If any one should write a book on Irish characteristics, I think he should rank good humor as the most prominent, and that makes up for a great many defects. We were on the island for nearly three months and visited more than half the counties, seeing a good deal of both city and country life, and coming in contact with all classes of people, and it is safe to say that no one uttered a cross or an unkind word to us, but everywhere and under all circumstances and from everybody we received a most cordial welcome and the most courteous treatment. And when we asked questions which many times must have seemed silly and unnecessary to the people to whom they were addressed, the replies have always been polite and considerate.

Irish retorts are proverbial. For “reppartay” the race is famous, and we have had numerous illustrations. Wit is spontaneous. It doesn’t take an Irishman long to frame an answer, and it is generally to the point. “Blarney” is abundant. Every old woman calls you her “darlin’,” and every man calls you “me lud” or “yer honor.” The insidious flattery that is used on all occasions does no harm to the giver or the receiver. It makes the world brighter and happier, though it may be flippant and insincere.

The man who “always said the meanest things in such a charming way” must have been an Irishman, although I do not remember to have heard a mean thing said of anybody over there. The Irish race are not diplomatic in their actions; history demonstrates that, but no race is so much so in conversation, and the tact and taffy shown in the treatment of strangers are admirable. Nor does the Irish peasant wear his heart upon his sleeve. He may be frank and sincere in his expressions, but it is quite as probable that he is otherwise. He has the faculty of concealing the bitterest malice under the gentlest smiles and flattering compliments.

It is always difficult to get a serious answer from a native in Ireland. The peasant is always suspicious, and, while he will make himself agreeable and amuse a stranger with his wit and humor, it is difficult to get deeper into his confidence and seldom safe to place any reliance upon what he says. This, I am told, is the result of centuries of persecution, treachery, and danger, so that the Irish race from necessity learned to wear the mask, until it is now a habit.

Notwithstanding their ready replies and their apparent frankness, you are never satisfied with the information they give you when you question them upon serious topics. You are convinced that they are not expressing their real opinions. I make it a rule to discuss the land laws and political policies with car drivers and other people I meet of the working class, but have never been able to get an opinion from them. I have never yet heard an Irish peasant express an unkind opinion of anybody. After talking with them about politicians, landlords, and others, I feel like the child in the cemetery who asked where bad people were buried.

But what you most admire is the witty and ingenious way in which they turn a mistake. A young Irishman stepped up to a gentleman the other day, and with a musical brogue inquired:

“I’m thinkin’, sir, that you are Mr. Blake.”

“You’re thinkin’ wrong,” was the surly reply.

“I beg yer honor’s pardon; I sez to mysilf, when I seen you, sez I, that must be Mr. John Blake for whom I have a missage; but if it’s not, sez I to mysilf, it’s a moighty fine upsthanding young gintleman, whoiver he may be.”

Sometimes there is a tinge of sarcasm, as when an old hag asked: “Won’t yer lordship buy an old woman’s prayers for a penny; that’s chape.”

“The hivins be your bed, me darlin’,” was the way an old beggar woman expressed her thanks.Sir Walter Scott says: “I gave a fellow a shilling on one occasion when a sixpence was the proper fee.

“‘Remember you owe me a sixpence, Pat,’ I said.

“‘May yer honor live till I pay ye!’”

When he was leaving the ruins of the Seven Churches at Glendalough, Lord Plunkett, his escort, whispered to the custodian:

“That’s Sir Walter Scott; he’s a great poet.”

“Divil a bit,” was the reply, “he’s an honorable gintleman, an’ he gave me half a crown”—when the fee was a shilling.

Very often we hear poetic expressions from the most unexpected sources. As we were driving down to Ballyhack from Waterford, the jaunting car driver pointed at a mile stone with his whip and remarked:

“The most lonesome thing in Ireland; without another of its kind within a mile of it.”

The common use of the name of the Creator is often shocking to strangers and seems blasphemous, but it is an unconscious habit. The word is constantly on the tongue of the poor and not always in a profane sense. You hear, “God bless you,” “God prosper you,” “Praise God,” and similar expressions continually. One neighbor seldom greets another good morning or good night, without an appeal to the Almighty or the Redeemer or the Holy Virgin. “Howly Mother” is the commonest of ejaculations, but Irish profanity is always associated with blessings and not with curses. You never hear the anathemas that are so common in the United States. Nobody ever damns you; if the name of the Almighty is appealed to it is always for his blessing and not for condemnation.

