Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  “Good morning, Byrne,” very friendly, “and how are you getting on here?” And my grandfather spoke to him very coolly and said:

  “It is very seldom one would get on well in prison.”

  “But, Byrne,” says he, “you know you are not in prison. You are in the tower of the Castle.”

  “I know,” says my grandfather, “that I am in the tower of the Castle, but I am not at my liberty.”

  “Well,” says the stranger, “we are coming to grant you your liberty only for you to answer the few necessary questions”—that’s to inform, you know—“to answer the few necessary questions we’ll put you.”

  My grandfather told it himself—he lay back in his chair with wrath and indignation, and he says to himself. “What could I do if I had my pike and liberty!”

  But he hadn’t. They noticed he was not able to speak, and they said, one to the other: “Come on! We’ll leave Byrne to himself, and we’ll send a stranger tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” said the other, “a perfect stranger.” That would do, you know, if my grandfather would talk to a stranger.

  So the next morning a perfect stranger walked into the room, and he drew a chair, and sat down at the table, and took a paper from his pocket, and laid it on the table with a unicorn stamped on it.

  “And now, Byrne,” says he, “I have come to take your deposition,” says he, “to grant you your liberty.”

  He jumped to his feet—he was a six-foot man, they all were—he jumped to his feet and he asked the lad: “What did he mean?”

  The fellow jumped to his feet all as quick, a bit afraid of him—and he had reason to be afraid—and he says:

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean,” says my grandfather, “is not to allow you nor e’er another man on the earth for to insult my honor by forcing me to become an informer.”

  The fellow done nothing, but he darted to the door and he rang a bell, and he called to fellows and bid them bring the bolts. So they handcuffed him. They put the bolts on, and they might have let him walk down, but they didn’t, they dragged him. But I’m forgetting to tell about the doctor. The doctor sent for him, and he went to him, and bid him a hearty good welcome, and he says: “Your face didn’t deceive me.” The doctor was an United Irishman himself, and he had the opinion all right that my grandfather wouldn’t become the informer. “Goodbye now,” says he, “and your face didn’t deceive me.”

  So they took him back from the Castle down the winding stairs to the closed vehicle that they brought him in, and the two keepers packed him into it, and they brought him back to the Provost Gaol. The poet said that “the Provo’ jail was worse than Hell,” it was such a torture upon the prisoners. It was in poetry—a part of a song, don’t you know—“The Provo’ jail was worse than Hell.” They brought him back to the Provost’s, and they put him into it. They asked him no questions that night nor next, and the next day he was summoned to go to the final court-martial; they had several court-martials on him during the year, but he was never present at any of them. He never knew what passed, but this was the final, and they brought him to this, and they said everything they had to say against him for being the United Irishman, for being the rebel.

  So Judge Norbury, the notorious Judge Norbury, he sentenced him to be hanged on such a day, and gave him a good many days. He gave him a great many days, I suppose to see if he would make up his mind, if he could be moved to inform still. He asked him then had he got anything to say; and my grandfather said: “No, but God save Ireland!”

  And then God Almighty put this in his head—he bethought of the mother—he said that he wished to see his mother before he’d be hanged, but he did not ask them to send word to her nor to let her see him—he did not want the compliment—but he said he’d wished to see his mother before he’d die, and they didn’t say that they would send her word, but they did.

  There was a general over the camp that I have already told you about in Kiladuff—General Skerrett. He was the best general that ever crossed the waters to Ireland. He was the best-meaning gentleman, and the best general, and they sent to the general and told him to go and tell the widow, Mrs. Mary Byrne of Ballymanus, that her son Laurence Byrne was going to be hanged on such a date, and that she could see him if she wished; but it wasn’t through kindness to her or him they did it—they thought that maybe she’d move him, don’t you know, that he’d inform.

  So this poor general I tell you about—Oh! she prayed for him to the day of her death—she said that he rode his horse into her yard, and went to the door, and called to know was the widow, Mrs. Mary Byrne in, and she went out, and he asked her was she the person, and she said, “Yes.” And he told her—well, he beat round about, and he thought it death to tell her, but he had to tell her the news about her son going to be hanged. So she should have been a pretty stout good-nerved woman; she didn’t faint or die at all, what you’d expect she ought to do.

  So she stood it. Says he: “Your son is going to be hanged on such a date, and you’ll be allowed to see him if you wish.” He said he was very sorry for her trouble, and she the mother of eight more children. He went away—the poor gentleman went away—and he was sorry for her truly.

  So she turned in, and she sent the children, little and big as they were, around to all the neighbors, and told them what was going to occur, and again nightfall that night there was as many people around the house as would wake him if he were dead. There was a crowd gathered to sympathize with her. She prepared and sent her horse to the forge to be shod, and she prepared for Dublin to go to the King, she was that stout and brave, to go to the King to get his reprieve or to look for it anyhow.

  So she went to Kiladuff to the camp, and she called for General Skerrett, and he came on to her and told him her intention, and he gave her all encouragement and that relieved her heart, and he said: “If you be stout enough and brave enough to go to the King, he won’t refuse you.”

