Section 17: Manners and Customs

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SECTION XVII.

Manners and Customs.

Quid leges sine moribus,
vanae proficiunt!

IT is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish remarks upon a country, to sit down cooly in his closet and write a satire on the inhabitants. Severity of that sort must be enlivened with an uncommon share of wit and ridicule, to please. Where very gross absurdities are found, it is fair and manly to note them; but to enter into character and disposition is generally uncandid, since there are no people but might be better than they are found, and none but have virtues which deserve attention, at least as much as their failings; for these reasons this section would not have found a place in my observations, had not some persons, of much more flippancy than wisdom, given very gross misrepresentations of the Irish nation. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I take up the pen, on the present occasion, as a much longer residence there enables me to exhibit a very different picture; in doing this, I shall be free to remark, wherein I think the conduct of certain classes may have given rise to general and consequently injurious condemnation.

THERE are three races of people in Ireland, so distinct, as to strike the least attentive traveller: these are the Spanish, which are found in Kerry, and a part of Limerick and Corke, tall and thin, but well made, a long visage, dark eyes, and long black lank hair. The time is not remote when the Spaniards had a kind of settlement on the coast of Kerry, which seemed to be overlooked by government. There were many of them in Queen Elizabeth's reign, nor were they entirely driven out till the time of Cromwell. There is an island of Valentia on that coast, with various other names, certainly Spanish. The Scotch race is in the north, where are to be found,the features which are supposed to mark that people, their accent, and many of their customs. In a district, near Dublin, but more particular in the baronies of Bargie and Forth in the county of Wexford, the Saxon tongue is spoken without any mixture of the Irish, and the people have a variety of customs mentioned in the minutes, which distinguish them from their neighbours. The rest of the kingdom is made up of mongrels. The Milesian race of Irish, which may be called native , are scattered over the kingdom, but chiefly found in Connaught and Munster; a few considerable families, whose genealogy is undoubted, remain, but none of them with considerable possessions, except the O'Briens and Mr. O'Niel, the former have near twenty thousand pounds a year in the family; the latter half as much, the remnant of a property once his ancestors, which now forms six or seven of the greatest estates in the kingdom. O'Hara and M'Dermont are great names in Connaught, and O'Donnohue a considerable one in Kerry; but the O'Connors, and O'Drischals in Corke, claim an origin prior in Ireland to any of the Milesian race.

THE only divisions which a traveller, who passed through the kingdom, without any residence, could make, would be into people of considerable fortune and mob. The intermediate division of the scale, so numerous and respectable in England, would hardly attract the least notice in Ireland. A residence in the kingdom convinces one, however, that there is another class, in general of small fortune,—country gentlemen, and renters of land. The manners, habits and customs of people of considerable fortune, are much the same every where, at least there is very little difference between England and Ireland, it is among the common people one must look for those traits by which we discriminate a national character. The circumstances which struck me most in the common Irish were, vivacity and a great and eloquent volubility of speech; one would think they could take snuff and talk without tiring till doomsday. They are infinitely more chearful and lively than any thing we commonly see in England, having nothing of that incivility of sullen silence, with which so many Englishmen seem to wrap themselves up, as if retiring within their own importance. Lazy to an excess at work , but so spiritedly active at play , that at hurling , which is the cricket of savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility. Their love of society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their hospitality to allcomers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too much merit to be forgotten. Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will be universal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them to betray the secret or person of a man, though an oppressor, whose property they would plunder without ceremony. Hard drinkers and quarrelsome; great liars, but civil, submissive and obedient. Dancing is so universal among them, that there are every where itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars pay six pence a quarter for teaching their families. Besides the Irish jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and country dances are taught; and I even heard of cotilions coming in.

SOME degree of education is also general, hedge schools, as they are called, (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have seen many a ditch full of scholars) are every where to be met with where reading and writing are taught; schools are also common for men; 1 have seen a dozen great fellows at school, and was told they were educating with an intention of being priests. Many strokes in their character are evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppression under which they live, if they are as great thieves and liars as they are reported, it is certainly owing to this cause.

