THE next morning at breakfast, a Scotch1 gentleman, with an amazing accent, would read the newspaper in such loud tones to his friend, that, not being monks2, nor accustomed to be read to, more monastico, at our meals, we really could not enjoy our food, and were compelled to toss up which of us should recite to the other the list of Bankrupts from The Times. I lost, but had not progressed far in my distinct enunciation3 of the unhappy insolvents4, when the Caledonian took the hint, and we ate our mackerel in peace.
Leaving Dublin by the “Midland Great Western Railway,” at 10.30, we reached Galway at 3.45. The intermediate country is, for the most part, dreary5 and uninteresting, at times resembling the bleaker6 parts of Derbyshire, and at times Chat Moss7. “I am no botanist,” as the Undergraduate remarked to the Farmer, who expostulated with him for riding over his wheat; but the agriculture appeared to be feeble, and to show want of management in its twofold signification. The green crops looked well everywhere, but the corn was thin, and the pastures by no means of that emerald hue8 which we had expected to find. With the exceptions of peasants, cutting and stacking peat for their winter fuel, children at the doors of cottages, the railway passengers and officials, there seemed to us, coming from densely9 populated England, to be really “nobody about;” and the contrast between our present route and that which we had travelled, two days before, through the “Potteries,” was as marked as contrast well could be. This comparative quietude and silence prevailed wherever we went, as though we were wandering through the grounds of some country place, “the family” being abroad, and most of the servants gone out to tea. Ah, when will the family come back to live at home, to take delight in this beautiful but neglected garden, weed the walks, turn out the pig, and look after these indolent and quarrelsome servants?—indolent and quarrelsome, only because there are none to encourage industry and to maintain peace.
We passed the station of Maynooth, but did not see the “Royal College of St. Patrick,” and are therefore unable to vituperate that establishment, as otherwise it would be our duty to do.
Missing this fashionable Christian10 exercise, I amused myself by attiring11 a portly, closeshaven priest—who sat opposite to me, and who had a face which would have represented anybody with the aid of a clever costumier—in all sorts of imaginary head-dresses, dowagers' turbans, Grenadiers' caps, Gampian bonnets12, beadles' hats, &c., and endeavoured to fancy the feelings of his flock, if they were to see him in reality, as I in thought.
Passing through county Meath, we were again reminded of Swift, who held the rectory of Agher, with the vicarages of Laracor and Rathbeggan therein, and of the beautiful Hester, sacrificed to his vanity, and crying aloud, in piteous tone, “It is too late! It is too late!”
Nigh to Athlone (of which more hereafter) is the village of Auburn, formerly13 called Lissoy, the residence of Parson Goldsmith, and the early home of the poet. The scenes of his childhood and his youth were doubtless remembered by him, when he wrote “The Deserted14 Village,” and many features of resemblance may still be traced.
At Ballinasloe (everybody has heard of its great horse-fair, and how the hunters jump over the walls of the “Pound,” in height about eight feet, Irish) we entered the county of Galway, and tremblingly anticipated, after all we had heard of its wild, reckless sons, that some delirious15 driver would spring upon the engine, with a screech16 louder than its own, put on all steam, run us off the line for fun, and cause us to be challenged by our fellow-passengers, should we escape with our lives, for not appreciating the sport. But we travelled onwards, demurely17 and at peace; and, indeed, throughout our little tour, so far from being provoked or annoyed, we met with nothing but kindness and courtesy, and a good-humoured willingness to be pleased and to please.
