English As We Speak It in Ireland. P. W. Joyce

      His death it amazed me and dazed me with sorrow and GRIEF;

      From cradle to grave his name was held in ESTEEM;

      For at fairs and at wakes there was no one like him for a SPREE;

      And 'tis he knew the way how to make a good cag of potTHEEN.

      He'd make verses in Gaelic quite aisy most plazing to READ;

      And he knew how to plaze the fair maids with his soothering SPEECH.

      He could clear out a fair at his aise with his ash clehalPEEN;

      But ochone he's now laid in his grave in the churchyard of Keel.

      

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      THE DEVIL AND HIS 'TERRITORY.'

      Bad as the devil is he has done us some service in Ireland by providing us with a fund of anecdotes and sayings full of drollery and fun. This is all against his own interests; for I remember reading in the works of some good old saint—I think it is St. Liguori—that the devil is always hovering near us watching his opportunity, and that one of the best means of scaring him off is a good honest hearty laugh.

      Those who wish to avoid uttering the plain straight name 'devil' often call him 'the Old Boy,' or 'Old Nick.'

      In some of the stories relating to the devil he is represented as a great simpleton and easily imposed upon: in others as clever at everything. In many he gets full credit for his badness, and all his attributes and all his actions are just the reverse of the good agencies of the world; so that his attempts at evil often tend for good, while anything he does for good—or pretending to be for good—turns to evil.

      When a person suffers punishment or injury of any kind that is well deserved—gets his deserts for misconduct or culpable mismanagement or excessive foolishness of any kind—we say 'the devil's cure to him,' or 'the devil mend him' (as much as to say in English 'serve him right'); for if the devil goes to cure or to mend he only makes matters ten times worse. Dick Millikin of Cork (the poet of 'The Groves of Blarney') was notoriously a late riser. One morning as he was going very late to business, one of his neighbours, a Quaker, met him. 'Ah friend Dick thou art very late to-day: remember the early bird picks the worm.' 'The devil mend the worm for being out so early,' replied Dick. So also 'the devil bless you' is a bad wish, because the devil's blessing is equivalent to the curse of God; while 'the devil's curse to you' is considered a good wish, for the devil's curse is equal to God's blessing. (Carleton.) The devil comes in handy in many ways. What could be more expressive than this couplet of an old song describing a ruffian in a rage:—

      'He stamped and he cursed and he swore he would fight,

      And I saw the ould devil between his two eyes.'

      Sometimes the devil is taken as the type of excellence or of great proficiency in anything, or of great excess, so that you often hear 'That fellow is as old as the devil,' 'That beefsteak is as tough as the devil,' 'He beats the devil for roguery,' 'My landlord is civil, but dear as the divil.' (Swift: who wrote this with a pen dipped in Irish ink.)

      A poor wretch or a fellow always in debt and difficulty, and consequently shabby, is a 'poor devil'; and not very long ago I heard a friend say to another—who was not sparing of his labour—'Well, there's no doubt but you're a hard-working old devil.'

      Very bad potatoes:—'Wet and watery, scabby and small, thin in the ground and hard to dig, hard to wash, hard to boil, and the devil to eat them.'

      'I don't wonder that poor Bill should be always struggling, for he has the devil of an extravagant family.'

      'Oh confusion to you Dan,' says the T. BC,

      'You're the devil of a man,' says the T. BC

      (Repeal Song of 1843.)

      (But this form of expression occurs in Dickens—'Our Mutual Friend'—'I have a devil of a temper myself'). An emphatic statement:—'I wouldn't like to trust him, for he's the devil's own rogue.'

      'There's no use in your trying that race against Johnny Keegan, for Johnny is the very devil at running.' 'Oh your reverence,' says Paddy Galvin, 'don't ax me to fast; but you may put as much prayers on me as you like: for, your reverence, I'm very bad at fasting, but I'm the divel at the prayers.' According to Mr. A. P. Graves, in 'Father O'Flynn,' the 'Provost and Fellows of Trinity' [College, Dublin] are 'the divels an' all at Divinity.' This last expression is truly Hibernian, and is very often heard:—A fellow is boasting how he'll leather Jack Fox when next he meets him. 'Oh yes, you'll do the devil an' all while Jack is away; but wait till he comes to the fore.'

      In several of the following short stories and sayings the simpleton side of Satan's character is well brought out.

      Damer of Shronell, who lived in the eighteenth century, was reputed to be the richest man in Ireland—a sort of Irish Croesus: so that 'as rich as Damer' has become a proverb in the south of Ireland. An Irish peasant song-writer, philosophising on the vanity of riches, says:—

      'There was ould Paddy Murphy had money galore,

      And Damer of Shronell had twenty times more—

      They are now on their backs under nettles and stones.'

      Damer's house in ruins is still to be seen at Shronell, four miles west of Tipperary town. The story goes that he got his money by selling his soul to the devil for as much gold as would fill his boot—a top boot, i.e. one that reaches above the knee. On the appointed day the devil came with his pockets well filled with guineas and sovereigns, as much as he thought was sufficient to fill any boot. But meantime Damer had removed the heel and fixed the boot in the floor, with a hole in the boards underneath, opening into the room below. The devil flung in handful after handful till his pockets were empty, but still the boot was not filled. He then sent out a signal, such as they understand in hell—for they had wireless telegraphy there long before Mr. Marconi's Irish mother was born—on which a crowd of little imps arrived all laden with gold coins, which were emptied into the boot, and still no sign of its being filled. He had to send them many times for more, till at last he succeeded in filling the room beneath as well as the boot; on which the transaction was concluded. The legend does not tell what became of Damer in the end; but such agreements usually wind up (in Ireland) by the sinner tricking Satan out of his bargain.

      When a person does an evil deed under cover of some untruthful but plausible justification, or utters a wicked saying under a disguise: that's 'blindfolding the devil in the dark.' The devil is as cute in the dark as in the light: and blindfolding him is useless and foolish: he is only laughing at you.

      'You're a very coarse Christian,' as the devil said to the hedgehog. (Tyrone.)

      The name and fame of the great sixteenth-century magician, Dr. Faust or Faustus, found way somehow to our peasantry; for it was quite common to hear a crooked knavish man spoken of in this way:—'That fellow is a match for the devil and Dr. Fosther.' (Munster.)

      The magpie has seven drops of the devil's blood in its body: the water-wagtail has three drops. (Munster.)

      When a person is unusually cunning, cute, and tricky, we say 'The devil is a poor scholar to you.' ('Poor scholar' here means a bad shallow scholar.)

      'Now since James is after getting all the money, the devil can't howld him': i.e. he has grown proud and overbearing.

      'Firm and ugly, as the devil said when he sewed his breeches with gads.' Here is how it happened. The devil was one day pursuing the soul of a sinner across country, and in leaping over a rough thorn hedge, he tore his breeches badly, so that his tail stuck out; on which he gave up the chase.