IRISH WIT AND HUMOUR.
IRELAND to a great extent still preserves its national reputation for wit and humour. To utter clever and amusing things without premeditation is more or less common to Irishmen of all ranks and classes. The late Father Healy was an admirable representative of Ireland in this respect. His wit was full and overflowing, nothing laboured or strained about it ; the most apparently barren topic furnished him with a peg for a joke. It never occurred to you when you heard it or read it,—Why did I not see this before? No, the conviction was,—This is purely original and could only come from himself. Many of his witticisms are preserved In his Life, and are consequently within reach, so that they are not to be drawn upon, being already public property. Swift was a great Irishman, a great Churchman, and a great wit ; and a certain percentage of Irish clergy, Anglican and Roman, are fond of jokes and amusing stories. They see a good many sides of the national life, and consequently see and hear much that is amusing. The Irish Bar was a century ago celebrated for its wit, and the jokes of such men as Norbury, Plunket, and Curran still go round, in books at least. Whether the Bar still retains its reputation in this respect is not clear; it is to be feared it does not, except perhaps in the case of Lord Morris. But our business is not to be historical or philosophical in this matter, but rather descriptive and discursive : to present some few specimens of unpremeditated Irish humour such as any one may pick up without going far afield for them.
There is an Irish clergyman of our acquaintance who has deservedly a considerable local reputation as a wit and story-teller. He sees everything from the humorous side ; his appearance, his voice and manner, are all mirth- provoking, especially his laugh. The present writer heard him speak lately of his sexton, who appears to be an original. A lady, a stranger to the place, asked him if there were daily Matins in the church. " No, Madame," he replied, " we can't afford that, but we put down cocoa-nut every Sunday." This official is close at hand at all baptisms and marriages, and instinctively answers all the questions asked to sponsors and couples being married, so that the rector says he is godfather of innumerable children, and has married himself to a considerable number of brides, for when the question is put, " Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife ? " he always audibly answers, "I will." It may be truly said " this is very Irish," for so it is. Indeed, we have been told of a case in which a young lady about to be married in the church which this sexton serves made it a proviso that he should be charged to keep his distance during the ceremony. Some time ago, when the " three R's " were by no means so familiar as they are now, there was a certain Irish clergyman in charge of a sinecure parish, from which he regularly absented himself from Monday morning until Saturday night, to be the guest of a nobleman in the neighbourhood, whose table he enlivened with his jokes. He was asked by his Bishop at the visitation if he had a Sunday-school in his parish. "No, my Lord." "Why not? Have you no young people ? " " One boy, my Lord." " Why not have a class for him ? " " Ah, am I expected to act as private tutor ? " The Bishop's rejoinder is not recorded. This clergyman, who was certainly a very easy-going sort of man, used to give a written character to every one who asked him. It ran thus : " Timothy So-and-so says he is a very good lad" ; as the person who received it could not read, he did not dis- cover his mistake until it was too late. This is an old but true story. In Ireland there is a regular hunger for letters of recommendation. A woman once came to the writer of this article for a testimonial as to her son's character. " But I know nothing of the boy at all." " Well, now, thin isn't that quare 1 Shure, he wanst delivered a load of straw to your Riverince." One might on the strength of this have certi- fied that one knew him to be a man of straw, but the present writer resisted the temptation. Two farmers' wives called to request a letter to the local Resident Magistrate requiring him to decide a case about a water- course in favour of one of them. This was declined on the ground of ignorance of the merits or demerits of the applicant's case. She looked greatly disgusted, and turned to her friend, saying, " And didn't ye tell me that this gentle- man's son used to go out fowling with his worship." What, of course, was the good of having such intimacy if it could not be used for a friend P The Irish peasantry have great faith in clerical influence, whether of the priest or parson, as they express it. A few years ago an elderly gentleman officially connected with race-meetings was staying at the principal hotel in a southern Irish city. During the first night of his visit a number of lively young men entered his bedroom; poured water on him; carried him about; called on him for a speech, a song, &c. The next morning this sufferer, fearing a repetition of the amusement, had his room changed without the change being noted in the hotel books. On the following night his tormentors repeated the experiment, though the bird had flown and his place been occupied by an Irish Bishop. They entered the room again, one being armed with a poker and fire-shovel, with which he discoursed what was not most eloquent music. Another bore a fender, which he placed over the Bishop as he lay in bed—but enough; we spare the details. Universal horror filled the hotel on the following morning when the facts became known. The original victim has never since darkened the door of the house in question, nor we should say has the Bishop either. Irish people are in the habit of saying, " If we are poor, we are pleasant." This witness is true. A Bishop is about the very last person in the world who would knowingly be subjected to any annoyance or insult in Ireland, but the above piece of horseplay having occurred unintentionally, the very fact that a Bishop was made the subject of it added to its absurdity and incongruity. Of course everybody was very sorry and dreadfully shocked, but at the same time immensely amused. There is a class of person now fast fading in Ireland, and "the mote's the pity,"—viz., the professional mendicant, who made an annual tour of a considerable part of some one province. Such a person had quite an established connection, and went about collecting a sort of rent. He gave good value, it must be confessed, for what he got. He knew all the clergy, gentry, and farmers in his own extensive beat, and gave news and witty remarks in exchange for his allowance. He had a wonderful knack of hitting off places and people in a few concise and compact sentences. Thus he described the town where we live as " wan of the natest towns in the ring of Ireland, for if ye made a slip in the street of it, be the help of God ye were always sure to fall into a public-house." Could there be a more ironical description of the excessive number of licensed liquor-shops than this? A well-grown, good-sized youngster he described as " the full-of-the-door of a man" ; an untrustworthy person as " wan ye couldn't believe daylight itself out of " ; a miser as "wan who wouldn't give God Almighty tuppence to take him out of hell " ; a person born to great poverty as " wan who niver wanted to watch his pocket,"—that is, because there never was anything in it. Poor Michael, he was the pride of his class ; for a generation he paced the sunny plains of Munster, for, as he said himself, " he was a long time on the Mission." On one of his last visits he said he was booked for the down train, and so, alas ! it has proved, and he has gone over to the majority. May he rest in peace ; we ne'er shall look upon his like again.
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