English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 20

CHAPTER XI.

THE MEMORY OF HISTORY AND OF OLD CUSTOMS.

_Church_, _Chapel_, _Scallan_. All through Ireland it is customary to call a Protestant place of wors.h.i.+p a 'church,' and that belonging to Roman Catholics a 'chapel': and this usage not only prevails among the people, but has found its way into official doc.u.ments. For instance, take the Ordnance maps. In almost every village and town on the map you will {144} see in one place the word 'Church,' while near by is printed 'R.C. Chapel.'

This custom has its roots far back in the time when it was attempted to extend the doctrines of the Reformation to Ireland. Then wherever the authority of the government prevailed, the church belonging to the Catholics was taken from them; the priest was expelled; and a Protestant minister was installed. But the law went much farther, and forbade under fearful penalties the celebration of Ma.s.s--penalties for both priest and congregation. As the people had now no churches, the custom began of celebrating Ma.s.s in the open air, always in remote lonely places where there was little fear of discovery. Many of these places retain to this day names formed from the Irish word _Affrionn_ [affrin], the Ma.s.s; such as the mountain called Knockanaffrinn in Waterford (the hill of the Ma.s.s), Ardanaffrinn, Lissanaffrinn, and many others. While Ma.s.s was going on, a watcher was always placed on an adjacent height to have a look-out for the approach of a party of military, or of a spy with the offered reward in view.

After a long interval however, when the sharp fangs of the Penal Laws began to be blunted or drawn, the Catholics commenced to build for themselves little places of wors.h.i.+p: very timidly at first, and always in some out-of-the-way place. But they had many difficulties to contend with.

Poverty was one of them; for the great body of the congregations were labourers or tradesmen, as the Catholic people had been almost crushed out of existence, soul and body, for five or six generations, by the terrible Penal Laws, which, with careful attention to details, omitted nothing {145} that could impoverish and degrade them. But even poverty, bad as it was, never stood decidedly in the way; for the buildings were not expensive, and the poor people gladly contributed s.h.i.+llings coppers and labour for the luxury of a chapel. A more serious obstacle was the refusal of landlords in some districts to lease a plot of land for the building. In Donegal and elsewhere they had a movable little wooden shed that just sheltered the priest and the sacred appliances while he celebrated Ma.s.s, and which was wheeled about from place to place in the parish wherever required. A shed of this kind was called a _scallan_ (Irish: a s.h.i.+eld, a protecting shelter). Some of these _scallans_ are preserved with reverence to this day, as for instance one in Carrigaholt in Clare, where a large district was for many years without any Catholic place of wors.h.i.+p, as the local landlord obstinately refused to let a bit of land. You may now see that very _scallan_--not much larger than a sentry-box--beside the new chapel in Carrigaholt.

And so those humble little buildings gradually rose up all over the country. Then many of the small towns and villages through the country presented this spectacle. In one place was the 'decent church' that had formerly belonged to the Catholics, now in possession of a Protestant congregation of perhaps half a dozen--church, minister, and clerk maintained by contributions of t.i.thes forced from the Catholic people; and not far off a poor little thatched building with clay floor and rough walls for a Roman Catholic congregation of 500, 1000, or more, all except the few that found room within kneeling on {146} the ground outside, only too glad to be able to be present at Ma.s.s under any conditions.

These little buildings were always called 'chapels,' to distinguish them from what were now the Protestant churches. Many of these primitive places of wors.h.i.+p remained in use to a period within living memory--perhaps some remain still. When I was a boy I generally heard Ma.s.s in one of them, in Ballyorgan, Co. Limerick: clay floor, no seats, walls of rough stone unplastered, thatch not far above our heads. Just over the altar was suspended a level canopy of thin boards, to hide the thatch from the sacred spot: and on its under surface was roughly painted by some rustic artist a figure of a dove--emblematic of the Holy Ghost--which to my childish fancy was a work of art equal at least to anything ever executed by Michael Angelo. Many and many a time I heard exhortations from that poor altar, sometimes in English, sometimes in Irish, by the Rev. Darby Buckley, the parish priest of Glenroe (of which Ballyorgan formed a part), delivered with such earnestness and power as to produce extraordinary effects on the congregation. You saw men and women in tears everywhere around you, and at the few words of unstudied peroration they flung themselves on their knees in a pa.s.sionate burst of piety and sorrow. Ah, G.o.d be with Father Darby Buckley: a small man, full of fire and energy: somewhat overbearing, and rather severe in judging of small transgressions; but all the same, a great and saintly parish priest.

