Irish woman

“ It may be said roughly, that the beauty of an Irish woman, while quite tangible and perfect to the vision, is an elusive matter when one comes to cold type. The Anglo-Saxon beauty can be hit off in words, quite [96] as handily as she can be hit off in paint. What she amounts to as a rule is pink and white, and yellow hair, or mouse-colored hair, and a genteel pallidity. But in Ireland all this is different, beauty of a witching and almost eerie quality is a commonplace throughout the country. ”

“ It is with the introduction of Christianity into Ireland that the Irish woman came into her rightful place, and attained the preponderating influence which she, ever since, has held among the Celtic people. In the period which followed the evangelization of the island many were the "women of worth" who upheld the honor and glory of "Inisfail the Fair", and women were neither the less numerous nor the less ardent who hung upon the lips of the Apostle of Ireland. ”

“ In sickness, Irish girls are generally kind and accommodating, being themselves unselfish, and are apt to show a better spirit in a time of trouble than the Swedes, the Germans, or the Scotch, although the latter are possessed of more intelligence, and are more readily trained to habits of order and system. The warm heart and the confused brain, the want of truth, of the average Irish servant will perplex and annoy while it touches the sympathies of a woman of generous spirit. ”

“ These poor mothers of our Irish martyrs! These poor Rachels! There is something in their grief which makes it a thing apart. Wives, and sisters, and sweethearts, who have given their dear ones to Ireland have felt, even in their most anguished hour, something of that exaltation which makes “the hard service they take, who help the Poor Old Woman,” a yoke more sweet and precious than any liberty. ”

“ For myself I should be disposed to ascribe it to the circumstance that the average Irish woman, be she rich or poor, leads the life which a woman was intended to lead by the order of things, namely, the domestic life. ”

“ Of the qualities of the Irish character, generally viewed, there is much to admire; they are liberal and kind-hearted, and, in some few instances, have shewn a public spirit and a manly sense of their political wrongs and oppressions. We cannot, however, compliment either their delicacy, as men, in not feeling for the cruel death of an amiable woman, or their loyalty, as subjects, in slighting the memory of their sacrificed queen. ”

“ In the stories of the loves of the ancient Irish, whether immortals or mortals, the woman's role is the more accentuated, while in Teutonic tradition man plays the chief part. Again, it has often been remarked that the feminine interest is absent from the earlier heroic forms of some literatures. Not so, however, in the earliest saga-texts of the Irish. Many are the famous women to whom the old tales introduce us and who stand out and compel attention like the characters of the Greek drama. ”

“ One may notice that the Irishmen are singularly carefree and strong and comfortable—and so jolly! while the Irish women are frumpish and careworn and borne earthward with children. The Cornishman who has consumed the greatest amount of whiskey is the most agreeable, and less and less inclined to leer and ogle. The Cornish woman whose profanity is the shrillest and most genial and voluble, is she whose life seems the most weighted and downtrodden. The young women whose bodies are encased in the tightest and stiffest corsets are in the most wildly hilarious spirits of all. ”

“ That is to say the blondes might readily pass for sisters, and so might the brunettes, both sorts lacking the ultimate gift of individuality. Irish women are different—indeed, you may safely say of them that they are all pretty and all different. They never repeat their beauty, there is nothing of the white rabbit or puss, puss, puss about them, and consequently they do not bore you. As most things have a cause it seems possible that there are reasons for the beauty of Irish womanhood. ”

“ In this answer appeared the cordial, frank, and good-natured character of the true Irish woman, which I had already learned to love and admire. A prudish Englishwoman would have driven away in high displeasure, and perhaps have ruined the reputation of a young man for such a ‘qui pro quo’ as this: for in English society people do not only stumble at things which in other countries produce quite a contrary effect ”

“ In the tales of fair women, the Fair Geraldine, who was born in the first half of the sixteenth century, must always be celebrated, not only as a typical Irish beauty, but as a woman whose virtues were of a similar order to her physical charms. ”

“ Madden’s informant had previously omitted to mention, was—Anne Devlin.
Anne Devlin! Can anyone living to-day, with a drop of Irish blood in his or her veins, hear that name without a great stirring of the heart? It stands for a heroism, a fortitude, a devotion, a fidelity, a loyalty, which even to have conceived, honours all human nature—and which to have produced, ennobles Irish womanhood for all time. Anne Devlin! Amid the great names of our race which thrill each Irish heart as with a trumpet note, what name has power to move us as does that? ”

“ Will you believe me when I tell you that nowhere in Europe have I seen more lovely or better dressed women than right here on Sackville Street? I have accounted 48 for it, in some degree, by the fact that our Irish cousins follow the American styles more closely than do any of their immediate sisters. The Irish woman is always in good form. One never sees her wearing any sort of jewelry before luncheon. ”

“ The Celtic temperament is eminently social; the variety, the movement, the excitement of society are congenial to it.
Next to Frenchwomen, the Irish are the best hostesses. Who that has ever been at one of Lady Wilde's receptions in that well-known house at Oakley Street, can forget how admirably she received her guests, saying the right thing to each, and making even the most obscure guest feel at home.
A born leader of society was the woman whose name stands at the head of this article. For sixty years she kept a mimic court at which every celebrity of any kind was welcome. ”

“ But the Irish poem is far more artistically wrought than either of these comparatively modern poems. For in the ancient verses, the old woman is set, a lonely and forsaken figure, against the background of the ebbing tide, and the slow throbs of her heart, worn with age and sin, beat in unison with the [Pg xviii] retreating motion of the wave. There is also a further significance in the poem which we must not miss. It is the earliest of the long series of allegorical songs in which Ireland is depicted under the form of a woman ”

