Wicker Baskets.—Carrying loads on horseback by means of wicker baskets suspended on both sides of the horse is now almost everywhere out of practice. I remember clearly when the first common cart entered the villages of Ballynalockon, Cloghane, and places in Dunquin Parish.
White Boys.—These were a body of young men who appeared in many places in Munster between 1761 and 1763. The reason they were called White Boys was because they wore white linen frocks and shirts over their coats. They openly resisted the enclosure of commons and the compulsory payment of excessive tithes levied on Roman Catholics for the support of ministers, wardens, preachers and the upkeep of Protestant churches. Because the tax was raised chiefly on tillage lands, consequently it forced the farmers to sow very little potatoes and let their lands for grazing. The horrors of the artificial famines created by the tithes between 1739 and 1748 when mothers devoured their own children and children ate their dead parents was fresh in the memory of the people. Then the Protestant Church of Ireland was not the church of the people. In one of the White Boy uprisings, by hamstringing and like methods they killed and destroyed cattle in thousands making certain that if a potato famine existed that year there would be plenty of meat to prevent starvation. In this great cattle slaughter farmers' sons, unknown to their fathers, took the lead in maiming their own cattle. At Ballynalackon in the Parish of Cloghane, is a place called Cnockane-na-bouchaelee-bawna, where local White Boys of that place assembled. The White Boys were suppressed by military force and the ringleaders hanged.
Wild Geese.—These were young Irish immigrants who in the 18th Century went to France; there many of them joined the Irish Brigade in the service of France. In the Battle of Fontenoy they trampled the British flag in the dust and swept before them in the wildest rout England's columns of reserves to the war cry of "Revenge! Remember Limerick!! Dash down the Sassenach!!!" Immediately after that England cancelled some of her Penal Laws.
Many persons from the Dingle Peninsula about this time went as "Wild Geese" and settled in France.
Wreck of the "Port-Yorack."—This Glasgow iron-clad barque was wrecked in Brandon Bay on the 29th of January, 1894, and all the crew of twenty-one drowned. The vessel was laden with copper ore. On inquiry it was found that the barque was insufficiently manned, badly provisioned and the crew suffered great hardships during the voyage, especially returning from South America. The owner was fined £70.
Fenianism.—This was a secret society formed for the purpose of establishing an Irish Republican Brotherhood and severing all connection with the British crown. James Stephens was the leader and supreme chief of the Fenian revolutionary movement. It went as far as to decree a republic established. It destroyed some of the best regiments in the British army and extended to the navy, as well as to parts of France, America and England. The Fenians took the field in Cahirsciveen in February, 1867, and in the counties of Cork, Limerick, Clare, Waterford and Tipperary, Dublin and South on the 5th of March following.
This revolution did not succeed in its purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A marriage ceremony does not in itself wholly complete a marriage in the Catholic Church. (See the Catholic Encyclopedia.)