The populace said it should have been named Talavera (i.e. Tallow-vera), and as that it is known to this day.
Mr. Maguire, who was Member for Cork, and Lord Mayor of the City into the bargain, was very influential in the promotion of a gas company. With the money he made out of it, he reared a rather lofty mansion, which was promptly christened the Lighthouse.
All butter in Cork is sold at the wharves, and the casks are branded with the quality of the butter they contain. One man made a fortune out of the first class butter on its merits, and out of the sixth class butter, which he put in the first class casks and sold on the testimony of the brand on the wood. This became in time notorious to most people except the more unsophisticated of his clients, and when he embarked on bricks and mortar his house was generally known as Brandenburg.
One more and I have done with these baptismal sobriquets.
A lady on a Queenstown steamer had put her foot down the bunker's hole, and broke her ankle through the accident. She brought an action against the company, duly proved negligence on the part of the employés, and obtained substantial damages. These considerably assisted her in erecting a rather attractive mansion, which she decidedly resented being called Bunker's Hill.
Some people have their own ideas about the definition of a gentleman, as a certain rather diminutive racing man found to his cost.
It was at a meeting close to Cork, and he was standing next a burly farmer close to the rails when the horses were nearly ready to start.
Pointing to one disreputable-looking ruffian about to mount, he observed:—
'That fellow has no pretensions to be a gentleman-rider.'
The farmer caught him by the collar of his coat and the seat of his breeches, and shook him as a mastiff would a rat.