[26]. Two lines of Mr. Lysight’s song describe, quaintly, yet veritably, the practical point of the scenes which occurred at that place of licensed eccentricities. He speaks of the real Irish Paddy, who
“Steps into a tent, just to spend half-a-crown,
Slips out, meets a friend, and for joy knocks him down!
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.”
It is a literal fact that the blow is as instantly forgiven, and the twain set a-drinking together in great harmony, as if nothing had happened.
A priest constantly attended in former times at an alehouse near Kilmainham, to marry any couples who may have agreed upon that ceremony when they were drunk, and made up their minds for its immediate celebration so soon as they should be sober: and after the ceremony he sent them back to the fair for one more drink; and the lady then went home an honest woman, and as happy as possible. Many hundred similar matches used, in old times, to be effected during this carnival. Mr. Lysight also describes the happy consequences of such weddings with infinite humour. He says of the ulterior increase of each family
“and nine months after that
A fine boy cries out, ‘How do ye do, Father Pat?
With your sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.’”
This system may somewhat account for the “alarming population of Ireland,” as statesmen now call it.