Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-11-25
'DOnnybrOOk Fair.

All those who were ever present will
bear witness that An Irishman "all in
his glory was there"-but not exactly
for the reasons generally supposed. In
the first place, the song, which makes
the "shillelah" the all in all, refers to a
traditionary period. A few fights and
broken heads, inseparable from all
English as well as Irish fairs, of course
always took place, but the crowd was
too dense to allow of much damage
being done. There was not only no
room for Science" but no room to
strike blow of a real kind-from the
shoulder, and "using the toes" We
saw no blood flow. Something else in
abundance we did see flow, whisky. As
for the interior, or main body of the
fair, it presented no features materially
differing from others previously men,
toned but the outskirts certainly pre-
sented something very ydifferent-indeed
unique. The fair, as to its great shows
and booths, was held in large hollow,
or basin of green ground, on descending
into which you found the immediate
skirtings occupied by a set of very little,
very low-roofed, hut-like booths, where
busy trade was carried on in fried po-
tatoes, fried sausages, and oysters, cold
or scolloped. Not bad mixture but
the cooking, in some cases, seems to
be performed by individuals who had
never before seen sausage or an oyster,
and who fancied that smoke and peat
ashes improved the one and sand and
saw-dust the other But cookery is by
no means the special characteristic allu-
ded to. 1t is this: and 1 will defy the
world to produce anything like it.
Donnybrook is q village few miles
only from Dublin. The houses are all
very small, the largest generally rising
no higher than floor above the ground
floor rooms, and every house being en-
tirely appropriated to the use of the
fair coming people. The rooms below
were devoted to whisky-drinking, songs,
jokes, politeness, and courtship, with
jig in the middle; and the very same,
but with more elaborate and constant
dancing, in the rooms above. Every
house presented the same scene-yes,
every house along the whole village
and when you came to the narrowest
streets the effect was peculiar and ludic-
rous in the extreme. For observe, the
rooms being all crowded to the last
man and woman and child they could
hold, and the dancing" - especially
above stairs-being an absolute condi-
tiOn, there was no room left for the
fiddler. We say there was no room
left for him-and yet he must be among
them. There was room for him, as
man, be it understood-but not as a
enough for another man, and this could
not be afforded. The problem was,
therefore, solved by opening the win
dow upstairs the fiddler sat on the
window sill, and his elbow worked out
side. The effect of this "elbow" playing
outside the window of every upper
floor, and sometimes out of both upper
floor and ground floor of every house
in a whole street, and on both sides of
the way-and playing a similar kind of
jig-surpassed anything of that kind
of humor in action it has ever been my
fortune to witness. If that is not merry
fun, show me what is. The elbows all
played SO true to time that if you had
net heard a note you would have known
that it was an Irish jig by the motion
of all those jaunty and "knowing" ell
bows. A last word on Donnybrook
shall be devoted to one other custom,
characteristic of the kindness as well as
the humor of the nation, which was
manifested in way never seen else
where. Once every hour or so, large
police van was driven through the fair
to pick up all the very drunken men
who we're rolling about unable to govern
their motions. They were at once
lifted into the van, and here many of
them again found their legs. and you
heard the muffled singing and the dull
thunder of their dancing inside as the
philanthropic van passed along. AS
they got sober they we're set free
The Saturday Journal.