University of Virginia Library

Though the Irish are undoubtedly of a poetic temperament, yet the popular songs of the lower order are neither numerous, nor in general possessed of much beauty. For this various causes may be assigned; but the most prominent is the division of language which prevails in Ireland. English, though of late years it is gaining ground with great rapidity, is not even yet the popular language in many districts of the country, and thirty years since it was still less so. Few songs therefore were composed in English by humble ministrels, and the few that I know, are of very little value indeed in any point of view. The Poets of the populace confined themselves chiefly to Irish;—a tongue which, whatever may be its capabilities, had ceased to be the language of the great and polished, for centuries before the poetic taste revived in Europe. They were compelled to use a despised dialect, which, moreover, the political divisions of the country had rendered an object of suspicion to the ruling powers. The government and populace were indeed so decidedly at variance, that the topics which the village Bards were obliged to select, were such as often to render the indulgence of their poetic powers rather dangerous. Their heroes were frequently inmates of jails or doomed to the gibbet, and the severe criticism of the cat-o-nine tails might be the lot of the panygerist.

Wales to be sure has produced, and continues to produce her bards, though the Welsh also use a language differing from that of their conquerors. But Wales is so completely dovetailed into England, that resistance to the victorious power was hopeless, and therefore after the first struggles not attempted. The Welsh language was consequently no distinguishing mark

of a cast determinately hostile to the English domination, and continually the object of suspicion. It was, and is still cultivated by all classes, though I understand not as much as formerly. The case was quite different in Ireland. No gentleman has used Irish as his common language for generations; multitudes do not understand a word of it; it was left to the lower orders exclusively, and they were depressed and uneducated, and consequently wild and illiterate.

Let no zealous countryman of mine imagine that I am going to impeach the ancient fame of our Bards and Senachies, or to abandon our claims, or the glories, such as they are, of the Ossianic fragments. I merely speak of the state of popular Irish poetry during the last century, or century and a half. With our ancient Minstrels I meddle not. Ossian I leave to his wrangling commentators, and still more wrangling antiquaries; and for the bards of more modern times, (those for instance who flourished in the days of Elizabeth,) I accept the compliment of Spencer, who knew them well and hated them bitterly. But the poetic sympathies of the mighty Ministrel of Old Mole, could not allow his political feelings to hinder him from acknowledging in his View of Ireland that he had caused several songs of the Irish bards to be translated that he might understand them, “and surely” he says “they savoured of sweet wit and good invention, but skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetry; yea, they were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device which gave good grace and comelinesse unto them, the which, it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which with good usage would serve to adorne and beautifie virtue.”

The following songs are specimens of the popular poetry of later days. I have translated them as closely as possible, and present them to the public more as literary curiosities than on any other account.

In 17---, one of the O'Sullivans of Bearhaven who went by name of Morty Oge, fell under the vengeance of the Law. He had long been a turbulent character in the wild district which he inhabited, and was particularly obnoxious to the local authorities, who had good reason to suspect him of enlisting men for the Irish Brigade in the French service, in which it was said he held a Captain's Commission.

Information of his raising these “wild geese,” (the name by which such recruits were known) was given by a Mr. Puxley, on whom in consequence O'Sullivan vowed revenge, which he executed by shooting him on Sunday, while on his way to church. This called for the interposition of the higher powers, and accordingly a party of military were sent round from Cork to attack O'Sullivan's house. He was daring and well armed, and the house was fortified, so that he made an obstinate defence. At last a confidential servant of his, named Scully, was bribed to wet the powder in the guns and pistols prepared for his defence, which rendered him powerless. He attempted to escape; but while springing over a high wall in the rere of his house, he received a mortal wound in the back. They tied his body to a boat and dragged it in that manner through the sea, from Bearhaven to Cork, where his head was cut off and fixed on the county jail, where it remained for several years.

Such is the story current among the lower orders about Bearhaven. In the version given of it in the rude chronicle of the local occurrences of Cork, there is no mention made of Scully's perfidy, and perhaps that circumstance might have been added by those by whom O'Sullivan was deemed a hero, in order to save his credit as much as possible. The dirge was

composed by his nurse, who has made no sparing use of the energy of cursing, which the Irish language is by all allowed to possess.

(In the following song, Morty, in Irish, Muiertach, or Muircheartach, is a name very common among the old families of Ireland. It signifies expert at sea; Og, or Oge is young.— Where a whole district is peopled in a great measure by a sept of one name, such distinguishing titles are necessary, and in some cases even supersede the original appellation. I-vera or Aoi-vera is the original name of Bearhaven; Aoi, or I, signifying an island, or territory.)

A large proportion of the songs I have met with are love songs. Somehow or other, truly or untruly, the Irish have obtained a character for gallantry, and the peasantry beyond doubt do not belie the “soft impeachment.” Their modes of courtship, are sometimes amusing. The “malo me Galatea petit” of Virgil would still find a counterpart among them— except that the missile of love (which I am afraid is not so poetical as the apple of the pastoral, being neither more or less than a potato), comes first from the gentleman. He flings it with aim designedly erring at his sweetheart, and if she returns the fire a warmer advance concludes the preliminaries and establishes the suitor. Courtships, however, are sometimes carried on among them with a delicacy worthy of a more refined stage of society, and unchastity is very rare. This perhaps is in a great degree occasioned by their extremely early marriages, the advantage or disadvantage of which I give to be discussed by Mr. Malthus and his antagonists.

At their dances (of which they are very fond), whether a-field, or in ale-house, a piece of gallantry frequently occurs which is alluded to in the following song. A young man, smitten suddenly by the charms of a danseuse, belonging to a company to which he is a stranger, rises, and with his best bow offers her his glass and requests her to drink to him. After due refusal it is usually accepted, and is looked on as a

good omen of successful wooing. Goldsmith alludes to this custom of his country in the Deserted Village:—

The parties may be totally unacquainted, and perhaps never meet again, under which circumstances it would appear that this song was written.

Who the hero of this song is, I know not, but convicts. from obvious reasons, have been peculiar objects of sympathy in Ireland. Hurling, which is mentioned in one of the verses, is the principal national diversion, and is played with intense zeal by parish against parish, barony against barony, county against county, or even province against province. It is played not only by the peasant, but by the patrician students of the University, where it is an established pastime. Twiss, the most sweeping calumniator of Ireland, calls it, if I mistake not, the cricket of barbarians, but though fully prepared to pay every tribute to the elegance of the English game, I own that I think the Irish sport fully as civilized, and much better calculated for the display of vigour and activity. Perhaps I shall offend Scottish nationality if I prefer either to golf, which is, I think, but trifling compared with them. In the room belonging to the Golf Club on the Links of Leith, there hangs a picture of an old lord (Rosslyn) which I never could look at without being struck with the disproportion between the gaunt figure of the peer and the petty instrument in his hand. Strutt, in “Sports and Pastimes,” (page 78) eulogises the activity of some

Irishmen, who played the game about twenty-five years before the publication of his work (1801), at the back of the British Museum, and deduces it from the Roman harpastum. It was played in Cornwall formerly, he adds: but neither the Romans nor the Cornishmen used a bat, or, as we call it in Ireland, a hurly. The description Strutt quotes from old Carew is quite graphic. The late Dr. Gregory, I am told, used to be loud in panegyric on the superiority of this game when played by the Irish students, over that adopted by his young countrymen north and south of the Tweed, particularly over golf, which he called “fidding wi' a pick;” but enough of this—