Everybody in Ireland does not speak with a brogue. It has often been said that the purest English is spoken in Dublin and Aberdeen, but that is true to a very limited extent among the highly educated and the cultured classes with whom strangers do not often come in contact. In some places the brogue is so dense that a stranger requires an interpreter. It is difficult to understand an ordinary remark. And you hear the brogue in the pulpit as well as in the slums. There is no form of speech richer or more musical than the brogue of an eloquent Irishman, and his natural gifts of oratory enable him to convey the meaning of his words to the fullest degree by his accent. I never heard the service of the Episcopal church read in a more eloquent and impressive manner than by a young curate with a brogue “that you could cut with a knife,” as the saying is. There is nothing to compare with it except the “sweet, soft, southern accent in the United States.” When you inquire where the Irish got their brogue, the answer will be, “At the same shop that the Yankee got his twang.”

We know that one of the most conspicuous and charming traits of the Irish race is to have a pleasant word for everybody, no matter what is in their hearts, on the theory attributed to St. Augustine that a drop of honey will attract more flies than a barrel of vinegar. The Irish call it “deludering” and “soothering,” both very expressive words.

The pleasant way in which questions are answered is very gratifying, especially to a stranger. You never hear a gruff word in Ireland. An Englishman is brutally abrupt, but the Irish are always agreeable. The other day when I asked the guard of a railway train how soon it would start he replied promptly:

“Not till yer honor is aboard, sir.”

When I complained to the hotel porter that it was raining all the time in Ireland he replied apologetically:

“But it’s such a gintle rain, sir.”

Some of the retorts you hear from the common people are highly poetic. When I bought a bunch of flowers from an old woman in the street the other day she replied:

“God bless your kind heart, sir; your mother must have been a saint.”

“Good luck to your ladyship’s happy face this morning,” was the greeting of an old hag to my daughter.

“Oh, let me poor eyes look at ye, me lady, and your voice is as swate as your face.”

In a little book I picked up one day, I found a dialogue between a farmer and fox, as follows:“Good morrow, Fox.”

“Good morrow, Farmer.”

“And what are ye ating, my dear little fox?” said the farmer insinuatingly. “Is it a goose you stole from me?”

“No, my dear farmer, it is the leg of a salmon.”

One day I was speaking to the jarvey who was driving us about in the jaunting car, of a neighbor I had met, who had spent some years in America. He had returned to his native place with a “tidy purseful” of money, and was looking around for some business in which to invest his little capital.

“He seems to think very well of himself,” I suggested.

“He acts as if he came over with Cromwell a thousand years ago, and he looks down on thim of us who was kings of all the counthry, even before the mountains was made.”

An American tourist said to his driver: “Why do you speak to your horse in English, when you talk Celtic to your friends on the road?”

“Sure, an’ isn’t the English good enough for a beast?” was the reply.

The term “himself” is used to describe the boss, the head of a family, the chief man in an association, the commander of a ship, or the colonel of a regiment. It is applied in the same way as the term “old man” that we are accustomed to in the United States. When a subaltern in the army speaks of “himself,” you may understand that he means the colonel of the regiment. When an employee of a railway company alludes to “himself,” it is the general manager. And when a sailor uses that term he means the captain of the ship. Wives use it to describe their husbands; children refer to their fathers in that manner and workmen to their superintendent or the boss of the gang:

“Did himself give yez the order?”

“I will not take any directions except from himself.”

“You’ll have to wait till himself comes in,” said a young boy behind the counter in a Dublin shop.

“We’re waiting for himself to come home to dinner,” was the remark of a good wife, when I inquired for her husband.“Himself has not been very well lately.”

The word “Himself” is frequently written upon envelopes, where it has the same significance as the word “Personal” or “Private” with us, and is a warning that no one should open it but the person to whom it is addressed.

