The Cruise of the 'Humming Bird'; or, Notes near home

Front matter

■ I ■ ■ I ■ I I ■ I ■ ■ ■ THE CRUISE OF THE "HUMMING BIRD;" OR, NOTES NEAR HOA1E. THE CRUISE OF THE "HUMMING BIED;" OK, NOTES NEAR HOME. BY A1ARK HUTTON. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1864. [The right of Translation is reserved.] LONDON : PRADBCRY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHlTtFRIAI S. THIS WORK IS gfeMtatefo TO RALPH BERNAL OSBORNE, Esq., ALP., IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT HIS PERSEVERING AND DISINTERESTED ENDEAVOURS TO REMEDY ONE OF THE NATIONAL EVILS COMMENTED ON IN THESE PAGES MAY EVENTUALLY BE REWARDED WITH SUCCESS. ' ' Dimidium facti qui bene cœpit habet." CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The Claddagh

A " WAKING " FATHER TOM. " Charity! In the honour of God, yer Honour ! I'm a Claddagh woman, with five small childer — God help 'em, the crathurs ! And one lying stritched in the house beyant." The speaker was one of a group of ragged and wretched-looking women who, in the " Sister Isle," — the which country I was visiting, — were crowding about the entrance of the hotel in which, after landing from a small yacht, which was for the time my nominal home, I had temporarily taken up my quarters. The house of entertainment (?) was situated in B "HUMMING BIRD.' 2 the centre of a large and singularly unprosperous looking town ; a town which, to my thinking, par took largely of the characteristics of an American city at the early period of its creation, and when that specimen of Anglo-Saxon industry and taste for speculation had but just commenced its trade in dry goods, drugs and chemicals, and fancy goods generally.

And yet for all this resemblance between the American city and the Hibernian town, the latter is a very old creation, and the capital also, as I imagine it should be called, of the westernmost portion of our Queen's dominions. Aloreover, if we may believe those interested in its welfare, it pos sesses many natural advantages ; but (pending the period when those bounteous gifts will be utilised) all that in the first instance attracts the traveller's eye is a general appearance of unthrivingness and decay, the which symptoms are exhibited princi pally in the display of a population which, for bare faced, bare-limbed, and unblushing mendicancy — for a paraded and traded-on stock of dirt, rags, and idleness, are second to none (and it is saying much) in any Irish town which it has ever been my lot to visit.

It was a cold blowing day in August — this may THE CLADDAGH BEGGAR. 3 sound like an anomaly, but let any one who has spent a summer on this portion of the wild Atlantic shore convict me of exaggeration if he can. It was, then, on a cold, blowing, and withal rainy day in August, that the beggars, noisy and importunate, thronged round the departing Bianconi car, and begged for charity of the travellers seated thereon. The woman whose words I have quoted, was the most conspicuous amid the group, both for the untiring energy of her supplications, and for the silent tale of starvation and of woe which was traceable in every line of her miserable face. Her only covering was a collection of patched and many coloured rags held together by a bony hand, which was for ever failing in its attempts, and leaving exposed to view the dirt-brown skinny throat, and the unwomanly-looking chest, which seemed as though it had been exposed from earliest infancy (as indeed was probably the case) to the wild storms and buffetings of the cruel Connaught climate.

" I'm a Claddagh woman, yer Honour. Charity for the poor childer, in the honour of God." The woman persisted so vehemently in her peculiar form of prayer, that, distracted though I was by the numerous supplicants around me, I could not choose but listen to her. I was, as I have said, surrounded B " HUMMING BIRD.' 4 by those clamorous, hungry Celts, — with boys, half naked, wriggling in their rags, for what purpose I abstained from guessing, — and with old, bent patriarchs, wearied pilgrims through a world which had smiled neither on their childhood nor their age. Heavens ! how forlorn they looked, and how, alas ! degraded ! Verily, at that moment I could almost have taken shame to myself that I was dressed in broadcloth, and had dared in my full contentment to complain that Galway bread was scarcely eatable, and that comfort in the hotel was deplorably wanting.

