4‘ GOING WITH THE DEAD :" AN IRISH POPULAR SUPERSTITION.
'BELIEVE me, your Reverence, Maurice is going wid the dead ;' all the people says it av him, so there's the truth for you now." This peculiar expression requires explana- tion, and the solution of it was to this effect. A person " Going with the Dead" is believed to have some unholy alliance or intimacy with the departed, with whom he spends portions of his nights. " Why, your Reverence, Maurice had a niece died a while ago ; and the people all have it that he had a talk and a shake-hands with her quite lately, and others do be saying that it's hurley the dead people do be playing, and that Maurice brings them the hurley-ball ! Oh, the divil a word of a lie, saving your presence, your Reverence, I'm telling; and shure didn't I see him meself a couple av times out be night. Wanat I was out looking for me ould jinnit ; 'twas about 4 o'clock av a fine morning, and who should I meet but my bould Maurice comin g along the boreen overright me. Good-morning, Maurice,' says I, ' ye're up early an' be snaps me up, an' says he : Why shouldn't I be up early, whin I was up all the night ? ' Oh, you may be mortal sartin, your Reverence, that. Maurice is going wid the dead. But whist ! wait awhile. I was going wid that same ould jinnit to sell her at the fair av Kilmallock, an' as the journey was tadious, I started about 3 o'clock, expecting to rache-in ' by 9. Well,
by the same token, who did I meet afther laving home but Tom Richardson. Good-morrow, John,' says he. Good- morrow, Sir,' says I. Is it to the fair av Kilmal- lock ye're going ?' says he. It is, Sir,' says I. An' whin will ye be there ?' says he. By 9,' says I. I'll
wager ye a pint that ye won't,' says he. ' Done,' says I. Well, your Reverence, I parted Tom, an' I had a sblip av a boy alongside me, an' as we whit along we saw something curled up in a ditch. Glory be to God ! ' says I, what's that?' I thought it might be a drunk man who had shlep out,' and that we should see what way was he. But whin we got up to him, God save the hearers ! who was it at all at all but Maurice, an' he lying there sound ashleep, wid an ould bag roun' his neck, all in the world like a big cravat. There he was, shure enough, quiet an' aisy ; and whin I sees him that a way the second time, your Reverence, I says to meself : Ah, me lad, all the world wouldn't persuade me now that ye're not " going wid the dead." ' An' share he havn't the colour av a Christian at all at all, an' that's another thing. But why they does it, I can't exactly fathom, for some av thim does be up to tricks. For I wanst knew another man in the County Tiprary ' who was going wid the dead,' an' he was a rale villian. There was a strong farmer, a neighbouring man of his, who died—may the Lord have mercy on his cowl! —an' a night or two afther he died, there came a tappin' to his widow's bedroom windy, an' she the craythure woke up all av a thrimble. Who's there P' says she. It's your own poor Michael," says the vice." 0 blessed Margin,' says she ; don't ye rest aisy, Michael asthore ?" I don't,' says the vice ;" an' I can't.' An' why can't ye ? ' says she. I can't rest aisy,' says he, till ye give a suit av me clothes an' a pig to that hanest man, Dan Donovan,' says he. (Dan was the villian I'm spaking about, your Reverence.) Well, wid that, the 'vice' died away, an' shure enough the next day following Dan called up to the farmhouse at his dead aise, as if nothing at all had happened. An' the poor woman says to him Dan,' says she, I've a message for you from me poor husband, may the heavens be his bed !' says she. Well, your Reverence, will ye believe me ? Dan was sich a villian, that he up as bould as brass, an' says he : I partly guess, mam,' says he, what it is,' says he; for I was wid the poor man meself last night,' says he ; wasn't it something, mam,' says he, about a pig an' a shuit av clothes ? ' says he. An' shure enough, the poor Omadhawn av a woman didn't she give the desayving blayguard both the shuit an' the pig ? Well, your Rever- ence, the Parish Priest heard tell av this, as it was right he should, an' he sint for Dan ; an' says he to him, says he : This is bad work I do be heerin' av you, an' how dar' you,' says he, 'be goin' on wid tricks like this over the poor man that is " giving the grass " in the churchyard,' says he, and robbing the poor widow P But Dan had a mighty hard cheek, and he wouldn't give in he was usin' any dente at all at all, but said he was "going wid the dead ;" and he had the impidence to tell the Priest, up to his face, that he was as shure av goin' to heaven as he was himself. Look at that for ye "
It would appear from the above accounts, which are re- peated as correctly as the writer can remember them, that " going wid the dead " is occasionally pretended to by a cer- tain class of schemers, who find it pays to play thus upon the imagination and feelings of their ignorant neighbours, by professing to hold intercourse with the departed. They pro- bably encourage the feeling of mystery and terror that sur- rounds them in consequence, and may find it a useful protection when engaged in ordinary nocturnal robbery, as any one believed to be " going wid the dead " would naturally be shunned while night-walking in such company. It does not appear that Maurice, the first person of this class above-mentioned, has been so successful in " devouring widows' houses " as Dan was ; but he has recently distinguished himself by raising a pig by a more vulgar and commonplace method of robbery.
In neither case does intercourse with the departed appear to have improved their morals. People otherwise fairly well acquainted with Ireland know little or nothing of this popular superstition; but it is so racy of the soil, that it is really deserving of a much wider publicity.
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