Irish Bar

“ Under the grand stand is a restaurant, a tea-room, and a bar, all small and cozy and well kept, and the attendants are women,—cashiers, barmaids, waitresses, and cigar venders,—dressed in pretty liveries. The accommodations at the clubhouse are quite attractive as well as convenient, although they are closed to strangers like the ordinary clubs of the English and Irish cities. A member may invite a friend to luncheon or dinner, but he cannot put him up at a club in England and Ireland as we do in the United States. They are very selfish about such privileges. ”

“ Irish students must keep eight terms in one of the English Inns, as well as nine in the King's Inns, Dublin, before they can be called to the Irish bar.
Irish students may keep terms in London and Dublin alternately, or in any other order they may think proper. Gray's Inn is the favorite Inn of Irish students, for the reason that discipline is not so strict as in the Inner or Middle Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, and, besides, no charge is made for "absent commons," or being away from the dinners, while in the other Inns the student is charged for his meals in any case. ”

“ To retain men of the front rank at the bar would cost thousands of pounds; to retain men of inferior position would be worse than useless. Could there be found amongst the leaders of the Irish bar even one man bold enough and generous enough to undertake the desperate task and protracted labor of defending these men, leaving the question of fee or remuneration to the chance of funds being forthcoming? ”

“ There were crowds of young girls ranging from fourteen to twenty, poor working girls, who had saved all of their scant earnings they could in anticipation of this holiday, who boldly pushed their way with a coarse laugh, through the crowd of men and, standing at the bar, would call for and drink their bitter beer, or ale, or stout, or gin, even, with all the effrontery of an old toper. And old women there were too, who would quietly glide into the compartments marked “private bar,” and there drink their brandy or Irish whisky. ”

“ Having established himself in Dublin, and being of frugal habits, buying hardly anything except books, he not merely managed to retain his fortune intact, but was making a fair income at the bar when he was drawn within the vortex of Irish politics. ”

“ Eloquence, (a first-rate quality in my scale of talent,) is that for which the Irish were eminently celebrated. But the exercise of this gift depends on so many accidental circumstances, and is withal so much regulated by fashion, that its decline is scarcely surprising. So few possess it from nature, and its superiority when possessed is so transcendent, that it has become the interest of the only body in Ireland now accustomed to extempore public speaking, (the bar,) to undervalue and throw it into the back-ground, which they have effectually succeeded in. ”

“ That is the reason why many of the men coming from Ireland, notwithstanding they were provident, thrifty and ambitious, were tempted to go into the liquor business as a means of acquiring money rapidly. That is one of the considerations which I think ought to be remembered by your organization as a reason for dealing leniently with men in that traffic. But I believe that of all the classes affected by it, the first to relieve itself from the influence of the saloon is going to be the Irish- American class, because of these two facts: That we are not drunkards ”

“ The Irish theatre always exhibits traits of this national taste; but a dinner-party, with its due infusion of barristers, is the best possible exemplification of this give and take, which, even if it had no higher merit, is a powerful ally of good-humour, and the sworn foe to everything like over-irritability or morbid self-esteem. Indeed, I could not wish a very conceited man, of a somewhat grave temperament and distant demeanour, a much heavier punishment than a course of Irish dinner-parties ”

“ It is this same "heavenly dew"—whose Erse name usquebaugh, we have pronounced "whisky"—that, more than anything else, has held back the Irish in America. The Irishman is no more a craver of alcohol than other men, but his sociability betrays him to that beverage which is the seal of good fellowship. He does not sit down alone with a bottle, as the Scandinavian will do, nor get his friends round a table and quaff lager, as the German does. ”

“ But the refreshment booth was closed and there was no sign of any one in the neighbourhood.
We were very hungry therefore, when we got back to our inn, and our high tea tasted very good indeed, served in the pleasantest of dining rooms, on a table with snowy linen and polished dishes and shining silver, and by a waiter who knew his business so well that I judged him to be French. What a pleasure that meal was, after the slovenly service of the house at Limerick, most of whose customers were commercial [244] travellers! Irish commercial travellers, I judge, are the least fastidious of men! ”

“ Of course one of the great troubles in Ireland is drink. I am no advocate for teetotalism, for I think a man who can enjoy a moderate glass is a better one than his brother who has to drink water in order that he may not yield to the overpowering 'tempitation'—to quote Mr. Huntley Wright—to get drunk! But for my fellow-countrymen I can see that drink is a terrible curse, one which is the cause of half the crime, half the illness, and more than half the misery that exists there.
Of all Irish benefactors, possibly Father Mathew was the greatest ”

“ I had now an opportunity of seeing, for the first time, the genius of this singular people displayed under a new and brilliant form—the eloquence of the bar.
In England the Bar holds a high rank; from its essential value to the maintenance of public right in a country, where every possession, property, and principle of man comes continually in the shape of a question of right, and where the true supremacy is in the law. But in Ireland, the spirit of the nation compensated for the deficiency of power in the law ”

“ W.R. Wigham, a Quaker, who is secretary of the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance, told me that there is less private drinking and less habitual drinking in Ireland than is generally supposed. The Irish are a convivial people, but comparatively few men or women drink for the love of the liquor. Most of the drunkenness is seen at the fairs and cattle sales, the festivals and wakes, although the use of liquor at the latter has been forbidden by the bishops and is now much less frequent than formerly. ”

“ I certainly never met with so bad a thing in Ireland as the “Red Cow” in John Bull: for whatever might have been its quality, there was plenty of something or other always to be had at the inns to assuage hunger and thirst.
The best description I ever recollect to have heard of an Irish inn, its incidents and appurtenances, was in a sort of medley sung and spoken by the present Sir Charles Vernon, when he had some place in the Lord Lieutenant’s establishment at Dublin Castle: it was delivered by him to amuse the company after supper, and was an excellent piece of mimicry. ”