The Railway Hotel at Galway is the largest that we saw in Ireland, and contains, as we had been informed, “a power o' beds.” These want sleepers18 sadly, and at present the tourist, as he wanders from coffee-room to dormitory, feels very much
“Like one that treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose guests are fled,” &c.,
and cheers his loneliness with the thought, that should Galway become (as all who care for Ireland must hope) the port for America, this solemn stillness shall depress no more. The inn forms one side of the principal Square, and, the neighbour buildings being comparatively small and dingy19, resembles some grand lady, in all her crinoline, teaching the third class at a Sunday school. The grass-plat and garden are nicely kept, but their chief ornaments20 struck us as being rather incongruous, to wit, hydrangeas and cannon21! The guns were pointed22 at our bedroom windows, and it really required some little resolution next morning to shave ourselves with placidity23 “at the cannons24' mouth.” Having secured places for the morrow on the Car to Clifden, specially25 stipulating26 for “the Lake side” of the conveyance27, we selected a shrewd-looking lad from a crowd of candidates (the Roman candidati wore white togas in the market-place, but these young gentlemen did not), and went to see the sights. We saw a great deal that was very interesting, and a great deal that was very dirty; we saw the traces of Spanish architecture, in quaint28 gateways29 and quadrangular courts, but were not “reminded of Seville,” our only association with that city being a passionate30 love of marmalade; we saw Lynch's castle, and its grotesque31 carving32 is very curious; we saw the house in Deadman's Lane, where lived that Fitz-Stephen, Warden33 of Galway, who, according to the worst authenticated34 tradition, assisted at the hanging of his own son; we saw warehouses35 sans ware36; granaries, some without grain, and others with “the meal-sacks on the whitened floor;” we saw and greatly admired Queen's College; we saw chapels37 and nunneries, whence the Angelus bell sounded as we passed; above all, we saw the Claddagh. Going thither38, our little showman told us of the big trade in wines between this place and Spain which flourished in the good times of old, and I foolishly thought to perplex him by the inquiry39, “whether much business was done in the Spanish juice line?”
“And sure,” said he, “your onner must know, that was the thrade intirely. Divil a taste of anything else did they bring us, but the juist of their Spanish vines.”
The Englishman who desires a new sensation should pay a visit to the Claddagh. When we arrived, the men were at sea; but the women, in their bright red petticoats, descending40 half-way down the uncovered leg, their cloaks worn like the Spanish mantilla, and of divers41 colours, their headkerchiefs and hoods42, were grouped among the old grey ruins where the fish market is held, and formed a tableau43 not to be forgotten. Though their garments are torn, and patched, and discoloured, there is a graceful44 simple dignity about them which might teach a lesson to Parisian milliners; and to my fancy the most becoming dress in all the world is that of a peasant girl of Connamara. Compare it, reader, with our present mode, and judge. Look at the two, sculptor45, and say which will you carve? Say, when “Santa Philomena” is graved in marble, shall it be with flounces and hoops46?
No, whatever may be the wrongs of Ireland no lover of the picturesque47 and beautiful would wish to see her re-dressed (so far as the ladies are concerned—the gentlemen might be improved); no one would desire to see her peasant girls in the tawdry bonnets and brass-eyed boots, which stultify48 the faces and cripple the feet of the daughters of our English labourers.
As to the origin of these Claddagh people, I am not sufficiently49 “up” in ethnology, to state with analytical50 exactness the details of their descent; but I should imagine them to be one-third Irish, one-third Arabian, and the other Zingaro, or Spanish gypsy. 1 I thought that I recognised in one old lady an Ojibbeway chief, who frightened me a good deal in my childhood, but she had lost the expression of ferocity, and I was, perhaps, mistaken.
The men are all fishermen (very clumsy ones, according to Miss Martineau, who talks about harpoons51 as if they were crochet52 needles, in her interesting “Letters from Ireland”); but they give up their cargoes53 to the women on landing, only stipulating that from the proceeds they may be supplied with a good store of drink and tobacco, and so get due compensation on the shore for their unvarying sobriety at sea.
1 Wales is also represented by members of the Jones family.
The original John may have come over with Thomas Joyce, who
was good enough to appropriate “the Joyce Country” to
They live (some 1500 souls in all) in a village of miserable55 cabins, the walls of mud and stone, and for the most part windowless, the floors damp and dirty, and the roofs a mass of rotten straw and weeds. The poultry56 mania57—(and if it is not mania to give ten guineas for a bantam, in what does insanity58 consist? l)—must be here at its height, for the cocks and hens roost in the parlour. But “the swells” of the Claddagh are its pigs. They really have not only a “landed expression,” as though the place belonged to them, but a supercilious59 gait and mien60; and with an autocratic air, as though repeating to themselves the spirited verses of Mr. A. Selkirk, they go in and out, whenever and wherever they please. I saw one of them, bold as the beast who upset Giotto, 2 knock over a little child with his snout; and I have a sad impression that the juvenine was whipped for interfering61 with the royal progress. Frank solemnly declared that he saw one, as portrayed62 with his back against the lintail of his home, and smoking his evening pipe.
