Irish bulls, Sir Boyle Roche, Clerical anecdotes.

Chapter XVI

Irish bulls - Sayings of Sir Boyle Roche - Plutarch’s Lives -A Grand Jury’s decision - Clerical anecdotes and biblical difficulties - A harmless lunatic - Dangerous recruits -Tom Burke - Some memorials to the Board of Works.

Of Irish bulls there is no end. Some have become household words, as, for example, Sir Boyle Roche’s: “A man couldn’t be in two places at once, barring he was a bird.” There are others of his not so well known.

In the Irish House of Commons in 1795, during a debate on the” leather tax, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Parnell, observed “that in the prosecution of the present war, every man ought to be ready to give his last guinea to protect the remainder.”

Mr. Vandeleur said that “however that might be, a tax on leather would press heavily on the barefooted peasantry of Ireland.” To which Sir Boyle Roche replied that this could be easily removed by making the under leathers of wood.

In speaking in favour of the Union, he said that one of its effects would be “that the barren hills would become fertile valleys.”

In another debate he said, “I boldly answer in the affirmative. No!”

In mentioning the Cape, he said that “myrtles were so common there, that they make birch brooms of them.”

I am not sure whether it was he who in one of his speeches said, “You should refrain from throwing open the flood-gates of democracy lest you should pave the way for a general conflagration.”

He once mentioned some people who “were living from hand to mouth like the birds of the air.”

Sir Richard Steele, another well-known Irishman, was asked by an English friend how it was that Irishmen were so remarkable for making bulls. “I believe,” said he, “it is something in the air of the country; and I dare say if an Englishman was born here, he would do the same.”

Tom Moore used to tell a story that when he was staying, as a boy, with an uncle at Sandymount, as they walked into Dublin early one morning, they found a dead highwayman lying on the road, who had evidently been shot during the night by some one whom he had attacked. There was a small bullet-hole in his right temple. An old woman was looking at him. “Gentlemen,” said she, “isn’t it the blessing of God it didn’t hit him in the eye.” This is mentioned in some life of Moore.

Some people were laughing at an Irishman who won a race for saying, “Well, I’m first at last.” “You needn’t laugh,” said he; “sure, wasn’t I behind before?”

The following conversation was heard in the Fenian times some years ago:- *

Tom. *“These are terrible times, Bill.”

*Bill. *“Bedad, they are, Tom; it’s a wondher if we’ll get out of the world alive.”

*Tom. *“I’m afeard we won’t, even if we had as many lives as Plutarch.”

*Bill. *“If Oliver Cromwell could only come up out of hell, he’d soon settle it.”

*Tom. *“Bedad, maybe he’d rather stop where he Is.

In the coffee-room at an hotel in Dublin an Irish gentleman said to a friend who was breakfasting with him, “I’m sure that is my old college friend West at that table over there.” “Then why don’t you go over and speak to him?” said his friend. “I’m afraid to,” said the other; “for he is so very shy, that he would feel quite awkward if it wasn’t he.”

It was Caulfield, an Irishman who succeeded Marshall Wade as manager of roads in Scotland, who wrote and posted up in the Highlands the famous lines -

“Had you seen these roads before they were made,

You’d lift up your hands and bless Marshall Wade.”

About 70 years ago the grand jury of the county of Tipperary passed the following resolutions:-

“1st. That a new court house shall be built.

“2nd. That the materials of the old court house be used in building the new court house.

“3rd. That the old court house shall not be taken down till the new court house is finished.”

Here is a bull, or rather a mixed metaphor, which appeared in an English newspaper. In a leading article in the *Morning Post, *in 1812, occurs the following passage:- ” We congratulate ourselves most on having torn off Cobbett’s mask and revealed his cloven foot. It was high time that the hydra-head of faction should be soundly rapped over the knuckles.”

It was a Scotchman - Professor Wilkie, I think -who said to a boy whom he met, “I was sorry to hear that there was fever in your family last spring. Was it you or your brother that died of it?” “It was me, sir,” said the boy.

A barrister defending a prisoner in Limerick said, “Gentlemen of the jury, think of his poor mother - his only mother.”