“ But to return to the point: whisky in Scotland is a religion, an institution, a tradition, and a national reproach. Whisky in Ireland, on the other hand, is an accomplishment, an ornament, a mellowness, a kindness, a simplicity, and a joy forever. The true Irish people drink it wisely as the Gaul takes his wine. When you see a number of drunken persons in Ireland, you may safely assume [32] that they are Orangemen and of Scotch descent. The Irish of Ireland do not get drunk; which means that they neither roister in bars nor soak alcoholically at home. ”

“ But an Irishman's joy is incomplete unless he knocks somebody down, which may account for the fact that the Irish are the best soldiers in the world.
One redeeming feature in the liquor traffic is the increasing consumption of porter, for that at least has some nourishment in it, and is reasonably wholesome, whereas the whisky is vilely adulterated, not only by the publicans before it reaches the consumer, but also in some of the factories.
Puck Fair is the great annual fête and mart of Killorglin ”

“ When the Government took away from the people, and placed in the hands of distillers, the manufacture of these drinks, and imposed licenses upon it, the people got their drinks only when they went to the market, and at those times they took too much liquor. That was the real beginning of intemperance in Ireland. Intemperance went into Ireland with foreign rule and prohibition. The law of man sent intemperance among the Irish, and you are trying to take it out of them by a higher law than that of man—by the law of God. ”

“ Dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel costs five shillings, nothing to an American, of course, but a heavy price to us in Ireland. It consists of several courses and we think it quite a grand dinner. It seems to the American that he is at last reduced to the traditional Irish diet of potatoes and potheen whiskey. It is this way of thinking about Ireland which takes the sweetness out of the American's genuine affection for our country. We do not mind admitting that we are half a century behind America in every respect, but we like to think that we are making some progress. ”

“ Again, the test of the average consumption of man, woman and child is somewhat misleading, especially in Ireland where, owing to the excessive emigration of adults, there is a disproportionately large number of very young and old. Moreover, we Irish drink more in proportion to our means than the English, Scotch, and Welsh, whose consumption is absolutely larger. Anyone who attempts to deal practically with the problems of industrial development in Ireland realises what a terribly depressing influence the drink evil exercises upon the industrial capacity of the people. ”

“ Sir Bernard showed us also a curious letter written by Henry Grattan to the founder of the great Guinness breweries, which have carried the fame of Dublin porter into the uttermost parts of the earth. The Guinnesses are now among the wealthiest people of the kingdom, and Ireland certainly owes a great deal to them as “captains of industry,” but they are not Home Rulers.
At the Kildare Street Club in the afternoon I talked with two Irish landlords from the north of Ireland, who had come up to take their womenkind to the Drawing-Room. ”

“ Troops invade your garden; your drawing-room is never empty. Shoals devour the refreshments of your [Pg 221] dining-room. At ten o'clock, when you are on the point of barricading your too hospitable doors, men arrive cheerily to bid you the time of day, and claim a whisky-and-soda. I speak of Dublin, naturally, where, as a rule, we begin our afternoon calls at midnight, and where the early awakened lark is safe to find us snoring. Inhabit that same seaside place in winter, and even your dearest friend will forget to remember that he knows you. Irish hospitality is justly famous. ”

“ She delicately moved the potato dish so as to cover the traces of a bygone egg, and her glance lingered on the flies that dragged their way across a melting mound of salt butter. "I like local colour, but I don't care about it on the tablecloth."
"Well, I'm feeling quite anxious about Irish country hotels now," said Bernard; "they're getting so civilised and respectable. After all, when you go back to England no one cares a pin to hear that you've been done up to the knocker. That don't amuse them a bit. ”

“ It is safe to assume that the variety stage to-day has no so-called North of Ireland Irishman who does not fling at least a half-dozen of the sorry witticisms I have here given, at the heads of his audience. There is no law against it,—no protection for the patrons of the theatres, who can do nothing else than to grin and stand it,—and therefore the Irish comedian and his "chestnuts" forever flourish in this land of the free and home of the brave. ”

“ There is nothing Irish about Bundoran except its climate—not, at least, if one stays at the hotel which has been built there by the Great Northern Railroad, and which is one of the most satisfactory hotels I was ever in. And perhaps it would be as well to say a word here about Irish hotels.
The small, friendly inn, which is one of the delights of European travel, does not exist in Ireland; or, if it does, it is so carelessly managed that it is not endurable. Commercial hotels are also apt to be inferior. ”

“ A writer in the Athenaum (Jan. 13, 1844,) remarks, in a very amusing article on the Irish Census, “There is no cookery in Ireland, because there is nothing to cook. We occasionally, to be sure, throw them a bone of contention, and they make a broil of it. Their cookery goes no further.”
At morn, moreover, lazily turning in his bed to ring for valet or waiter, how shall his superb dignity be perturbed to find, that there exists no belle alliance between the upper and lower house, and that his highness must go to the stair top, and hallo, for whatever his emergencies require. ”

“ In conclusion, may I say that from the moment when the Castle made its first blunder I never had any doubt of the result, and that I kept away from Dublin, in order that our national theatre might have the entire credit of handling and producing a new play without assistance from the author or from any other person trained in the English theatres. Nobody who has not lived, as I have to live, in London, can possibly understand the impression the Irish players made there this year, or appreciate the artistic value of their performances, their spirit, and their methods. ”

“ Some people consider this a great improvement, but it is still very harmful, and it is a startling fact that the population of Ireland pay more money for whisky and beer than they pay for rents or for food or for clothing. ”