Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)

Having procured the said wattles one way or other, it is only necessary to stick them down in the sod in two rows, turning round the tops like a woodbine arbour in a lady’s flower-garden, tying the two ends together with neat ropes of hay, which any gentleman’s farm-yard can (during the night time, as aforesaid) readily supply, – then fastening long wattles in like manner lengthways at top from one end to the other to keep all tight together; and thus the “wooden walls” of Donnybrook are ready for roofing in; and as the building materials cost nothing but danger, the expense is very trivial.

A tent fifty feet long may be easily built in about five minutes, unless the builders should adopt the old mode of peeling the wattles; and when once a wattle is stripped to its buff, he must be a wise landlord indeed who could swear to the identity of the timber – a species of evidence nevertheless that the Irish wood-rangers are extremely expert at.28 This precaution will not however be necessary for the Don Cossacks, who being educated as highway robbers by the Emperor of all the Russias, and acting in that capacity in every country, cannot of course be called to account for a due exercise of their vocation.

The covering of the tents is now only requisite; this is usually done according to fancy; and being unacquainted with the taste of the Russian gentlemen on that head, I shall only mention the general mode of clothing the wattles used in my time – a mode that, from its singularity, had a far more imposing appearance than any encampment ever pitched by his majesty’s regular forces, horse, foot, or artillery. Every cabin, alehouse, and other habitation wherein quilts or bedclothes were used, or could be procured by civility or otherwise (except money, which was not current for such purposes), was ransacked for apparel wherewith to cover the wattles. The favourite covering was quilts, as long as such were forthcoming; and when not, old winnowing sheets, sacks ripped open, rugs, blankets, &c. &c. – Every thing, in fact, was expended in the bed line (few neighbours using that accommodation during the fair) – and recourse often had to women’s apparel, as old petticoats, praskeens, &c. &c.

The covering being spread over the wattles as tightly and snugly as the materials would admit, all was secured by hay ropes and pegs. When completed, a very tall wattle with a dirty birch-broom, the hairy end of an old sweeping brush, a cast-off lantern of some watchman, rags of all colours made into streamers, and fixed at the top by way of sign, formed the invitation to drinking; – and when eating was likewise to be had, a rusty tin saucepan, or piece of a broken iron pot, was hung dangling in front, to crown the entrance and announce good cheer.

The most amusing part of the coverings were the quilts, which were generally of patchwork, comprising scraps of all the hues in the rainbow – cut into every shape and size, patched on each other, and quilted together.

As to furniture, down the centre doors, old or new, (whichever were most handy to be lifted,) were stretched from one end to the other, resting on hillocks of clay dug from underneath, and so forming a capital table with an agreeable variety both as to breadth and elevation. Similar constructions for benches were placed along the sides, but not so steady as the table; so that when the liquor got the mastery of one convivial fellow, he would fall off, and the whole row generally following his example, perhaps ten or even twenty gallant shamrocks were seen on their backs, kicking up their heels, some able to get up again, some lying quiet and easy, singing, roaring, laughing, or cursing; while others, still on their legs, were drinking and dancing, and setting the whole tent in motion, till all began to long for the open air, and a little wrestling, leaping, cudgelling, or fighting upon the green grass. The tent was then cleaned out and prepared for a new company of the shillelah boys.

The best tents, that supplied “neat victuals,” had a pot boiling outside on a turf fire, with good fat lumps of salt beef and cabbage, called “spooleens,” always ready simmering for such customers as should like a sliver. The potatoes were plentiful, and salt Dublin-bay herrings also in abundance. There was, besides, a cold round or rump of beef at double price for the quality who came to see the curiosities.

Except toys and trinkets for children, merchandise of any sort they seemed to have a contempt for; but these were bought up with great avidity; and in the evening, when the parents had given the childer a glass each of the cratur (as they called whisky), “to keep the cowld out of their little stomachs,” every trumpet or drum, fiddle, whistle, or pop-gun, which the fond mothers had bestowed, was set sounding (all together) over the green, and chimed in with a dozen fiddlers and as many pipers jigging away for the dance, – an amalgamation of sounds among the most extraordinary that ever tickled the ear of a musician. Every body, drunk or sober, took a share in the long dance, and I have seen a row of a hundred couple labouring at their jig steps till they fell off actually breathless, and rather wetter than if they had been river deities of the Donnybrook.