Opvi-ôofiavta, a passionate love of rare birds, was known
among the ladies of Athens.
2 We read in Lanzi's History of Painting, that as Giotto
was walking with his friends, one Sunday, in the Via del
Cocomero at Florence, he was overthrown64 by a pig running
his best clothes, philosophically66 recognised a just
retribution, “for,” said he, “although I have earned many
I receive this statement cum grano salis (always appropriate to bacon), as I do Phil Purcel's, that “there was in Ireland an old breed of swine, which is now nearly extinct, except in some remote parts of the country, where they are still useful in the hunting season, if dogs happen to be scarce;” 1 and (with all deference69 to the lady).
1 Carleton's “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.”
Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's, “an acquaintance of ours taught one to point, and the animal found game as correctly as a pointer. He gave tongue, too, after his own fashion, by grunting70 in a sonorous71 tone, and understood when he was to take the field as well as any dog.” 1 But, however this may be, everything in the Claddagh is done to “please the pigs:”
You see them, lords of all around, pass by;”
and Og reigneth once more in Basan. He is precious and he has his privileges. “I think” (said Phil from the hob) “that nobody has a better right to the run of the house, whedher up stairs or down stairs, than him that pays the rint” Such is the great destiny of the Irish pig. He is not associated in the prospective73 contemplations of his owner with low views of pork and sausages; for Paddy says, with Launcelot, “if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money,” and
“As for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fryed in. 1
but he represents the generous friend and benefactor74, who is about to render an important service at considerable personal discomfort75.
1 In their pleasant volume, “The West and Connamara.”
Goldsmith's “Letter to Lord Clare.”
It was washing-day at one of the cabins, and a great variety of wearing apparel was hung out to dry. We could not discover a single article which at all resembled anything known to us, or which a schoolboy would have accepted for any part of his Faux.
Nevertheless, one likes the people of the Claddagh; they seem to be honest, industrious76, and good-tempered, and they have, at least, one great virtue—like Lady Godiva, they are “clothed on with chastity.” Sir Francis Head, who had the best means of getting information from the police, and used them with his exhaustive energy, could not hear that there had ever been an illegitimate child born in the Claddagh. They never intermarry with strangers, and “their marriages are generally preceded by an elopement” (vide the article on “Galway,” in the Encyclopodia Britannica, which one is surprised to find discoursing77 on such festive78 pleasantries), “and followed by a boisterous79 merry-making.”
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1
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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3
enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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insolvents
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| n.无力偿还债务的人（insolvent的复数形式） | |
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5
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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bleaker
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| 阴冷的( bleak的比较级 )； （状况）无望的； 没有希望的； 光秃的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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8
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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attiring
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| v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的现在分词 ) | |
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12
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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13
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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14
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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15
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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screech
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| n./v.尖叫；(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
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17
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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18
sleepers
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| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
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19
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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23
placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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24
cannons
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| n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
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25
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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26
stipulating
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| v.（尤指在协议或建议中）规定，约定，讲明（条件等）( stipulate的现在分词 )；规定，明确要求 | |
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27
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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28
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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29
gateways
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| n.网关( gateway的名词复数 )；门径；方法；大门口 | |
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30
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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31
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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33
warden
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| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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34
authenticated
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| v.证明是真实的、可靠的或有效的( authenticate的过去式和过去分词 )；鉴定，使生效 | |
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35
warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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ware
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| n.(常用复数)商品，货物 | |
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37
chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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38
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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39
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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40
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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41
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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42
hoods
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| n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩 | |
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43
tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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44
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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45
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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46
hoops
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| n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓 | |
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47
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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48
stultify
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| v.愚弄；使呆滞 | |
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49
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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50
analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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51
harpoons
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| n.鱼镖，鱼叉( harpoon的名词复数 )v.鱼镖，鱼叉( harpoon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
crochet
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| n.钩针织物；v.用钩针编制 | |
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53
cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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54
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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55
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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60
mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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61
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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64
overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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66
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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bristles
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| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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68
swill
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| v.冲洗；痛饮；n.泔脚饲料；猪食；（谈话或写作中的）无意义的话 | |
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69
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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72
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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77
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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