Landlord and tenantry in 1760, Hanged on his own gate.

Chapter I.

Personal Sketches &c., &c.

**Family mansion described - Library - Garden - Anecdotes of my family - State of landlord and tenant in 1760 - The gout - Ignorance of the peasantry; extraordinary anomaly in the loyalty and disloyalty of the Irish country gentlemen as to James I., Charles I., Charles II., James II., and William - Ancient toasts

• My great-grandfather, Colonel John Barrington, hanged on his own gate; but saved by Edward Doran, trooper of King James - Irish customs, anecdotes, &c.**

I was born at Knapton, near Abbeyleix, in the Queen’s Couty, at that time the seat of my father, but now of Sir George Pigott. I am the third son and fourth child of John Barrington, who had himself neither brother nor sister; and at the period of my birth my immediate connexions were thus circumstances.

My family, by ancient patents, by marriages, and by inheritance from their ancestors, possessed very extensive landed estates in Queen’s County, and had almost unlimited influence over its population, returning two members to the Irish Parliament for Ballynakill, then a close borough.

Cullenaghmore, the mansion where my ancestors had resided from the reign of James the First, was then occupied by my grandfather, Colonel Jonah Barrington. He had adopted me as soon as I was born, brought me to Cullenaghmore, and with him I resided until his death.

That old mansion, the Great House, as it was called, exhibited altogether an uncouth mass, warring with every rule of symmetry in architecture. The original castle had been demolished, and its materials converted to a much worse purpose: the front of the edifice which succeeded it was particularly ungraceful - a Saracen’s head, our creat, in coloured brickwork being its only ornament, whilst some of the rooms inside were wahscotted with brown oak, others with red deal, and some not at all. The walls of the large ball were decked, as is customary, with fishing-rods, fire-arms, stags’ horns, foxes’ brushes, powder-flasks, shot-pouches, nets, and dog-collars; here and there relieved by the extended skin of a kite or a king-fisher, nailed up in the vanity of their destroyers: that of a monstrous eagle, which impressed itself indelibly on my mind, surmounted the chimney-piece, accompanied by a card announcing the name of its slaughterer

• “Alexander Barrington” - who, not being a *rich *relation, was subsequently entertained in the Great House two years, as a compliment for his present. A large parlour on each side of the hall, the only embellishments of which were some old portraits, and a multiplicity of hunting, shooting, and racing prints, with red tape nailed round them by way of frames, completed the reception-rooms; and as I was the only child in the house, and a most inquisitive brat, every different article was explained to me.

I remained here till I was nine years old; I had no play-fellows to take off my attention from whatever I observed or was taught; and so strongly do those early impressions remain engraven on my memory, naturally most retentive, that even at this long distance of time I fancy I can see the entire place as it stood then, with its old inhabitants moving before me-their faces I most clearly recollect.

The library was a gloomy closet, and rather scantily furnished with everything but dust and cobwebs: there were neither chairs nor tables; but I cannot avoid recollecting many of the principal books, because I read such of them as 1 could comprehend, or as were amusing, and looked over all the prints in them a hundred times. While trying to copy these prints, they made an indelible impression upon me; and hence I feel confident of the utility of embellishments in any book intended for the instruction of children. I possessed many of the books long after my grandfather’s death, and have some of them still. I had an insatiable passion for reading from my earliest days, and it has occupied the greater proportion of my later life. *Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Fairy Tales, *and *The History of the Bible, *all with numerous plates, were my favourite authors and constant amusement: I believed every word of them except the fairies, and was not entirely sceptical as to those good people neither.

I fancy there was then but little variety in the libraries of most country gentlemen; and I mention as a curiosity the following volumes, several of which, as already stated, I retained many years after my grandfather and grandmother died: - *The Journals of the House of Commons; Clarendon’s History; The Spectator *and *Guardian; Killing no Murder; The Patriot King; Bailey’s Dictionary; *some of *Swift’s Works; George Falkner’s Newspapers, Quintus Curtius *in English; *Bishop Burnet; A Treatise on Tar-water, *by some bishop; *Robinson Crusoe, Hudibras; History of the Bible, *in folio; *Nelson’s Fasts and Feasts; Fairy Tales; The History of Peter Wilkins; Glums and Gouries; *somebody’s *Justice of Peace; *and a multiplicity of Farriery, Sporting, and Gardening books, &c., which I lost piecemeal, when making room for law-books - probably not half so good, but at least much more experimental.

