A HOLIDAY IN COUNTY CORK.
Leap is not a name suggestive of things Irish, yet the place so called is as pure a specimen of the primitive Irish village as one might wish to find. There it was our happiness to spend a holiday in the summer of 1885. During our few weeks’ stay we made the acquaintance of a people whose character and modes of life have the flavour of an age innocent of the civilities of the nineteenth century. The village of Leap is in County Cork, at the extreme south-west corner of Ireland, about eighteen miles to the east of Cape Clear, and about forty to the west of the city of Cork. It stands at the head of Glandore Bay, one of the numberless inlets that are so striking a feature of this part of the Irish coast.
Glandore Bay is itself worth a lengthened pilgrimage. In Scotland or England it would have been famous, and would long since have been a fashionable seaside resort. The transatlantic steamers cross its mouth at no great distance; and it is an impressive spectacle to see them flash across in the darkness, with all their portholes lit, and at what appears to be something like railway speed. The village of Leap is cut in two by a streamlet, over which a bridge has now been thrown. Across this stream, we are told, a deer, hard pressed by the hunters, once took a desperate leap; hence the name of the village. In former times, this same stream was the limit of English law in Ireland. ‘Beyond the Leap,’ it used to be said, ‘beyond the law.’ And indeed, the country beyond the Leap is a perfect paradise for outlaws. The very sight of it is sufficient to deter the further progress of the most hot-headed officer of justice. This corner of County Cork, therefore, was the haunt of pirates, smugglers, and various outlawed persons. There is no part of the British isles richer in tales of blood and adventure. The district retained its lawless character down to comparatively recent times; but in modern days, the private manufacture of a little poteen is the extent of its misdemeanours.
The country surrounding Leap consists of a hopeless confusion of hills, none of which, however, have either the shape or the size to give them any dignity. These hills are in their turn covered with excrescences in the shape of huge knolls of all possible contours and sizes. As the natural vegetation is of a rankness quite unknown on the other side of the Channel, it will be imagined that the general aspect of the country is singularly harsh and wild. Yet this unpromising region is made to yield surprising crops of potatoes, and even of grain. From base to summit, every hill that the spade can scratch is cultivated. In many cases, indeed, it is but picking the bones of nature. It is pathetic to watch the desperate struggles of some poor soul to ‘bring in’ a piece of new ground. To see him with his spade and pickaxe, a stranger might fancy he was rather about to open a quarry than lay out a field, where he proposes to rear crops of turnips or potatoes. The crofts are also of miserable dimensions. Three or four acres must in the majority of cases suffice to maintain an entire family. Where, however, there is any depth of soil, we were told on the best authority, it has a productiveness unsurpassed by the best land across the Channel. But the whole district is vastly over-populated; and it is extremely difficult to see how any possible legislation could make the land yield a comfortable subsistence to the present numbers of its people. Some years since, an active emigration went on from the neighbourhood; but it has now almost ceased. As illustrative of the tenacity with which the Irishman clings to his wretched allotment, a land-steward told us an experience of his employer. This gentleman was desirous of acquiring a small croft adjoining his own estate. The rental may have been equal to about thirty shillings; and fifty pounds were offered as a liberal price for the land. The owner thereupon declared that to no other person would he part with his ground but to this particular gentleman, and that to him he would give it for five hundred pounds! The croft is still in the possession of its hereditary owner.
It does not seem that the formidable distance of America keeps them at home, since, judging by their way of talking, one is led to believe that they think of New York as nearer than London or Liverpool. They also more readily think of strangers as Americans than Britons. It may be mentioned in this connection that the most earnest counsel given to young Irishmen who do emigrate from this part of the country is to give O’Donovan Rossa and his associates as wide a berth as possible. That redoubtable personage was born in Rosscarberry, a village some five miles to the south-east of Leap. It was in Skibbereen, a place also in the immediate neighbourhood, that he attracted the attention of Head-centre Stephens by his outspoken and bitter hostility to all things English. We met several persons who knew Rossa well in his young manhood, and it is but just to say that they all spoke of him as an upright and generous fellow. His subsequent career, however, is spoken of in the neighbourhood in language anything but complimentary.
At first sight, one would be inclined to say that the district should at least be well stocked with game; but the truth is that game of all kinds is exceedingly scarce. During our stay, we did not see a single ‘head.’ The extinction of hares, indeed, can be traced to a very recent date and a very efficient cause. When the Land League agitation was at its height a few years ago, bands of the people, often three or four hundred strong, mustered every Sunday after second mass, and scouring the country with dog and gun, made indiscriminate butchery of everything in the shape of game that came in their way. Gamekeeper and policeman, as may be imagined, kept well out of sight while they did their work. Next morning, the booty was on its way to the suspects in Kilmainham jail, who, during the whole term of their detention, were regularly catered for.