That little chapel has long been superseded by a solid structure, suitable to the neighbourhood and its people. {147}

What has happened in the neighbouring town of Kilfinane is still more typical of the advance of the Catholics. There also stood a large thatched chapel with a clay floor: and the Catholics were just beginning to emerge from their state of servility when the Rev. Father Sheehy was appointed parish priest about the beginning of the last century. He was a tall man of splendid physique: when I was a boy I knew him in his old age, and even then you could not help admiring his imposing figure. At that time the lord of the soil was Captain Oliver, one of that Cromwellian family to whom was granted all the district belonging to their Catholic predecessors, Sir John Ponsonby and Sir Edward Fitzharris, both of whom were impeached and disinherited,

On the Monday morning following the new priest's first Ma.s.s he strolled down to have a good view of the chapel and grounds, and was much astonished to find in the chapel yard a cartload of oats in sheaf, in charge of a man whom he recognized as having been at Ma.s.s on the day before. He called him over and questioned him, on which the man told him that the captain had sent him with the oats to have it threshed on the chapel floor, as he always did. The priest was amazed and indignant, and instantly ordered the man off the grounds, threatening him with personal chastis.e.m.e.nt, which--considering the priest's brawny figure and determined look--he perhaps feared more than bell book and candle. The exact words Father Sheehy used were, 'If ever I find you here again with a load of oats or a load of anything else, _I'll break your back for you_: and then I'll go up and break your master's back too!' The {148} fellow went off hot foot with his load, and told his master, expecting all sorts of ructions. But the captain took it in good part, and had his oats threshed elsewhere: and as a matter of fact he and the priest soon after met and became acquainted.

In sending his corn to be threshed on the chapel floor, it is right to remark that the captain intended no offence and no undue exercise of power; and besides he was always careful to send a couple of men on Sat.u.r.day evening to sweep the floor and clean up the chapel for the service of next day. But it was a custom of some years' standing, and Father Sheehy's predecessor never considered it necessary to expostulate. It is likely enough indeed that he himself got a few scratches in his day from the Penal Laws, and thought it as well to let matters go on quietly.

After a little time Father Sheehy had a new church built, a solid slate-roofed structure suitable for the time, which, having stood for nearly a century, was succeeded by the present church. This, which was erected after almost incredible labour and perseverance in collecting the funds by the late parish priest, the Very Rev. Patrick Lee, V.F., is one of the most beautiful parish churches in all Ireland. What has happened in Ballyorgan and Kilfinane may be considered a type of what has taken place all over the country. Within the short s.p.a.ce of a century the poor thatched clay-floor chapels have been everywhere replaced by solid or beautiful or stately churches, which have sprung up all through Ireland as if by magic, through the exertions of the pastors, and the contributions of the people.

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This popular application of the terms 'chapel' and 'church' found--and still finds--expression in many ways. Thus a man who neglects religion: 'he never goes to Church, Ma.s.s, or Meeting' (this last word meaning Non-conformist Service). A man says, 'I didn't see Jack Delany at Ma.s.s to-day': 'Oh, didn't you hear about him--sure he's going to _church_ now'

(i.e. he has turned Protestant). 'And do they never talk of those [young people] who go to church' [i.e. Protestants]. (Knocknagow.)