This however must be remarked as constituting a grand distinction between the beloved St. Bartholomew of the cockneys and the Emeralders’ glory; – that at the former, robbers, cheats, gamblers, and villains of every description collect, and are most active in their respective occupations; whilst at the latter, no gambling of any sort existed; – nor were thieves, pickpockets or swindlers often there: for a good reason – because there was no money worth stealing, and plenty of emptiness in the pockets of the amateurs. However, love reigned in all its glory, and Cupid expended every arrow his mother could make for him: but with this difference, that love is in general represented as discharging his shafts into people’s hearts, whereas, at Donnybrook, he always aimed at their heads; and before it became quite dusk he never failed to be very successful in his archery. It was after sunset, indeed, that sweethearts made up their matches; and a priest (Father Kearny of Liffy Street, a good clergy) told me that more marriages were celebrated in Dublin the week after Donnybrook fair, than in any two months during the rest of the year: the month of June being warm and snug (as he termed it), smiled on every thing that was good, and helped the liquor in making arrangements; and with great animation he added, that it was a gratifying sight to see his young parishioners who had made up their matches at Donnybrook coming there in a couple of years again, to buy whistles for their children.

The horse part of the fair was not destitute of amusement – as there was a large ditch with a drain, and a piece of a wall, which the sellers were always called upon to “leather their horses over” before any body would bid for them; and the tumbles which those venturous jockies constantly received, with the indifference wherewith they mounted and began again, were truly entertaining.

The common Irish are the most heroic horsemen I ever saw: – it was always one of their attributes. They ride on the horse’s bare back with rapidity and resolution; and coming from fairs, I have often seen a couple or sometimes three fellows riding one bare-backed horse as hard as he could go, and safely – not one of whom, if they were on their own legs, could stand perpendicular half a minute.

It is a mistake to suppose that Donnybrook was a remarkable place for fighting, or that much blood was ever drawn there. On the contrary, it was a place of good-humour. Men, to be sure, were knocked down now and then, but there was no malice in it. A head was often cut, but quickly tied up again. The women first parted the combatants and then became mediators; and every fray which commenced with a knock-down, generally ended by shaking hands, and the parties getting dead drunk together.

That brutal species of combat, boxing, was never practised at our fairs; and that savage nest and hot-bed of ruffians called the “Ring,” so shamefully tolerated in England, was unknown among the Emeralders.29 With the shillelah, indeed, they had great skill; but it was only like sword exercise, and did not appear savage. Nobody was disfigured thereby, or rendered fit for a doctor. I never saw a bone broken or any dangerous contusion from what they called “whacks” of the shillelah (which was never too heavy): it was like fencing: a cut on the skull they thought no more of than we should of the prick of a needle: of course, such accidents frequently occurred, and (I believe very well for them) let out a little of their blood, but did not for a single moment interrupt the song, the dance, the frolicking and good-humour.

I have said, that the danger I underwent at Donnybrook sank deep into my memory. The main cause of it was not connected with my rencounter with Counsellor Daly, recited in the second volume of the present work, but with one which was to the full as hazardous, though it involved none of those points of honour or “fire-eating” which forced me to the other conflict.

In the year 1790, Counsellor John Byrne, (afterward one of his majesty’s counsel-at-law,) a very worthy man, and intimate friend of mine, called on me to ride with him and aid him in the purchase of a horse at the fair of Donnybrook. I agreed, and away we rode, little anticipating the sad discomfiture we should experience. We found the fair rich in all its glories of drinking, fighting, kissing, making friends, knocking down, women dragging their husbands out of frays, and wounded men joining as merrily in the dance as if the clout tied round their heads were a Turkish turban. Whatever happened in the fair, neither revenge nor animosity went out of it with any of the parties; to be sure, on the road to town, there were always seen plenty of pulling, hauling, and dragging about, in which the ladies were to the full as busily employed as the gentlemen; but for which the latter offered, next day, one general excuse to their wives, who would be mending their torn coats and washing their stockings and cravats.