The cabins of these Cork crofters present externally a more respectable appearance than the cabins of the same class in many parts of the Highlands and islands of Scotland. These Irish cabins are mostly built of stone, which in this part of the country is easily obtainable. Their interior, however, would scarcely satisfy an exacting sanitary officer. It consists of two apartments, the upper and the lower. The upper is the sleeping apartment of the family, and the lower is the common room of the household and all the live-stock. There is usually, indeed, a shed adjoining the house for the special accommodation of the latter; but there is a constant intercourse between the two domiciles, and donkeys, pigs, geese, cocks and hens, sheep, and goats enjoy quite undefined household privileges. Passing a cabin one day shortly after our arrival in the place, we heard an appalling sound, and immediately afterwards a voice exclaiming: ‘Be quoite, sir!’ It was a donkey sharing the hearthstone with his master. The donkey, in truth, though his master’s dearest possession, would also seem to be his peculiar torment.
The sanitary officer has found his way even to this corner of the empire, and objects to the domestic privileges of donkeys. Like most despised races, however, donkeys have ineradicable opinions, and one of these appears to be their prescriptive right to their master’s domicile. As the Irishman, however, would seem to incline rather to the opinion of his donkey than to that of the sanitary officer, it will be seen that misunderstandings are apt to arise. The donkey is a still further source of mischief in that he utterly refuses to make any distinction between his owner’s ground and other people’s. He breaks in utter unconcern through neighbouring fences, and browses at large at his own caprice. Altogether, the donkey, as he is found in Ireland, cannot fail to excite the admiration of the stranger. On the other side of the Channel he is abroad, and has the exile’s numbness of feeling. But in Ireland he is at home; he has the inspiriting sense of a numerous brotherhood, and one may easily see that he has a vivid consciousness of his social importance.
The diet of the Irishman in this part of the country is, of course, potatoes and milk. As he himself puts it, he has potatoes twenty-one times a week. In the event of a blight, such as the historic one, the result in certain parts of Ireland could scarcely be less disastrous than at any former period. If one may judge by the physique of its consumers, the diet requires no recommendation of the medical faculty, for a more stalwart race it would be difficult to find. In this corner of the country so long ‘preserved,’ we should expect to find the natural Irishman, and we certainly found him. The native Irish is almost universally spoken; but at the same time, the majority of the younger generation speak English with a brogue of the most exquisite flavour. Here, also, we have the Irishman in the typical attire to which caricaturists have accustomed us. To the visitor from the other island, it is a ludicrous picture to see him in tall hat, blue tailed coat, and knee-breeches, at work in his wretched plot, like a philosopher out for a little recreation. It is not so much the style of his garments, however, that makes their picturesqueness; it is their positively miraculous raggedness. We feel that this raggedness has quite passed the stage of disreputability, and has actually become ornamentation. But it is above all the hat that fixes the attention. We have often closely inspected it; and our wonder never ceased how, in the course of a single life, any hat, however weather-beaten and however brutally used, could attain that pre-Adamite look.
It is the great charm of travel in Ireland that one can become acquainted with its people in so short a time and on such easy terms. The Irishman is the most approachable of human beings, and as the very Irishman the stranger wishes to know is in most cases his own lord and master, intercourse is thus made doubly easy. If in the course of a solitary walk you should desire the solace of a little conversation, you have but to take your seat on one of the turf walls that form the fences in these parts of the country. If you are a smoker and produce your pipe, you will present an additional inducement. Before you are well seated, you will be saluted with: ‘A fine day, sir, God be praised!’ and a careless figure will be seen approaching with spade or pickaxe over his shoulder. Sharing your tobacco with him, it will remain with yourself to conclude the interview. Before ten minutes have passed, you will have had the outlines of his family history, and his views on things in general, not even excepting his priest. At the end of as many hours’ conversation as you please, he will speed you on your way with a fervent ‘God preserve you long!’ and part with you as if you had been his lifelong friend.
The peasant women of Cork and Kerry bear a name for good looks; but their style of dress certainly does not display their charms to advantage. The married women of the west of Ireland wear a long, coarse, black cloak, descending to their feet, and furnished with a commodious hood which partially envelops their features. A more ungraceful garment than this cloak it would be difficult to imagine; and in bright summer weather it strikes one as the most perversely unreasonable of all human adornings. The unmarried women, though disallowed the use of the cloak, yet contrive to disfigure themselves with equal success by means of a shawl, in which they invariably envelop their heads as well as their shoulders. But in native sweetness and gracefulness of speech, the Irish countrywoman leaves her English and Scottish sister far behind. It is worth the trouble of a hundred greetings to hear her ‘It is a fine day, thank God!’ By the way, these greetings sound very oddly at first in Scottish ears. ‘It is a fine day, sir, thank God;’ or, ‘It is a fine day, your honour, the Lord be praised!’ are the ordinary salutations of the Irish country-people in this district. Their pious ejaculations occasionally go beyond this. Speaking with us of the changeable weather, an old Irishman suddenly exclaimed: ‘May the blessed Son of the Holy Virgin have mercy on our sowls! but we’re never continted. When it is wit, we wish it dry; and when it is dry, we wish it wit.’ On entering their cabins, it is considered good ‘form’ to say: ‘God preserve all in this house;’ and the response is: ‘Thank ye kindly, sir (or lady); may God preserve ye long!’
