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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.

To this fair resorted sundry factions – as they were termed; a faction consisting of one of two parishes, baronies, or town-lands, that were very good friends in small parties or individually, but had a prescriptive deadly hatred to each other at all great meetings, fairs, returns from alehouses, &c. At races or hurlings, where gentlemen presided, no symptoms of animosity were apparent.

But a tacit compact was always understood to exist that the factions should fight at the fair of Dysart once a year; and accordingly, none of them ever failed to attend the field of battle with their wives, and generally a reasonable number of infant children, whose cries and shrieks during their daddies’ conflict formed a substitute for martial music – mingled, indeed, with the incessant rattle of the ladies’ tongues, as they fought and struggled, like the Sabine women, to separate combatants, who would come on purpose to fight again.

The fair went on quietly enough at first as to buying, selling, and trucking of cows, pigs, frieze and other merchandise: but when trade grew slack, the whisky got in vigour, and the time came when the same little “whacking, plase your honour, that our fathers before us always did at Dysart,” could no longer be deferred. There being however no personal or ostensible cause of dispute, one or two boys were always sent out to pick a quarrel and give just reason for the respective factions to come to the rescue.

Their weapon was almost exclusively an oaken cudgel: – neither iron, steel, nor indeed any deadlier substance, so far as I ever saw, was in use among them; and “boxing matches,” as before observed, were considered altogether too gross and vulgar for the direct descendants of Irish princes, as in fact many of them were. The friends and neighbours of the pugnacious factions, always in bodies, joined more or less warmly in the fray. In truth, it would be totally impossible to keep an Irish peasant, man or woman (if the drop was in), from joining in any battle going merrily on. Before the fray had ended, therefore, the entire assemblage was engaged in some degree; and it was commonly a drawn battle, seldom concluding till all parties and each sex, fairly out of breath, were unable to fight any more. Two hours or thereabouts was considered as a decent period for a beating match, and some priest generally put an end to it when the factions were themselves tired.

These battles commenced in the most extraordinary manner; the different modes of picking a quarrel being truly comical. One fellow generally took off his long frieze coat, and flourishing his shillelah, which he trailed along the ground, vociferated, “Horns! horns! ram’s horns! who dares say any thing’s crookeder than ram’s horns?”

“By J – s, I know fat will be twice crookeder nor any ram’s horns before the fair’s over,” another sturdy fellow would reply, leaping, as he spoke, out of a tent, armed with his “walloper” (as they called their cudgel), and spitting in his fist – “By J – s, I’ll make your own skull crookeder nor any ram’s horn in the barony.” The blow of course followed the word; – the querist was laid sprawling on the ground; – out rushed the factious from every tent, and to work they fell – knocking down right and left, tumbling head over heels, then breaking into small parties, and fighting through and round the tents. If one fellow lost his “walloper,” and was pressed by numbers, he sometimes tugged at a wattle till he detached it from a tent, and sweeping it all around him, prostrated men, women, and children: – one, tumbling, tripped up another; and I have seen them lying in hillocks, yet scarcely any body in the least injured. Sometimes one faction had clearly the best of it; then they ran away in their turn, for there was no determined stand made by any party – so that their alternate advancing, retreating, running away, and rallying, were productive of huge diversion. Whoever got his head cut (and that was generally the case with more than half of them), ran into some tent, where the women tied up the hurt, gave the sufferer a glass of whisky, and kept him fair and easy till news arrived that the priest was come – when the combatants soon grew more quiet. The priest then told them how sinful they were. They thanked his reverence, and said “they’d stop, becaize he desired them; but it wasn’t becaize they wouldn’t like to make sartain who’d have the best of it.”

The hair being detached from about the cuts on the head, the cuts themselves dressed, rags applied to battered shins, &c., the whisky went round merrily again, and the several factions seldom departed till they were totally unable to fight any more. Some were escorted home by the priests upon garrons (their wives behind them); some on straw in cars; and some, too drunk to be moved, remained in the neighbourhood. No animosity was cherished; and until next fair they would do each other any kind office. I witnessed many of these actions, and never heard that any man was “dangerously wounded.” But if they fought on the road home, in very small parties, serious mischief was not unfrequently the consequence.