Very few mirrors in those days adorned the houses of the country gentlemen - a couple or three shaving-glasses for the gentlemen, and a couple of pretty large dressing-glasses, in black frames, for the ladies’ use, composed, I believe, nearly the entire stock of reflectors at my grandfather’s, except tubs of spring water, which answered for the maid-servants.

A very large and productive, but not neatly dressed-up garden, adjoined the house. The white-washed stone images, the broad flights of steps up and down, the terraces, with the round fish-pond, riveted my attention, and gave an impressive variety to this garden, which I shall ever remember, as well as many curious incidents which I witnessed therein.

At the Great House all disputes amongst the tenants were then settled,

• quarrels reconciled, - old debts arbitrated: a kind Irish landlord reigned despotic in the ardent affections of the tenantry, their pride and pleasure being to obey and to support him.

But there existed a happy reciprocity of interests. The landlord of that period protected the tenant by his influence any wanton injury to a tenant being considered as an insult to the lord; and if either of the landlord’s sons were grown up, no time was lost by him in demanding satisfaction from any gentleman for maltreating even his father’s blacksmith.

No gentleman of this degree ever distrained a tenant for rent: indeed the parties appeared to be quite united and knit together. The greatest abhorrence, however, prevailed as to tithe-proctors, coupled with no great predilection for the clergy who employed them. These latter certainly were, in principle and practice, the real country tyrants of that day, and first caused the assembling of the White Boys.

I have heard it often said that, at the time I speak of every estated gentleman in the Queen’s County was *honoured *by the gout. I have since considered that its extraordinary prevalence was not difficult to be accounted for, by the disproportionate quantity of acid contained in their seductive beverage, called rum-shrub, which was then universally drunk in quantities nearly incredible, generally from suppertime till morning, by all country gentlemen, as they said, to keep down their claret.

My grandfather could not refrain, and therefore he suffered well; he piqued himself on procuring, through the interest of Batty Lodge (a follower of the family who had married a Dublin grocer’s widow), the very first importation of oranges and lemons to the Irish capital every season. Horse-loads of these, packed in boxes, were immediately sent to the Great House of Cullenaghmore; and no sooner did they arrive, than the good news of *fresh fruit *was communicated to the colonel’s neighbouring friends, accompanied by the usual invitation.

Night after night the revel afforded uninterrupted pleasure to the joyous gentry: the festivity being subsequently renewed at some other mansion, till the gout thought proper to put the whole party hors de combat - having the satisfaction of making cripples for a few months such as he did not kill.

Whilst the convivials bellowed with only toe or finger agonies it was a mere bagatelle; but when Mr. Gout marched up the country and invaded the head or the stomach, it was then called *no joke; *and Drogheda usquebaugh, the hottest-distilled drinkable liquor ever invented, was applied to for aid, and generally drove the tormentor in a few minutes to his former quarters. It was, indeed, counted a specific; and I allude to it he more particularly, as my poor grandfather was finished thereby.

It was his custom to sit under a very large branching bay-tree in his arm-chair, placed in a fine sunny aspect at the entrance of the garden. I particularly remember his cloak, for I kept it 12 years after his death: it was called a *cartouche *cloak, from a famous French robber who, it was said, invented it for his gang for he purposes of evasion. It was made of very fine broadcloth, of a bright blue colour on one side and a bright scarlet on the other, so that on being turned it might deceive even a vigilant pursuer.

There my grandfather used to sit of a hot sunny day, receive any rents he could collect, and settle any accounts which his indifference on that head permitted him to think of.

At one time he suspected a young rogue of having slipped some money off his table when paying rent; and, therefore, when afterwards the tenants began to count out their money, he used to throw the focus of his large reading-glass upon their hands - the smart, without any visible cause, astonished the ignorant creatures! they shook their hands, and thought it must be the devil who was scorching them. The priest was let into the secret: he seriously told them all it *was *the devil, who had mistaken them for the fellow that had stolen the money from the colonel; but that if he (the priest) was *properly considered, *he would say as many masses as would bother 50 devils, were it necessary. The priest got his fee; and another farthing never was taken from my grandfather.

He was rather a short man, with a large red nose, strong made, and wore an immense white wig, such as the portraits give to Dr. Johnson. He died at 86 years of age, of shrub-gout and usquebaugh, beloved and respected. I cried heartily for him; and then became the favourite of my grandmother, the best woman in the world, who went to reside in Dublin and prepare me for college.