IF from the lowest class we rise to the highest, all there is gaiety, pleasure, luxury and extravagance; the town life at Dublin is formed on the model of that of London. Every night in the winter there is a ball or a party, where the polite circle meet, not to enjoy but to sweat each other; a great crowd crammed into twenty feet square, gives a zest to the agrements of small talk and whist. There are four or five houses large enough to receive a company commodiously, but the rest are so small as to make parties detestable. There is, however, an agreeable society in Dublin, in which a man of large fortune will not find his time heavy. The stile of living may be guessed from the fortunes of the resident nobility and great commoners; there are about thirty that possess incomes from seven to twenty thousand pounds a year. The court has nothing remarkable or splendid in it, but varies very much, according to the private fortune or liberality of disposition in the Lord Lieutenant.

IN the country their life has some circumstances which are not commonly seen in England. Large tracts of land are kept in hand by every body to supply the deficiencies of markets; this gives such a plenty, that, united with the lowness of taxes and prices, one would suppose it difficult for them to spend their incomes, if Dublin in the winter did not lend assistance. Let it be considered, that the prices of meat are much lower than in England; poultry only a fourth of the price; wild fowl and fish in vastly greater plenty; rum and brandy not half the price; coffee, tea, and wines, far cheaper; labour not above a third; servants wages upon an average thirty per cent, cheaper. That taxes are inconsiderable, for there is no land tax, no poor rates, no window tax, no candle or soap tax, only half a wheel tax, no servants tax, and a variety of other articles heavily burthened in England, but not in Ireland. Considering all this, one would think they could not spend their incomes; they do contrive it however. In this business they are assisted by two customs that have an admirable tendency to it, great numbers of horses and servants. The excess in the latter are in the lower sort; owing, not only to the general laziness, but also to the number of attendants every one of a higher class will have; this is common in great families in England, but in Ireland a man of five hundred pounds a year feels it. As to horses the number is carried quite to a folly; in order to explain this point, I shall insert a table of the demesnes of many of the nobility and gentry, which will shew not only the number of horses, but of other cattle, the quantity of land, and other circumstances explanatory of their country life.