The quere as to ram’s horns was only one of many curious schemes whereby to get up a quarrel. I have seen a fellow going about the fair dragging his coat, which was always considered a challenge, like throwing down a glove or gauntlet in olden times – and in fact was a relict of that practice. Another favourite mode was, exclaiming “black’s the white of my eye! – who dares say black is not the white of my eye?”

These scenes certainly took place at a time when Ireland was reputed, and with truth, to be in a very rough state. It has since undergone plenty of civilization. Sunday schools, improved magistracy, and a regular police, have recently been introduced; and the present state of Ireland proves the great advances it has made in consequence. Of late years, therefore, though the factions still fight, as usual, it is with more civilised weapons. Instead of shillelahs and “wallopers,” swords, pistols, and guns are the genteel implements resorted to: and (to match the agriculturists) scythes, hatchets, bill-hooks, and pitchforks are used in their little encounters: and surely the increased refinement of the country is not to be relinquished on account of the loss of a few lives.

I fear some of my readers may call the latter observations ironical; but the best way for them to avoid that supposition is, to reflect what savage Ireland was at the time I allude to, and what civilised Ireland is at the moment I am writing; – in the year 1780, when the peasantry fighting at the fair of Dysart was in a savage state, the government were so stingy of their army that they would only spare the Irish five or six thousand soldiers, and no militia, to teach them to behave themselves: but after an interval of forty years, they are now so kind as to allow us five-and-thirty thousand troops to teach the new rudiments of civilization – the old six thousand having had nothing to do amongst these semi-barbarous islanders. Nay, the government finding that Ballinrobe (where, as I have stated, a sow and her ten piggin riggins came to breakfast with two counsellors) was making slow progress to this desirable state of refinement, was so considerate as to send certainly the best-bred regiment in the king’s service to give lessons of urbanity to the people for three hundred and sixty-five days without intermission.

This boon to so backward a population as County Mayo presented, must ever be remembered with gratitude by the undressed gentlemen of that county, though I have not seen any authentic exposé of those beneficial effects which no doubt resulted.

THE WALKING GALLOWS

Brief reflections on the Irish Revolution of 1798 – Mutual atrocities of the Royalists and Rebels – Irish humour buoyant to the last – O’Connor, the schoolmaster of County Kildare – “’Tis well it’s no worse” – The Barristers’ corps – Its commander – Lieutenant H – His zeal for loyalty, and its probable origin – Indemnities unjustly obtained for cruelty against the insurgents – Lieutenant H – ’s mode of executing a rebel – His sobriquet, and its well-earned application.

Never was there an era in the history of any country which, in so short a space of time, gave birth to such numerous and varied circumstances as did the memorable year 1798 in Ireland: nor was there ever yet an event so important as the Irish insurrection, but has afforded a veracious – or, at least, a tolerably impartial narrative. But the party rancour and virulent hatred of the religious sects in the south, the centre and west of Ireland (where the rebellion principally raged), operated to prevent any fair record of those scenes of bloodshed and atrocity which, on both sides, outraged every principle of morality and justice, and every feeling of consanguinity, honour, or humanity. The very worst qualities were fostered to full maturity, and the better ones turned adrift like discarded servants. Blood, fire, and famine were the only umpires resorted to by the contending parties.

Those barbarities were nearly, if not altogether, unexampled either in ancient or modern Europe: but it is now thirty years since their termination; the surviving contemporaries are old enough to have their blood cooled and their prejudices moderated; – and they should have grown sufficiently dispassionate to speak of those scenes (if at all) with honesty and candour.

I was myself in the midst of the tumult: a zealous loyalist; an officer in the corps of barristers; an active partizan; in a word, a strong adherent of government – but not a blind one. I could not shut my eyes; I could not close my ears; I would not pervert my reason; and the full use of those faculties at that time, enables me now to state as an historic fact – which some will deny, and many may discredit – that the barbarities of that period (though not precisely) were pretty nearly balanced between the conflicting parties.³¹ Mercy was alike banished by both; and the instruments employed of death and torture, though dissimilar, were alike destructive: the bullet, sabre, bayonet, lash, and halter, being met by the pike, the scythe, the blunderbuss, the hatchet, and the firebrand.

