HOW TO MAKE AN IRISH STORY
Lay your scene principally in Galway, and let your chief characters be the officers of a regiment of Dragoons. Represent them as habitual drunkards, as duellists, and as practical jokers; but take care to exclude from their tricks everything like wit. Introduce as frequently as possible, with the necessary variation only of time, place, and circumstance, a tipsy brawl, with a table oversetting in the midst of it, and a ragamuffin with a great stick in his hand, capering thereon. Do not omit to mention the bottles and glasses that whistle, during this performance, about his ears, nor the chairs and fire-irons which are used by the surrounding combatants; and under the table fail not to place your comic character; for instance, your priest. Upset mail coaches, and make horses run away with their riders continually: and be careful, having bribed some clever artist to prostitute his talents, to have all these intellectually humorous scenes illustrated, in that your readers may fully appreciate the only jokes they are likely to understand. Put "an affair of honour" into about every other chapter; and for the credit and renown of your country, you being an Irishman, exhibit it as conducted with the most insensate levity. Indeed, in furtherance of this object, depict your countrymen in general as a set of irrational, unfeeling, crazy blockheads; only, not having sense enough to be selfish, as lavish and prodigal in the extreme. Never mind your plot, but string adventure upon adventure, without sequence or connexion; just remembering to wind up with a marriage. For example, your hero may shoot some old gentleman through the head—or hat—and run away with his niece, an heiress. Whenever you are at a loss for fun—that is, when you find it impracticable to tumble or knock one another down—throw yourself on your brogue, and introduce—"Arrah! now, honey, be aisy." "Long life to yer honour, sure, and didn't I?" "Is it praties, ye mane?" "Sorrow a bit." "Musha!" "Mavourneen!" and the like phrases (having the interjectional ones printed in italics, that their point may be the more obvious), which you will find excellent substitutes for wit. Your tale, thus prepared, take it to some publisher, and let him serve it up monthly to the unintelligent portion of the public with puff sauce.
Irish Manservant (who has been requested by a guest to procure him a bluebottle for fishing purposes—returning from his quest). "If ye plaze, sorr, would a green soda-water bottle be what ye're wantin'?"
New Air for Orange Bands.—"Down, down, derry, down!"
Who were the original bogtrotters? The Fenians.
Hibernian Order.—An Irish correspondent informs us that in Tipperary tumult is the order of the day.
Advice to Irish Tenants.—Instead of taking "just a drain"—"Just take to draining."
An Irish Reason for Fixity of Tenure.
Mr. Punch, Sirr,—Why wouldn't you "fix" Irish tinants? Sure Irish landlords is in a divil of a fix already.
Your constant reader, Rory O'More.
A disclosure which can only be made in words certainly "tending to a breach of the peace":—One Irishman disclosing his religion to another.
Tourist (who has just given Pat a drink from his flask). "That's a drop of good whiskey—eh, Pat?" Pat. "Faith, ye may well say that, sorr. Shure, it wint down my t'roat loike a torchlight procession!"
MISPLACED MERRIMENT
Irish Doctor (who was a great believer in a little "playful badinage"). "Oh dear! oh dear! an' what a tarrible depressin' soight ye've gone an' made ov yersilf! What is ut now, is ut a 'tableau v[e]evant' ye're playin' at, or what?"
[Further attendance dispensed with.
A FAILURE!
Irish Contributor (at a "check"). "By the powers—'wish I hadn't bought this thype-writer-r—'t cann't spell a bit!"
Editor of Libellous Rag (who has just received a terrific but well-deserved kick). "Dud you mane thot?" Colonel McMurder. "Yis, Oi dud, you thunderin' villain!" Editor. "Oh, very well, thot's all roight. Oi t'ought it moight av been wan o' thim prac-ta-cle jokes!"
Irish Emigrant (emerging from the steerage, feebly). "Where's the sails? What is it makes the ship go along?" Fellow Passenger. "This ain't no sailing ship. This is a steam ship, this is. Fifteen thousand horse-power." Irish Emigrant. "Fifteen thousand horses! Think of that, now! And where's the shtablin'?"
A New Form of D.T.—The Irish Curate (to the New Vicar). "That poor man, sir, has always got a skeleton just in front of him that follows him about wherever he goes!"
From the Cork Constitution:—"The friends of a respectable young widow want to get her housekeeping in a respectable widower's family; understands her business." There seems a certain want of finesse in this latter statement.