Names.	Acres.	Wood.	Corn.	Turnips and Cabbage.	Rent. £.	Labourers.	Horses.	Plough Oxen.	Sheep.
Mr. Clements,	240		14		420	20	22	6	163
Col. Marley,	200		31	1½	300		8	4	40
Mr. Rowley,	700	100		3	700		90		250
Lord Conyngham,	447	120	32	3			37		44
Lord Bective,	1,600		84		2,000	140	100	20	500
Mr Gerard.	1,200		64		1,300		12		1,300
Lord Longford,	320		32	5	300	20	26	12	100
Mr. Johnson,	410	110	10	5	320	9	8	4	200
Dean Coote,	500		35	8	350	30	35	8	200
General Walsh,	700		71	5		50			150
Mr. Brown,	300				460		8		800
Mr. Bushe,	170	30	50	2	330		15	8	70
Lord Courtown,	300		30	7	315	30	21	12	70
General Cuninghame,	150		34		375	20	16	5	70
Lord Gosfort,	300		25	3	450	30	43	4	46
Mr. Close,	100		23		135	9	10		40
Mr. Lesly,	350	100	32		350	30	37	20	150
Mr. Savage,	190		35	2	250		32		40
Mr. 0'Niel,	733		57	17	549	40	68	24	500
Mr. Leslie,	1,026	60	101		790	50	46	24	80
Sir J. Caldwell,	700	300	41	11	900
Mr. Corry,	1,000		68		900	120			500
Lord Ross,	950	125				30	30		120
Lord Farnham,	1,000	200	55	10	800	100	108	22	285
Mr. Newcomen,	400		40					18
Mr. Mabon,	1,100	100	60		840	20	30		500
Mr. Cooper,	1,000	300	22	8		60	25	12	130
Mr. Brown,	370		18			10	30		300
Mr. Gore,	3,300		160		2,310	120	170		5,000
Lord Altamont,	1,500		120	6	1,000	100	70	20	200
Mr. French,	1,790	252	55			100	20	14	424
Mr. Trench,	1,046	100	13		600	80	45	10	980
Sir Lucius 0Brien,	399	30	47		560	60	26	11	138
Mr. Fitzgerald,	3,000				2,000	26	54	18	1,800
Mr. Aldworth,	1,270	600	550	12	1,010		33	16
Lord Donneraile,	1,200	200	200	5	1,500	60	54	40	400
Colonel Jepson,	300		35		900		24		120
Mr. Gordon,	915		114		700	45	13	15	187
Mr. Jeffries,	304		20		300		32		200
Mr. Trent,	238	24	21				13	5	200
Lord Shannon,	1,600	268	81		1,500	132	11	36	470
Mr. Longfield,	1,100		78		800	20	65	14	200
Rev. Archd. Oliver,	900		136	16	650	50	25	21	100
Mr. Herbert,	1,300	780			400		18	30	300
Mr. Bateman,	250		5		250		30		60
Lord Glendour,	1,000	100	55		1,000		50		200
Mr. Fitzgerald,	200		23	3	200		21	8	60
Mr. Leslie,	250	50	27		230		24	6	60
Mr. Oliver,	500	100	24	10	500	50	30	10	125
Mr. Ryves,	300		25		450	6	20		300
Lord Clanwilliam,	640		34	8	600	30	40		600
Mr. Macartey,	9,000				10,000	170	180	80	8,000
Lord de Montalt,	1,300	300				75	40	40	1,500
Mr. Moore,	600		17		1,155		36		1,000
Lord Tyrone,	2,100	1,500	64		1,200	200		48	400
Mr. Bolton,	200		28		300	40	25	6	70
Mr. Nevill,	220	24			350		22		100
Mr. Lloyd,	200				150		12		182
Mr. Holmes,	540	49	25	15	540	40	30	14	590
Mr. Head,	450	16	27		675	20			400
Lord Kingsborough,	600	100	30	5	400	100	40		200

THE intelligent reader will collect something more than mere curiosity from this table; it will necessarily strike him, that a country residence in Ireland demands a much larger quantity of land in hand than in England, from which might be deduced, if not from any thing else, how much backwarder the former is than the latter; where markets are wanting, every thing must be had at home, a case stronger still in America. In England, such extensive demesnes would be parks around the seats for beauty as much as use, but it is not so in Ireland; the words deer-park and demesne are to be distinguished; there are great demesnes without any parks, but a want of taste, too common in Ireland, is having a deer-park at a distance from the house; the residence surrounded by walls, or hedges, or cabbins; and the lawn enclosure scattered with animals of various sorts, perhaps three miles off. The small quantity of corn proportioned to the total acres, shews how little tillage is attended to even by those who are the best able to carry it on; and the column of turnips proves in the clearest manner, what the progress of improvement is in that kingdom. The number of horses may almost be esteemed a satire upon common sense; were they well fed enough to be useful, they would not be so numerous, but I have found a good hack for a common ride scarce in a house where there were a hundred. Upon an average, the horses in gentlemen's stables, throughout the kingdom, arc not fed half so well as they are in England by men of equal fortune; yet the number makes the expence of them very heavy.

ANOTHER circumstance to be remarked in the country life is the miscrableness of many of their houses; there are men of five thousand a year in Ireland, who live in habitations that a man of seven hundred a year in England would disdain; an air of neatness, order, dress, and proprete , is wanting to a surprizing degree around the mansion; even new and excellent houses have often nothing of this about them. But the badness of the houses is remedying every hour throughout the whole kingdom, for the number of new ones just built, or building, is prodigiously great. I should suppose there were not ten dwellings in the kingdom thirty years ago that were fit for an English pig to live in. Gardens were equally bad, but now they are running into the contrary extreme, and wall in five, six, ten, and even twenty Irish acres for a garden, but generally double or treble what is necessary.

