“Is it Jemmy Melish you mane, that lives beyond the old church of Kilbricken?”
“Yes, agrah!” (softly.) “Oh, but it’s he would make you the dashin’ husband!”
“Oh, yeh! what’s that you say?”
“A husband, dear! And sich a beautiful farm! Ten cows—no less, and every one of them white with a black star on their foreheads. Did you ever see him, Judy?”
“No, I never did.”
“Well, come wid me to mass on Sunday, an’ I’ll show him to you.”
And thus is the ice broken. But who is Corny, all this time? Why he is the veritable Shanahus; and he it is who is the oracle for all the matches in the neighborhood.
Every district has its “Corny,” and it is he who has been the projector of half the matches that have been made for years in that part of the country; and seldom does it happen, so good is his judgment, that any bad selection takes place.
As soon as the ice is thus broken, sundry meetings take place at the houses of both the suitor and the sought. In former days, countless were the gallons of whiskey swallowed on these occasions, and bitter the disputes. I have known a match broken off altogether from a discussion as to which party was to provide the spirits for the wedding banquet; but they are frequently annulled, even now, by a dispute about a pig, which one side insists on being added to the “fortune,” and the other refuses.
And now you see, my fair readers, that love has but little to do with these matches. I can positively state, and many will bear out my assertion, that the blooming bride, and the happy bridegroom, have frequently never before set eyes on each other until they stand up to the ceremony, and it is singular to see the lady nudge a neighbour on the arm, and say “which av ’em is it?” Yet these things are; though I’ve no doubt they will gradually wear out, become matters of history, and Clare grow “like the rest of the world.”