Morning journal and courier., 1889-02-09
AE0OT IN lRELAND.


 People-Their Customs and Costumes
 The Quizzieal Approach of a Peas
 ant-CIeaniiness of the Hard Earned
 Homes.
 LoUGH DERRYcLARE, Ireland, Jan. 28. Tothe Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 The peasantry of Connemara, and for that matter of all Connaught, are as rugged and picturesque as it's scenery. They are hardy lot, but they possess qualities of bravery un- der suffering, and of certain lofty indepen- dence at all times. which truly deepens one's interest in their study. In all kind, erate- ful and hospitable characteristics they are more Irish than all the rest of the Irish in Ireland combined. Though rude, ignorant and neglected, they still retain wholesome dignity. Some of that brave old spirit which made Connaught and even little Con- nemara kingdoms into which the invader could never come, is still among this gaunt and starved mountain people. In custom and costume no place in Europe gives more distinct and striking examples than this pie turesque region. In the latter no inroads of civilization have been able to compel a change. From time immemorial these peas ants dress has been precisely ss it is to-day. They would wholly starve before they would relinquish their handmade woolens, and black, white, red and blue are the only col- ors in which the fabrics are woven. The oc~ cupants of nearly every cabin are spinners, weavers and knitters. The first thing put in a Connemara girl-baby's hands is a set of needles. Every process of cleaning, card ing, spinning, reeling, dyeing, weaving and s'napping'' is done 'sby hand" in these mountain heights. Indeed so expert are the peasants themselves, and so famed eve rywhere among Irish people are Connemara yarns, Connemara ''socks," Connemara woolens, Connemara ''tuok-fannel" aud the voluminous black, witch-like cloaks in which the peasant women of the west, and the Galway fsh-wives, wrap themselves, called the Connemara braths, or braideens, that 8 great company formed at Galway for making machinery take all this labor out of the peasants hands, met ignominious ruin. The Irish heart the world over warns to the rough, honest stuff coming from these rude hands, and many an Irish prince or princes of riches in America, still sends here for the monstrous hose, or the "tuek-fannel' petti-
 
 crags and glens.
 The dress of the men among the peasantry gives them grotesque and sometimes al- most ghastly appearance. They are usually bare footed summer and winter, with skin on the soles of their feet a quarter of an inch in thickness, and as hard as beaten sole- leather, from exposure and rough travel over { r4oi, he uI Gox wear shoes made of one piece of raw-hide tied over the feet with thongs; as with their neighbors of the Aran Islands. Fewer still wear manufactured shoes. Those not in &C., tual poverty, though nearly all are so, will be found wearing the long hose, so noted as | a Connemara product. But all wear the white | flannel, or more properly "frieze," bifurcated garment which hangs from the shoulders and terminates at the knees in wide, loose | bags; something after the fashion of our | American women's mysterious dress reform | .tdivided skirts" This with jacket or ban ! cen of the same material; 8 rag of @ cap or hat perched on the back and side of the l head, or bareheaded altogether; the black, | tufty hair coarse and wiry as that on boar ! back, and bristling skyward from the fore \ heard; with the ever-present shilleleh, or 6 | sycamore limb used in this region as pike | or staff; all furnish a curious picture at mountain hut or in meetings upon the road. | In the latter there is grim severity about l the Connemara mountaineer which is pa- ! thetic. but provides continual bubbling of ! the fountains of mirth within.
 Away up the road yonder one of them is seen coming. Before he espies you he moves ! forward with the easy negligence of a bun | dle of unarticulated bones given free ex- precision of movement in capaeious sack of | animated rags. He is going from somewhere l to nowhere, to by and by come back from | somewhere with nothing. But now he sees | you. Rigid and frigid, straight and tall, his whole anatomy has in an instant become. \ His head is set back over the alarming rear ward curve of his body. His legs have ! stiffened and heightened until he seems to have suddenly adjusted mysterious automat- | ic stilts. His arms are as two fixed, horizon 1 tally extended obtuse angle, with wondfous !! springs at the shoulder sockets; and his fin ] gers are as closed and hard as links of an ! iron chain. Thus he advances with swing | ing stride as though the balls of his feet, al | each step, sympathetically communicated l rythmic duplex upward and sidewise motion | His lips are pursed. His forehead is lower l ing and wrinkled with apparent serious res l solve. His eyes are upraised. And his nos | trils are distended. AS though you are a l blank on the horizon, he needs you not until
 at your side. Then quick as a flash he turns, grabs his forelock, and with an air of, "I'll take a wink O me eye av this!" chops out: | "Fine day, yer honori"
 s'rhe same to you sir, my friend!" You have said "sir" to him and have called 1 him "friend," and the tension slightly re laxes. But your "sir" and ''frlend" will no' l quite suffice to entrap him.
 "What fine scenery you Connemara people | possess" you venture.
 He looks at you with quizzical distrust ant
 gets rigid again.
 "These grand mountains, loughs, streams. | o15 oix oe oy
 plantation.
 His eyes suspiciously follow the sweep o
 your arm; and you have not reached him yet
 "And poteen"-(''Ah-hait the divil's doub
 he's gauger!" glitters in his green gra
 eyes)-you hint with coniiding wink, whio
 begins to melt him. "And women the fair
 est and men the finest (for you came by tn way of Blarney and Killarney in all Ireland ' God bless her! Why, you ought to be tn proudest people on earth over here in Come , 1 mara.
 Dye-think-that-now-
 "Think its any man with an ounce ( skull knows it,"
 :sRm- An so yer tel
 lin'"
 "So em. And any man with drop C Irish blood in him couldn't deny it."
 "Arrah an' that they couldn't. The mor : power to ye for that thrue word, yer honor. , An, you have him now. poor fellow. Th | , tempestuous. "Wor ye long outa" s'Wu ye be long stayin'a" "An' from Ameriky } are, thina-dear, nowi" sFaith it's gres - heart ye have to come so farl" 'tAn' it B sorra kape yell be gettin' wid us Manuse
 (soft boobies)l"-and scores more purrine , palavering tid-bits from tender Irish hear while maybe, at parting, for the ''rise" t his spirits your good cheer has given hin . | some mountain orator will almost ''keen" ft
 you, as one did for me on windy mountai road, with flashing eyes and high, shril l quavering tones:
 s'Ould Ireland wor ould Ireland
 Whin England wor pup; Ould Irelandu be ould Ireland
 Whin England beggared upr'
 But the women of Connemara are pictu
 esuue in attire and shapely in form to r l markable degree. Their limbs are long ar l graceful. They are erect and spirited in ca ' riage, and the immense black braideens l cloaks, with which all shortcomings in clotl I ing are shrouded, fall in truly classic folt ]. about them. Bare-limbed as the men at g seasons, you will not infrequently cato r ! plimpses of legs as exQuisitely moulded