The following was told me many years ago. Some young fellows in the navy shaved the bead of a brother officer, an Irishman, when he was drunk, and put him to bed. He had previously given orders that he was to be called at five in the morn mg, and was accordingly called at that hour. When he looked in the glass and saw an appearance so unlike what he expect&d, “Hang me,” said he, “if they haven’t called the wrong man!”

The present County Surveyor of Cork, Mr Kirkby, is a graduate of Cambridge, and sometimes writes “M. A. Cantab” after his name. At Road Sessions a rate-payer said to another, “That Mr. Kirkby must be a very clever chap, for sure he is a Cantab of Oxford.”

A neighbour of mine said that a very fine horse he had bought a few days previously had gone lame. “What is the matter with him?” asked a Mr. T---.

“I am greatly afraid he has got the vernacular,” said he (of course he meant navicular). “Dear me!” said T---,“I never heard of any quadruped having that disease, except Balaam’s ass.”

As I have given some stories of the Bench Bar, it would be scarcely fair to ignore the Church, so I shall insert a few anecdotes of clergymen.

My father, arrayed in knee-breeches, shovel hat, and apron, was walking home in a hard frost one Sunday afternoon from the Chapel Royal, at Dublin Castle, where he had preached. As he went along the footway round St. Stephen’s Green, where in frosty weather boys always make slides, he accidentally got on one, slid along it, and came down on his knees, bursting his inexpressibles. An old woman who was passing addressed him in these words: “Isn’t it a shame for you, you old blackguard, to be making slides to knock decent people down? It’s what you ought to be tuck up by the police.”

I told this story to Thackeray, and shortly after wards saw a little drawing in *Punch *illustrating it.

Many years ago, in St. Catherine’s Church, in Dublin, I heard a sermon preached by a Mr. Coghlan, a queer-looking, fat old man, with a very round red face, and snow-white hair. He had been speaking on the virtue of charity, and ended his discourse thus: “And now I implore each one of you to put to himself or herself this vital question, ‘Am I in love?”’ then, after a pause, and turning to the right, “Am I in love?” then turning to the left “Am I in love - and charity with all men?” But before he came to “charity with all men” there went a very audible titter through the congregation.

Of the same sort was the sermon of an old gentleman, formerly curate of St. Mark’s parish in Dublin. He was preaching on the final separation of the bad from the good, and had taken for his text, “He shall set the sheep on His right hand, the goats on the left.” He finished his sermon in the following words: “And now, my beloved brethren, I beseech each and every one of you, rich and poor, young and old, man and woman, before you go to bed this night, to put to yourselves this all important question, ‘Am I a sheep, or am I agoat?’”

My friend, the Rev. W. F. Boyle, told me that when speaking to a boy, whom he found herding pigs in a field, on the impropriety of never attending Sunday school, he waxed quite eloquent in his admonitions, and thought from the earnest look in the boy’s eyes that he had made a deep impression. He paused for a reply, when the boy said, “Well, your raverence, pigs is the divil for rootin’.” The earnest look, which Boyle had mistaken for attention to his advice, was in reality fixed on some of his pigs which were rooting in a far-off corner of the field.

Something of the same kind happened to the late Cardinal Cullen, who, when taking a walk by himself in the country one Sunday afternoon, saw a boy in a field holding a goat by a rope, when the following dialogue took place:- *

Cardinal. *“Were you at Mass to-day, my boy?”

*Boy. *“No, I wasn’t.”

*Cardinal. *“Why not?”

*Boy. *“I was houlding the goat.”

*Cardinal. *“Were you at Mass last Sunday?”

*Boy. *“No, I wasn’t.”

*Cardinal. *“Do you ever go to Mass at all?”

*Boy. *“No, I don’t. Don’t I tell you I do be houlding the goat?”

*Cardinal. *“But couldn’t you sometimes get some one else to hold it?”

*Boy. *“No, I couldn’t. You don’t know that goat. The divil couldn’t’ hould that goat; you couldn’t hould that goat yourself.”

A clergyman in the county of Clare, much given to drawing the long bow, had quarrelled with the squire of the parish, on whose land was the best well in the country. One very dry summer, 50 years ago, all the other streams and wells in that part of the country were dried up, and the poor clergyman could get water nowhere, and said to a friend, “You can fancy the straits I am put to; last Sunday morning I had to shave with sherry.”