"Where is the Claddagh?" I asked of the cla morous woman, whose cries had at last begun to excite, not only my compassion, but my curiosity. " This way, yer Honour," exclaimed twenty supplicants, each eager and resolute to earn by their information an anticipated reward. But before I could make up my mind as to the best means of escape from the troublesome throng, a policeman, who had been watching the scene, stepped forward to the rescue. " Off with ye," he called out authoritatively, but without the slightest ill-humour or violence. " Can't ye lave the jintleman alone? Git out of that, all of ye, will ye now?" After this powerful intervention in my behalf, the THE " BLAZERS' " HOTEL. 5 space around me was soon cleared, and I stood unmolested, with the man in green, in the wide open street which stretches alongside of an enclosed square in front of old Filboy's hotel.

I chose that most unclean hostelry for the sake of the associa tions connected with it, inasmuch as I looked upon it as classic ground, and as rendered venerable by the dirt which an unwashed and unwashing people have allowed to accumulate both within and without its time-honoured walls. Very untempting were its beds, and equally unsavoury the fare which was put before me ; but I remembered for my comfort the glorious bygone days when the " bumper fair " was filled there ; when shots (none of your pretence and half-and-half affairs) were exchanged across the tables ; and when the " Galway Blazers " — God save the mark ! — took their claret and their whisky like bold men as they were ! Recalling to mind, I repeat, those bygone days, I turned my attention to the man of order and autho rity who stood beside me, and confessing mentally that he was in his right place, I accosted him thus : " I have a curiosity to see the Claddagh ; can 1 do so now?"

" Your Honour can," answered the man, raising " HUMMING BIRD.'^ li his hand to his cap. " It's but a step, although it's a rough place." "Will you show me the way?" I asked. And he assenting, we went forward. Through the main street, in which I noticed a few tolerable-looking shops, we pursued our way till, arriving (after a walk of some fifteen minutes) at the opposite side of the harbour, I was told that we had entered the precincts of the "Claddagh" — a singular locality, in which exist some thousands of human beings who, strange to say, have never mixed with theh* neighbours on the city side ; who marry exclusively amongst their own class and community, and who gain their scanty and precarious livelihood by fishing only. One house in that curious nest of low-roofed build ings is not larger than another.

There are streets upon streets of miserable cabins, straw-thatched, and internally smoke-dried, whilst a sickening odour of dead and decaying fish hangs heavily on the air. The women whom we met were all dark-eyed, and many might have been handsome but for the be griming smoke, the careworn wrinkled brow, aud the total absence in then dress of the art of coquetterie — that genuinely feminine quality which, as a lenient writer has remarked, is only a vice in the old and ugly. THE WAKING. 7 That there is an admixture, in the population of the Claddagh, both of Eastern and Spanish blood, no one who visits the place can, in my opinion, entertain a doubt ; and when we reflect that the qualities and habits of the wild nations from which has sprung this Celtic race have never been modified by any amalgamation with the colder blood of the Saxon, we can scarcely wonder that between the characteristics of the Irish and English peasantry there should be so marked and strong a difference.

It was with such reflections passing through my mind, and the prayer of the Claddagh woman still ringing in my ears, that I followed her through the muddy lanes to the hovel where she dwelt. " This is the house, if it's plazing to your Honour," whined the poor creature, as she stopped at the door of a wretched and ill-smelling cabin. " Sure it's too much trouble your Honour's taking," she added, seeing that I was preparing with stoop ing head to cross the threshold of her dwelling. A low keening ° sound, that mournful wailing for the dead which, together with many another peculiar habit and characteristic, has always seemed to me as corroborative of theh Eastern origin,f broke * In Celtic coonpronounced keen : Angliee, a howl. t "There be cryes used among the Irish, such as their lamentations at from the people with fresh vigour when I appeared amongst the group collected in the hovel.

