Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home RuleBuckley, Robert John
History
Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule
Buckley, Robert John
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
Four miles away is the village of Carnaun, and there I met Philip
Fahy, with his son Michael, and another young fellow, all three
returning from field work, wearily toiling along the rocky road which
runs through the estate of Major Lobdell. The party stopped and sat
down to smoke with me. The senior took the lead, not with a brogue but
with an accent, translating from the Irish vernacular as he went on.
"Long ye may live! We're glad we met ye, thanks be to God. Yer
honner's glory is the foinest, splindidist man I seen this twinty
year. May God protect ye! 'Tis weary work we does. That foine, big boy
ye see foreninst ye, has eighteenpence a day, nine shillin' a week.
'Tis not enough to support him properly. I have a son in England, the
cliverist lad ye seen this many a day. Sich a scholar, 'twould be no
discredit to have the Queen for his aunt, no it wouldn't. No, he's
only just gone, an' I didn't hear from him yet. I didn't tell ye where
he'd be, for I wouldn't know meself. But me other boys is goin', for
they tell me things will be afther getting worse. God help us, an'
stand betune us an harm! Did ye hear of the Home Rule Bill? What does
it mane at all, at all? Not one of us knows, more than that lump of
stone ye sit on. Will it give us the land for nothin'? for that's all
we hear. We'd be obliged av ye could axplain it a thrifle, for sorra
a one but's bad off, an' Father O'Baithershin says, Howld yer whist,
says he, till ye see what'll happen, says he. Will we get the bit o'
ground without rint, yer honner's glory?"
Philip was dressed for agricultural work in the following style, which
is clearly considered the correct thing in Galway. One tall "top-hat,"
with a long fur like that of a mangy rabbit, waving to the jocund
zephyrs of Carnaun; one cut-away coat of very thick homespun cloth,
having five brass buttons on each breast; breeches and leggings and
stout boots completed the outfit, which fitted like a sentry-box, and
bore a curiously caricatured resemblance to the Court suit of a
Cabinet Minister in full war-paint. The spades with which the
labourers till the ground are strange to the English eye, and seem
calculated to get through the smallest amount of work with the
greatest amount of labour. That they were spades at all was more than
I could make out. "What are those implements?" I asked, to which the
answer came, "Have ye no shpades in England thin!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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