The late Archdeacon Russell had a very noisy servant, whom he was obliged often to correct for the noise she made at her work. Very early one morning as he was coming downstairs, there was a great clattering in the drawing-room, and he heard the servant saying, “Bad luck to you! you’re the noisest fire-irons I ever handled.”

A strange parson, officiating in a country church in the absence of the rector, to his horror saw the gentleman who had handed the plate, when returning it to him, slip a half-crown off and put it into his waistcoat pocket. Immediately after the service he told the sexton to request the gentleman to come to him to the vestry room. When he came he said to him, “Sir, I never was so shocked and pained in my life. I distinctly saw you, sir, abstract a half-crown from the plate and put it into your pocket.” “Of course you did,” replied the man; “here it is. I always do so. You see when I get the plate, before I begin to hand it round, I always place a half crown on it, in order to induce people to give more than they otherwise would, and I afterwards remove it as you saw me do.”

When I was a boy I recollect my father coming home and telling us of an old lady he had been visiting, who, just as he came into the room, stirred the fire, by which she was sitting, and sent a cloud of sparks up the chimney. “Ay, ay,” she said, “‘man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards;’ though indeed, sir, I never could see what trouble the sparks have in flying upwards.”

I am not sure whether it was the same lady who asked a clergyman how it was that Solomon was permitted to have 700 wives, not to mention the 300 other ladies. He explained to her that the manners and customs of those times were quite different from those of the present day. “Dear me,” she said, “what privileges those early Christians had!”

There was an old blind lady in Dublin who used to have a little girl to read aloud to hen She was reading that part of the Book of Exodus where the building of the tabernacle is described. In reading the verse which says the roof is to be covered with badger’s skins, the girl read aloud, “And a covering of beggar’s skins.” “What did you say, child?” said the old lady. “Beggar’s skins, ma’am,” said the girl. “Oh dear! oh dear!” said the old lady, “weren’t those terrible times when it was just ‘up with the beggar and off with his skin’!”

There are many stories of the witty priests in old times; I shall only mention two.

A farmer asked the well-known Father Tom Maguire what a miracle was. He gave him a very full explanation, which, however, did not seem quite to satisfy the farmer, who said-”Now, do you think, your raverence, you could give me an example of miracles?”

“Well,” said Father Tom, “walk on before me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

As he did so he gave him a tremendous kick behind.

“Did you feel that?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t I feel it?” said the farmer, rubbing the damaged place. “Begorra, I did feel it, sure enough.”

“Well,” said Father Tom, “it would be a miracle if you didn’t.”

Curran said to Father O’Leary (the wittiest priest of his day), “I wish you were St. Peter.” “Why?” asked O’Leary. “Because,” said Curran, “you would have the keys of heaven, and could let me in.” “It would be better for you,” said O’Leary, “that I had the keys of the other place, for then I could let you out.”

In catechising a little girl the clergyman asked her “What is the outward and visible sign in baptism?” “The babby, please, sir,” said she.

Another on being asked what an epistle was, said, “The feminine of an apostle.”

A short time ago a lady told me that in examining her class of boys in Bray, she asked one of them what John the Baptist meant by “fruits meet for repentance.” He answered, “Apples and nuts, hams, gains, and pigs’ cheeks.” She was angry with him, thinking he was making fun; but on questioning him she found he was quite serious, and thought that the Baptist meant that they were to bring him fruits and meat to show their repentance (as he was rather tired of locusts and wild honey), and the fruits and meats best known to the boy were those he mentioned.

A clergyman explaining to some boys the passage in Scripture, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,” told them that this very strong expression was meant to show extreme difficulty, “for you know it would be quite impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” “Of course it would, sir, on account of its humps,” said one of the boys.

In connection with the Board of Works I held the office of Commissioner of Control of Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. On my first visit to Mullingar Asylum I was accompanied by Doctor Nugent (now Sir John Nugent), also a commissioner. As we went through the house, with the resident doctor, we saw in the day room, amongst other patients, a pleasing looking elderly man, on each of whose legs was a hay rope wound above, below, and round the knee. On our entering the room he said -

“Gentlemen, I understand you are here on behalf of the Government. If so, I have a very serious complaint to make.”