It was some time before my eyes grew accustomed to the obscurity (for there was no window, even of the smallest description, in the cabin) ; but when I could see with anything like distinctness, I witnessed a scene to which only the pencil of a Rembrandt could have done justice. Huddled together in the wide chimney-place, and crouching over the live embers, from which the to me suffocating smoke was pouring, were about a dozen women, in costumes closely resembling that of the mistress of the house, and resting, if so it may be called, upon theh bare and hard-worked heels. They were all, as if with one voice, howling forth theh monotonous and depressing keen, a per formance which was occasionally interrupted bv the necessity of taking comforting whiffs at the dudheens, which had probably been provided even before the death of the child, whose leaking was now being their buryals, which savour greatly of Scythian barbarism, but which also might be used for an argument to prove them Egyptians.

For so in Scripture it is mentioned that the Egyptians lamented for the death of Joseph. Others thinke the custome to come from the Spaniards, for that they do immeasureably bewail their dead. But the same is not proper Spanish, but heathenish, being brought hither by the Scythians, or by the Moors that were Africans. For it is the state of all Pagans and Infidels to be intemperate in their way lings for the dead." — Spencer's View of the State of Ireland. THE BIG COCK. 9 celebrated, and whose body lay still uncoffined on a low bedstead, which stood at a short distance from the chimney. There were numerous other children, with dry eyes and wondering faces, standing about, almost in a state of nudity ; whilst a man, in a weather-beaten fisherman's dress, rose on my en trance from a low wooden chair, and said with native courtesy — " Your Honour's welcome.

" Welcome to what ? " I asked myself. " To his wretched country, or to his still more wretched home ? To a share in his affliction, or to the jovial entertainment of pipes and whisky which he had provided for his friends ? AVell, it mattered not, for the tone of hospitality and good will was there ; and having fully convinced myself that my presence would not be considered an intrusion, I took my place amongst the mourners. "Poor little thing," I whispered, looking at the small skeleton (for it was scarcely more) which lay near me on the straw-covered stretcher. " Had it been long ill ? had you a doctor to attend it ; and what was the cause of its death ? " " Sure, yer Honour, it was jist the big cock — bad manners to it — as had it undher the foot, and he sthriking at the child's head, the thief of the world !

" " But, good heavens ! you don't mean to say that the cock killed the child? " " He did not, sir — yer Honour — not to say at onst. But he had the stringth aiqual to a person — saving your prisince : and the child he took bad afther ; and the spot on his head didn't hale at all at all, yer Honour. Biddy, show the jintleman's honour the spot on Tommeen's head. Ye won't now?" And the mother (for it was she who was the spokeswoman) was advancing with a threaten ing show of enforcing obedience, when a loud fluttering as of wings and many feathers, and a chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, as of domestic fowls innumerable, caused me to look upwards in the direction from which the unwonted sounds proceeded. And there, sure enough, was the big cock himself, — no less a potentate, — surrounded by his vociferous harem, in which a revolt was apparently in progress, for some of the excited ladies descended, in their wild excitement, upon the heads of the funeral guests, while others perched upon the sleeping calf, which was reposing peacefully iu one corner of the cabin.

There was something horribly ludicrous in the scene, and in the strutting audacity with which the homicidal animal, from the rafter — which was evi- FATHER TOM. 11 dently the accustomed resting-place of himself and his wives— looked down upon his unconscious victim. "And you didn't kill the bird?" I asked, annoyed at this fresh instance of Irish connivance with crime. " Sorra a bit," answered the father. "What for should we be killing him, the crathur ? " I asked no more questions, but hastened to pre sent my small offering, consisting of two half-crowns ; the which coins were, with a perfect storm of acclamations, placed at once upon the livid eyelids of the tiny corpse, in lieu of the pence, by which humbler coins they had previously been compressed. As I was preparing to escape from a scene which, I confess, not a little shocked me, and from demon strations of gratitude too servile to be agreeable, there was a shout outside the hovel of — "Here's Father Tom!

