Another story was told me by a relative. The episode is said to have occurred at Cashel, but I do not guarantee it in any respect. Whether it is true or not does not much matter.
Part of the ritual of confession is this: The penitent repeats a formula of three sentences: "Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa," striking the breast with the closed hand as each sentence is uttered. On this occasion the words of the penitent, an old countrywoman, could be distinctly heard outside the cubicle. They were: "Mea culpa, mea oh! dammit I've bruk me poipe."
In 1867 befell the Fenian outbreak. At Glencullen, about a mile from the back of our house, was a police barrack. This was attacked one night, but not captured, although the valiant attackers forced some of their prisoners to stand in the line of fire, between them and the building. The police had closed the windows with feather beds and mattresses, and these the Fenian bullets could not penetrate. Within a few days the fiasco of a rising was at an end. I do not think any of the people in our neighborhood joined it. When the rebels retreated along the Wicklow road, they threw several pikes over the wall close to our lodge gates. The preference on the part of the Irishman of the last generation for the pike as a fighting implement was remarkable. He regarded it as quite superior to the rifle.
My father had never been well off; each passing year had left him more and more deeply involved. In 1867 a disastrous lawsuit with the Marquis of Bute over some mining rights in Wales almost brought ruin to our door. It was decided to emigrate. The advantages of New Zealand, Buenos Ayres, and South Africa were all considered. But a letter from Cardinal (then Bishop) Moran, of Grahamstown, decided our fate: the Cape Colony was to be our destination.
My three sisters were all senior to me. The eldest accompanied us to the Cape. The second had, the previous year, gone to India. The youngest, who was in delicate health, remained behind with an aunt. My brother, who was younger than I, stayed at school in Ireland.
So one lovely day, in early November of 1867 we embarked at Dublin on a small paddle-steamer called the Lady Eglinton. Our immediate destination was Falmouth; there we had to join the S.S. Asia, one of the old "Diamond Line." Memory is a curious thing; although I can recall minute details of most of my uneventful life between my sixth and twelfth years, the circumstances of this voyage, the first in my experience, have passed almost entirely away. The only memory that remains is connected with a ridiculous episode.
There was a drunken Irish soldier on board. He was a good-natured creature who made himself most embarrassingly friendly towards all and sundry of the passengers. Eventually he tried to embrace one of the ladies. For this misdemeanor, which I am persuaded was based on no evil intention, he was trussed and tied down on the hatch, close to the wheel. But the man must have been a philosopher, for his bonds distressed him not at all. For several hours he lifted up his voice in continuous song. His repertoire was extensive and varied. To this day I can clearly recall the words as well as the tune of two of his ditties. One related to the history of a pair of corduroy breeches, year by year, since the close of the last decade, each year being treated of in a couplet. The first verse ran thus:
"In eighteen hundred and sixty-one
Those corduroy breeches were begun."
Eventually, in the then current year, 1867 "Those corduroy breeches went up to heaven."
But they must have come down again, for it was prophetically, related that, in 1868 "Those corduroy breeches lost their sate."