Paddy at Home ("Chez Paddy")Mandat-Grancey, E. (Edmond), baron de
History
Paddy at Home ("Chez Paddy")
Mandat-Grancey, E. (Edmond), baron de
Ireland -- Description and travel
I saw a few national costumes in the crowd, resembling those we see in
_Punch’s_ caricatures. Tall, thin fellows, wear very high-crowned hats,
with slightly-drooping brims; they wear tail coats made of frieze, and
short breeches. It seems to me that it is the rich who are clothed in
this way--those who at some time in their lives have been able to have
a coat made for them. The others are simply covered with nameless rags.
I have already said that all the women, almost without an exception,
are barefooted. But, alas! they are not like the pretty mulattoes in
Bourbon who are never shod through coquetry, because they wish to
preserve the pretty shape of their feet and the gracefulness of their
walk, which they consider incompatible with boots. Coquetry does not
seem to exist amongst the women of this country. The little they show
is scarcely satisfactory. Their feet are large and ill-shaped; the leg,
uncovered to the knee, has scarcely any calf; and they are horribly
dirty. A characteristic note is given to their costume by their always
wearing a shawl on the head. Many hold it drawn together before the
face with one hand, only showing, like the Lima women, one eye. This,
by the way, is the best thing they can do, for they have often fine
eyes, which relieve the ordinary type of the rest of the face.
It would be wrong to call them ugly, for they have a charming
expression. One never sees those little, rather pert, faces, which are
so pretty and so common amongst us. Here the dominant note is a very
sad, gentle, timid expression, which has a certain grace. But really
these poor girls ought to do like the Corsican women, who, when they go
to market, are careful before entering the town always to ford the last
stream, so that their feet are washed. I also fancy that those women
ought to comb their hair sometimes, instead of leaving it in a state of
disorder which has nothing in common with art. Many do not even fasten
it up, simply leaving it to fall about.
England is the promised land of charitable associations. Some one
really ought to interest himself or herself in this matter; and my
sympathy with green Erin is so great that if some energetic English
spinster, of whom there are so many, will found a society with the
object of distributing combs amongst the young Irish women, accompanied
by tracts containing instructions how to use them, I now beg her to put
my name down on the first page of the subscription list.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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