The early life of Doctor Achmet Borumborad was obscure. All he mentioned himself was, that he left Ireland very young, in a merchant vessel, for Smyrna, where he lived with a high German doctor, who performed miraculous cures in that city. He affected to be a Turk, in order to get a better insight into the country and people. He appeared a man of much general information, and had studied the arts. Lord Charlemont had met him in Greece, and became his patron in Ireland. He was altogether a very well-conducted person; but being, as we have said, the first Turk (in appropriate costume) who had figured in Ireland, and glowing accounts of harems and seraglios having been previously read in the Arabian Nights; the doctor excited great curiosity, and not a little interest among the ladies. The old and rich Countess of Brandon fell desperately in love with his fine muscular person; but he never could be prevailed on to return her passion. She died of age some years before the Turk married Miss Hartigan.
ALDERMEN OF SKINNERS’ ALLEY.
The institution of Orangemen—United Irishmen—Protestant ascendancy—Dr. Duigenan—Origin, progress, and customs of the aldermen of Skinners’ Alley described—Their revels—Orange toast, never before published—The aldermen throw Mr. M‘Mahon, an apothecary, out of a window for striking the bust of King William—New association—Anecdotes of Sir John Bourke and Sir Francis Gould—The Pope’s bull of absolution to Sir Francis—Its delivery suspended till he had taken away his landlady’s daughter—His death.
Orange societies, as they are termed, were first formed by the Protestants to oppose and counteract the turbulent demonstrations of the Catholics, who formed the population of the south of Ireland. But at their commencement, the Orangemen certainly adopted a principle of interference which was not confined to religious points alone, but went to put down all popular insurrections which might arise on any point. The term, Protestant ascendancy, was coined by Mr. John Gifford (of whom more hereafter), and became an epithet very fatal to the peace of Ireland. Many associations indeed were, from time to time, originated: some for reform, others to oppose it; some for toleration, others for intolerance! There were good men and loyal subjects among the members of each; including many who never entertained the most distant idea of those disastrous results to be apprehended, at the feverish period preceding the rebellion of 1798, from any encouragement to innovation.
I followed up the principles my family had invariably pursued from their first settlement in Ireland; namely, an attachment divided between the crown and the people. In the year 1795, I saw that the people were likely to grow too strong for the crown; and therefore became at once, not indeed an ultra—but one in whom loyalty absorbed almost every other consideration. I willingly united in every effort to check the rising spirit of popular disaffection—the dreadful results of which were manifested in the atrocities acting throughout France, and in the tottering state of the crowns of Europe.
I had been previously initiated by my friend, Doctor Duigenan, judge of the Prerogative Court, into a very curious but most loyal society, whereof he was grand-master at the time of my election; and as this club differed essentially from any other in the empire, it may be amusing to describe it—a labour which nobody has hitherto, I believe, undertaken.
This curious assemblage was called “The Aldermen of Skinners’ Alley:” it was the first Orange association ever formed; and having, at the period I allude to, existed a full century in pristine vigour, it had acquired considerable local influence and importance. Its origin was as follows:—After William the Third had mounted the English throne, and King James had assumed the reins of government in Ireland, the latter monarch annulled the then existing charter of the Dublin corporation, dismissed all the aldermen who had espoused the revolutionary cause, and replaced them by others attached to himself. In doing this he was certainly justifiable:—the deposed aldermen, however, had secreted some little articles of their paraphernalia, and privately assembled in an alehouse in Skinners’ Alley, a very obscure part of the capital: here they continued to hold Anti-Jacobite meetings; elected their own lord mayor and officers; and got a marble bust of King William, which they regarded as a sort of deity! These meetings were carried on till the battle of the Boyne put William in possession of Dublin, when King James’s aldermen were immediately cashiered, and the Aldermen of Skinners’ Alley reinvested with their mace and aldermanic glories.
To honour the memory of their restorer, therefore, a permanent association was formed, and invested with all the memorials of their former disgrace and latter reinstatement. This organization, constituted near a century before, remained, I fancy, quite unaltered at the time I became a member. To make the general influence of this association the greater, the number of members was unlimited, and the mode of admission solely by the proposal and seconding of tried aldermen. For the same reason, no class, however humble, was excluded—equality reigning in its most perfect state at the assemblies. Generals and wig-makers—king’s counsel and hackney clerks, &c. all mingled without distinction as brother-aldermen:—a lord mayor was annually appointed; and regularity and decorum always prevailed—until, at least, toward the conclusion of the meetings, when the aldermen became more than usually noisy and exhilarated,—King William’s bust being placed in the centre of the supper-table, to overlook their extreme loyalty. The times of meeting were monthly; and every member paid sixpence per month, which sum (allowing for the absentees) afforded plenty of eatables, porter and punch, for the supping aldermen.
Their charter-dish was sheeps’ trotters (in allusion to King James’s running away from Dublin):—rum-punch in blue jugs, whisky-punch in white ones, and porter in its pewter, were scattered plentifully over the table; and all regular formalities being gone through, the eating part of the ceremony ended, and numerous speeches made, the real business began by a general chorus of “God save the King!” whereupon the grand engine, which, as a loyal and facetious shoemaker observed, would bind every sole of them together, and commemorate them all till the end of time, was set at work by order of the lord mayor. This engine was the charter-toast, always given with nine times nine! and duly succeeded by vociferous acclamations.
The 1st of July (anniversary of the battle of the Boyne) was the chartered night of assembly: then every man unbuttoned the knees of his breeches, and drank the toast on his bare joints—it being pronounced by his lordship in the following words, composed expressly for the purpose in the year 1689; afterward adopted by the Orange societies generally; and still, I believe, considered as the charter-toast of them all.