All Ireland is acquainted with the sort of sports and recreations which characterise Donnybrook. But the English, in general, are as ignorant of an Irish fair as they are of every other matter respecting the “sister kingdom,” and that is saying a great deal. John Bull, being the most egotistical animal of the creation, measures every man’s coat according to his own cloth, and fancying an Irish mob to be like a London rabble, thinks that Donnybrook fair is composed of all the vice, robbery, swindling, and spectacle—together with still rougher manners of its own—of his dear St. Bartholomew.
Never was John more mistaken. I do not know any one trait of character conspicuous alike in himself and brother Pat, save that which is their common disgrace and incentive to all other vices, drinking; and even in drunkenness the English far surpass Pat—though perhaps their superiority in this respect may be attributable merely to their being better able to purchase the poison; and if they have not the means ready, they are far more expert at picking of pockets, burglary, or murder, to procure them—as Mr. John Ketch (operative at his majesty’s gaol of Newgate in London) can bear ample testimony.
There is no doubt but all mobs are tumultuous, violent, and more or less savage (no matter what they meet about): it is the nature of democratic congregations so to be. Those of England are thoroughly wicked, and, when roused, most ferocious; but they show little genuine courage, and a few soldiers by a shot or two generally send thousands of fellows scampering, to adjourn sine die. Formerly, I never saw an Irish mob that could not easily be rendered tractable and complacent by persons who, as they conceived, intended them fairly and meant to act kindly by them. So much waggery and fun ever mingled with their most riotous adventures, that they were not unfrequently dispersed by a good-humoured joke, when it would probably have required a regiment and the reading of a dozen riot acts to do it by compulsion.
A long, erroneous system of ruling that people seems to have gradually, and at length definitively, changed the nature of the Irish character in every class and branch of the natives, and turned into political agitation what I remember only a taste for simple hubbub. The Irish have an indigenous goût for fighting, (of which they never can be divested,) quite incomprehensible to a sober English farmer, whose food and handiwork are as regular as his clock. At Donnybrook, the scene had formerly no reservation as to the full exhibition of genuine Hibernian character; and a description of one of the tents of that celebrated sporting fair will answer nearly for all of them, and likewise give a tolerable idea of most other fairs in the Emerald island at the same period. Having twice[[27]] run a narrow risk of losing my life at Donnybrook, (the last time at its fair in 1790,) I am entitled to remember its localities at least as well as any gentleman who never was in danger of ending his days there.
[27]. For the first of these occurrences see (Vol. ii.) my adventure with Counsellor Daly and Balloon Crosby.
The site of the fair is a green flat of no great extent, about a mile from Dublin city, and on the banks of a very shallow stream that runs dribbling under a high bridge:—fancy irregular houses on one side, and a highroad through the middle, and you will have a pretty good idea of that plain of festivity.
Many and of various proportions were the tents which, in time past, composed the encampment upon the plains of Donnybrook; and if persevering turbulence on the part of the Emeralders should ever put it into the heads of the members of his majesty’s government to hire a few bands of Cossacks to keep them in order, (and I really believe they are the only folks upon earth who could frighten my countrymen,) the model of a Donnybrook tent will be of great service to the Don-Russian auxiliaries—the materials being so handy and the erection so facile. I shall therefore describe one accurately, that the Emperor Nicholas and his brother Michael, who has seen something of Ireland already, may, upon any such treaty being signed, perceive how extremely well his Imperial Majesty’s Tartars will be accommodated.