The term 'chapel' has so ingrained itself in my mind that to this hour the word instinctively springs to my lips when I am about to mention a Catholic place of wors.h.i.+p; and I always feel some sort of hesitation or reluctance in subst.i.tuting the word 'church.' I positively could not bring myself to say, 'Come, it is time now to set out for church': it must be either 'Ma.s.s'

or 'the chapel.'

I see no reason against our retaining these two words, with their distinction; for they tell in brief a vivid chapter in our history.

_Hedge-Schools._ Evil memories of the bad old penal days come down to us cl.u.s.tering round this word. At the end of the seventeenth century, among many other penal enactments,[4] a law was pa.s.sed that Catholics were not to be educated. Catholic schoolmasters were forbidden to teach, either in schools or in private houses; and Catholic parents were forbidden to send their children to any foreign country to be educated--all under heavy penalties; from which it will be seen that care was taken to {150} deprive Catholics--as such--altogether of the means of education.

But priests and schoolmasters and people combined all through the country--and not without some measure of success--to evade this unnatural law. Schools were kept secretly, though at great risk, in remote places--up in the mountain glens or in the middle of bogs. Half a dozen young men with spades and shovels built up a rude cabin in a few hours, which served the purpose of a schoolhouse: and from the common plan of erecting these in the shelter of hedges, walls, and groves, the schools came to be known as 'Hedge Schools.' These hedge schools held on for generations, and kept alive the lamp of learning, which burned on--but in a flickering ineffective sort of way--'burned through long ages of darkness and storm'--till at last the restrictions were removed, and Catholics were permitted to have schools of their own openly and without let or hindrance.

Then the ancient hereditary love of learning was free to manifest itself once more; and schools sprang up all over the country, each conducted by a private teacher who lived on the fees paid by his pupils. Moreover, the old designation was retained; for these schools, no longer held in wild places, were called--as they are sometimes called to this day--'hedge schools.'

The schools that arose in this manner, which were of different cla.s.ses, were spread all over the country during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. The most numerous were little elementary schools, which will be described farther on. The higher cla.s.s of schools, which {151} answered to what we now call Intermediate schools, were found all over the southern half of Ireland, especially in Munster. Some were for cla.s.sics, some for science, and not a few for both; nearly all conducted by men of learning and ability; and they were everywhere eagerly attended.

'Many of the students had professions in view, some intended for the priesthood, for which the cla.s.sical schools afforded an admirable preparation; some seeking to become medical doctors, teachers, surveyors, &c. But a large proportion were the sons of farmers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, or others, who had no particular end in view, but, with the instincts of the days of old, studied cla.s.sics or mathematics for the pure love of learning. I knew many of that cla.s.s.

'These schools continued to exist down to our own time, till they were finally broken up by the famine of 1847. In my own immediate neighbourhood were some of them, in which I received a part of my early education; and I remember with pleasure several of my old teachers; rough and unpolished men many of them, but excellent solid scholars and full of enthusiasm for learning--which enthusiasm they communicated to their pupils. All the students were adults or grown boys; and there was no instruction in the elementary subjects--reading, writing, and arithmetic--as no scholar attended who had not sufficiently mastered these. Among the students were always half a dozen or more "poor scholars" from distant parts of Ireland, who lived free in the hospitable farmers' houses all round: just as the scholars from Britain and elsewhere {152} were supported in the time of Bede--twelve centuries before.'[5]

In every town all over Munster there was--down to a period well within my memory--one of those schools, for either cla.s.sics or science--and in most indeed there were two, one for each branch, besides one or more smaller schools for the elementary branches, taught by less distinguished men.

There was extraordinary intellectual activity among the schoolmasters of those times: some of them indeed thought and dreamed and talked of nothing else but learning; and if you met one of them and fell into conversation, he was sure to give you a strong dose as long as you listened, heedless as to whether you understood him or not. In their eyes learning was the main interest of the world. They often met on Sat.u.r.days; and on these occasions certain subjects were threshed out in discussion by the princ.i.p.al men.

There were often formal disputations when two of the chief men of a district met, each attended by a number of his senior pupils, to discuss some knotty point in dispute, of cla.s.sics, science, or grammar.