The Irish Bull in India.—For sale.—Eleven elephants, male and female, priced low to effect speedy sale. Full particulars from Pat Doyle, No. 11, Brooking Street, Rangoon. Note.—Four of the above have been sold.—(From the Rangoon Gazette.)
Confusion of Ideas.—The man who said that he was so particular about his bacon that he never ventured on a rasher without first seeing the pig which had supplied it, must have been an Irishman.
The Wax-Chandlers' Paradise.—Wicklow county.
Mr. O'Rorke (who has been quarrelling with a visitor). "Now, remember, Jane, the next time you let that man in you're to shut the door in his face!"
Policeman (examining broken window). "Begorra, but it's more sarious thin Oi thought it was. It's broke on both sides!"
"Prima Facie."—Magistrate. "The evidence shows that you threw a stone at this man." Mrs. O'Hooligan. "Faith, then, the looks o' the baste shows better 'n that, yer honour. They shows I 'it 'im!"
During hot weather. Sudden shower of rain.—Irish Visitor. "Ah, now this is welcome! An hour's rain like this will do more good in five minutes than a week of it!"
Scene—Cottage in West of Ireland during a rainstorm.
Tourist. "Why don't you mend those big holes in the roof?" Pat. "Wud your honour have me go out an' mend it in all this rain?" Tourist. "No. But you could do it when it is fine." Pat. "Shure, your honour, there's no need to do it thin!"
"Not Kilt, but Spacheless"—At Clonakilty Sessions the other day, the following evidence was given:—
"Patrick Feen was examined, and stated he resided at Dunnycove, parish of Ardfield.... Gave defendant's brother a blow of his open hand and knocked him down for fun, and out of friendship. (Laughter.)"
What a good-natured, open-handed friend Mr. Patrick Feen must be! John Hegarty, the person assaulted, corroborated the account, and added—
"When he was knocked down, he stopped there. (Laughter.)"
In fact, he "held the field," and "remained in possession of the ground." Who will now say that the old humour is dying out in Erin?
A Constant Dropping.—Father Sullivan (watching Murphy of the Blazers, who has again come to grief at a wall). Bedad, he'll soon have quarried a gap in ivery wall in Galway. He goes no faster than Donovan's hearse, and he falls over ivery obsthacle he encounthers.
Father O'Grady. Faith, ye're right there. Murphy cavat lapidem non vi sed saypy cadendo!
"De Profundis."—Pat (after a sip). "An' which did ye put in first—the whisky or the wather?" Domestic. "The whisky, av coorse." Pat. "Ah thin maybe I'll be coming to 't bye-'n-bye!"
Lucid!—Irish Sergeant (to squad at judging-distance drill). "Now, ye'll pay the greates of attintion to the man at eight hundred yr-rds: becase, if ye can't see 'm, ye'll be deceived in his 'apparance!!"
Hibernian Veracity.—Paterfamilias (with his family in Ireland). "Have you any West India pickles waiter?" Paddy. "We've not, sor." Paterfamilias. "No hot pickles of any description?" Paddy. "No; shure they're all cowld, sor."
"IT IS SOMETIMES DANGEROUS TO INQUIRE"
Old Poet
Inquisitive Tourist. "And how do you find the crops this year, Murphy?"
Murphy. "How do I find the crops is it? Sure, your honour, 'tis by digging for 'em, any way!"
Mineralogical Discovery by an Irishman.—How to turn brass into gold:—"Marry an heiress."
THE WRONGS OF IRELAND
Bloated Saxon. "But surely, is it not the fact that of late years the number of absentees among the Irish landholders is not so large as——"
Irish Guest. "Oi big y'r par-r-d'n, sor! 'Give ye me wor-rd 'f honour-r me unhappee countree swa-ar-rms with 'm 't th' pris'nt t-hime!!"
All Blacks all forlorn.—Irishman (on hearing of the high prices offered for tickets for a big football match). Sure, thin, everybody 'll be after sellin' their tickets and it's nobody there at all there 'll be!
Nurse. "Bridget, come here and see a French baby born in Dublin."
Bridget. "Poor little darlint! It's a great perplexity you'll be to yourself, I'm thinkin', when you begin shpeakin'!"
"Relapse."—Squire. "Why, Pat, what are you doing, standing by the wall of the public-house? I thought you were a teetotaller!"
Pat. "Yes, yer honnor. I'm just listenin' to them impenitent boys drinking inside!"