Yet while human blood was pouring out in streams, and human beings consuming in fire, or writhing either upon rebel pikes or royal bayonets – will it be believed? – men had grown so familiarised to scenes of horror, that the eccentric humour of the Irish people was insusceptible of decrease. In the midst of tortures, either suffered or inflicted, it frequently broke out into the most ludicrous actions and expressions, proving to me that an Irishman’s humour is so drilled into his nature, as to be inexhaustible even to the moment of his death (if that is not unusually too deliberate).³²

It is not in the nature, or within the comprehension, of the sober English people to form any judgment of what a true-born Irishman is capable of saying or doing in his deepest extremities: and I am sure they will give me little credit for veracity when I mention some instances which, I own, in any other country might be reasonably considered incredible. In no other place existing could the cruel and ludicrous be so mingled, as they were in the transactions of the sanguinary period in question; nor do I think there can be a better way to inform and amuse the reader, than by giving alternate anecdotes of the royalists and the rebels, leaving it to his own judgment to draw conclusions. – This one observation, however, it is necessary, in justice, to premise; – that the royalists were, generally speaking, of a higher class than the rebels – and had received the advantages of education, while the rebels were in a state of total ignorance and beggary. The wanton barbarities, therefore, of the more enlightened classes have less ground of palliation than those of a demi-savage peasantry, urged by fanaticism, and blinded by ignorance. This observation was strongly impressed on my mind throughout the whole of that contest; and it would be acting unfairly toward the officer who so judiciously commanded the military corps I was then attached to, not to say, that, though an unqualified Protestant – an hereditary Huguenot, filled with that spirit of sectionary zeal which drove his eloquent ancestor from his native country; yet, during the whole of the rebellion, Captain Saurin never suffered the corps he led to indulge any religious distinctions; – scarcely, indeed, could his own sect be discovered by any particular of his acts, orders, or conduct; nor did that corps ever participate in, or even countenance, the violent proceedings so liberally practised by other military yeomen.³³

He got several severe lectures, but none so strong as one from the late Sir John Parnell, then chancellor of the exchequer, whose heir, the present Sir Henry Parnell, was among those unwittingly taken down.

This line of conduct was most exemplary; and from a thorough knowledge of the constitutional attributes of the man, I am convinced that neither his philanthropy, toleration, humility, or other good qualities have been much increased by his schooling, for the last twenty years, in the Irish Four Courts.

Among the extraordinary characters that turned up in the fatal “ninety-eight,” there were few more extraordinary than Lieutenant H – , then denominated the “walking gallows;” – and such he certainly was, literally and practically.³⁴

Lieutenant H – was an officer of the line, on half pay. His brother was one of the solicitors to the Crown – a quiet, tremulous, vino deditus sort of man, and a leading Orangeman; – his widow, who afterward married and survived a learned doctor, was a clever, positive, good-looking Englishwoman, and, I think, fixed the doctor’s avowed creed: as to his genuine faith, that was of little consequence.

Lieutenant H – was about six feet two inches high; – strong, and broad in proportion. His strength was great, but of the dead kind, unaccompanied by activity. He could lift a ton, but could not leap a rivulet; he looked mild, and his address was civil – neither assuming nor at all ferocious. I knew him well, and from his countenance should never have suspected him of cruelty; but so cold-blooded and so eccentric an executioner of the human race I believe never yet existed, save among the American Indians.³⁵

His inducement to the strange barbarity he practised I can scarcely conceive; unless it proceeded from that natural taint of cruelty which so often distinguishes man above all other animals when his power becomes uncontrolled. The propensity was probably strengthened in him from the indemnities of martial law, and by those visions of promotion whereby violent partizans are perpetually urged, and so frequently disappointed.³⁶

At the period alluded to, law being suspended, and the courts of justice closed, the “question” by torture was revived and largely practised. The commercial exchange of Dublin formed a place of execution; even suspected rebels were every day immolated as if convicted on the clearest evidence; and Lieutenant H – ’s pastime of hanging on his own back persons whose physiognomies he thought characteristic of rebellion was, (I am ashamed to say) the subject of jocularity instead of punishment. What in other times he would himself have died for, as a murderer, was laughed at as the manifestation of loyalty: never yet was martial law so abused, or its enormities so hushed up³⁷ as in Ireland. Being a military officer, the lieutenant conceived he had a right to do just what he thought proper, and to make the most of his time while martial law was flourishing.