There was one subject that long divided the teachers of Limerick and Tipperary into two hostile camps of learning--the verb _To be_. There is a well-known rule of grammar that 'the verb _to be_ takes the same case after it as goes before it.' One party headed by the two Dannahys, father and son, very scholarly men, of north Limerick, held that the verb {153} _to be governed_ the case following; while the other, at the head of whom was Mr.

Patrick Murray of Kilfinane in south Limerick, maintained that the correspondence of the two cases, after and before, was mere _agreement_, not _government_. And they argued with as much earnestness as the Continental Nominalists and Realists of an older time.

Sometimes the discussions on various points found their way into print, either in newspapers or in special broadsheets coa.r.s.ely printed; and in these the mutual criticisms were by no means gentle.

There were poets too, who called in the aid of the muses to help their cause. One of these, who was only a schoolmaster in embryo--one of Dannahy's pupils--wrote a sort of pedagogic Dunciad, in which he impaled most of the prominent teachers of south Limerick who were followers of Murray. Here is how he deals with Mr. Murray himself:--

Lo, forward he comes, in oblivion long lain, Great Murray, the soul of the light-headed train; A punster, a mimic, a jibe, and a quiz, His ac.u.men stamped on his all-knowing phiz: He declares that the subsequent noun should _agree_ With the noun or the p.r.o.noun preceding _To be_.

Another teacher, from Mountrussell, was great in astronomy, and was continually holding forth on his favourite subject and his own knowledge of it. The poet makes him say:--

The course of a comet with ease I can trail, And with my ferula I measure his tail; On the wings of pure Science without a balloon Like Baron Munchausen I visit the moon; Along the ecliptic and great milky way, In mighty excursions I soaringly stray; With legs wide extended on the poles I can stand, And like marbles the planets I toss in my hand.

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The poet then, returning to his own words, goes on to say

The G.o.ds being amused at his logical blab, They built him a castle near Cancer the Crab.

But this same astronomer, though having as we see a free residence, never went to live there: he emigrated to Australia where he entered the priesthood and ultimately became a bishop.

One of the ablest of all the Munster teachers of that period was Mr.

Patrick Murray, already mentioned, who kept his school in the upper story of the market house of Kilfinane in south Limerick. He was particularly eminent in English Grammar and Literature. I went to his school for one year when I was very young, and I am afraid I was looked upon as very slow, especially in his pet subject Grammar. I never could be got to pa.r.s.e correctly such complications as 'I might, could, would, or should have been loving.' Mr. Murray was a poet too. I will give here a humorous specimen of one of his parodies. It was on the occasion of his coming home one night very late, and not as sober as he should be, when he got 'Ballyhooly' and no mistake from his wife. It was after Moore's 'The valley lay smiling before me'; and the following are two verses of the original with the corresponding two of the parody, of which the opening line is 'The candle was lighting before me.' But I have the whole parody in my memory.

MOORE: I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely As if the lov'd tenant lay dead; Ah would it were death and death only, But no, the young false one had fled.

{155} And _there_ hung the lute that could soften My very worst pains into bliss, And the hand that had waked it so often Now throbb'd to my proud rival's kiss.

Already the curse is upon her And strangers her valleys profane; They come to divide--to dishonour-- And tyrants there long will remain: But onward--the green banner rearing, Go flesh ev'ry brand to the hilt: On _our_ side is Virtue and Erin, And _theirs_ is the Saxon and Guilt.

MURRAY: I flew to the room--'twas _not_ lonely: My wife and her _grawls_ were in bed; You'd think it was then and then only The tongue had been placed in her head.

For there raged the voice that could soften My very worst pains into bliss, And those lips that embraced me so often I dared not approach with a kiss.

A change has come surely upon her:-- The child which she yet did not _wane_ She flung me--then rolled the clothes on her, And naked we both now remain.

