it is only those that seeks to belye me that spreads the report; but Honny for all that is as proper and clean a girl as any in the country, and if your honour did but know her, you'd not say that was a bold word, for nobody could gainsay it." A numerous offspring is the result of early marriage; and it frequently happens that the appearance of father and son is more like that of brothers, and they associate together rather with a fraternal feeling, than with that usually existing between parent and child. A house with three contiguous apartments is selected for a wedding; the reason of this is to preserve a distinction between the classes of company expected. The best apartment is reserved for the bride and bridegroom, the priest, the piper, and the more opulent and respectable guests, as the landlord, his family and the neighbouring gentry, who are always invited and usually attend on such occasions. The second apartment is appropriated for the neighbours in general; and the third, or an out-house, is devoted to the reception of buckaughs, shulers, and other beggars. When the marriage is celebrated two collections are raised amongst the guests, the first for the priest, the other for the piper. The assembly does not take place until late in the evening, when the marriage ceremony is performed, and the festivities seldom conclude before day-break the next morning. Buckaughs are a description of mendicants that within these few years have considerably diminished. The name implies a lame or mutilated person; but vigorous young men may be found, who, having assumed the ragged garb, crave the privileges of the impotent and aged. In Ireland there are no gipsies, but their place is filled by buckaughs, who have the same wandering habits and adopt the same unsettled mode of life, without however entering into associations or troops. A buckaugh is a solitary and isolated being, one who seems to stand alone in the world without apparent occupation or pursuit. He is met travelling both on the high road and in unfrequented paths, at all hours and in all seasons, his beard unshaven, and his body encased in a garment composed of shreds and patches, or, to use the more expressive local idiom, "a coat all stitches and packthread." Loaded with innumerable bags and wallets, he strides on, assisted by a long walking pole shod with iron, and terminated by a formidable spike. In the evening the buckaugh is seen seated beside the turf fire of the poor cottager's hearth, partaking of his humble fare, the wallets and staff deposited in a corner of the cabin, and at night he reposes beside them on a bundle of straw. It is not uncommon to find these men with considerable literary acquirements; they are generally the possessors of several books and Irish manuscripts, which they have collected, and bear about from place to place with incredible fondness,, nor can money always purchase part of their travelling library; their knowledge of writing renders them acceptable guests to many farmers, whose correspondence is often entirely carried on by such agency. By the younger members of the family, buckaughs are looked upon with much regard, and made the mutual confidant of their rustic amours. These persons write love-letters and then secretly deliver them, commend the youth to his mistress and the girl to her lover, and are consequently caressed and consulted by all parties. A buckaugh is the umpire of rural disputes, and the ambassador from one clan or faction to another, in which diplomatic capacity he is termed " the spokesman." The superabundance of potatoes and broken victuals bestowed upon them from motives of gratitude or charity, they usually sell to the family of the poor peasant or to city mendicants, whom they consider as an inferior order of persons, and in fact they are so, as their respective means of gaining a livelihood are essentially at variance. Deeply conversant with character, this singular class of mendicants are quick, artful and intelligent, but assume a careless and easy manner, seldom hesitating when it is for their own advantage, duping those who have confided in them, and yet I have heard instances of the almost chivalrous honour of a poor buckaugh. Beggars crowd round strangers at every town or village, in a manner that to the English traveller appears quite marvellous, always urging their demands in the imperative mood. "Ah then, if you have one half-penny in the world you shall give it me till I get some food for a sick child." "Remember the poor, your honour; and may God increase you; a fivepenny, your honour, would be nothing to the likes of ye; a tenpenny, your honour, amongst us, and we will not grumble." At least twenty of these demands at once assail you; and if you give to some, the reinforcement of applicants becomes so numerous as to be quite deafening, invoking the most singular blessings on you and yours for ever; but if you are "hard hearted," bestowing as liberally their curses. The eloquence of an Irish mendicant is very peculiar and sometimes incredible. I remember a poor blind woman, who for many years took her station every evening on George's Quay in Cork, whose appeals to the passengers were made in the most figurative manner, and never perhaps was more poetry on the subject of blindness uttered than I have heard from her lips. CLOYNE is a small town situated about two miles from the eastern shore of Cork Harbour, and a Bishop's See of considerable antiquity, St. Colman having founded its cathedral in the sixth century. Close to the cathedral stands a round tower, the most remarkable feature of the place. The town is straggling and miserable, composed of mud cabins and an inferior description of houses. Its name is derived from Cluaine, which signifies in Irish a cave, the surrounding limestone rock abounding with caverns and subterranean passages; Cluain, however, according to Dr. Ledwich, was a general term for any Druidical retreat. As there is no other market town for the whole of the well peopled peninsula, from Ballycotton to Rostellan, the influx of persons on a fair or market-day is very considerable. In 1800 Cloyne was calculated to contain 308 inhabited houses, and rather more than 1600 souls. In 1813, the number of inhabitants was stated to be above 2000. A branch of the Fitzgerald family, distinguished by the title of Seneschals of Imokilly, had formerly two or three castles here, and were the chief proprietors of the adjacent district, from which their title was derived; one that was first bestowed in 1420 by James, Earl of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on Lord Desmond, after whose death it was assumed by the head of his descendants resident in the district. Hooker gives us an account of a skirmish that took place near Cloyne, between the Seneschal of Imokilly and Sir Walter Raleigh, in which the intrepidity and skill of Raleigh were remarkable. Raleigh afterwards accused the Seneschal of cowardice on the occasion; and such were the manners of the times, that Lord Ormond and Sir Walter more than once publicly challenged Sir John of Desmond, and the Seneschal, both of whom were in open rebellion, to decide the matter by single combat. We are informed by the writer of the Pacata Hibernia, that the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, on his return from the siege of Kinsale to Dublin by way of Waterford, came out of his road to pay a visit to Cloyne, where he slept on the 7th of March, 1601, and was received by Master John Fitz Edmonds,* who held the town and manorhouse in fee-farm, and who "gave cheereful and plentiful entertayn * Amongst the Harleian MSS. (No. 6993, iii.) a letter is preserved from Sir Walter Raleigh dated from Lismore, to the celebrated Earl of Leicester, which concludes with the following postscript. "I am bold, being bound by very conscience, to commend unto your Honour's consideration, the pitiful estate of John Fitz-Edmonds of Cloyne, a gentleman, and the only man untouched and proved true to the Queen, both in this and the last Rebellion: Sir Warham (St. Leger) can deliver his service, what he is and what he deserveth." |