“No,” said he; “with all his courage and watchfulness, he found that his life was not safe; he, accordingly, sold off his property, and collecting all his ready cash, emigrated to America, where, I hear, he is doing well.”
“God knows,” I replied, “I shouldn't be surprised if one-half of the population were to follow his example, for the state of society here, among the lower orders, is truly deplorable.”
“Ay, but you are to consider now,” he replied, “that you have been looking at the worst of it. If you pass an unfavorable opinion upon our countrymen when in the public house or the quarrel, you ought to remember what they are under their own roofs, and in all the relations of private life.”
The “Party Fight,” described in the foregoing sketch, is unhappily no fiction, and it is certain that there are thousands still alive who have good reason to remember it. Such a fight, or I should rather say battle—for such in fact it was—did not take place in a state of civil society, if I can say so, within the last half century in this country. The preparations for it were secretly being made for two or three months previous to its occurrence, and however it came to light, it so happened that each party became cognizant of the designs of the other. This tremendous conflict, of which I was an eye-witness,—being then but about twelve years of age—took place in the town, or rather city, of Clogher, in my native county of Tyrone. The reader may form an opinion of the bitterness and ferocity with which it was fought on both sides when he is informed that the Orangemen on the one side, and the Ribbonmen on the other, had called in aid from the surrounding counties of Monaghan, Cavan, Fermanagh, and Derry; and, if I mistake not, also from Louth. In numbers, the belligerents could not have been less than from four to five thousand men. The fair day on which it occurred is known simply as “the Day of the great Fight.”
THE LOUGH DERG PILGRIM.
In describing the habits, superstitions, and feelings of the Irish people, it would be impossible to overlook a place which occupies so prominent a position in their religious usages as the celebrated Purgatory of St. Patrick, situated in a lake that lies among the bleak and desolate looking mountains of Donegal.
It may also be necessary to state to the reader, that the following sketch, though appearing in this place, was the first production from my pen which ever came before the public. The occasion of its being written was this:—I had been asked to breakfast by the late Rev. Caesar Otway, some time I think in the winter of 1829. About that time, or a little before, he had brought out his admirable work called, “Sketches in Ireland, descriptive of interesting portions of Donegal, Cork, and Kerry.” Among the remarkable localities of Donegal, of course it was natural to suppose, that “Lough Derg,” or the celebrated “Purgatory of St. Patrick,” would not be omitted. Neither was it; and nothing can exceed the accuracy and truthful vigor with which he describes its situation and appearance. In the course of conversation, however, I discovered that he had never been present during the season of making the Pilgrimages, and was consequently ignorant of the religious ceremonies which take place in it. In consequence, I gave him a pretty full and accurate account I of them, and of the Station which I myself had made there. After I had concluded, he requested me to put what I had told him upon paper, adding, “I will dress it up and have it inserted in the next edition.”
I accordingly went home, and on the fourth evening afterwards brought him the Sketch of the Lough Derg Pilgrim as it now appears, with the exception of some offensive passages which are expunged in this edition. Such was my first introduction to literary life.
And here I cannot omit paying my sincere tribute of grateful recollection to a man from whom I have received so many acts of the warmest kindness. To me he was a true friend in every sense of the word. In my early trials his purse and his advice often supported, soothed, and improved me. In a literary point of view I am under the deepest obligations to his excellent judgment and good taste. Indeed were it not for him, I never could have struggled my way through the severe difficulties with which in my early career I was beset.