But these ancient customs are being abandoned, and most of the superstitions are dying out. The Irish people are the most highly imaginative and superstitious in the world, and the national schools are blamed for the change that is taking place among them in this respect. John Dillon told me in Dublin that he was not quite satisfied in his own mind whether this was a good thing for the country. Personally, he would much prefer that the people would adhere to the customs and preserve the superstitions of their ancestors. But there is more than one opinion on that subject. The superintendent of the insane asylum at Killarney asserts that the most prolific causes of insanity here are the imagination, the superstitions, and the habitual use of strong tea. But the national schools and the Christian religion have not been able to banish some of the most baneful spirits like the Banshee, which still gives notice of approaching death, sorrow, and misfortune, and still commands the faith and confidence of the great majority of the Irish people. Even those who ridicule the Banshee and deny its omens hate to hear the cry. The superstition is inborn. It is like the evil eye in Italy. People who do not believe in it will nevertheless dodge a person who is accused of carrying such a curse.

There is a great deal of regret, which all of us must share, that the common people of Ireland have abandoned many of the quaint and odd customs that gave them their individuality, and are taking up modern English notions instead. The old sports and games which were inherited from the Gaelic ancestors are becoming obsolete. The peasants never dance in the fields nowadays, and their festivals are very like those of the English yeomen. They are taking up cricket, golf, tennis, and other English games, which you see them playing in the parks and on the commons, instead of the distinctively Irish amusements that were so common in the past generation. The Celtic League is working for a revival with a little success.

A newcomer is always puzzled by the large number of names on the map beginning with the word “Bally.” In that amusing book called “Penelope’s Experiences in Ireland,” one of the girls suggested that in making up their itinerary they should first visit all the places called “Bally,” and after that all the places whose names end or begin with “kill.” That is the Gaelic word for a grove or a clump of trees.

The word “Bally” means “town,” and corresponds with the word “ville” in our geographical nomenclature. The map of Ireland is spattered with names with such a prefix. Here are some of them:

• Ballybain
• Ballybarney
• Ballybeg
• Ballybully
• Ballybought
• Ballyboy
• Ballybrack
• Ballynew
• Ballywilliam
• Ballybunion
• Ballycumber
• Ballydehob
• Ballydoo
• Ballyduff
• Ballygammon
• Ballygasoon
• Ballyroe
• Ballydaniel
• Ballyhiskey
• Ballyhu
• Ballyhully
• Ballyknockane
• Ballylug
• Ballymoney
• Ballyhack
• Ballywater
• Ballyragget

Each of these names has a significance. Ballyragget means a town where there is a ford, Ballyroe is a red town, Ballysallagn is a dirty town. Ballybunion was named in honor of a man called Bunion, Ballydoo is a black town, Ballykeel is a narrow town, Ballykill is the town of the wood or the town of the woods.

Kilcooly is the church of the corner, Kilcarne is the church of the carne or glen, Kilboy is a yellow church, Killduff is a church of black stone, Killroot is a red church, and so on. Almost every name in Ireland has some significance.

I saw only one harp during the three months we were in Ireland, and that was being played by a man in the street, who had an excellent touch and good expression. Street singers have almost entirely disappeared. The love of music and the love of fighting, however, cannot be eradicated from the race that has possessed them since creation, and the Celtic League is doing much to revive the ancient popular airs like “Home, Sweet Home,” “Annie Laurie,” and “Way Down on the Suwanee River.” All of these are adaptations from melodies that have been sung by mother and child among the peasants of Ireland for centuries. General Sherman used to tell of a joke on himself when he was visiting Ireland shortly after the war. Hearing a band coming down the street playing “Marching through Georgia” he naturally assumed that it was a serenade in his honor. He put on his other coat, brushed his hair and whiskers and sat down to await a summons which did not come. After the music had passed beyond hearing he asked his aid-de-camp to find out what had happened. Colonel Audenreid, who was with him, quickly returned to explain that a local military company had marched down the street to the music of an old Irish air which had been plagiarized for one of our war songs.

The last of the bards was Carolan, who died in 1788, and whose memory is preserved by a tablet in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. The ancient bards were more influential than warriors or priests or statesmen, and stood next in rank to the king. The praise or the censure of a bard was alike potent. Their satire was as much to be feared as the malediction of a priest, and their approval was as precious as the gifts of the gods.