But had I been a man less forbearing Your blood would be certainly spilt, For on _my_ side there's plunging and tearing And on _yours_ both the blankets and quilt.

I was a pupil in four of the higher cla.s.s of schools, in which was finished my school education such as it was. The best conducted was that of Mr. John Condon which was held in the upper story of the market house in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, a large apartment fully and properly furnished, forming an admirable schoolroom. This was one of the best {156} schools in Munster. It was truly an excellent Intermediate school, and was attended by all the school-going students of the town, Protestant as well as Catholic--with many from the surrounding country. Mr. Condon was a cultured and scholarly man, and he taught science, including mathematics, surveying, and the use of the globes, and also geography and English grammar. He had an a.s.sistant who taught Greek and Latin. I was one of the very few who attempted the double work of learning both science and cla.s.sics. To learn surveying we went once a week--on Sat.u.r.days--to Mr. Condon's farm near the town, with theodolite and chain, in the use of which we all--i.e. those of us learning the subject--had to take part in turn. Mr. Condon was thorough master of the science of the Use of the Globes, a very beautiful branch of education which gave the learners a knowledge of the earth, of the solar system, and of astronomy in general. But the use of the globes no longer forms a part of our school teaching:--more's the pity.

The year before going to Mitchelstown I attended a science school of a very different character kept by Mr. Simon c.o.x in Galbally, a little village in Limerick under the shadow of the Galty Mountains. This was a very rough sort of school, but mathematics and the use of the globes were well taught.

There were about forty students. Half a dozen were grown boys, of whom I was one; the rest were men, mostly young, but a few in middle life--schoolmasters bent on improving their knowledge of science in preparation for opening schools in their own parts of the country. {157}

In that school, and indeed in all schools like it through the country, there were 'poor scholars,' a cla.s.s already spoken of, who paid for nothing--they were taught for nothing and freely entertained, with bed, supper, and breakfast in the farmers' houses of the neighbourhood. We had four or five of these, not one of whom knew in the morning where he was to sleep at night. When school was over they all set out in different directions, and called at the farmers' houses to ask for lodging; and although there might be a few refusals, all were sure to be put up for the night. They were expected however to help the children at their lessons for the elementary school before the family retired.

In some cases if a farmer was favourably impressed with a poor scholar's manner and character he kept him--lodging and feeding him in his house--during the whole time of his schooling--the young fellow paying nothing of course, but always helping the little ones at their lessons. As might be expected many of these poor scholars were made of the best stuff; and I have now in my eye one who was entertained for a couple of years in my grandmother's house, and who subsequently became one of the ablest and most respected teachers in Munster.

Let us remark here that this entertainment of poor scholars was not looked upon in the light of a charity: it was regarded as a duty; for the instinct ran in the people's blood derived from ancient times when Ireland was the 'Island of Saints and Scholars.'[6] It was a custom of long standing; for {158} the popular feeling in favour of learning was always maintained, even through the long dark night of the Penal Laws.

'Tis marvellous how I escaped smoking: I had many opportunities in early life, of which surely the best of all was this Galbally school. For every one I think smoked except the half dozen boys, and even of these one or two were learning industriously. And each scholar took his smoke without ceremony in the schoolroom whenever he pleased, so that the room was never quite clear of the fragrant blue haze. I remember well on one occasion, a cla.s.s of ten, of whom I was one, sitting round the master, whose chair stood on a slightly elevated platform, and all, both master and scholars, were smoking, except myself. The lesson was on some of the hard problems in Luby's Euclid, which we had been unable to solve, and of which Mr. c.o.x was now showing us the solutions. He made his diagram for each problem on a large slate turned towards us; and as we knew the meaning of almost every turn and twist of his pencil as he developed the solution, he spoke very little; and we followed him over the diagram, _twigging_ readily the function of every point, line, angle, and circle. And when at last someone had to ask a brief question, Mr. c.o.x removed his pipe with his left hand and uttered a few monosyllabic words, which enabled us to pick up the lost thread; then replacing the pipe, he went on in silence as before.