THE tables of people of fortune are very plentifully spread; many elegantly, differing in nothing from those of England. I think I remarked that venison wants the flavour it has with us, probably for the same reason, that the produce of rich parks is never equal to that of poor ones; the moisture of the climate, and the richness of the soil, give fat but not flavour. Another reason is the smallness of the parks, a man who has three or four thousand acres in his hands, has not, perhaps, above three or four hundred in his deerpark, and range is a great point for good venison. Nor do 1 think that garden vegetables have the flavour found in those of England, certainly owing to the climate; green peas I found every where perfectly insipid, and lettuce, &c. not good. Claret is the common wine of all tables, and so much inferior to what is drank in England, that it does not appear to be the same wine; but their port is incomparable, so much better than the English, as to prove, if proof was wanting, the abominable adulterations it must undergo with us. Drinking and duelling are two charges which have long been alledged against: the gentlemen of Ireland, but the change of manners which has taken place in that kingdom is not generally known in England. Drunkenness ought no longer to be a reproach; for at every table I was at in Ireland, I saw a perfect freedom reign, every person drank just as little as they pleased, nor have I ever been asked to drink a single glass more than I had an inclination for; I may go farther and assert, that hard drinking is very rare among people of fortune; yet it is certain that they sit much longer at table than in England. I was much surprized at first going over to find no summons to coffee, the company often sitting till eight, nine, or ten o'clock, before they went to the ladies. If a gentleman likes tea or coffee, he retires without saying any thing, a stranger of rank may propose it to the master of the house, who from custom contrary to that of England, will not stir till he receives such a hint, as they think it would imply a desire to save their wine. If the gentlemen were generally desirous of tea, I take it for granted they would have it, but their flighting is one inconvenience to such as desire it, not knowing when it is provided, conversation may carry them beyond the time, and then if they do trifle over the coffee it will certainly be cold. There is a want of attention in this, which the ladies should remedy, if they will not break the old custom and send to the gentlemen, which is what they ought to do, they certainly should have a salver fresh. I must, however, remark, that at the politest tables this point is conducted exactly as it is in England.

DUELLING was once carried to an excess, which was a real reproach and scandal to the kingdom; it of course proceeded from excessive drinking; as the cause has disappeared, the effect has nearly followed: not, however, entirely, for it is yet far more common among people of fashion than in England. Of all practices, a man who felt for the honour of his country, would wish soonest to banish this, for there is not one favourable conclusion to be drawn from it: as to courage, nobody can question that of a polite and enlightened nation, entitled to a share of the reputation of the age; but it implies uncivilized manners, an ignorance of those forms which govern polite societies, or else a brutal drunkenness; the latter is no longer the cause or the pretence. As to the former, they would place the national character so backward, would take from it so much of its pretence to civilization, elegance and politeness of manners, that no true Irishman would be pleased with the imputation. Certain it is, that none are so captious as those who think themselves neglected or despised; and none are so ready to believe themselves either one or the other, as persons unused to good company. Captious people, therefore, who are ready to take an affront, must inevitably have been accustomed to ill company, unless there should be something uncommonly crooked in their natural dispositions, which is not to be supposed. Let every man that fights his one, two, three, or half a dozen duels, receive it as a maxim, that every one he adds to the number is but an additional proof of his being ill educated, and having vitiated his manners by the contagion of bad company. Who is it that can reckon the most numerous rencontres? who but the bucks, bloods, land-jobbers, and little drunken country gentlemen? Ought not people of fashion to blush at a practice which will very soon be the distinction only of the most contemptible of the people? The point os honour will and must remain for the decision of certain affronts, but it will rarely be had recourse to in polite, sensible, and well bred company. The practice among real gentlemen in Ireland every day declining is a strong proof, that a knowledge of the world corrects the old manners, and consequently its having ever been prevalent, was owing to the causes to which I have attributed it.