“Sure, Moll, it wasn’t myself that was in it when I knocked Tom Sweeny down in the tent; it was the drink, and nothing else.”

“True for you, Pat, my jewel!” would the wife cry, (scrubbing away as hard as she could,) “true for you, my darling: by my sowl, the whisky and water was all spirits. Myself would as soon strike my owld mother, God forgive me for the word! as have struck Mary Casey, only for that last noggin that put the devil into me just when I was aggravated at your head, Pat, my jewel. So I hit Mary Casey a wipe; and by my sowl it’s I that am sorry for that same, becaize Mary had neither act nor part in cutting your head, Pat; but I was aggravated, and did not think of the differ.”

This dialogue, with variations, I have heard a hundred times; and it will serve as a true specimen of the species of quarrels at Donnybrook in former times, and their general conclusion; – and such were the scenes that the visitors of the fair were making full preparation for, when Counsellor John Byrne, myself, and a servant lad of mine (not a very good horseman), entered it in the year 1790. The boy was mounted on a fiery horse, which Byrne wanted to exchange; and as I never liked any thing that was too tame, the horse I rode always had spirit enough, particularly for a gentleman who was not very remarkable for sticking over-fast to those animals.

Into the fair we went, and riding up and down, got here a curse, and there a blessing; sometimes a fellow who knew one of us, starting out of a tent to offer us a glass of the “cratur.” When we had satisfied our reasonable curiosity, and laughed plentifully at the grotesque scenes interspersed through every part, we went to the horse-fair on the green outside. There the jockies were in abundance; and certainly no fair ever exhibited a stranger mélange of the halt and blind, the sound and rotten, rough and smooth – all galloping, leaping, kicking, or tumbling – some in clusters, some singly; now and then a lash of the long whip, and now and then a crack of the loaded butt of it! At length, a horse was produced (which we conceived fit for any counsellor) by Mr. Irvin the jockey, and engaged, upon his honour, to be as sound as a roach, and as steady as any beast between Donnybrook and Loughrea, where he had been the favourite gelding of Father Lynch, the parish priest, who called him “Coadjutor” – (he had broken the holy father’s neck, by the bye, about a year before). “Do just try him, Counsellor Byrne,” said Mr. Irvin; “just mount him a bit, and if ever you get off him again till you grease my fist, I’ll forgive you the luck-penny. He’ll want neither whip nor spur; he’ll know your humour, counsellor, before you’re five minutes on his body, and act accordingly.”

“You’re sure he’s gentle?” said Byrne.

“Gentle, is it? I’ll give you leave to skin both himself and me if you won’t soon like him as well as if he was (begging your pardon) your own cousin-german. If he wasn’t the thing from muzzle to tail that would suit you, I’d hang him before I’d give him to a counsellor – the like of yees at any rate.”

A provisional bargain and exchange was soon struck, and Byrne mounted for trial on the favourite gelding of the late Father Lynch of Loughrea, called Coadjutor; – and in truth he appeared fully to answer all Mr. Irvin’s eulogiums: we rode through the fair, much amused – I trotting carelessly close by the side of Byrne, and our servant on the fiery mare behind us; when, on a sudden, a drunken shoemaker, or master cobbler, as he called himself, whom my family had employed in heeling, soling, &c. seeing me pass by, rushed out of his tent with a bottle of whisky in one hand and a glass in the other, and roared, “Ough! by J – s, Barnton, you go no further till you take a drop with me, like your father’s son, that I’ve been these many a long year tapping and foxing for: here, my darling, open your gob!”

