Hard drinking and some verses about it.

Toping Seventy Years Ago.

It did not need the example of the Duke of Rutland to make hard drinking the fashion in Ireland. The anecdote, “Had you any assistance in drinking this dozen of wine?” “Yes, I had the assistance of a bottle of brandy,” gives an idea of the extent to which the practice reached. Few songs were sung save those in praise of wine and women. Judge Day’s brother, Archdeacon Day, wrote a popular song called “One Bottle More.” But Baron Dawson of the Exchequer threw him into the shade, and wrote a famous song in eight stanzas, beginning

“Ye good fellows all,

Who love to be told where there’s claret good store,

Attend to the call of one who’s ne’er frighted,

But greatly delighted with six bottles more!

“Be sure yell don’t pass the good house Monyglass,

Which the jolly red god so peculiarly owns.

‘Twill well suit your humour, For pray what would you more,

Than mirth with good claret and bumpers, Squire Jones?”

Curran sung:-

My boys, be chaste till you ‘re tempted;

While sober be wise and discreet;

And humble your bodies with fasting,

Whene’er you ‘ve got nothing to eat.”

“It was an almost invariable habit at convivial meetings,” observes an informant, “to lock the door lest any frend should depart. The window was then opened, and the key flung into the lawn, where it could not be again round without much difficulty. An Irish piper was stationed behind the door, where he jerked forth planxty after planxty as the toasts progressed. A certain baronet used to knock the shanks off each guest’s glass, to necessitate draining it to the bottom before he could lay it down again. Gallons of buttered claret were drunk, and morning found the convivialists lying under the table in heaps of bodily and mental imbecility.”

The late Dr Henry Fulton informed us that he heard from Mr Dawson, one of the Volunteer Convention of 1782, and afterwards Chairman of Armagh, the two following anecdotes, illustrative of Irish conviviality in the last century:-

Sir William Johnson and his friend Dawson were invited out to dine. Some time after dinner Sir William came to him and said: “Dawson, am I very drunk?” “No,” said the other; “why so?” “Because,” said the baronet, “I can’t find the door.” It would have been hard for him, for the host had a mock bookcase which moved on a spring, and when required closed up the entrance. After making another trial, Sir William gave it up, and quietly resumed his seat. Dawson escaped out of a window, got up-stairs to a sleeping apartment, and knowing that all the party would remain for the night, bolted the door and barricaded it with all the furniture he could remove. Next morning lie found two of the gentlemen in bed with him, who had effected an entrance through a panel of the door.

No gentleman thought of paying his debts, and the extensive house of Aldridge, Adair, and Butler, wine merchants in Dublin, sent a clerk to Connaught to collect money due to the firm. The clerk returned, protesting that he was half dead with *feasting, *but could get no money. Robin Adair then personally went down, and arrived at the house of his principal debtor just in time for dinner, and found a large party assembled. In the course of the evening the following was composed and sung:-

“Welcome to Foxhall sweet Robin Adair.

How does Tom Butler do,

And John Aldridge, too?

Why did they not come with you,

Sweet Robin Adair?”

It is almost needless to add that he, too, returned without the debt.

To compensate for bad debts, a large margin for profit was fixed by the Dublin wine merchants of that day.

“Claret,” writes Barrington, “was at that time about £18 the hogshead, if sold for ready rhino; if on credit, the law, before payment, generally mounted it to £200, besides bribing the sub-sheriff to make his return, and swear that Squire … . had ‘neither *body *nor *goods.’ *It is a remarkable fact, that formerly scarce a hogshead of claret crossed the bridge of Banagher for a country gentleman, without being followed within two years by an attorney, a sheriff’s officer, and a *‘receiver of all his rents, *who generally carried back securities for £500.” In the *Irish Quarterly Review, *vol. ii., p.331, is quoted a French author’s description of Holybrook, county Wicklow, the seat of Robin Adair, *“Si famaux dans nombre des chansons.” *He was probably the head of the wine firm referred to by Dr. Fulton. Another Adair, equally noted for bacchanalian lived at Kilternan.

“Were I possess’d of all the chink

That was conquer’d by Cortez, Hernan,

I’d part with it all for one good drink

With Johnny Adair of Kilternan.

The soldiers may drink to their Cumberland brave,

The sailors may drink to their Vernon,

Whilst all merry mortals true happiness have

With Johnny Adair of Kilternan.”

Owen Bray, of Loughlinstown, also figures in more than one song:-

“Were ye full of complaints from the crown to the toe,

A visit to Owen’s will cure you of woe;

A buck of such spirits ye never did know,

For let what will happen, they’re always in flow;

When he touched up *Ballen a Mona, *oro,

The joy of that fellow for me.”

Drinking clubs fanned the flame of political agitation and sectarian bitterness then so rife. One of these pandemoniums stood in Werburgh Street, where many a man with, as a song of the day has it,

“a goodly estate,

And would to the Lord it was ten times as great,”

drank himself to delirium, death, and beggary. The spirit of the times is shown in one of the club, who, having pitched a basin of filthy fluid from the window, which was hailed by a shriek below, exclaimed, “If you are a Protestant I beg your pardon respectfully; but if you’re a Papist *(hic,) *take it and bad luck to you !” [Tradition communicated by F. T. P-, Esq.]

The County Kildare was not second to Wicklow or Dublin in convivial indulgence. Some years ago, as we stood among the ruins of Clonshambo House, a song commemorative of its former occupant was chanted:-

“‘Twas past one o’clock when Andrew got up,

His eyes were as red as a flambeau;

Derry down, my brave boys, let us sleep until eve,

Cried Andrew Fitz-Gerald of Clonshambo.”

The windows of old Clonshambo House looked into a churchyard, which ought, one would think, to have preached a more salutary homily to the convivialists than the event seems to have proved4 Adjoining it is a crumbling wall glassed, and displaying many a sturdy old neck with the cork still lodged in it.

The judges of the land, vulgarly regarded as almost infallible, were no better than their neighbours, and the phrase, “as sober as a judge,” must for a time have fallen into disuse. Baron Monckton, being often *vino deditus, *as we are assured by Barrington, usually described the segment of a circle in making his way to the seat of justice. Judge Boyd, whose face, we are told, resembled “a scarlet pincushion well studded,” possessed a similar weakness; and a newspaper, in praising his humanity, said that when passing sentence of death, it was observable that “he seldom failed to have a *drop *in his eye.” Of the first judge named it might be said, as of the Geraldines, *Ipsis Ilibernis Hiberniores, *for Baron Monckton was imported from the English Bar.

John Egan, the chairman of Kilmainham, drank hard; and some clients, anxious to secure his professional services, made a stipulation with him, that no wine was to be drunk previous to the defence. Egan agreed, but casuistically evaded the engagement, by eating large quantities of bread soaked in wine.

Hard drinking continued fashionable in Ireland within the last 40 years. A late eminent polemic habitually drank, without ill effects, a dozen glasses of whisky toddy at a sitting. Bushe, on being introduced to the late Con. Leyne of the Irish Bar, asked “Are you any relation to Con of the Hundred Battles?” “This is Con of the Hundred Bottles,” interposed Lord Plunket.

A well-known person, named Led---ge, who lived at Bluebell, having met a favourite boon companion, was induced by him to partake of some refreshment at an inn, where he speedily consumed 16 tumblers of punch.

He was rising to leave, when the friend suggested that he should “make up the twenty.” “The parish priest is to dine with me,” replied Led---ge, “and I should not wish him to see the sign of liquor on me.”

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