New-York tribune., 1902-01-21
IRISH JAUNTS.
MR.. CLIFTON JoHNsoN's IMPRESSIONS
OF THE EMERALD ISLE.

THE ISLE OF THE SHAMROCK. Written and
illustrated by Clifton Johnson. Octave. PIP. xiv,
25S. The Macmillan Company.
In THE Isle Of the Shamrock. Mr. Clifton
Johnson has written entertaining book about
attractive subject He has travelled about
Ireland. particularly through the portions there
Of least frequented by the tourist. with open
eye. and he has returned thence with Zip
sealed, and the result IS good reading for the
stay-at-home who contents himself with the
more comfortable alternative of remaining by
his freside and seeing what Mr.. Johnson has to
say about it. Everybody has wondered. and
few persons know, why a shillelah is called.
and those who have wondered will be interested
20 learn that II is named from wood in County
Wicklow, where the best oaks and blackthorns
for its making found. Even fewer persons
know that waffle" is shillelah on an exag-
gerated scale, while a 'kppeen" is a short club,
with a burly knob its end. All these and
many more interesting things Mr. johnson tells
IN his book. There is much about modern Ire
land that impresses the reader as pitifully bar
oarlc This. of course. is true in the greatest
measure of the remott country districts and of
the life in them the traveller draws ANYTHING
put Bright pictures. Poverty appears TO be
widespread and extreme. Notions of decency
and comfort in living appear to be primitive in
the rural districts. while ignorance and supersti-
tlon are amazingly common. A description of the
living conditions prevailing in the island Of
AchlH on the wild western coast of Ireland
seems to represent fairly the conditions common
among the peasantry. Says Mr. Johnson:
II was customary TO keep the COWS and pigs
IN the HVing room. and when there was a pony
II was usually tied to the foot of the bed The
,dcL tIllehehs occupied the same apartment, laid
their eggs in any part of the room they found
convenient, and roasted the rungs of the
table Indeed the people poverty
stricken that the home conditions could hardly
be otherwise than comfortless and barren to the
iast degree. have never seen a region more
Doggy. storm swept and desolate
Indeed. it seems TO be the usual thing in the
country districts Of Ireland for the domestic
animals TO inhabit the family dwelling under
scarcely more rigorous restrictions than apply
10 the children of the households Pigs are the
special favorites. but chickens also allowed
all the privileges. In Connemara things are
particularly behind the times. In Lisouter for
example, we are told that no such thing as
plough has ever been seen, and that about the
only farm tools used there are primitive mar
row bladed and one sided spades. Crops are not
rotated, but are grown over and over again
upon the same ground. The results are as un-
satisfactory as might be expected. Indeed it
seems that such thing scientific farming
is altogether unknown. and in country where
agriculture is the principal pursuit of the popu-
lation the situation that results is serious.
Barely sixth OF the population Of the Emerald
Isle Is still able to speak the ancient Irish lam
guage. and almost all of this small fraction can
speak English, too. when 1t is required; but
there are many enthusiasts who hope to save
the language from extinction. Mr. Johnson
found schoolmaster in Luckawn who taught
sixty boys and girls in a single small room
He was one OF the enthusiasts and had COM
posed speech and a poem in Gaelic which he
intended to deliver at the annual Irish festival
at Dublin, and which he read TO Mr. Johnson.
The educational methods in vogue in the coun-
try districts Of Ireland impressed the author as
rudimentary. The principles which the text
books were constructed occult TO be
readily conprehended. OF one Of them we are
told:
On page 5 found that time honored
statement, The cat has a rat beginning a
paragraph that went and seemingly spoke
OF the rat thus: Can ii be Sam or Pat? 1t is
sam. The reason why it Sam and not
sentences, which affirmed that Pat had on a
hat He sat on a mat If that does not satisfy
you that Pat was not the rat, what will?
We learn that much of the poverty that has
devastated Ireland and still devastates her so
wofully is due to the drunkenness that has pre-
vailed there, though this vice is by no means so
common since the days of Father Mathew-who
founded the Father Mathew Total Abstinence
Society-as it before Previous TO his time
drunkenness lacked little Of being esteemed
positive virtue in Ireland"
Among the higher classes the host who suf-
fered one Of his guests to leave his table sober
would have bSen considered mean and inhospi-
table. Ingenious devices were invented for com
pelling intoxication. such as glasses and bottles
so formed that they could not stand and must
be emptied before they were laid on the table
II IL was thought in the good old times" that a
guest would be able to mount his horse without
assistance, he was presented al the door with a
quart glass which he was forced TO drain seldom
against mis- will. The lower classes were
by means behind the gentry in their love of
strong drink. and few of their popular songs
were without some reference whiskey. while
its praise was the sole theme of many of their
dtties.
Father Mathews crusade put different COM
plexion public opinion and drove many
breweries and distilleries out of business.
The fairy tales and folk lore of Ireland are
quite q par with many religious superstitions
that still survive there and Mr.. Johnson came
across some curious examples of each. Here is
a fable told him by old woman in whose hut
he had taken refuge from a shower dt seems
always to have been raining while he in
Ireland):
There q man an he workin' in a
field like and it to thunder and he
put his head in a hole in the wall. and he said,
'-God save what's out o. me-" But he ought to
sooner said that than the wall fell and took his
head clean off. 1t telled to that this
a judgmint the crathur, because 1t is not
right to pray small, just for yoursilf But you
should pray large-to save us all-pray big and
open hearted. But that may be only story, sir.