Good Spirits and Bad

When I wrote the stories of which this volume is composed, in common with every other writer concerning Ireland, I had frequent occasion to notice the habitual intemperance of a people naturally excitable. This, more than all their other failings, rendered them liable to misrepresentation: – "an Irishman drunk, and an Irishman sober," were two distinct beings; but the stranger had little time to inquire into the causes, when he witnessed the effects. And though many efforts have been made to change the bad spirit for the good – though Professor Edgar, ⁶²⁷ in Belfast, the Rev. George Carr, in New Ross, ⁶²⁸ and some excellent men in Cork, had made strenuous exertions to establish Temperance Societies, nothing comparatively had been done to influence the Roman Catholic population. What the Rev. Mr. Mathew has wrought – his untiring perseverance, his disinterested efforts for the regeneration of his countrymen, his labouring unceasingly through evil report, which was, at last, silenced by the overwhelming good that became apparent throughout the country – I need not here record. During the last two years, the difficulty has been, not to find an Irishman sober, but an Irishman intoxicated: the change is wonderful, and must be seen to be believed.^a trust the good may be permanent, and see every reason to think that such will be the case. A person who had not visited Ireland for some years, would not know the country again; indeed, I hardly knew the people myself, some of whom I used to lecture after my own fashion; and you may lecture Paddy for ever, without running the risk of an unpleasant answer: he is the most ready of all people in the world to listen to advice – he will agree to the letter with you in everything you state. "Bedad, ma'am, I know that – I often thought so." – "Ah, then, see that now! – Sure it was always the way, and a cruel bad habit, leaving us worse than it found us, and that's no asy matter." – "Oh, indeed, it's as clear as print, and as thrue as gospel!" but you did not carry your point a bit the sooner for all this acquiescence: the next day, the next hour, you might have chanced to meet the same Paddy in the most senseless state of intoxication. Alas! it was very, very sad! How different now! Paddy's coat – though not according to English notions of comfort – is a wonderful improvement upon my old acquaintance; his eye is clear; the yellow palor of inebriety has given place to the colour of a healthy state of existence; and his step is firm, as of a man newly escaped from slavery. I have heard many, not conversant with the country, wonder that, in consequence of the spread of temperance, the children are not now all well clothed, and the cabins furnished. They ought to remember, that the pay of an Irish labourer, at most, is but six shillings a week; that what he drank formerly took the absolute food, the potato and milk, from his children, who now are able to have sufficient of this humble fare; but a much longer period must elapse before the little that can be spared, shows to the eye accustomed to the luxuries of a higher station: – a cup and saucer, a plate, a piggin, ⁶²⁹ a new stool, a potato-basket – are valuable additions to the humble cottage, yet are hardly noticed by the casual visitor, who sees the misery that is, but forgets that which has been. It is not a little curious to observe, how opinions alter with the times. I remember, when it was considered a positive extravagance in the wife of even a decent tradesman to take a cup of tea; though the gentry, who condemned her, would not hesitate to order her husband a glass of raw alcohol, when he brought home his work. Indeed, the habit of giving the evil spirit to every person who called on business, was, when I was a child, so common, that neglecting to do so was considered a breach of hospitality.