Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1920-03-13
PoTEEN.

That poteen making IS domestic
Industry OF considerable antiquity is
a fact of history. In the Red Book
OF Ossory there Is description of
the virtues of "uisge-beatha," q
Gaelic compound, signifying the
Water of Life-and recipe for
manufacturing It from malt. When
the Anglo-Normans landed In Ire
land more than 200 years ago they
found the people, according TO their
chroniclers, adopts in the art of dis
tillation.
II is. not very CLEAR, by the way,
when the term 'poteenH--derived
from the small pot stills In which
the liquor is made-A-first. came into
general use; probably somewhere
about the middle OF the eighteenth
century. when a band of smugglers
set up large pot stills in County An
trim andslaid the foundation of the
famous Bushmills Distillery, the
oldest in Ireland. The manufacture
of uisge-beatha must have continued
to flourish during the centuries inn
mediately following the invasion,
for restrictions were at length I'M
posed upon the domestic distilling
and the sale of spirits, by the Par
lament of the Pale. 1t was charac-
5eristic of those times that while the
poor man thereafter caught in the
act of making poteen was led to the
nearest tree and hanged. the nobil-
Ity, exempt from any. penalty what
soever, could distill and drink away
to their. hearts content.
AS in the days of soap and candle
smuggling, eluding the .gauger now
became fresh bond of union be-
tween orange and green, the
Protestant planter of Ulster having
as little respect for the distilling
laws as had the Catholic Celt of
Connacht. Just a century ago the
poteen traffic had become so extern
sive, not alone in ireland but in
England and Scotland as well, that
more than half of the spirits actual
ly consumed in these countries came
from mountain caverns, lonely islets
and bogland wastes. where the po-
teen distiller. was able to eyade the
law and pursue his Illicit industry |
without fear of molestation. A reg |
ular literature-probably hurled in |
the pages of defunct- Irish maya |
zines-must have. grown .up around
the subject of poteen making few
generations ago, when the majority |
of Irish farmers were Their own dis
tillers, and many of them retailers
of unlicensed spirits-when Lever
sang:
o, l was monarch in state.
Like Romulus or Julius Caysar,
With the best of fine vittels to ate.
And drink like great Nebuchad-
!. nezzar,
A rasher of bacon I'd have.
Tho ffnnaf @ |
sir.
And for drink it's no claret I'd
crave,
But keg of old Mailen's poteen.
With the smell of the smoke on It
still.
A law was passed imposing
heavy fine on any townland In which
a poteen still was discovered. But
the artful construction of private
on the boundaries drove
The proverbial coach and four
through that statute. Stories, too.
could be told of how revenue Off
,ers used to be kidnapped and kept
n close confinement for weeks to-
gether in order to prevent their Civ
ng evidence at Petty Sessions pros
scutions. After the r. /. G. took TO
down ipoteen makers in the
iifties they would pay handsomely
or information regarding the
whereabouts of stu. Not infre-
Iuently II was the owner himself
Who would put them on the scent,
md then draw for a WORKOUT and
worthless apparatus as much Gas
10 money as would buy him new
me!