“ She will be particularly remembered as the promoter of the Irish village at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, and for her successful endeavors to introduce Irish homespun, lace, linen, and other products, and to make them fashionable among the American people. She is a woman of great energy, executive ability, and determination, and has been applying those qualities very effectively in Ireland in local reforms. ”

“ But the scene was yet further animated by a sweet-looking young woman, whom I discovered in this wild solitude, busied in the humble employment of straw-platting. The natural grace of the Irish peasant-women, who are often truly beautiful, is as surprising as their dress, or rather their want of dress ”

“ After wondering for some time, however, why the quick-witted women of Ireland should be less apt than those of other countries in catching the air of high breeding usually deemed so desirable, I began to like them better for the deficiency, and to find a reason for it in the very qualities which make them so attractive. Nothing could be more captivating and delightful than the manners of Irish women, and nothing, at the same time, could be more at war with the first principles of English high breeding—coldness and retenu. ”

“ Irish women are not without the wit to know that they are beautiful; they have an armory of feminine allurements, and [99] wit enough to handle them with skill, and they cannot be considered insensible to the fripperies which all women love. But they do not make gaiety and ostentation the aim and end of their existence, and they do not shirk the plain duties of womanhood. In Ireland, though the women of the poorer classes have to work in the fields and undertake tasks which by good rights should be done by men, there is absolutely no third sex. ”

“ It is absolutely so in fact, that every husband of any fortune in the kingdom, is nourishing a poisonous, devouring serpent in his bosom, with all the mischief, but with none of its wisdom.
If all the women were clad with the growth of their own country, they might still vie with each other in the course of foppery; and still have room left to vie with each other and equally show their wit and judgment, in deciding upon the variety of Irish stuffs. ”

“ There are sadder things in Ireland than the weeping skies.
But though the right of marriage may be often denied them, young Irish girls have always their inalienable right of dreams. Soft winds and nodding flowers and sun going down on the western hills, and with the twilight comes always a love. Out of the blue twilight and soft wind they weave a magical life of love that will be always young, of a world that will be ever kind, of little dark children and loyal friends, of the pageantry of foreign cities, of triumphs for their own beauty and the lover's ability. ”

“ For our own part, we think the rich, tender, motherly nature of the Irish girl an element a thousand times more hopeful in our population than the faded, washed-out indifferentism of fashionable women, who have danced and flirted away all their womanly attributes, till there is neither warmth nor richness nor maternal fulness left in them,—mere paper-dolls, without milk in their bosoms or blood in their veins. ”

“ The Irish are an extremely warm-hearted people. Their well educated women have an innocent gayety, frankness and naiveté of manner, that is extremely bewitching. As a people, they are remarkably characterized by a want of foresight, and keen enjoyment [Pg 149] of the present moment. The style of Irish beauty indicates this; being generally bright-eyed, fresh, and laughing. If a young couple were in love with each other, it would, in most cases, be in vain to remind them of their extreme poverty, with a view to inculcate maxims of worldly prudence. ”

“ Little could she have dreamt of the host of her sister voyagers who brought to this country the spirit of devotion, of self-sacrifice, of faithful discharge of duty, which ultimately forced itself upon the grudgingly-given attention of the community and admiration for which as well as for the tenderness and purity of the women of the Irish race was the most potent force in tearing down the wall of hostility and hatred which intolerance and ignorance had reared in the way of the progress of the Irishmen in this country towards recognition, equality and success. ”

“ In the ancient tales of Ireland we read of great female physicians and distinguished female lawyers and judges. There were ban-file, or women-poets, who, like the file, were at the same time soothsayers and poetesses, and there are other evidences of the high esteem in which women were held. There can be no doubt, to judge by the elaborate descriptions of garments in the saga-texts, that the women were very skilful in weaving and needlework. The Irish peasant girls of today inherit from them not a little of their gift for lace-making and linen-embroidery. ”

“ At present, the heritage of vigorous muscles, firm nerves, strong backs, and cheerful physical life has gone from American women, and is taken up by Irish women. A thrifty young man, I have lately heard of, married a rosy young Irish girl, quite to the horror of his mother and sisters, but defended himself by the following very conclusive logic:—'If I marry an American girl, I must have an Irish girl to take care of her ”

“ There are plenty of women in Ireland, however, who come quite up to the Gibson girl standard, and for that matter beat it. In journeying through the country I have been struck continually by the remarkable facial resemblance which exists between the Irish and the American people. In an Irish railway train you see faces which at once give you the impression that you are at the Hotel Cecil. The high cheek bones and lank shaven jaw of the full-blooded American are here in great force, and it is only when their possessors open their mouths that you can tell the difference. ”

“ Some Irishwomen here and there have heard beyond the four walls in which so much of their lives are spent the music of a new day, and have started out to help and inspire the men and be good comrades to them; and calling themselves United Irish-women, they have joined, as men have joined, to help their sisters who are in economic servitude, or who suffer from the ignorance and indifference to their special needs in life which pervade the administration of local government. We cannot build up a rural civilization in Ireland without the aid of Irish women. ”

“ WE are often told that the civilization of a people is marked by the place of its women: a rule by which the Irish stand high. In the fifteenth century, as at all times, their annals record many noble ladies “distinguished for knowledge, hospitality, good sense and piety”; “humane and charitable”; “a nurse to all guests and strangers, and to all the learned men in Ireland.” Of these Margaret, daughter of O’Carroll lord of Ely, wife of Calvagh O’Connor Faly lord of Offaly (lands which lie across the boundaries of the modern King’s and Queen’s Counties and Kildare) , was the most illustrious. ”

“ The home-bred young men gazed with wonder and admiration at the finery worn by their sweethearts from America, who, by the way, although they came third class, and were undoubtedly chambermaids or shop girls in our cities, were the best-looking and the best-dressed women we saw in Ireland. ”