Once, when high in blood, he happened to meet a suspicious-looking peasant from County Kildare, who could not satisfactorily account for himself according to the lieutenant’s notion of evidence; and having nobody at hand to vouch for him, the lieutenant of course immediately took for granted that he must be a rebel strolling about, and imagining the death of his Most Gracious Majesty.³⁸ He therefore, no other court of justice being at hand, considered that he had a right to try the man by his own opinion; accordingly, after a brief interrogation, he condemned him to die, and without further ceremony proceeded to put his own sentence into immediate execution.

However, to do the lieutenant justice, his mode was not near so tedious or painful as that practised by the grand signior, who sometimes causes the ceremony to be divided into three acts, giving the culprit a drink of spring water to refresh him between the two first; nor was it so severe as the burning old women formerly for witchcraft. In fact, the “walking gallows” was both on a new and simple plan; and after some kicking and plunging during the operation, never failed to be completely effectual. The lieutenant being, as before mentioned, of lofty stature, with broad and strong shoulders, saw no reason why they might not answer his majesty’s service upon a pinch as well as two posts and a cross-bar (the more legitimate instrument upon such occasions): and he also considered that, when a rope was not at hand, there was no good reason why his own silk cravat (being softer than an ordinary halter, and of course less calculated to hurt a man) should not be a more merciful choke-band than that employed by any Jack Ketch in the three kingdoms.

In pursuance of these benevolent intentions, the lieutenant, as a preliminary step, first knocked down the suspected rebel from County Kildare, which the weight of mettle in his fist rendered no difficult achievement. His garters then did duty as handcuffs: and with the aid of a brawny aide-de-camp (one such always attended him), he pinioned his victim hand and foot, and then most considerately advised him to pray for King George, observing that any prayers for his own d – d popish soul would be only time lost, as his fate in every world (should there be even a thousand) was decided to all eternity for having imagined the death of so good a monarch.

During this exhortation, the lieutenant twisted up his long cravat so as to make a firm, handsome rope, and then expertly sliding it over the rebel’s neck, secured it there by a double knot, drew the cravat over his own shoulders, and the aide-de-camp holding up the rebel’s heels, till he felt him pretty easy, the lieutenant with a powerful chuck drew up the poor devil’s head as high as his own (cheek by jowl), and began to trot about with his burden like a jolting cart-horse, – the rebel choking and gulping meanwhile, until he had no further solicitude about sublunary affairs – when the lieutenant, giving him a parting chuck, just to make sure that his neck was broken, threw down his load – the personal assets about which the aide-de-camp made a present of to himself.

Now all this proceeding was very pains-taking and ingenious: and yet the ungrateful government (as Secretary Cook assured me) would have been better pleased had the execution taken place on timber and with hemp, according to old formalities.

To be serious: – this story is scarcely credible – yet it is a notorious fact; and the lieutenant, a few nights afterward, acquired the sobriquet which forms a head to this sketch, and with which he was invested by the upper gallery of Crow Street Theatre – nor did he ever get rid of it to his dying-day.

The above trotting execution (which was humorously related to me by an eye-witness) took place in the barrack-yard at Kerry House, Stephen’s Green. The hangee was, I believe, (as it happened) in reality a rebel.

Providence, however, which is said to do “every thing for the best,” (though some persons who are half starving, and others who think themselves very unfortunate, will not allow it so much credit,) determined that Lieutenant H – ’s loyalty and merits should meet their full reward in another sphere – where, being quite out of the reach of all his enemies, he might enjoy his destiny without envy or interruption. It therefore, very soon after the rebellion had terminated, took the lieutenant into its own especial keeping; and despatched a raging fever to bring him off to the other world, which commission the said fever duly executed after twenty-one days’ combustion; – and no doubt his ghost is treated according to its deserts; but nobody having since returned from those regions to inform us what has actually become of the lieutenant, it is still a dead secret, and I fancy very few persons in Ireland have any wish for the opportunity of satisfying their curiosity. People however give a shrewd guess, that it is possible he may be employed somewhere else in the very same way wherein he entertained himself in Ireland; and that after being duly furnished with a tail, horns, and cloven foot, no spirit could do infernal business better than the lieutenant.