Good look to him!" And in another moment the parish priest, a kindly looking and rather robust old man, entered the room, with head uncovered, and making, with all due reverence, the sign of the Cross. I looked in his face as he uttered a few sympa thising words to the mourning parents, and thought that I had rarely seen a better, or a truer countenance. But when-— and this occurred only a few minutes after his arrival — he caught sight of the Saxon stranger, so sudden a revulsion took place in his entire aspect, that I could scarcely believe him to be the same man. In the place of cheerfulness there was lowering gloom, and where there had been an appearance of open frankness I noticed in every lineament a look of hatred and suspicion. Aly first sight of Father Tom had inspired me with a wish to be better acquainted with him ; but my second caused me to hurry from his presence, with a conviction that both I and the race from which I sprang were hateful in his sight.

"And what," I asked myself, as I walked musingly towards my inn, " what was the cause of that portentous cloud which so suddenly over shadowed the rubicund countenance of the Roman Catholic priest? " In my many wanderings through other lands, where the creeds were different from my own, I had met no such warnings of hostility ; whilst near to home, and amongst those who speak the language of my forefathers, and live under the rule of the same government, I find that my appearance is as a signal that the armour of conflict should be put on. A CONNAUGHT NIGHT. 13 The conviction was a painful one, and gave me food for thought during my solitary evening in that comfortless Connaught hostelry. It had been my purpose to leave Galway on the following day, but the morning was ushered in by a gale of wind, accompanied with such unremitting and fiercely driving rain, that it was impossible for any but the most determined and completely weather-proof adventurer to trust his person on the outside of that most uncomfortable of vehicles, namely, an Irish car.

I wandered about the town, however, wrapped in the thickest and most impene trable of " Cordings ; " and it being Sunday, I ven tured into the church denominated that of St. Nicholas, and listened to Father Tom's discoorse. And a very good discoorse it was, although some what over-comforting methought, and tending to increase the influence of the priest over his flock, inasmuch as it led the congregation to believe that in the hands of their spiritual directors are the issues of life and death. Saving this peculiarity — one, how ever, which is by no means confined to the portly Father Tom — there was nothing particularly to be remarked upon, if I except the unpleasant odour of damp walls, which, together with that of stale incense, and the pungent peat smell arising from " HUMMING BIRD. 14 the moist garments of the congregation, produced a pot-pourri of perfumes anything but agreeable.

For the space of more than eight-and-forty hours was I weather-bound in that emporium of dirt, bad living, noise, and whisky-drinking yclept Filboy's Hotel. But I did not regret my temporary impri sonment, inasmuch as it brought me acquainted with a pleasant Anglo-Celt, who, partly for pisca torial, and partly for business purposes, had been for more than two years a resident in the West. From him I learnt many amusing anecdotes of the country people, with whom he had evidently asso ciated on terms of tolerable intimacy ; and among other characteristic stories related by him concerning them, there was one which, from the kind of romance attending it, particularly attracted my attention. I hardly know whether or not I may venture to assert that the adventure, which in the next chapter I shall give as nearly as possible in the relator's own words, is entirely true ; but that it is founded on fact, I have Air. Sullivan's own authority for declaring.

Chapter II. Why Phil Maguire Went Westward

'' AVell ! Airs. Flannagan, and how about your friend Father Flannery ? " "Deed, your Honour, it's little I'd be seeing him the time past. I'm thinking it's undher the salt wather he is." " Under the salt water ! Father Flannery drowned ! Never!" "Is it drowned, your Honour ? " "Yes; didn't you say he was under the salt water? " "It's at Louisberg he is, your Honour." " Oh! I understand ; taking the sea-baths." " He is, your Honour." " And so, till Father Flannery gives leave, your children will have no schooling ? " " That's it, your Honour. I wouldn't like to go ao-in his Riv'rence ; and I did hear as much that the clergy would be saying the childer of the neighbours " HUMMING BIRD.' 16 -.:■ might be let go to the Church of England schools, but they wouldn't allow the joompers anyway; seeing that they do be speaking awful agin the A7irgin Alary, and making the childer read the Bible, and go agin the clergy."