Colonel John Barrington, my great-grandfather, for some time before his death, and after I was born, resided at Ballyroan. My grandfather having married Margaret, the daughter of Sir John Byrne, Bart., had taken to the estates and mansion, and gave an annuity to my great-grandfather, who died, 104 years old, of a fever, having never shewn any of the usual decrepitudes or defects of age - he was the most respectable man by tradition of my family, and for more than 70 years a Parliament man.

Sir John Byrne, Bart., my maternal great-grandfather, lived at his old castle Timogee, almost adjoining my grandfather Barrington: his domains, close to Stradbally, were nearly the most beautiful in the Queen’s County. On his decease his widow, Lady Dorothea Byrne, an Englishwoman, whose name had been Warren, I believe a grandaunt to the late Lady Bulkley, resided there till her death, having previously seen her son give one of the first and most deeply to be regretted instances of what is called forming English connexions. Sir John Byrne, my granduncle, having gone to England, married the heiress of the Leycester family. The very name of Ireland was then odious to the English gentry; and previous terms were made with him, that his children should take the cognomen of Leycester, and drop that of Byrne; that he should quit Ireland, sell all his paternal estates there, and become an Englishman. He assented; and the last Lord Shelburne purchased, for less than half their value, all his fine estates, of which the Marquis of Lansdown is now the proprieton

After the father’s death the son became, of course, Sir Peter Leycester, the predecessor of the present Sir John Fleming Leycester: thus the family of Byrne, descended from a long line of Irish princes and chieftains, condescended to become little amongst the rank of English commoners; and so ended the connexion between the Byrnes and Barringtons.

My mother was the daughter of Patrick French, of Peterswell, County of Galway, wherein he had large estates: my grandmother, his wife, was one of the last remaining to the first house of the ancient O’Briens. Her brother, my great-uncle Donatus, also emigrated to England, and died 15 or 16 years since at his mansion, Blatherwick, in Cheshire, in a species of voluntary obscurity, inconsistent with his birth and large fortune. He left great hereditary estates in both countries to the enjoyment of his *mistress, *excluding the legitimate branches of his family from all claims upon the manors or demesnes of their ancestors. The law enabled him to do what a due sense of justice and pride would have interdicted.

The anomaly of political principles among the Irish country gentlemen at that period was very extraordinary. They professed what they called *“unshaken loyalty;” *and yet they were unqualified partisans of Cromwell and William, two decided usurpers - one of them having dethroned his father-in-law, and the other decapitated his king.

The fifth of November was celebrated in Dublin for the preservation of a Scottish King from gunpowder in London: then the thirtieth of January was much approved of by a great number of Irish, as the anniversary of making his son, Charles the First, shorter by the head; and then the very same Irish celebrated the restoration of Charles the Second, who was twice as bad as his father; and whilst they rejoiced in putting a crown upon the head of the son of the King who could not quietly keep his own head on, they never failed to drink bumpers to the memory of *Old Noll, *who had cut that king’s head off. To conclude, in order to commemorate the whole story, and make their children remember it, they dressed up a fat calf’s head on every anniversary of King Charles’s throat being cut, and with a smoked ham placed by the side of it, all parties partook thereof most happily, washing down the emblem and its accompaniment with as much claret as they could hold.

Having thus proved their loyalty to James the First, and their attachment to his son’s murderer, and then their loyalty to one of his grandsons, to another of whom they were disloyal, they next proceeded to celebrate the birthday of William of Orange, a Dutchman, who turned their king, his father-in-law, out of the country, and who, in all probability, would have given the Irish another calf’s head for their celebration, if his said father-in-law had not got out of the way with the utmost expedition, and gone to live upon charity in France, with the natural enemies of the British nation.

One part of the Irish people then invented a toast, called “The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of William the Dutchman;” whilst another raised a counter toast, called “The memory of the chestnut horse,” that broke the neck of the same King William. [King William’s neck was not broken; but it was said that he got a fall from a chestnut horse which hurt him inwardly, and hastened his dissolution.] But in my mind, if I am to judge of past times by the corporation of Dublin, it was only to coin an excuse for getting loyally drunk as often as possible, that they were so enthusiastically fond of *making sentiments, *as they called them. [Could his majesty, King William, learn in the other world that he has been the cause of more broken heads and drunken men since his departure, than all his predecessors, he must be the proudest ghost and most conceited skeleton that ever entered the gardens of Elysium]

As to the politics of my family, we had, no doubt, some very substantial reasons for being both Cromwellians and Williamites: the one confirmed our grants, and the other preserved them for us: my family, indeed, had certainly not only those, but other very especial reasons to be pleased with King William; and though he gave them nothing, they kept what they had, which might have been lost but for his usurpation.