We asked him what it was.

“It is,” said he, “that for the last three days I have had nothing to eat.”

The doctor called up the principal attendant, a large, fresh-looking young man. We asked him whether this was true.

“No,” he said; “the gentleman gets as much as any one in the house, and has a great appetite.”

“Gentlemen,” said our friend, “I admit that I have a good appetite; but it is worse than useless to me, while this chubby, rosy-cheeked rascal eats everything I am supposed to get. Just look at him, gentlemen; see how fat he is growing on my food.”

“Well,” said the doctor, come to tea with this evening, and you shall have plenty of tea and cake and bread and butter.”

“Are you in earnest, doctor?” said he.

“I am, indeed,” said the doctor.

“Then, gentlemen,” said our friend, “I have much pleasure in withdrawing the charge I have made.”

The poor man had been a Roman Catholic priest, and was continually at his devotions, and tied the hay ropes *(suggauns) *round his legs, to save his trousers from being worn out by the constant kneeling. He was perfectly harmless, and before the following Christmas was allowed out of the asylum to live with his brother, who held a large farm, and who had, amongst other things, a peculiar and valuable breed of turkeys, of which he was proud. He had 22 of them, and on Christmas morning, on going into the fowl-house, he found every one of them dead. On inquiry, his brother confessed that he had got up very early in the morning and cut off their heads, as he thought they were to be cooked for the Christmas dinner. He had no opportunity of doing further damage on the farm, as he was at once sent back to the asylum.

The following I heard from Sir John Nugent. During the Crimean War a considerable sum as bounty was given to recruits on enlisting. A recruiting sergeant one morning enlisted two men in Queen Street in Dublin, gave them their bounty, and repaired with them to the Royal Oak public-house on the Quays, where they spent their money like men, drinking, and treating every soldier who came in. In the afternoon, when all the bounty was expended, the sergeant told them that they were now to go with him to the Royal Barracks.

“But” said one of them, “maybe you don’t know what we are.”

“Come along,” said the sergeant. “What does it matter what you were? you are soldiers now.”

“But” said the other, “maybe you don’t know that we are lunatics - and dangerous lunatics, too. We got out of Richmond Asylum last night.”

The sergeant did not believe them, and a row had begun, when the police came in and interposed, and persuaded the sergeant to take them up to the asylum and test the truth of what they had said. So up they went, and great was the joy of the officials there when they appeared, for they were indeed dangerous lunatics who had escaped.

Amongst a few perquisites which the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland enjoy are a buck and a doe every year from the royal herd in the Phoenix Park. I had written some years ago to the deerkeeper to send me my buck on the following Tuesday. On that morning, as I was dressing, my servant came to my room and said -

The man is below, sir, with a haunch of venison.”

“Go down;’ I said, “and see whether he has all the venison.”

He returned saying that the man had got only the haunch.

“Go down and tell him to go back at once for the rest of the animal, and say that I am greatly annoyed at having been sent only a haunch.”

He returned with the haunch in his hand, saying, “The man says, sir, that that was all he was told to leave.”

I looked at the label on the venison, and found it was a present from Lord Powerscourt. I ran downstairs as fast as I could to try to catch the messenger. Luckily he had not gone. I endeavoured to explain the mistake I had made. He did not seem quite to take it in, for he said -

“I have another haunch, sir, but I was told to leave it at Mr. Brewster’s; but, if you think his lordship won’t be displeased, I’ll leave it with your honour, if you think you ought to have it.”

The following letter, which shows the confidence Galway men have in each other, is perhaps worth inserting here. I received it from the late Tom Burke, then Under-Secretary for Ireland, with a note to say that he had referred the writer to us, as we, and not he, had the entire control over the deer in the Phoenix Park. For obvious reasons I have omitted the address.

”… … … .,

“December 18, 1879.

“Dear Sir,

Will you kindly excuse me as a Galway man, acquainted with a few, at least, of your friends, if I trouble you by inquiring how I could procure a small bit of venison against Christmas Day. I understand the matter is very easy to those who have either friends or acquaintances in the park; but though I cannot presume to count you amongst either, still as a namesake and a native of the same county I make bold to write you what otherwise would be a very presumptuous letter.