" But, my good woman, you never made these objections till you had secured all the good new clothes for your children. I remember that you were all for sending them to school when you were promised frocks and petticoats to send them in." " Is it the petticoats, your Honour?" I looked into her face, and saw cunning in every line of it. She was a small spare woman, with an unwashed wrinkled face, and (though her youngest child was an infant yet unweaned) the meshes of hah which escaped from under her cap were thickly mingled with grey. Her small thatched hovel was built in a hollow beneath the road, rearing its modest grass-grown head at the distance of about a hundred yards from the spot where we stood, and conveying in its architectural simplicity no very exalted idea of the boasted improvement in the i dwellings of the Irish peasantry.

She was a hard-working woman, who had been chosen as the partner of his cares by a club-footed cripple ; an honest harmless creature, who, in process VISIT TO THE HOLY WELL. 17 of time, had made her the mother of a " long wake family." Shock-headed, turf-dried little animals they were, utterly untutored ; and deplorably ignorant of the blessings of soap and water. Behind the hovel was the " little lock of pratees " with its narrow, unsightly " lazy beds " looking anything but green, and smelling ominously of the dread disease which was already beginning to show its premonitory symptoms. One wind-tossed thorn tree whose head was bent resolutely N.N.E., stood near the cabin, and under it the goat and cow that gave the "sup o' milk" to the family, sheltered theh projecting bones, and weather-beaten ragged hides.

It was indeed a melancholy picture, and most melancholy of all was the mother's cunning face as she peered curiously into mine. At another time I might have reasoned with the woman, but being in haste I contented myself with a polite inquiry after the health of the absent Pether, and prepared to pursue my journey. " Sure it's to the Holy Well he's gone, yer Honour! Saving your prisance, he's had a great pain in his heart this long while, and was three days lying, and taking nothing at all." " Poor fellow ! Well, I'll see him on the road, " HUMMING BIRD. and Father Flannery too, please God. And now good-bye to you." " Good-bye to yer Honour — and send you safe home." And with that " God speed " we parted. I was mounted on a rough looking, but sure footed Connemara pony, an animal accustomed from its infancy to carry double, and to whom the use of oats as an edible vegetable was almost unknown.

Under these chcumstances the pace at which I travelled was not, as may be inferred, a rapid one ; and I had therefore ample leisure to satiate my eyes with the beauty of the scenery in the midst of which I was journeying. It was a nearly treeless country through which my road lay, and the valley traversed by it through its length was edged on both sides (and also at its apparent extremities) by precipitous and somewhat barren looking mountains. Along the lower portions of those mountains remains of former cultivation might be traced ; a greener hue was there per ceptible, in small and isolated patches ; and near to those once well-tilled fields, heaps of stone, and here and there the remains of a pointed gable wall told their tale of the advent of the Saxon, for whose behoof those peasant homes had been made roofless.

SPLENDID SCENERY. " 19 High up, and higher still, towards the corrugated line where the low clouds touched the mountain summits, the steep acclivities were dotted with purple heather, and lined down theh rugged faces with many a watery furrow. It was as lovely a day as a wanderer among mountain wilds could wish for. No glaring sun mocked with his broad shining face the dark, desola tion that dwelt in the deep hollows, where warmth and light found no place to entese ; but ever and anon a bright gleam shone out from behind atcloud of down-like lightness, and then, æs thoughwith one accord, the green slopes smiled -.out into a-more vivid colouring, and tipped with a sunny radiance; the towering summits of the dark grey rocks assumed a clothing of less sombre hue. Aly road lay along the shores of lakfes, and i>y the brink of a narrow but most rapid rivers There were no signs of human life around me, and it was only by the occasional cry of a wild bird, the" scream of a curlew, or the flapping of a heron's -wings as he rose slowly from the river's brink, that the' almost solemn stillness of the scene was momentarily broken.

