English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

fellow went off hot foot with his load, and told his master, expecting all sorts of ructions. But the captain took it in good part, and had his oats threshed elsewhere: and as a matter of fact he and the priest soon after met and became acquainted.

In sending his corn to be threshed on the chapel floor, it is right to remark that the captain intended no offence and no undue exercise of power; and besides he was always careful to send a couple of men on Saturday evening to sweep the floor and clean up the chapel for the service of next day. But it was a custom of some years' standing, and Father Sheehy's predecessor never considered it necessary to expostulate. It is likely enough indeed that he himself got a few scratches in his day from the Penal Laws, and thought it as well to let matters go on quietly.

After a little time Father Sheehy had a new church built, a solid slate-roofed structure suitable for the time, which, having stood for nearly a century, was succeeded by the present church. This, which was erected after almost incredible labour and perseverance in collecting the funds by the late parish priest, the Very Rev. Patrick Lee, V.F., is one of the most beautiful parish churches in all Ireland. What has happened in Ballyorgan and Kilfinane may be considered a type of what has taken place all over the country. Within the short space of a century the poor thatched clay-floor chapels have been everywhere replaced by solid or beautiful or stately churches, which have sprung up all through Ireland as if by magic, through the exertions of the pastors, and the contributions of the people.

This popular application of the terms 'chapel' and 'church' found—and still finds—expression in many ways. Thus a man who neglects religion: 'he never goes to Church, Mass, or Meeting' (this last word meaning Non-conformist Service). A man says, 'I didn't see Jack Delany at Mass to-day': 'Oh, didn't you hear about him—sure he's going to church now' (i.e. he has turned Protestant). 'And do they never talk of those [young people] who go to church' [i.e. Protestants]. (Knocknagow.)

The term 'chapel' has so ingrained itself in my mind that to this hour the word instinctively springs to my lips when I am about to mention a Catholic place of worship; and I always feel some sort of hesitation or reluctance in substituting the word 'church.' I positively could not bring myself to say, 'Come, it is time now to set out for church': it must be either 'Mass' or 'the chapel.'

I see no reason against our retaining these two words, with their distinction; for they tell in brief a vivid chapter in our history.

Hedge-Schools. Evil memories of the bad old penal days come down to us clustering round this word. At the end of the seventeenth century, among many other penal enactments,[^[4]] a law was passed that Catholics were not to be educated. Catholic schoolmasters were forbidden to teach, either in schools or in private houses; and Catholic parents were forbidden to send their children to any foreign country to be educated—all under heavy penalties; from which it will be seen that care was taken to

deprive Catholics—as such—altogether of the means of education.

But priests and schoolmasters and people combined all through the country—and not without some measure of success—to evade this unnatural law. Schools were kept secretly, though at great risk, in remote places—up in the mountain glens or in the middle of bogs. Half a dozen young men with spades and shovels built up a rude cabin in a few hours, which served the purpose of a schoolhouse: and from the common plan of erecting these in the shelter of hedges, walls, and groves, the schools came to be known as 'Hedge Schools.' These hedge schools held on for generations, and kept alive the lamp of learning, which burned on—but in a flickering ineffective sort of way—'burned through long ages of darkness and storm'—till at last the restrictions were removed, and Catholics were permitted to have schools of their own openly and without let or hindrance. Then the ancient hereditary love of learning was free to manifest itself once more; and schools sprang up all over the country, each conducted by a private teacher who lived on the fees paid by his pupils. Moreover, the old designation was retained; for these schools, no longer held in wild places, were called—as they are sometimes called to this day—'hedge schools.'