“I could easily send for the venison if I knew where to get it.

“Pray excuse my novel request.

“Your obedient servt,

“Robt. Burke.”

“Right Hon. T. U. Burke.”

Tom Burke was a very old and dear friend of mine, and was one of a little club of 12 members who for some years dined once a month at each other’s houses, and among whom were my brother and myself. I never can forget my grief and horror when on Sunday morning, the 7th of May, 1882, the sergeant of police in Enniskerry came to my house and told me that he and Lord Frederick Cavendish had on the previous evening been murdered in the Phoenix Park. I felt it all the more as I had been talking to them both but a few hours before their death. From Lord Frederick I had received much* kindness while he was *Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and I had hoped to see much of him as Chief Secretary here.

Our secretary often got amusing letters, particularly from farmers who were borrowers under the Land Improvement Acts. Here is one which came from a man who had been refused a second instalment of a loan because he had misapplied the first.

“Sir,

“I spent the money all right; send me the rest, and don’t be humboling me any more. Send it at once, I tell ye. Hell to your souls! send me my money, or I’ll write to Mr. Parnell about it.

“Yours affectionately,

“James Ryan.”

I suppose most of the letters Ryan received were from relations in America, and seeing that they said “affectionately,” he thought that was the correct word to use.

Another from a man in like circumstances was as follows:-

“Honoured Sir,

“I send you these few lines, hoping that you are in the enjoyment of good health, as I am, thanks be to God, at this present writing. I write also to let you know that you are a disgrace to common society, and that you had better send me the money you owe me at once, or you’ll hear more about it.

“Yours, honoured sir,

“David Carroll.”

Here is one other. It is from a small farmer, who had in his hands the balance of a loan (£8), which he would neither expend nor refund. After many fruitless endeavours to make him do one or the other, a peremptory letter was sent to him, saying that if he did not within a week repay the amount, the Board’s solicitor would be directed to take proceedings at once against him for its recovery. He replied as follows:

“My Dear Secretary and Gentlemen of the Honourable Board of Works,

“Asking me to give back £8 is just like asking a beautiful and healthy young lady for a divorce, and she in the oughtmost love with her husband, as I am with each and every one of ye.

“I am, your sincere friend,

James Clarke.”

The enforcement of the fishery laws in Ireland was, some years ago, one of the duties of our Board. We constantly received memorials from people summoned for, or convicted of breaches of those laws. The following is one of them:-

“Balinamana west, Sept. 19, 1869.

To ye most worship Gentlemen Commisioners of the Public Works of ireland.

“The Memorial of Thomas and Ann Egan and Margaret Egan

“Most humbly showeth, my lords, that this memorialist states to your worships that on the shore of Balinamana west leading with the public oyster bank Thomas Egan left few hundred oysters steeping on the lower shower last season, and could not lift them until the season was out. The water Bailiff passed by and found few small oysters close there which he summoned to oranmore Petty Sessions. his two little daughters was seeking for some cockels along the shore which he says found few small oysters with them which he summoned also. The court will open on thursday next. this memorialist begs to take leave to your worships most presious time hoping as they are most distressed creatures and a father of 12 in a weak family of helpless children and innocent of any charge and was not aware of any by-law act they confidently and most humbly crave and implore your worship will order them to be acquited of the first charge of the kind or to be imprisonment will be leyd on them, as they are distressed poor creatures could not aford to no fine for which they will as in duty ever pray.”

The following story was told me by one of my colleagues at the Board of Works just before I retired two years ago:-

An Irish gentleman whom he knew had a splendid-looking cow, but she kicked so much that it took a very long time and was nearly impossible to milk her; so he sent her to a fair to be sold, and told his herd to be sure not to sell her without letting the buyer know her faults. He brought home a large price, which he had got for her. His master was surprised, and said -

“Are you sure you told all about her?” “Bedad, I did, sir!” said the herd. “He asked me whether she was a good milker? ‘Begorra, sir,’ says I,’ it’s what you’d be tired milking her!”’

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