monk—who he was we cannot tell: and in this the old writer glosses or explains many Latin words by corresponding Irish words. Among others the Latin interjection ei or hei (meaning ho! quick! come on) is explained by upp or hupp (Zeuss).
Before Christianity had widely spread in Ireland, the pagans had a numerous pantheon of gods and goddesses, one of which was Badb [bibe], a terrible war-fury. Her name is pronounced Bibe or Bybe, and in this form it is still preserved all over Cork and round about, not indeed for a war-fury, but for what—in the opinion of some people—is nearly as bad, a scolding woman. (For Badb and all the other pagan Irish gods and goddesses, see my 'Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland,' chap. v.)
From the earliest times in Ireland animals were classified with regard to grazing; and the classification is recognised and fully laid down in the Brehon Law. The legal classification was this:—two geese are equivalent to a sheep; two sheep to a dairt or one-year-old heifer; two dairts to one colpach or collop (as it is now called) or two-year-old heifer; two collops to one cow. Suppose a man had a right to graze a certain number of cows on a common (i.e. pasture land not belonging to individuals but common to all the people of the place collectively); he might turn out the exact number of cows or the equivalent of any other animals he pleased, so long as the total did not exceed the total amount of his privilege.
In many parts of Ireland this system almost exactly as described above is kept up to this day, the collop being taken as the unit: it was universal in my native place sixty years ago; and in a way it exists
there still. The custom is recognised in the present-day land courts, with some modifications in the classification—as Mr. Maurice Healy informs me in an interesting and valuable communication—the collop being still the unit—and constantly referred to by the lawyers in the conduct of cases. So the old Brehon Law process has existed continuously from old times, and is repeated by the lawyers of our own day; and its memory is preserved in the word collop. (See my 'Smaller Soc. Hist. of Anc. Ireland,' p. 431.)
In pagan times the religion of Ireland was Druidism, which was taught by the druids: and far off as the time is the name of these druids still exists in our popular speech. The Irish name for a druid is drui [dree]; and in the South any crabbed cunning old-fashioned-looking little boy is called—even by speakers of English—a shoundree, which exactly represents in sound the Irish sean-drui, old druid; from sean [shoun or shan], old. (See 'Irish Names of Places,' I. 98.)
There are two words much in use in Munster, of which the phonetic representations are thoothach or thoohagh and hóchan (ó long), which tell a tale of remote times. A thoothach or thoohagh is an ignorant unmannerly clownish fellow: and hóchan means much the same thing, except that it is rather lower in the sense of ignorance or uncouthness. Passing through the Liberties of Dublin I once heard a woman—evidently from Limerick—call a man a dirty hóchan. Both words are derived from tuath [thooa], a layman, as distinguished from a cleric or a man of learning. The Irish form of the first is tuathtach: of the second thuathcháin (vocative). Both are a memory of the
time when illiterate people were looked down upon as boorish and ill-mannered as compared with clerics or with men of learning in general.
The people had great respect and veneration for the old families of landed gentry—the real old stock as they were called. If a man of a lower class became rich so as to vie with or exceed in possessions many of the old families, he was never recognised as on their level or as a gentleman. Such a man was called by the people a half-sir, which bears its meaning on its face.
Sixty years ago people very generally used home-made and home-grown produce—frieze—linen—butter—bacon—potatoes and vegetables in general. A good custom, for 'a cow never burst herself by chewing her cud.' (MacCall: Wexford.)