Byrne being nearest, the cobbler stepped under the neck of my friend’s horse, and his sconce getting entangled in the loose reins, the horse (not understanding that species of interruption) began to caper – which at the same time rather shaking Counsellor Byrne in his seat, and further entangling the shoemaker’s head, I leant across to get Byrne’s rein fair; but being unable to do so, from the fury of the son of Crispin, who was hitting Bucephalus on the skull as hard as he could with the bottle, to make him stand easy and to get his own head clear, my leg got entangled in the reins; and Byrne’s gentle gelding making one or two simultaneous leaps forward and kicks behind, I had the horror of seeing my poor friend fly far over his horse’s head, alight rather heavily upon his own, and having done so, lie quite flat and still, seeming to take no further notice either of the fair, the horses, myself, or any earthly matter whatsoever.

My steed now began to follow so bright a precedent; – the cobbler, meanwhile, still cracking away with his bottle at both beasts. My seat of course became less firm; and at length I yielded to imperative circumstances, and being detached from my saddle (and also, fortunately, from the stirrups), I came easily down – but not clear of either horse; for I reluctantly fell just between the two, one of my legs being fast in Byrne’s bridle and the other in my own. Both animals were prepared to set off with the utmost expedition; but I believe without the least idea as to whither they were going. The cobbler fought hard to get his head loose; but in vain; so with me he must come, go wherever I might. The two geldings now wheeled us off, plunging, kicking, and giving me to understand (so far as I could understand any thing) that I had little further to do than commend my soul to Heaven, which, to tell truth, I had neither leisure nor presence of mind to attempt. It was lucky that the horses’ heads were pulled together by the bridles; by holding which, I defeated the attempt of “Coadjutor” to kick me to pieces – a compliment that, with might and main, he strove to pay me; and while dragged on my back through a short space of the fair of Donnybrook in company with the shoemaker (who was obliged to run obliquely or be strangled by the bridles), I had the additional pleasure of feeling the wind of “Coadjutor’s” heels every second dashing about my head, and also of looking up at the bellies of both steeds; for I could see nothing else, except the cobbler, who roared in a voice that brought every man, woman and child out of the tents. Some men, at the risk of their own lives, closed on “the mad horses,” and with their knives cut the bridles of both, and then away went the two geldings, quite disencumbered, as hard as their legs could carry them, – upsetting tables, forms, pots of hot water, and in fact every thing that came in their way – till they reached the spot where Mr. Irvin stood, and sundry members of their own species were disporting under their master. When they were caught, and the death of the two counsellors announced by the Dublin horse-jockies, who were jealous of Mr. Irvin, news was instantly sent to town that Galway Irvin, a horse-jockey, had sold a vicious animal to Counsellor Byrne, which had killed both him and Counsellor Barrington on the green of Donnybrook.

The mare my servant rode, though she did not know what all this row was about, thought proper to emulate so good an example. But being fonder of galloping than rearing, she fairly ran away; and the lad being unable to hold her in, they upset every thing in their course, till having come in contact with the cord of a tent, and being entangled therein, down went horse and rider plump against the wattles, which (together with the quilts) yielding to their pressure, Byrne’s mare and my groom instantly made an unexpected portion of the company inside.

My readers must picture to themselves a runaway horse and his rider tumbling head foremost into a tent among from ten to twenty Irishmen, who had got the drink in them. Many were the bruises and slight scarifications of the company before they could get clear of what they thought nothing but the devil or a whirlwind could possibly have sent thus, without the least notice, to destroy them. In fact Byrne had, a few months after, a considerable sum to advance to satisfy all parties for broken ware, &c.: but the poor fellows would charge nothing for broken heads or damaged carcases.