THERE is another point of manners somewhat connected with the present subject, which partly induced me to place a motto at the head of this section. It is the conduct of juries; the criminal law of Ireland is the same as that of England, but in the execution it is so different as scarcely to be known. I believe it is a fact, at least I have been assured so, that no man was ever hanged in Ireland for killing another in a duel: the security is such that nobody ever thought of removing out of the way of justice, yet there have been deaths of that sort, which had no more to do with honour than stabbing in the dark. I believe Ireland is the only country in Europe, I am sure it is the only part of the British dominions, where associations among men of fortune are necessary for apprehending ravishers. It is scarcely credible how many young women have even of late years been carried off and ravished, in order (as they generally have fortunes) to gain to appearance a voluntary marriage. These actions it is true are not committed by the class I am considering at present; but they are tried by them, and ACQUITTED. I think there has been only one man executed for that crime, which is so common as to occasion the associations I mentioned: it is to this supine execution of the law that such enormities are owing. Another circumstance, which has the effect of screening all sorts of offenders, is men of fortune protecting them, and making interest for their acquittal, which is attended with a variety of evil consequences. 1 heard it boasted in the county of Fermanagh, that there had not been a man hanged in it for two and twenty years all I concluded from this was, that there had been many a jury who deserved it richly.

LET me, however, conclude what I have to observe on the conduct of the principal people residing in Ireland, that there are great numbers among them who are as liberal in all their ideas as any people in Europe; that they have seen the errors which have given an ill character to the manners of their country, and done every thing that example could effect to produce a change: that that happy change has been partly effected, and is effecting every hour, insomuch that a man may go into a vast variety of families, which he will find actuated by no other principles than those of the most cultivated politeness, and the most liberal urbanity.

BUT I must now come to another class of people, to whose conduct it is almost entirely owing, that the character of the nation has not that lustre abroad, which I dare assert, it will soon very generally merit: this is the class of little country gentlemen;¹ tenants who drink their claret by means of profit rents; jobbers in farms; bucks; your fellows with round hats, edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the evening, and fight the next morning. I shall not dwell on a subject so perfectly disagreeable, but remark that these are the men among whom drinking, wrangling, quarreling, fighting, ravishing, &c. &c. are found as in their native soil; once to a degree that made them the pest of society; they are growing better, but even now, one or two of them got by accident (where they have no business) into better company are sufficient very much to derange the pleasures that result from a liberal conversation. A new spirit; new fashions; new modes of politeness exhibited by the higher ranks are imitated by the lower, which will, it is to be hoped, put an end to this race of beings; and either drive their sons and cousins into the army or navy, or sink them into plain farmers like those we have in England, where it is common to sce men with much greater property without pretending to be gentlemen. I repeat it from the intelligence I received, that even this class are very different from what they were twenty years ago, and improve so fast that the time will soon come when the national character will not be degraded by any set.

THAT character is upon the whole respectable: it would be unfair to attribute to the nation at large the vices and follies of only one class of individuals. Those persons from whom it is candid to take a general estimate do credit to their country. That they are a people learned, lively and ingenious, the admirable authors they have produced will be an eternal monument, witness their Swift, Sterne, Congreve, Hoyle, Berkeley, Steelc, Farquhar, Southerne, and Goldsmith. Their talent for eloquence is felt, and acknowledged in the parliaments of both the kingdoms. Our own service both by sea and land, as well as that (unsortunately for us) of the principal monarchies of Europe speak their steady and determined courage. Every unprejudiced traveller who visits them will be as much pleased with their chearfulness, as obliged by their hospitality; and will find them a brave, polite, and liberal people.

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¹ THIS expression is not to be taken in a general sense. God forbid I should give this character of all country gentlemen of small fortunes in Ireland: I have myself been acquainted with exceptions.—I mean only that in general they are not the most liberal people in the kingdom.

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