Life with the Irish crofter is reduced to its very simplest elements. In summer he dawdles through a few months’ work; and in winter he chews the cud of his summer’s exertions. Sundays and saints’ days alone vary the monotony of his year. He is a most devout and regular attender of all religious ordinances; and no state of the weather will keep him from eight o’clock mass of a Sunday morning. When second mass is over, he gives himself up to secular enjoyment with a freedom unknown across the Channel. Sunday afternoon, indeed, is the period when his spirits are at their best, and according as his humour is for drinking, or sport, or argument, allows them their fullest scope. In the part of Ireland of which we are speaking, drunkenness is certainly rarer than in most parts of England and Scotland. This may be partly due to greater moderation, but it may also be attributed to the drink most largely patronised. This beverage is known as ‘Clonakilty porter,’ a drink famous throughout all this part of the country. It is the very cheapest of all spirituous liquors, and probably the most innocuous. It would overtax ordinary powers of credence to specify the quantity disposed of at one bout by an ordinary man or woman—for the women have a pronounced liking for this particular beverage. The potato diet, though one would not think it, is said to account for this abnormal drinking capacity; and some explanation is certainly needed.
The parish priest is, of course, the central figure of every neighbourhood. As far as an outsider may judge, the relations of priest and parishioner would appear to be of the most cordial nature. The kindly feeling is doubtless fostered by the fact that the priests as a class come of the small farmers of the country. Their own early training, therefore, expressly fits them for dealing with their people. It cannot be gainsaid that the priests as a body look exceedingly good fellows, and invariably have that prosperous appearance that betokens happy relations with ourselves and others. During our stay in Leap, we witnessed a very pleasing proof of this mutual good understanding between the priest and his people. The priest of the village was returning from a holiday in England, and his parishioners took the opportunity of showing their esteem and affection for him. The houses of the village were all decked with flowers, and flags suspended across the streets bearing various inscriptions in English and Irish, such as, ‘Welcome home, our worthy priest,’ &c. As the reverend gentleman approached, he was met by a large body of his people on foot, on donkeys, on horses, and in cars. His horse was taken out of the traces, and his vehicle drawn into the village by a number of young men amid immense enthusiasm of the entire population. At night, the village was brilliantly illuminated, a candle being set in every pane, and paper lanterns suspended at various corners of the street. Later, a burning tar-barrel was borne through the street, the priest himself heading the procession; and the proceedings closed by his addressing his assembled flock from his own doorstep. Judged by the frequent and obstreperous applause of his hearers, his address would seem to have met their fervent approval. It is only in political demonstrations that Scotsmen exhibit similar unanimity; and the entire proceedings seemed in our Scottish eyes a pleasant novelty in things religious.
Few of the people in the district have been beyond their native parish, and the priest is for the majority of them the reservoir of all secular as well as spiritual knowledge. He conveys instruction to them on all subjects, and on Sundays often closes his ministrations with hints of practical bearing on their temporal concerns. During one of the weeks of our stay in the neighbourhood, a mad dog got at large, and wrought considerable mischief on man and beast. Indeed, the achievements of this dog would furnish material for a history of some length. On Sunday, after the celebration of mass, the priest made reference to the wonderful doings of this dog. He began by saying that if any one had a dog that should go mad, his best plan was at once to shoot it; and he proceeded to explain minutely the various methods of treating a bitten person. This reference to the event of the week was evidently taken quite as a matter of course; and one could easily gather that the importance of local events is measured by the style of the priest’s reference to them on Sundays.
The old Irish style of conducting funerals is still in vogue in this district, though among the more respectable classes it is falling into disuse. During our stay, we saw one of these old-fashioned funerals. Heading the procession was a dogcart with the driver and the priest—the priest, of course, intricately enwrapt in white linen, of which, by the way, he usually receives a fresh suit from the relatives of the deceased. Then followed a common cart strewn with straw, containing the coffin and the chief mourner, who on this occasion was a woman. She was clad in the ordinary dress of her class; and with hood drawn closely over her face and chin resting on her knees, she keened in the most dismal manner. Immediately behind the cart came a crowd of women similarly attired, and all keening, though in rather a mechanical and half-hearted fashion. Then followed a straggling concourse of men, all on foot, in their workaday garb, and with faces unwashed. These made no demonstration whatsoever. The rear was brought up by a number of young men, sons, perhaps, of well-to-do farmers, also in their ordinary dress. They lounged on in the easiest fashion, with hands in pockets, their waistcoats open—the day was hot—and certain of them actually smoking. The Celtic races have the reputation for natural delicacy of feeling. In such exhibitions as the above, this delicacy certainly does not show itself.