We have only to add, that ready access to this beautiful demesne is freely given to all respectable strangers—a privilege of which visitors to the Athens of the North should not fail to avail themselves.
P.
THE IRISH SHANAHUS,
BY WILLIAM CARLETON.
The state of Irish society has changed so rapidly within the last thirty or forty years, that scarcely any one could believe it possible for the present generation to be looked upon in many things as the descendants of that which has immediately gone before them. The old armorial bearings of society which were empanelled upon the ancient manners of our country, now hang like tattered scutcheons over the tombs of customs and usages which sleep beneath them; and unless rescued from the obliterating hand of time, scarcely a vestige of them will be left even to tradition itself. That many gross absurdities have been superseded by a social condition more enlightened and healthy, is a fact which must gratify every one who wishes to see the general masses actuated by those principles which follow in the train of knowledge and civilisation. But at the same time it is undeniable that the simplicity which accompanied those old vestiges of harmless ignorance has departed along with them; and in spite of education and science, we miss the old familiar individuals who stood forth as the representatives of manners, whose very memory touches the heart and affections more strongly than the hard creations of sterner but more salutary truths. For our own part, we have always loved the rich and ruddy twilight of the rustic hearth, where the capricious tongues of blazing light shoot out from between the kindling turf, and dance in vivid reflection in the well-scoured pewter and delft as they stand neatly arranged on the kitchen-dresser—loved, did we say? ay, and ever preferred it to philosophy, with all her lights and fashion, with all her heartlessness and hypocrisy. For this reason it is, that whilst retracing as it were the steps of our early life, and bringing back to our memory the acquaintances of our youthful days, we feel our hearts touched with melancholy and sorrow, because we know that it is like taking our last farewell of old friends whom we shall never see again, from whom we never experienced any thing but kindness, and whose time-touched faces were never turned upon us but with pleasure, and amusement, and affection.
In this paper it is not with the Shanahus whose name and avocations are associated with high and historical dignity, that we have any thing to do. Our sketches do not go very far beyond the manners of our own times; by which we mean that we paint or record nothing that is not remembered and known by those who are now living. The Shanahus we speak of is the dim and diminished reflection of him who filled a distinct calling in a period that has long gone by. The regular Shanahus—the herald and historian of individual families, the faithful genealogist of his long-descended patron—has not been in existence for at least a century and a half, perhaps two. He with whom we have to do is the humble old man who, feeling himself gifted with a strong memory for genealogical history, old family anecdotes, and legendary lore in general, passes a happy life in going from family to family, comfortably dressed and much respected—dropping in of a Saturday night without any previous notice, bringing eager curiosity and delight to the youngsters of the house he visits, and filling the sedate ears of the old with tales and legends, in which, perhaps, individuals of their own name and blood have in former ages been known to take a remarkable and conspicuous part.
Indeed, there is no country in the world where, from the peculiar features of its social and political changes, the chronicles of the Shanahus would be more likely to produce such a powerful effect as in Ireland. When we consider that it was once a country of princes and chiefs, each of whom was followed and looked up to with such a spirit of feudal enthusiasm and devoted attachment as might naturally be expected from a people remarkable for the force of their affection and the power of imagination, it is not surprising that the man who, in a state of society which presented to the minds of so many nothing but the records of fallen greatness or the decay of powerful names, and the downfall of rude barbaric grandeur, together with the ruin of fanes and the prostration of religious institutions, each invested with some local or national interest—it is not surprising, we say, that such a man should be welcomed, and listened to, and honoured, with a feeling far surpassing that which was awakened by the idle jingle of a Provençal Troubadour, or the gorgeous dreams begotten by Arabian fiction. Neither the transition state of society, however, nor the scanty diffusion of knowledge among the Irish, allowed the Shanahus to produce any permanent impression upon the people; and the consequence was, that as the changes of society hurried on, he and his audience were carried along with them; his traditionary lore was lost in the ignorance which ever arises when a ban has been placed upon education; and from the recital of the high deeds and heroic feats of by-gone days, he sank down into the humble chronicler of hoary legends and dim traditions, for such only has he been within the memory of the oldest man living, and as such only do we intend to present him to our readers.
The most accomplished Shanahus of this kind that ever came within our observation, was a man called Tom Grassiey, or Tom the Shoemaker. He was a very stout well-built man, about fifty years of age, with a round head somewhat bald, and an expansive forehead that argued a considerable reach of natural intellect. His knowing organs were large, and projected over a pair of deep-set lively eyes, that scintillated with strong twinklings of humour. His voice was loud, his enunciation rapid, but distinct; and such was the force and buoyancy of his spirits, added to the vehemence of his manner, that altogether it was impossible to resist him. His laughter was infectious, and so loud that it might be heard of a calm summer evening at an incredible distance. Indeed, Tom possessed many qualities that rendered him a most agreeable companion: he could sing a good song for instance, dance a hornpipe as well as any dancing-master, and we need not say that he could tell a good story. He could also imitate a Jew’s harp or trump upon his lips with his mere fingers in such a manner that the deception was complete; and it was well known that flocks of the country people used to crowd about him for the purpose of hearing his performance upon the ivy leaf, which he played upon by putting it in his mouth, and uttering a most melodious whistle. Altogether, he was a man of great natural powers, and possessed such a memory as the writer of this never knew any human being to be gifted with. He not only remembered everything he saw or was concerned in, but everything he heard also. His language, when he spoke Irish, was fluent, clear, and sometimes eloquent; but when he had recourse to the English, although his fluency remained, yet it was the fluency of a man who made an indiscriminate use of a vocabulary which he did not understand. His pedantry on this account was highly ludicrous and amusing, and his wit and humour surprisingly original and pointed. He had never received any education, and was consequently completely illiterate, yet he could repeat every word of Gallagher’s Irish Sermons, Donlevy’s Catechism, Think Well On’t, the Seven Champions of Christendom, and the substance of Pastorini’s and Kolumb Kill’s Prophecies, all by heart. Many a time I have seen him read, as he used to call it, one of Dr Gallagher’s Sermons out of the skirt of his big-coat; a feat which was looked upon with twice the wonder it would have produced had he merely said that he repeated it. But to read it out of the skirt of his coat! Heavens, how we used to look on with awe and veneration, as Tom, in a loud rapid voice, “rhymed it out of him,” for such was the term we gave to his recital of it! His learning, however, was not confined to mere English and Irish, for Tom was also classical in his way, and for want of a better substitute it was said could serve mass, which must always be done in Latin. Certain it was that he could repeat the Deprofundis, and the Seven Penitential Psalms, and the Dies Iræ, in that language. We need scarcely add, that in these learned exhibitions he dealt largely in false quantities, and took a course for himself altogether independent of syntax and prosody; this, however, was no argument against his natural talents, or the surprising force of his memory.
Tom was also an easy and happy Improviser both in prose and poetry; his invention was indeed remarkably fertile, but his genius knew no medium between encomium and satire. He either lashed his friends, for the deuce an enemy he had, with rude and fearful attacks of the latter, or gave them, as Pope did to Berkley, every virtue under heaven, and indeed a good many more than ever were heard of beyond his own system of philosophy and morals.
Tom was a great person for attending wakes and funerals, where he was always a busy man, comforting the afflicted relatives with many learned quotations, repeating ranns, or spiritual songs, together with the Deprofundis or Dies Iræ, over the corpse, directing even the domestic concerns, paying attention to strangers, looking after the pipes and tobacco, and in fact making himself not only generally useful, but essentially necessary to them, by his happiness of manner, the cordiality of his sympathy, and his unextinguishable humour.