Various

“ The great delight of his soul was not that he should experience kindness at the hands of others, but that he should communicate to them, in the simple vanity of his heart, that degree of amusement and instruction and knowledge which made them look upon him as a wonderful man, gifted with rare endowments ”

“ The most accomplished Shanahus of this kind that ever came within our observation, was a man called Tom Grassiey, or Tom the Shoemaker. He was a very stout well-built man, about fifty years of age, with a round head somewhat bald, and an expansive forehead that argued a considerable reach of natural intellect. His knowing organs were large, and projected over a pair of deep-set lively eyes, that scintillated with strong twinklings of humour. ”

“ The Irish heart passes rapidly from the depths of pathos to the extremes of humour; and as a proof of this, we can assure our readers that we have seen the nearest and most afflicted relatives of the deceased carried away by uncontrollable laughter at the broad, grotesque, and ludicrous force of his narratives. ”

“ For our own part, we have always loved the rich and ruddy twilight of the rustic hearth, where the capricious tongues of blazing light shoot out from between the kindling turf, and dance in vivid reflection in the well-scoured pewter and delft as they stand neatly arranged on the kitchen-dresser—loved, did we say? ”

“ All men are masked; the world is one universal disguise, each individual endeavouring to fathom his neighbour’s intentions, at the same time wishing to hide his own, and, above all, striving to secure a reputable character rather by words than deeds. ”

“ To argue scripture well, therefore, means the power of subduing one’s antagonist in a religious contest. Many challenges of this kind passed between Tom and his polemical opponents, in most or all of which he was successful. His memory was infallible, his wit prompt and dexterous, and his humour either broad or sarcastic, as he found it convenient to apply it. In these dialectic displays he spared neither logic nor learning: where an English quotation failed, he threw in one of Irish ”

“ On the other hand, the Irish families who lived within the English pale and in its vicinity gradually conformed to the English customs, and assumed English surnames; and their doing so was deemed to be of such political importance that it was thought worthy the consideration of parliament: accordingly it was enacted by the statute of 5 Edward IV (1465) , that every Irishman dwelling within the English pale, then comprising the counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare, should take an English surname. ”

“ The state of Irish society has changed so rapidly within the last thirty or forty years, that scarcely any one could believe it possible for the present generation to be looked upon in many things as the descendants of that which has immediately gone before them. ”

“ The Mac Mahons and Mac Namaras of the south are a branch of the Dal-Cais, a great tribe located in Thomond, whose history is as certain from the ninth century as that of any people in Europe. The Mac Sweenys and Mac Sheehys of Munster are of Irish origin, but their ancestors removed to Scotland in the tenth century, or beginning of the eleventh, and some of their descendants returned to Ireland in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and were hereditary leaders of Gallowglasses to many Irish chieftains. ”

“ Harris, however, I may remark, is very much mistaken when he supposes that the Branachs (Breaṫnaiġ, i. e. Britones) of the English pale in Ireland are an Irish family, or that any ancient Irish family had borne that name before the Anglo-Norman and Welsh families settled in Ireland towards the latter end of the twelfth century; and he is also wrong in assuming that the Irish word for Geal, white, was by itself ever used as the name of any family in Ireland. ”

“ Having in the last article spoken of the origin of surnames in Ireland, and of the popular errors now prevailing respecting them, I shall next proceed to notice certain epithets, sobriquets, &c., by which the Irish chieftains and others of inferior rank were distinguished.
Besides the surnames, or hereditary family names, which the Irish people assumed from their ancestors, it appears from the authentic annals that most, if not all, of their chieftains had attached to their Christian names, and sometimes to their surnames, certain cognomens by which they were distinguished from each other. ”

“ Indeed, there is no country in the world where, from the peculiar features of its social and political changes, the chronicles of the Shanahus would be more likely to produce such a powerful effect as in Ireland. ”

“ Boxing the Connaughtman is a play or diversion peculiar to wakes; it is grotesquely athletic in its character, but full, besides, of comic sentiment and farcical humour.
He then commenced an Irish rann or song, the substance of which was as follows, according to his own translation:—
“St Patrick, it seems, was one Sunday morning crossing a mountain on his way to a chapel to say mass, and as he was an humble man (coaches wern’t then invented, at any rate) an’ a great pedestrium (pedestrian) , he took the shortest cut across the mountain. ”

“ But at the same time it is undeniable that the simplicity which accompanied those old vestiges of harmless ignorance has departed along with them; and in spite of education and science, we miss the old familiar individuals who stood forth as the representatives of manners, whose very memory touches the heart and affections more strongly than the hard creations of sterner but more salutary truths. ”

“ Spenser also asserts that it was said that most of the surnames ending in an, though then considered Irish, were in reality English, such as Hernan, Shinan, Mungan, &c. I do not, however, believe a word of this latter assertion of the great English poet, but conclude, with the simple and honest Keating, that, “as being a poet, he gave himself, as was usual with the profession, licence to revel in poetic fictions, which he dressed in flowery language to decoy his reader.” ”

“ THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
ORMEAU, COUNTY OF DOWN, THE SEAT OF THE MARQUESS OF DONEGAL.
In the selection of subjects for illustration in our Journal, there are none which we deem more worthy of attention, or which give us greater pleasure to notice, than the mansions of our resident nobility and gentry; and it is from this feeling chiefly that we have made choice of Ormeau, the fine seat of the Marquess of Donegal, as eminently deserving an early place among our topographical notices. Many finer places may indeed be seen in Ireland, belonging to noblemen, of equal or even inferior rank ”

“ That many gross absurdities have been superseded by a social condition more enlightened and healthy, is a fact which must gratify every one who wishes to see the general masses actuated by those principles which follow in the train of knowledge and civilisation. ”

“ Every Irish surname or family name hath either O or Mac prefixed, concerning which I have found some make this observation, but I dare not undertake that it shall hold universally true, that such as have O prefixed were of old superior lords or princes, as O’Neal, O’Donnell, O’Melaghlin, &c., and such as have Mac were only great men, viz, lords, thanes, as Mac Gennis, Mac Loghlin, Mac Doncho, &c. But however this observation [may] hold, it is certain they take much liberty, and seem to do it with delight, in giving of nicknames ”

“ After the murder, in 1333, of William de Burgo, third Earl of Ulster of that name, and the lessening of the English power which resulted from it, many if not all of the distinguished Anglo-Norman families located in Connaught and Munster became hibernicised—Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores—spoke the Irish language, and assumed surnames in imitation of the Irish by prefixing Mac (but never O in any instance) to the Christian names of their ancestors. ”

“ Truth will never be palatable to those who are determined not to relinquish error, but can never give offence to the honest and well-meaning; for the plain-dealing remonstrances of a friend differ as widely from the rancour of an enemy as the friendly probe of a physician from the dagger of an assassin.—E. W. Montague.
Parental Duties.—Bring thy children up in learning and obedience, yet without outward austerity. Praise them openly, reprehend them secretly. ”

“ So it was prophesied by Beal Dearg, or the man with the red mouth, that Ireland would never be free until we first had the Black Militia in our own country, and that no rebellion ever was or could be of any use that did not commence in the Valley of the Black Pig, and move upwards from the tail to the head. ”

“ Neither the transition state of society, however, nor the scanty diffusion of knowledge among the Irish, allowed the Shanahus to produce any permanent impression upon the people; and the consequence was, that as the changes of society hurried on, he and his audience were carried along with them ”

“ The manner in which he states this fact is worthy of consideration, and I shall therefore insert his very words here as they appear in the Dublin edition:—“Other great houses there bee of the English in Ireland, which thorough licentious conversing with the Irish or marrying or fostering with them, or lacke of meet nurture [i. e. education or rearing] , or such other unhappy occasions, have degendred from their auncient dignities, and are now growne ‘as Irish as O’Hanlon’s breech,’ as the proverbe there is.” ”

“ At the request of the Commons it is ordeyned and established by authority of the said parliament, that every Irish man that dwells betwixt or amongst Englishmen in the county of Dublin, Myeth, Uriell, and Kildare, shall goe like to one Englishman in apparell, and shaveing off his beard above the mouth, and shal be within one yeare sworne the liege man of the king in the hands of the lieutenant or deputy, or such as he will assigne to receive this oath for the multitude that is to be sworne, and shall take to him an English surname of one towne, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, Kinsale ”

“ It is the seal of a chief of the O’Neills, whose family were for seven hundred years the hereditary monarchs of Ireland.
This seal was found about ten years since in the vicinity of Magherafelt, in the county of Derry, and was purchased by the Dean from a shopkeeper in that town some years after. The arms of O’Neill, the bloody hand, appear on a shield, and the legend reads, Sigillum Maurisius [Maurisii] ui Neill. ”

“ Thus a man of excellent parts, and beloved of all men, shall be called grana, that is, naughty or fit to be complained of; if a man have a beautiful countenance or lovely eyes, they will call him Cueegh, that is, squint-eyed ”

“ The mansion, which, as our view of it will show, is an extensive pile of buildings in the Tudor style of architecture, was originally built as a cottage residence in the last century, and has since gradually approximated to its present extent and importance, befitting the rank of its noble proprietor, by subsequent additions and improvements. ”

“ It is certain, however, that the translation and assimilation of Irish surnames to English ones was carried to a great extent in the vicinity of Dublin and throughout Leinster; and hence it may at this day be safely concluded that many families bearing English surnames throughout the English pale are undoubtedly of Milesian or Danish origin. ”

“ Towards the close of the next century we find Sir Henry Piers of Tristernagh, in his account of the county of Westmeath, rejoicing that the less distinguished Irish families were beginning to take English surnames:—
“These, I suppose, may be reckoned among the causes of the slow progress this nation hath made towards civility and [Pg 384] accommodation to our English laws and customs ”