The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-07-17
WEDDING, WAKE AND FAIR.
Mr.. wAkEMAN's TOUR OF IRELAND.
Market Day Universal and Interminable-
It's Business and Social Advantage
Counting and Wedding The
Origin OF the Wake.

ATHLoNE, Ireland, July l, 1SS9.-For
the purposes of illustration there is as
little difference between the Irish fair
and the Irish market to-day, as there
could be found between "a rale drop of
the right sort" and "a drop of the rale
right sort, +" which from time immemorial
has been inseparable from the proper con-
duct of either The actual difference is
this: The Irish fair, whether held at the
little village in Donegal or Kerry, or at
tended by thousands, as at Ballinasloe,
Athlone, Cork, Belfast or Dublin, is an
-sffair for the display and sale OF animals
y-horses, cattle, asses, pigs, sheep,
sats. and occasionally poultry. Perhaps
eighty Irish towns and cities hold from
one ~ four fairs each year. Some are for
he sale of one class of animals only; of
hogs, as at Limerick or Athione; of cattle,
as at Ballinasloe; of horses, as at probably
the greatest annual horse fair in the world,
that of Dublin; O. as at Cushendun, Tor
the exclusive sale of the noted Cushendal
ponies bred on the heathery mountains of
Antrim overlooking the wierd and stormy
Irish sea. But at most of the Irish fairs
all animals bred in Ireland are exposed
for sale; at many others farm products
may be found; while the great butter fairs
OF Cork would almost give one the notion
that half the worlds butter was made in
the sunny wales of Ireland's South.
The market day, on the other hand, is
universal and interminable affair. Hardly
a day has passed in my nearly year IN
Ireland when have not come upon some
town or-village in my trampings where the
fair or the market was in full progress.
The area of Ireland is %, l25 square miles
less than that OF the state of Illinois, yet
Ireland boasts of 200 market towns where
market-days are held from one to three
times every week in the year. All this is
picturesque and interesting the traveller,
but my observation leads me to believe
that there is vastly too much market, of
the sort, and vastly too little to market, of
anv sort, in Ireland. The shopkeepers,
pettv traders. and "shebeen' men like it
well enough, for it brings the people to-
gether for trimming at both ends of the
yard-stick, but the murderous land
lord system behind it renders this very
custom through which the peasantry
arc so repeatedly and Systematically
robbed a necessity. The tenant-farmer
must have, because his condition is never
else than precarious, handy means of
ready money. The market-harpies dis
Germ with unerring scent all who are
pressed for rent or interest money, and
they instantly combine against his need
and dependency with matchless cunning
and blarnev. Thus those most needing
fair return for the pitiable trihes they are
forced to sell are invariably plucked at
both ends of their needy the landlord
who keeps the rod of evictiOn-horror hang
ing over their heads, and at the small mar
ket towns, where the buyers, Just as for
tune-telling Gypsies, learn all the closet
ghosts of half county before they begin
operations, knowing that this one or that
one, from this place or that, dare not re-
turn home without money, contrive TO
send him back ''o'er an ash road, for the
Hghtness that's in his pocket"
Still another reason makes the Irish
market day popular, though disastrous 10
the acquisition OF means among the masses
Of the people, if opportunity in their I'M
fortunate condition for securing comfort
and competency were given. 1t is almost
impossible for the American to conceive
Of the barrenness of diversion or incident
in the lives of the Irish peasantry. Edu-
cation and books there are not. Some
thing must occupy the human mind aside
from the scourgings Of human slavery.
The market-day, in its exchange OF cOun-
trvside greetings, information, forgivable
gOssipings, simple excitements and gen
eral hurry burly, with this primitive folk
stands entirely in the stead of the weekly
paper Of our own remoter country dis
tricts. Indeed it is far more. The telegraph
and the railway penetrate nearly every
county of our country. In more than
nine-tenths of Ireland country folk have
never seen = railway car. The market viii
Tc -fI ha rrlf AZ NJ
The little holding on the mountain side or
in the valley, the little chapel where they
gather for Sunday mass, the little village
where market-day brings them all together
the rustic dance or wedding with their
rude and boisterous convivialities, the
wake which most powerful priest or pre-
late cannot prevent by direst sacerdotal
thunderings, and finally the little grave
yard where all must eventually come,
provide the farthest metes and bounds of
their humble lives. One may wish 1t
different, but it is idle TO discuss it all save
on the exact line of their uneyentful
lives; and because the warm Irish heart
Yearns for something better than it ever
NAV know in this unfortunate land. do
not want the regard of that better-condi-
toned man, who would deny every soul
environed as these, every hour OF diversion
and iightsomeness that can be got from
either fair, wedding or wake, even II the
poor souls return TO their dreary homes
"a trihe hearty and soft for the days or
nights "divarsion." If you are a member
OF the over-wise and over-good class of
the earth, help compel change in the
governmental infamy which you would
not endure, but which, through centuries,
has gradually wrought this texture of
character from hopeless conditions; for
one only demonstrates his own bigotry
AID ignorance when he feels scorn, or ex-
presses condemnation, for customs of a
people which practically attest the only
human traits that can s1ryive generations
of heartless inhumanity.
Whatever tri1e the tenant family may
have for disposal on market or fair day,
the entire family accompanies it. The
old mountain-but of cart is got out and
sparingly creased the night before; the
ragged donkey or lily kept horse, is given
an extra portion OF food ana additional
combing and scraping, that bis old bones
NAV gain new luster; and long before day
break, from mountain borenen and mist
hidden valley chattering groups begin
moving toward the village. THE children
dear" are slowed away alongside the pigs,
ducks, chickens or vegetables, for the
common excitement has kept them awake
all night; and now over the stoniest of
Irish roads they are ''slapein' rings
around their swate selves" the youths