An Irish industry which as yet shows no sign of losing its commercial importance is the blessed institution of matrimony, a holy thing which in Ireland is particularly beneficial to the pockets of the priest, who pronounces the blessing, and to the distiller, who sells the whisky, in which the future of the happy pair is pledged.
The matrimonial arrangements of Irish farmers in Kerry may sound queer to an English reader, but are the outcome of an innate, though unwritten, law that the whole family have a vested interest in the affair.
For example, when the family is growing up, the farm is handed over to the eldest son, who gives the parents a small allowance during their lives, while the fortune that he gets with his wife goes, not to himself, but to provide for his younger brothers and sisters.
Hence, if the eldest son were to marry the Venus de Medici with ten pounds less dowry than he could get with the ugliest wall-eyed female in the neighbourhood, he would be considered as an enemy to all his family.
A tenant of a neighbour of mine actually got married to a woman without a penny, a thing unparalleled in my experience in Kerry, and his sister presently came to my wife for some assistance.
My wife asked her:—
'Why does not your brother support you?'
And she was answered:—
'How could he support any one after bringing an empty woman to the house?'
There was a tenant of mine, paying about twenty-five pounds a year rent, who died, and his son came to me to have his name inscribed in the rent account.