One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

The number of arrests for assault during the year 1907 in all Ireland was less than ever before, being only 16,055, in comparison with 24,027 in 1896, 22,065 in 1900, and 16,666 in 1904, while the number of persons arrested for disorderly conduct decreased from 90,233 to 77,262 during the same years. There is a terrible side to the picture. Of the women arrested for drunkenness in Ireland last year more than one thousand were under twenty-one years of age, 118 between sixteen and eighteen years of age, while 156 were over sixty.

The Sunday law is pretty well enforced, and during the last year, outside of the five principal cities, 2,289 persons were arrested for its violation. That is about the average for the last ten years.

In Dublin there has been a decided falling off in the arrests for drunkenness on Sunday; the total in 1898 was 1,280, while in 1907 it was only 404. The number of arrests for drunkenness on Sunday in Cork decreased from 265 to 193 during the same period, and those in Belfast from 537 to 434.

In the city of Dublin alone 1,772 women were arrested for drunkenness in 1907 and 2,941 men. In 1904, 1,976 women were arrested for drunkenness.

I don’t suppose there is any city in the world where there is so much drunkenness among women as there is in Dublin, except it be Glasgow and Edinburgh, although the number of drunken men arrested is not so much larger than the average in other cities of Europe and the United States. And what is even more lamentable, the public is so hardened to the repulsive spectacle that it does not attract as much curiosity as the appearance of an ordinary drunken man upon the streets of Chicago or New York. Women stagger from the doors of saloons along the sidewalks with disheveled hair and disordered garments without attracting any attention whatsoever.

The Roman Catholic clergy are doing a great deal to suppress disorder and promote temperance by prohibiting the use of liquor at wakes. Cardinal Logue and the several archbishops and bishops are determined to abolish the disgraceful orgies that have been so common on such occasions, and have forbidden priests to officiate at funerals or even to say masses for the souls of the dead where liquor is offered to the neighbors and mourners who sit up with the corpse. Some of the bishops require the remains to be brought to the church on the day before the funeral. As a consequence, the scandalous custom of holding a carousal the night before the funeral is almost entirely obsolete except in the slums of the large cities and in remote rural districts. As a rule throughout Ireland, where friends now gather to “sit up” with the corpse as a token of respect and sorrow, they are furnished with no stronger refreshments than tea. The teapot is placed upon the stove or upon the peat fire and the mourners help themselves as they desire; but if a bottle of liquor is passed around it is done with the greatest caution for fear the priest will hear of it.

Like the colored people of the United States, the peasants of Ireland are possessed with an ambition to have “a fine funeral.” Among the poor this form of extravagance has been the cause of a great deal of distress and privation, and formerly poor families often deprived themselves of food to supply liquor that was consumed at the wake. This hospitable custom, however, is rapidly passing away.

The Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance is composed of delegates from nearly all of the many temperance societies in Ireland, both Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Nonconformist, and Independent. There are many mutual benefit societies among workingmen which affiliate, and various associations of women and children. For the purpose of co-operation and economy and to avoid friction and duplication of labor, this central organization has been formed, and consists of one representative from every contributing society. The general council meets three times a year, has a complete organization, sends lecturers into the field, issues literature, makes investigations, and has committees to look after legislation that concerns the liquor traffic.

The special work of the council is to secure temperance legislation and the enforcement of laws that are already on the statute books, especially the Sunday closing act and the law which forbids the sale of liquor to minors. Another object is to encourage the formation of temperance clubs throughout the country, to organize opposition to applications for licenses, to promote meetings, to educate the people as to the evils of the liquor traffic, and to create public sentiment against it. It also has committees to encourage the establishment of restaurants at which liquor is not sold, to encourage healthful recreation, and to provide local amusements that will keep the men out of the public houses.

The president of the council is a Roman Catholic barrister; the secretary is a Quaker; the vice-presidents include all of the Roman Catholic and all of the Church of Ireland archbishops and several bishops of both denominations, the president of the Methodist conference, the president of the Maynooth College (Roman Catholic), the provost of Trinity College, the moderator of the Presbyterian general assembly, several earls and other members of the nobility, the leaders of the Irish party in parliament, and several other gentlemen of equal prominence and influence.