[Page 59.] Boccuch (bacaċ), literally a lame man, is, or rather was, the name of a very common class of beggars about the beginning of this century. Many of these men were wealthy enough, and some used to go about with horses to collect the “alms” which the people unwillingly gave them. From all accounts they appear to have been regular black-mailers, and to have extorted charity partly through inspiring physical and partly moral terror, for the satire, at least of some of them, was as much dreaded as their cudgels. Here is a curious specimen of their truculence from a song called the Bacach Buidhe, now nearly forgotten:—
Is bacach mé tá air aon chois, siúbhalfaidh mé go spéifeaṁail,
Ceannóchaidh mé bréidin i g-Cill-Cainnigh do’n bhraois,
Cuirfead cóta córuiġthe gleusta, a’s búcla buidhe air m’aon chois,
A’s nach maith mo shlighe bidh a’s eudaigh o chaill mo chosa siúbhal!
Ni’l bacach ná fear-mála o Ṡligeach go Cinn-tráile
Agus ó Bheul-an-átha go Baile-buidhe na Midhe,
Nach bhfuil agam faoi árd-chíos, agus cróin anaghaidh na ráithe,
No mineóchainn a g-cnámha le bata glas daraigh.
i.e.,