the head of the terrified nigger, he shut him up, himself and his bell, while a cat would be licking her ear. He then walked back and resumed his duties, calm and collected, and evidently quite unconscious that there was anything unusual in the proceeding.
The whole thing was so sudden and odd that the congregation were convulsed with suppressed silent laughter; and I am afraid that some people observed even the priest's sides shaking in spite of all he could do.
This story was obtained from a person who was present at that very Mass; and it is given here almost in his own words.
CHAPTER VII.
GRAMMAR AND PRONUNCIATION.
Shall and Will. It has been pretty clearly shown that the somewhat anomalous and complicated niceties in the English use of shall and will have been developed within the last 300 years or so. It is of course well known that our Irish popular manner of using these two particles is not in accordance with the present correct English standard; yet most of our shall-and-will Hibernianisms represent the classical usage of two or three centuries ago: so that this is one of those Irish 'vulgarisms' that are really survivals in Ireland of the correct old English usages, which in England have been superseded by other and often incorrect forms. On this point I received, some years ago, a contribution from an English gentleman who resided long in Ireland, Mr. Marlow Woollett, a man of wide reading, great culture, and sound judgment. He gives several old examples in illustration, of which one is so much to the point—in the use of will—that you might imagine the words were spoken by an Irish peasant of the present day. Hamlet says:
'I will win for him an (if) I can; if not I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.' ('Hamlet,' Act v., scene ii.)
This (the second will) exactly corresponds with what many of us in Ireland would say now:—'I will win the race if I can; if not I will get some discredit': 'If I go without my umbrella I am afraid I will get wet.' So also in regard to shall; modern English custom has departed from correct ancient usage and etymology, which in many cases we in Ireland have retained. The old and correct sense of shall indicated obligation or duty (as in Chaucer:—'The faith I shal to God') being derived from A.S. sceal 'I owe' or 'ought': this has been discarded in England, while we still retain it in our usage in Ireland. You say to an attentive Irish waiter, 'Please have breakfast for me at 8 o'clock to-morrow morning'; and he answers, 'I shall sir.' When I was a boy I was present in the chapel of Ardpatrick one Sunday, when Father Dan O'Kennedy, after Mass, called on the two schoolmasters—candidates for a school vacancy—to come forward to him from where they stood at the lower end of the chapel; when one of them, Mat Rea, a good scholar but a terrible pedant, called out magniloquently, 'Yes, doctor, we SHALL go to your reverence,' unconsciously following in the footsteps of Shakespeare.
The language both of the waiter and of Mat Rea is exactly according to the old English usage.
'Lady Macbeth (to Macbeth):—Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
'Macbeth:—So shall I, love.' ('Macbeth,' Act iii. scene ii.)
'Second Murderer:—We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.' (Ibid., Act iii. scene i.)
But the Irish waiter's answer would now seem strange to an Englishman. To him, instead of being a dutiful assent, as it is intended to be, and as it would be in England in old times, it would look too emphatic and assertive, something like as if it were an answer to a command not to do it. (Woollett.)
The use of shall in such locutions was however not universal in Shakespearian times, as it would be easy to show; but the above quotations—and others that might be brought forward—prove that this usage then prevailed and was correct, which is sufficient for my purpose. Perhaps it might rather be said that shall and will were used in such cases indifferently:—
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