The shoemaker, who had certainly stood a narrow risk of being choked, was the first to tell every body his sad adventure; and to the end of my days, I never shall forget the figure he cut. His waistcoat was quite torn off his back while on the ground; he lost both shoes; and the lower part of his shirt acting as locum tenens for the back of his small-clothes, which had likewise been rent aside, nothing (with the conjunction of his horrified countenance) ever presented a more ludicrous appearance. He continued to roar “Murder! murder!” much in the yelping tone of a poor dog run over by a carriage, or of a little cur, when, having got a shrewd bite from a big one, he is galloping off with his tail between his legs, to claim the protection of his mistress. On being disengaged, the son of Crispin limped off to the next tent, where (every body flocking round him) he held up the bottle, of which he loudly swore he had never quitted his gripe, – “Not,” he said, “for the lucre of a glass bottle – the bottle be d – ’d! but for the sake of the cratur that was in it, though that was all spilt.”

As for myself, I really know not how I escaped so well: my hat stuck fast, which saved my head; I held as tightly as I could by both reins; and in the short distance we were dragged, received very few hard bumps upon the ground, which, fortunately for all parties, was grassy, and had neither stones nor gravel. My coat was torn, my hands a little cut by the reins, and my ankle by the stirrup, as my foot got disentangled therefrom; – but I received no injury of any consequence.

The most melancholy part of the story relates to my friend Byrne, who (though by far the simplest process) was the only material sufferer. So soon as I could set myself to rights in the next tent, and had taken a large tumbler of hot punch – as they said, to drive the fright out of me – I hastened to my companion, who, when last I saw him, lay motionless on the ground. I was told he had been brought into a tent, and there laid out upon a table as if dead; and had he not exhibited signs of life pretty soon, the folks would have proceeded to wake and stretch him, and when he was decent, to cover him with a quilt, and carry him home next morning on a door to his family.

On my arrival, I found him greatly confused, and quite helpless: there was, however, no bone broken, or any wound or bruise that I could see. He merely complained of a pain in his neck and shoulders, and I considered that the general shock he had received was his only injury. While he lay nearly insensible, but had shown signs of life, the women forced burnt whisky down his throat out of a bottle, which certainly revived him. He was then bled by a farrier, and we got him home in a carriage, though in considerable pain. The surgeon employed (I don’t name him) said nothing was injured; but in less than a week, to the horrible torture of poor Byrne, and the discomfiture of the doctor, it turned out that his right shoulder had been dislocated, and the use of his arm entirely destroyed. After the lapse of such an interval, of course extreme inflammation took place, and for many months he could scarcely move.

I fancy horse jockeying and the fair of Donnybrook never subsequently escaped Byrne’s memory. In fact, the circumstance proved nearly fatal to him several years after. His shoulder having remained so long unset, the muscles became rigid, and he never had the power of raising his right arm upon a level again. This deprivation, as mentioned in Vol. ii., he felt acutely on his duel with the Earl of Kilkenny, who hit him before he could bring up his arm to any position.

I have thus given a true sketch of Donnybrook fair forty years ago. I, however, remember it twenty years earlier – as I used to be taken thither when a child by the maid-servants, under pretence of diverting “little master;” and they and their sweethearts always crammed me with cakes to a surfeit, that I might not tell my grandmother what I saw of them.

The country fairs of Ireland, though of the same genus, were of a different species; and there were great varieties among that species – according to the habits, customs, and manners of the several provinces, counties, or parishes, wherein they were held. The southern, eastern, and western fairs had considerable similitude to each other; but the northern, if I may apply exaggerated epithets, could boast more rogues, while at the former the preponderance was of madmen. The southerns certainly loved fighting vastly better, and after they had done were vastly less vindictive than the northern descendants of the Caledonians.30

At country fairs, the feasting and drinking were still more boisterous – what they call obstropulous in Ireland; but being generally held in towns, there was less character exhibited, and consequently less food for observation to spectators. The fighting, too, was of a different nature, and far more serious than at Donnybrook. I will cite a fair that I seldom missed attending for several years, solely in order to see the fight which was sure to conclude it. It was called the fair of Dysart, held in a beautiful country in the valley below the green Timahoe hills, and close to one of the most interesting and beautiful of Irish ruins, the rock of Donnamase, where, in ancient times, sword-duels were fought, as I have heretofore mentioned. Cromwell battered it, and slaughtered the warders of the O’Moores, who held their hereditary fortress while they had an arm to defend it.