  So her three brothers lived here and there in Ballymanus and Killamoate, farmers, and the youngest of them preferred to go to the King. “No, no,” she says, “the King may refuse you,” she says. “You are only his uncle, but I’ll go myself, and if ever I can be let get sight of the King, he won’t refuse me.” And I suppose he wouldn’t. He wasn’t a bad king at all, King George the Third. He refused no one, I believe, of a reprieve that went to him.

  So, bedad, she prepared, and she thought to go away when she was ready—I suppose up towards the middle of the night—and the people all put against her only to wait till daylight, but she couldn’t have patience. She had to set out before day in the morning, and they advised her to go through the mountains, through Aughavanagh and the Military Road and not to go the lower road, fearing that she’d be robbed, because they might be expecting that a woman riding a horse—she rode her single horse, mind you!—the women in them days, farmers, used to ride a single horse—there was no spring cars—they used to ride a single horse, any of them was stout enough for it, and I suppose she was stout enough for anything.

  So she rode her horse away to Dublin, and, thank goodness, no one ever interrupted her, and on her way very near Dublin, when she was going near to Tallagh, she bethought of this Mr. Ponsonby—he was a member for County Wicklow, and she bethought that her husband had voted for him; and he had either the saving of two or three from the gallows in the year, and she said she’d go to try him before she’d go to the King, and so she did.

  She bid him look in his book and find her husband’s name, and he was another Laurence Byrne, and he did, and he said: “I am glad, my poor woman. I am delighted,” he says, “it come to my turn to save your son’s life.”

  So he gave her the letter and told her not to let it into anyone’s hands until she would see the Lord Lieutenant, no matter how difficult that would be. He ordered her to go to the Castle and said: “Hand this into his own hands, or he’ll never see it.” So she promised him, “never fear she would not,” and she kept her word.

&n
bsp; She fought her way to the Castle, and she had to spend three days there before she would be allowed to see the Lord Lieutenant, and only for a good gentleman that took compassion on her, I suppose she would not have got to see him at all. Well, he took compassion on her when he saw her there knocking about for three days, and he asked her in a friendly manner: “Who did she want to see, or what did she want?” He saw her knocking around, and they pushing her out—the Castle folk—for three days. So she told him her business, and she told him also if he’d get her to see the Lord Lieutenant that she’d pray for him while she lived; and he said: “If I would you’d tell on me.”

  So she says that she would not. “Keep your eye on me,” he says, “and I’ll give you a token.”

  So she followed him along the way, backwards and forwards, and when he come to the door of the office where he was he swung his arm—he was a thorough gentleman, whoever he was—to make sure of the right one. He says: “The Lord Lieutenant is in an armchair at the fire, and there’ll be a man at a desk inside the door, and he’ll put you out if you go for him, and the way you’ll be certain it is he if his face is near you,” he says, “he has a mark on the corner of one of his eyes.” Wasn’t he a very good man to do that? “He has a mark on the corner of one of his eyes,” he says, “and if you see that you may be sure it is the Lord Lieutenant himself.”

  So he went his way, and she followed him, and he gave her the token at the door, and she rushed in, and the big fellow caught her by the shoulder, and asked her how she came to be there, and what was her business. She ran by him and never let on she heard him and went to the gentleman sitting in the armchair, and she asked him and begged his pardon and asked him if it was his Excellency she was speaking to. And he told her it was, and she dropped on her knees and handed him the letter. He opened the letter and read it. “I will,” says he, “grant you your son’s life through Mr. Ponsonby. Stand up.” He was that kind.

  Oh! she prayed for him until she died.

  He told the fellow at the desk to write out so-and-so, and he did, and brought it over to the fire to him, and he signed it and he gave this document to her, and he called two fellows and they secured a car and the two went with her to the prison. They had to go to the governor of the prison and show him this document, and then the two fellows and her went on to the door of the black cell, for when he was sentenced to be hanged he was put in the black cell.

  So they opened the door of the black cell and he was lying on an old plank about a foot from the ground, and she thought he was about seven foot long he was so pale and haggard and worn-looking.

  So he looked at her for a great many seconds before he could believe his eyes that it was her, and when he saw it was the mother he jumped to his feet and whipped her in his arms and said: “Mother, I’ll die happy now when I have seen you.”

  So she told him the message she had, the grand news that he wouldn’t die at all, and very strange to tell you, he wasn’t very much rejoiced at all. He told her that he knew his companions was all shot or hanged by that time, because, you know, he was in a year and six weeks, and never knew a word about a soul, nor was let know.

  So she informed him they were not, that he was one of the worst of them himself, and there was only one or two, she said, that were gone.

  So she cheered him up, and she brought him on to the friend’s place they had in Dublin—a Heffernan family, there was one of them in Eccles Street and another in a street I can’t remember—and he was made very happy there and would not be let away for a fortnight. A doctor told him not to face the journey home for that time after his sufferings in prison, and then he came home to Ballymanus and lived to be eighty-seven years of age. And I remember him well, although I was only eight years old, but I was, I am proud to tell you, the dear child of the family.

