at the conclusion of a
phenomenally good season followed by a fair harvest, thinking that a
better impression would be obtained now than in periods of distress. I
regret to say that the effect of several excursions from Letterfrack
and Clifden has been almost to make me despair of the Connemara man of
the sea-coast. I hesitate to employ the word "down-trodden," because
it has been absurdly misused and ignorantly applied to the whole
population of Ireland. I may be pardoned for observing in this place,
once for all, that my remarks are always particularly confined to the
place described, and by no means intended to apply to districts I have
not yet visited, still less to Ireland generally--if a country with
four if not five distinct populations should ever by thoughtful
persons be spoken of "generally." What I say of the inhabitants of the
sea-coast of Connemara does not, I hope most sincerely, apply to any
other people in the British Islands. They are emphatically
"down-trodden"--bodily, mentally, and in a certain direction morally.
They do not commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are
fearfully addicted to lying--the vice of slaves. Their prevarication
and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and
women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent
priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to
exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the
potato crop grown on a patch of conacre land. Did they have any
"champion" seed given to them at the various distributions of that
precious boon? "Was it champions thin?" was the reply. "'Deed, they
had the name o' champions." The woman who said this in my hearing only
confessed under very vigorous cross-examination that "the name o'
champions" signified four stone weight of the invaluable seed which
has resisted disease in its very stronghold. Now in very poor ground
the yield of this quantity should have been twelvefold, or about 5
cwt. of potatoes. "'Deed, and it wasn't the half of it. The champions
was planted too thick, sure; and two halves of 'um was lost." Taken
only mathematically this statement would not hold water, but it was
not till after a stern allocution that the fact was elicited that
much champion seed had been wasted by over-thick planting--a habit
acquired by the people during successive bad years. As these poor
people prevaricate, so do they procrastinate. The sadde