During the short reign of James the Second in Ireland, those who were not for him were considered to be against him, and, of course, were subjected to the seventies and confiscations usual in all civil wars. Amongst the rest my great-grandfather, Colonel John Barrington, being a Protestant and having no predilection for King James, was ousted from his mansion and estates at Cullenaghmore by one O’Fagan, a Jacobite wigmaker and violent partisan from Ballynakill. He was, notwithstanding, rather respectfully treated, and was allowed £40 a year so long as he behaved himself.

However, he only behaved well for a couple of months; at the end of which time, with a party of his faithful tenants, he surprised the wigmaker, turned him out of possession in his turn, and repossessed himself of his mansion and estates.

The wigmaker having escaped to Dublin, laid his complaint before the authorities; and a party of soldiers were ordered to make short work of it, if the colonel did not submit on the first summons.

The party demanded entrance, but were refused, and a little firing from the windows of the mansion took place. Not being, however, tenable, it was successfully stormed, the old gamekeeper, John Neville, killed, and my great-grandfather taken prisoner, conveyed to the drum-head at Raheenduff tried as a rebel by a certain Cornet M’Mahon, and in due form ordered to be hanged in an hour.

At the appointed time execution was punctually proceeded on; and so far as tying up the colonel to the cross-bar of his own gate, the sentence was actually put in force. But at the moment the first haul was given to elevate him, Ned Doran, a tenant of ‘the estate, who was a trooper in King James’s army rode up to the gate, himself and horse in a state of complete exhaustion. He saw with horror his landlord strung up, and exclaimed, - “Holloa! holloa! blood and ouns, boys! cut down the colonel! cut down the colonel! or ye’ll be all hanged yeerselves, ye villains of the world ye! I am straight from the Boyne Water, through thick and thin: ough, by the hokys! we’re all cut up and kilt to the devil and back agin - Jemmy’s scampered, bad luck to him, without a ‘good bye to yees!’ - or, ‘kiss my r—p!’ - or the least civility in life!”

My grandfather’s hangman lost no time in getting off, leaving the colonel slung fast by the neck to the gate posts. But Doran soon cut him down, and fell on his knees to beg pardon of his landlord, the holy Virgin, and King William from the Boyne Water.

The colonel obtained the trooper pardon, and he was ever after a faithful adherent. He was the grandfather of Lieutenant-colonel Doran, of the Irish brigade, afterwards, if I recollect rightly, of the 47th regiment - the officer who cut a German colonel’s head clean off in the mess-room at Lisbon, after dinner, with one slice of his sabre. He dined with me repeatedly at Paris about six years since, and was the most disfigured warrior that could possibly be imagined. When he left Cullenagh for the Continent, in 1783, he was as fine a clever-looking young farmer as could be seen; but he had been blown up once or twice in storming batteries, which, with a few gashes across his features, and the obvious aid of numerous pipes of wine, or something not weaker, had so spoiled his beauty, that he had become of late absolutely frightful.

This occurrence of my great-grandfather fixed the political creed of my family. On the 1st of July the orange lily was sure to garnish every window in the mansion: the hereditary petereroes scarcely ceased cracking all the evening, to glorify the victory of the Boyne Water, till one of them burst, and killed the gardener’s wife, who was tying an orange ribbon round the mouth of it, which she had stopped for fear of accidents.

The tenantry, though to a man Papists, and at that time nearly in a state of slavery, joined heart and hand in these rejoicings, and forgot the victory of their enemy while commemorating the rescue of their landlord. A hundred times have I heard the story repeated by the “Cotchers,” as they sat crouching on their hams, like Indians, around the big turf fire Their only lament was for the death of old John Neville, the gamekeeper. His name I should well remember, for it was his grandson’s wife, Debby Clarke, who nursed me.

This class of stories and incidents was well calculated to make indelible impressions on the mind of a child, and has never left mine. The old people of Ireland, like the Asiatics, took the greatest delight in repeating their legendary tales to the children, by which constant repetition their old stories became, in fact, hereditary, and I daresay neither gained nor lost a single sentence in the recital for a couple of hundred years. The massacres of Queen Elizabeth were quite familiar to them; and by an ancient custom of every body throwing a stone on the spot where any celebrated murder had been committed, upon a certain day every year, it is wonderful what mounds were raised in numerous places which no person, but such as were familiar with the customs of tire poor creatures, would ever be able to account for.

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