  THE FAMINE

  GALWAY

  LADY GREGORY 1926

  The Famine; there’s a long telling in that, it is a thing will be remembered always.

  That little graveyard above, at that time it was filled up of bodies; the Union had no way to buy coffins for them. There would be a bag made, and the body put into it, that was all; and the people dying without priest, or bishop, or anything at all. But over in Connemara it was the dogs brought the bodies out of the houses, and asked no leave.

  The world is better now than what it was, for I remember the time I saw men dying out of their standing with the hunger, I seen two brothers dying in a little corner of a field, and nothing around them only the wall.

  I seen women watching the hen to lay an egg that they’d bring it into the market to get kitchen for the children, and they couldn’t put one on the fire.

  I saw three men transported for sheepstealing, and I saw twenty-eight legs of mutton taken out of the garden of one of them. To salt them they did, and to put them in a cellar in the ground. It was to New South Wales these two were sent, and they were put to work in a gold mine. And at their death there was sent back to their family four thousand pounds in money. But when it was got in no good way it did not last, it went to the bad like the froth of the stream. There was a woman in the time of the Famine and she was dying for the want of food, and she with six or seven pounds that was in sovereigns tied about her neck, and a farthing along with them. But she would not break a sovereign to take a shilling out of it. And a rat came up and ate the thread, and brought away the sovereigns to its hole, but the farthing it left outside.

  That is a true story. It is up in the mountains the woman was.

  VICTORY IN THE TIME OF FAMINE

  MICHAEL BOYLE FERMANAGH

  HENRY GLASSIE 1972

  There was a man named McBrien.

  He lived somewhere in Rossdoney, in the Point of Rossdoney as they call it.

  And he had a wife

  and five children,

  five young children.

  And they hadn’t a haet; there was no food,

  there was no food,

  and they were in a starving condition.

  And he said he’d fish;

  he’d try and fish in the Arney River,

  that run along his land,

  that was convenient to his land.

  He said he’d fish,

  try and fish to see would he get a few fish to eat

  that’d keep them from dying.

  So he did; he went out this day,

  and he caught seven fish.

  Well he went every day,

  well for a good many days.

  And he caught seven fish every day.

  And one of the children died anyway.

  And he caught six then.

  And he caught six every day.

  The number went down to six.

  Aye, I heard that too, about the time of the Famine. That happened in Rossdoney, the townland of Rossdoney, along the Arney River there.

  Now that happened; it was told anyway.

  It came down from the Famine days.

  RUINED BY POETRY

  TOMÁS Ó CRITHIN KERRY

  ROBIN FLOWER 1945

  A good number of years ago a company set out from the capital of Ireland. They had made an arrangement to collect new poems and songs new-made throughout the land. They were a league with money put together and their intention was to start out through the country and give a reward to everyone who should come with three stanzas of a song put together by himself. There was one of them set up in County Kerry, a house like a college in the middle of the town, a great big round table on one leg, and a heap of papers and books in the middle of it, clerks sitting all round it, money scattered all over it, every kind in a box of wood, and the money was to be had by everyone who liked to draw upon it, at the rate of from half a crown to a crown for every three stanzas according to their character and value.

  There were a score of tenants in this town in Kerry that they stopped in, and taken all round they had the grass of twenty cows, each one of them, and the town was quite close to the Great Lake of Killarney. Now w
hen the business of the board was settled and everything shipshape, they set the people thinking. At first it was the children of the poor folk from beyond the limits of the town that carried off the money. Then the children of the strong farmers of the town saw how things were going, that more was to be made by putting together song stanzas and poems than to be laboring on the land as they were doing; and, thinking so, these children of the strong farmers gave up working the land and fell to making songs and poems. It didn’t take long for their land to run to waste as they let it go anyhow. They didn’t care, for the man that got least would have half a crown, another would get ten shillings, while any of them that had a ready wit would lift a pound every afternoon.

  Now there was a gentleman living some way from this town, and, when he saw the passion driving the people of the town with the board in it, he saw at once that the town would soon go to ruin at this wild rate, and that the landlord wouldn’t let them get much into arrear when they wouldn’t be able to pay the rent, for the landlords were mighty hard on the people in those days. The gentleman was right enough in his conjecture, for the board and the town didn’t last long, they went at it together so wildly. The old people said that, whatever trouble this board brought on the town, nobody believed that the board got anything out of it either for the people that set it up.

  Not long after this the trouble came on the town, and they couldn’t pay rent or rate, and the landlord was particularly enraged, for he saw that it was through their own folly and carelessness in working the land that they couldn’t pay rent or rate. And the first visit he made to them was to throw them out pell-mell, leaving not a living soul of those twenty tenants in possession. Not long after their eviction, the gentleman on the other side came to the landlord with a purse of gold to pay the rent and rate, and he soon became a rich man. The others wandered off through the countryside with their children, and they were no matter of pity, for their own fault had brought about their ruin.