Far away, towards heaven's gate, an eagle soared and hovered, floating a thousand feet above the pigmy prey on which, while the unconscious c "HUMMING BIRD. 20 small bird nestled in the heather, his piercing eye was fixed. I watched him as he swooped to seize his victim, but ere his talons touched the earth a rock hid him from my view, and passing onward I saw the Arab of the ah no more. After a ride of some four miles I emerged upon what is called by the natives a public road, and truly enough upon it I began to see some proof that in these distant regions the race of man is not altogether extinct. It was the anniversary of a distinguished saint, and moreover the day on which is held the great Pathern, or Fair of Alurrisk. Every one who knows anything of the highlands of beautiful Connaught has seen, or a tleast heard of, the far-famed mountain, the almost sacred Peek, from the highest peak of which St. Patrick did, by " bell and book and candle," curse the reptiles of the land, bidding them "go out o' that" for ever and for aye.

At the foot of that famous mountain lies the townland (as it is called) of Murrisk. Within its precincts the Pathern is held, and during its continuance there rises round the side of old Croagh Patrick many a sound of noisy merriment, shouts of drunken revelry, and violent faction fights. During the month of August it has for ages been a custom among the peasantry to go through a PENANCE AND WHISKY. 21 course of religious observances, the penances im posed during the period being all the while strangely mixed up with the fun and frolic, the whisky drinking and barbarous " batings " which have for centuries past formed the combined elements of Hibernian gatherings. Far up the mountain side might be seen crawling forms bare-kneed and bleed ing, for while the rough stones chafe theh limbs they count the beads of theh rosaries, and with many a muttered Ave, hope, and believe (for " sure the priest has said it ") that through the penance performed the score chalked against them may be washed out, and that, "by the blessing of God," they may be permitted to run up another reckoning.

But of all the sacred shrines to which during the merry August month are bent the steps of the pious mountaineers, that of Our Lady at the Holy Well of Kilgeeva is the most renowned, and in its miraculous powers the most effective. " Sure it was there that the English jintleman from the airmy took the holy fish that has lived in the well evermore ; and bedad ! the fish — long life to him — got out of the frying-pan, and threw a lep, so he did, right fornenst the jintleman, and the wife that was along wid 'im : and the two of them was dead and waked within the year, Bad cess to 'em ! " HUMMING BIRD." 22 And the-fishr he got back to the well — by the blessing of God— as die did.'-' S This, and many another record of miraculous interference is told eoncerning that wonderful spot ; and, as may be supposed, numerous are the votaries that journey towards it, in the full belief and expec tation that they will there not only receive pardon for theh sins, but will be healed of all theh bodily infirmities.

As I proceeded on my way, I soon found myself among small parties of the country people, all of whom were on their way, either to the Pathern or to the AVell. Alen and women — boys and girls — pilgrims on foot -and pilgrims o'ri horseback, all the heads -turned :one way, and that, way was due west towards the fair. :: J. Od sped the; merry groups— -the women and girls clothed -in theh bright red and snow white kerchiefs, while themen, in decided opposi tion to the picturesque, haddonned theh best frieze suits, tall hats,, and extensive, shirt collars. On they went along the -silent valley, beneath the everlasting hills, and side by side with the rapid river : and so% journeying: they came at last to the rocky ford, where the mountain st-ream r-uns narrowest. It was a pretty sight that ;river crossing! and only CROSSING THE FORD. 23 that among the jocund company men were found, made of such stern and unchivalrous stuff that they made use of the softer sex for the purpose of con veying their masculine bulk across the water, my feelings of admiration for all I saw would have been unmixed.

Remonstrance against the unsightly deed would have been as vain as any display of Quixotic feeling was uncalled for, as the barefooted girls, laughing merrily, lent themselves willingly to the work, and, after carrying theh unscrupulous friends safely over the slippery stones, let them down far too easily (as I thought) on the other side. This ford passed, the character of the road changed, for instead of representing with tolerable accuracy a well-kept carriage-way, it merged into a narrow rocky footpath, hewn out of the steep mountain side. The path itself was strewed in many places with loose stones washed by the rains ; miniature precipices hung threateningly over the lake, and it was only by daylight, and to feet well accustomed to such tracks that the way could be considered as altogether free from danger.