Blessed Candles were once tied onto the tail of milch cows on Hallow Eve. People firmly believed that evil spirits were abroad and they had to protect their most prized animal.
John McCullagh
If ye gotta go!
A century ago in Ireland a couple searching for a holiday home chose the West of Ireland and after much house-hunting, they found a country cottage to their taste. They hadn’t inspected it fully and when they returned to England the woman asked her husband whether it came with a suitable W.C. He of course, couldn’t remember either so he wrote to ask the landlord.
Unfortunately the landlord didn’t understand the new-fangled term W.C. (for water-closet – contrasted with a ‘dry-toilet’) and studied an Ordnance Survey map to check. There he learned that a Wesleyan Chapel – named for the founder of Methodism, John Wesley – was so abbreviated.
He wrote back immediately.
Dear Sir,
I regret the delay in this matter but I have much pleasure in informing you that the W.C. is situated nine miles from the house. It is capable of seating two hundred and fifty persons.
If you are in the habit of going regularly, this is unfortunate for you. You will no doubt be interested to know that a great many people take their lunch with them and make a day of it. Others who are more pressed go by car and often arrive just in the nick of time! These are people who are generally in too much of a hurry to wait.
The last time, six years ago, that my wife and I were there, we had to stand all the time.
Yours sincerely
Seamus Murphy.
UnChristian Guardians 1860
An editorial in the Dundalk Democrat of 21 July 1860 decried the miserliness of the Guardians of Dundalk Union in regard to the paupers’ diet.
‘This ‘wise’ Committee led by the cheese-paring Lord Clermont deliberated for hours not on how they would make the victims of misrule and poverty more comfortable but to ascertain the length they could go in hurrying them to the grave without incurring the guilt of murder. All to save a paltry one hundred pounds a year on diet.
The unfortunate paupers have been in the habit of getting some soup made from the necks and hocks of meat. A neck part of a forequarter was sent in once a week, the better part of which was given to the officers and the neck and inferior parts boiled into soup for the paupers. Too good for them, the Committee deemed. In future they were to taste only a cow’s head boiled into two hundred pints of water as soup!
The Dundalk Board take as their best example the pauper-starving Board of the Newry Union who act so shamefully as to send the poor to bed groaning on the two pence worth of food doled out to them during the day.
The editorial goes on in this vein, condemning the unchristian acts of men who know little of charity and whose penury (i.e. Newry Guardians) it would not be creditable to emulate. It refers scathingly to the ‘Cow’s head Committee’.
Fews Glossary: N
Dialect ‘N’
Nail strike, ‘nail him on the chin’
(on the) nail promptly, ‘pay on the nail for it’
Narra narrow
Narley small, ‘narley potatoes,’ ‘a wee narl of a calf’
Near close, ‘a near friend’, ‘near hand’, ‘near hand couped’, almost overturned, ‘a near hand way’, short cut, mean, ‘she’s that near, she’d starve ye’.
Near-legged bandy-legged
Neb nose
Nebby inquisitive
Newance news, ‘it’s newance to me’
Newans unexpected, ‘it’s newans to see you’
Newfangled fancy
Nick devil; ‘nick of time’, a nick in the post, a mark
Nick to steal: past tense, nyuck, ‘He nyuck it on me’ (Newry Nyuck – see Guestbook) Nicker ‘the horse nickered’, neighed
Nip to punch or nip
Nips little bits
Nipping cold, ‘my toes are nipping’
Nobbin raised land in a field, a small hill
Norration oration, speech, ‘I heared the norration’, ‘that was the bloodiest norration ye ever heard’, commotion
Note time of cow’s calving
Notice small nip of drink, ‘just what ye’d notice in the glass’
The Spadesman
Mick was a true spadesman and in his hands that tool acted like something bewitched. He never put a foot to it.
Fields of Grace
In rural Ireland long ago – and often in towns as well – handicapped, deformed or less-able members of the community were hidden away from society or secreted in upper rooms or in barns, I’m told. That is certainly my mother’s recollection and we have all read about such matters in the literature. From what I now learn, they were the lucky ones.
Annie’s Shop: 2
I usually went to Annie’s Huckster Shop with a companion, who always left the door open, deliberately.
Compensation Sets In
Have you ever thought that the country was couped?
I have just heard that some 2000-3000 former paramilitary prisoners, including godfathers, are suing the State because their dignity was mortally wounded at having to ‘slop out’ their cells when the Government ought to have provided them individually with W.C.s and personal washing facilities.
Some years ago the State had to fork out ten of millions in compensation because apparently almost every soldier who ever served in the Irish Army was suffering from deafness brought on by the absence (or ineffectiveness) of ear-muffs when they were given shooting practice.
Currently priests and pastors are seeking compensation against the vagaries of the drink-driving legislation. Apparently those who have to serve more than one Church on Sundays for example, may accidentally imbibe (at the Consecration) sufficient wine to put them over the limit, and they have to drive from Church to Church. Their suggested solution? The State must provide from taxes, sufficient funds for them to employ a chauffeur. Of course there are several thousand ‘religious’ in this invidious position!
Isn’t it amazing how quickly compensation sets in?
In Search of the Calliagh Berra
A comprehensive programme of events has been organised this weekend (10-12 September) to amuse and entertain native dwellers and visitors alike ranging from Viking Ship re-enactments, to Camlough Mummers and coach and walking tours. Spoilt for choice but you’ve just got to choose, since the full programme runs at different venues at the same time.
Your editor has opted to join Anthony Cranney’s intrepid walking group, setting out in determined search for the elusive Calliagh Berra in her cairn or souterrain or lake on top of Slieve Gullion. Just back from scaling Babbadag in Turkey, and then Slieve League in Donegal, our own wee hill may seem a cakewalk but I must confess it is some decades since I completed it all by foot.
Climber
Groping fingertips search slowly up the wall
Grateful fingers grip firmly to the hold
Curled toes of feet help balance on the rock’s fold
To lose one’s self-belief is mentally to fall.
So hand to hand, strained foot and back and knee
Up slope, then face and crack, and chimney bold
Till triumphant on the summit he’ll behold
A land of broken rock and scattered scree
Gazing o’er mountain, Fews and sea
The surface of a molten earth grown cold
And breathing air Cuchullain breathed of old
He relishes the heady taste of victory.
And though he climbs, he conquers not the hill
It is himself he conquers with his will.
Anyway, it’s the folk-tales, the craic and the company of the erudite and accomplished Anthony Cranney that I’m after. And of course the exclusive interview with the Calliagh herself, should we corner her.
If we make it back on time, I’ll see Pat Maginn’s Mummers. Watch out for a report.