Tales of the R.I.C.

by Unknown

There are very few industries in the west of Ireland, and of these by far the most lucrative is the distillation of illicit whisky, or, as it is generally called by the peasants, poteen.

The average countryman would far rather make a fiver by sticking a stranger with a horse than £100 by hard honest work. Add an element of danger, and he is quite content. The making of poteen combines much profit with little labour and a good element of danger, in that the distiller may be caught by the police and heavily fined.

The beginning of poteen is lost in the mist of past ages, and the end will probably synchronise with the end of Ireland; the amount made varies with the demand, and the demand fluctuates with the price and supply of whisky.

During 1919, when whisky became weak, dear, and scarce, and the police for a time practically ceased to function, the call for poteen became so great that the demand far exceeded the supply, and for many months the whisky sold in the majority of publichouses throughout the west was made up of a mixture of three-quarters poteen and a quarter whisky.

At the beginning of the last century all poteen was made from malt in the same way as whisky is made, until some thoughtful man argued that if they could make beer from sugar in England, we could surely make poteen from the same material in Ireland; and as any one buying malt or growing barley was liable to attract the eye of the R.I.C., all poteen ceased to be made from malt, and the far simpler method of distilling from “treacle” continues to this day. Treacle is largely imported in barrels to Ireland, ostensibly for the purpose of fattening cattle and pigs.

In the early part of 1919 a young Welshman, David Evans, was demobilised with a good gratuity, and being a keen fisherman, determined he would have one good summer’s salmon-fishing in Scotland before settling down to work. But Evans was not the only man looking out for salmon-fishing in Scotland, and he soon realised that that country was out of the question.

During the war Evans had served at one time in the same division with Blake, and thinking that the latter might know of some good salmon-fishing at a moderate rent, he wrote to him. By return of post came an answer from Blake, saying that, owing to the bad state of the country, very few Englishmen had taken fishings in Ireland that season, and that there was a very good stretch of the Owenmore river, about ten miles above Ballybor, to let at a moderate rent.

Evans at once wired asking Blake to take the fishing for him, and ten days afterwards took up his quarters at Carra Lodge, a small fishing lodge on the bank of the river.

Ireland has probably benefited more than any other country in Europe by the war, and not least by the submarine scourge, which not only raised the prices of cattle and pigs beyond the dreams of avarice, but also increased the number of salmon in Irish rivers to an extent unknown within the memory of man. Before the war salmon and sea-trout in many western rivers were rapidly becoming exterminated through the great increase of drift-nets at sea; but directly the first German submarine was reported to have been seen off the west coast not a fisherman would leave land, with the result that the fish had free ingress to their native rivers, and the numbers of spawning fish were greatly increased.

Evans had great sport, thoroughly enjoyed himself, and found the peasants quite the most charming and amusing people he had ever met. No matter what sort of house he entered, he was received like a prince and bid ten thousand welcomes; a carefully dusted chair would be placed by the fireside for “his honour,” and a large jar of poteen produced from under the bed.