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Show THE IRISH BROGUE. Irish Humorists Philosophizing, of "Old Hag-s" on a Local Grievance. The appended humorous article from the pen of some (to us unknown) genius gen-ius appeared in a recent issue of the Waterford Star, a paper published in AN atertord City, Ireland. We offer it to our readers as a treat in the line of "light reading," and it will certainly be prized by those amongst them who are lovers of humor. To portray the Irish dialect faithfully one has to grow up with, or at least spend an indefinite1 period among the characters whom he essays to portray, and familiarize himself with their use of language. The Irish dialect does not consist, as so many seem to think, merely in broadening the "As" and adding "H" to the "Ts." Many of our foreign would-be dialecticians and humorists hu-morists wantonly err both by excess and defect in thus imagining. Others again flatter themselves that they are thorough masters in the use of Irish brogue when they succeed in making "As" bf "Es," such as "belaive" for "believe," etc.; and thus o the casual observer and least familiar they betray be-tray their ignorance on almost. every page. It must be remembered that the untutored Irishman sometimes uses "brogue" in one connection, where in a different connection he uses correct English; thus (experto crede) an Irishman Irish-man will not say: "The king made a great spache (speech) at the Opening of parliament," but he will say: "He was spacheless (speechless) for three hours." The "brogue," then, is not a fixed entity; on the contrary, it is very variable, and hence Ave say that one must be thoroughly conversant with its use before he can be a success in its portrayal. For a foreigner, and one, we understand, -who has never even visited the scenes of her dreams, the author of "Carroll O'Donahue" has been fairly successful in her use of the Irish brogue; yet even she errs a little by excess she overdoes it in quite a few instances. In this respect we give Mr. F. P. Dunne,' the author of the "Dooley Dialogues" of current fame, credit for being a success as an Irish dialectician and humorist He has a happy faculty of maintaining a safe medium. To these productions of Mr. Dunne "Dr. O'Hara Among the Ladies" will be judged not inferior, but is, in our opinionand opin-ionand we know whereof we speak a fair sample of the correct use of brogue, as well as of rural philosophy, wit and In order, to save our readers a "voyage "voy-age at sea," in the perusal of the dialogue dia-logue between the "ladies," it will be necessary to give a, rough sketch of the facts which form its subject matter. mat-ter. These facts we have gleaned from the same source, the Waterford Star. It appears that the Rt. Rev. Dr. O'Hara, Protestant bishop of the diocese dio-cese of Cashel and Emly, whose seat of jurisdiction and government is in Waterford City, visited the north of Ireland by choice or invitation some time in May last, and during his visit made several speeches or addresses at Coleraine, in which he stigmatized the Catholics of the south, and especially of Waterford, as "benighted, ignorant, superstitious and intolerant, who forced their Protestant fellow-citizens to live by grudging concessions." These addresses, published by the Coleraine Chronicle, were afterward taken up and republished with fiery comment by the Catholic press of the country, and by none more vigorously than, the Waterford Star. This aroused the indignation in-dignation of the citizens, who immediately imme-diately clamored for redress of the calumny and stigma so unjustly placed "upon their creed and character. Mass meetings were called, in which the mayor and city council participated. Resolutions were drawn up at meetings of public boards, city and county councils, coun-cils, and Catholic societies, demanding a denial or a recantation of the accredited ac-credited slanders from their author. These resolutions, were ignored. Dr. Sheehan, the Catholic bishop of Waterford, Water-ford, in an address on the occasion of the annual procession of the Sodality of Mary Immaculate, made reference to the O'Hara sermons, which "drew" from the bishop of Cashel a letter in a local newspaper. In which he stated that '."his remarks were grossly distorted distort-ed and his meaning misinterpreted." Like a veritable bolt from the blue came .'the contradiction of the Coleraine Cole-raine editor, who averred that "the sermons were published verbatim from hi reporter's notes, which were still on file." Still Dr. O'Hara did not recant re-cant or apologize further than to state in a letter to ihe Waterford board of guardians and' district council that "he was sorry, that any Words of his had caused pain to vany.one." . Later he presided at a Protestant meeting in the "city hall" and made an address, in which he placed a climax on the former offence by declaring, that he not only refused to deny, contradict or apologize apolo-gize for the accredited slanders., but openly end Impressively reiterated and corroborated them, "to the great admiration ad-miration and applause of his audience." He then declared his intention of taking tak-ing a protracted vacation avowedly to better his health, but presumptively to allow the storm of indignation to blow-over, blow-over, and leave "Old Father Time" to heal the wounds with his never-failing balm. Having thus briefly stated the facts in the case, we now vacate the chair in favor of the "old hags" on the bank of the Sulr, '. '. ' : '. DR. O'HARA AMONG THE LADIES. Scene The. Cundick; " Ferrybank, Waterford. . ' ' Time, 5 p. m. "Arrah, Molly, did you see the Star this week?" "No, indeed, alanna, the sight is ivake, but I'm tould it came out great intirely. Still T can't say that I under stand this O'Hara business rightly. Everybody seems to be dead nuts on tne poor man. and sure, judgin from appearance he is hardset enough to me an' lave him alone. Wrould you have time to give me an iday of the ins and outs of the whole thing?" j4'NVhat did he do?" v Went up "somewhere to the Black .orth and prached, no less, to a parcel or Orangemen that the Cathlics of the south were ignorant an' superstishus to ii, at Tv'e be&rudged the prodestans 10 me. He knew well what would go thmTLi'11.? the lambs UP there an' he inougnt ,t would never be found out wtr at he could stm be a" an' all an- wn BishP. God bless him, boorfl, v, S!lH keep his sate on all the out if tat the Catholic put him on thourtt nr softness and charity. He that SJ ' hC blat-hearted slanderer ivtl nf that'"8 "ia make the hard 2 belr." th0liS in the Nrth t0 preached0?" " f0UDd Ut that he tJ'? ATan thim orange newspa-fn, newspa-fn, , t00k the sermon don word hnu and prented it for the Belfast boult throwers. Then of course it was Put in all the papers." ,1."An', what had he to say for himself when he was found out?" h.e .said he was not reported right an that he did not say any such things. He even got a prodestant' to stand up in the corporation an' say that he n.nar,ed e Bishop's sermon, as hi- d' Vth the notes he wrote out beforehand, an' that they were not the same at all; an' what he meant be' gjuaging concessions" had reference only to the church authorities not sendin' ministhers often enough to the congregations." . "Well?" ... u!'Je? ihe Wrote a 'say-much-mean-ck u ter to Dr' Sheehan, but Dr. Sheehan gave him to understand that in all fairness he should have his sermon ser-mon correctly printed in the papers mat gave the wrong varsion an so keep the Cathlics from being murd-hered murd-hered on the 12th. But still no answer trom me bouchal who was misrenort-ed.( misrenort-ed.( moryah!" "An' d'ye tell me he refused to do what the poorest fathlio would gladly do m a, like cas if indeed a Cathlic could be found mane enough to thry to take away the careckthers of one lot of people an' put another lot in danger of bein' murdhered?" "Deed thin he did refuse an' for the simple raisin that he was reported correctly cor-rectly an' that the reporther stuck to his own varsion of the affair. If Dr O'Hara could be any manes find out that the notes wer desthroyed. you may be sure he would not have much scruple in making a liar of the reporter." re-porter." ''NVell wouldn't that be only convert-in convert-in him to his own way of gettin' on''" "Yis, indeed, but still O'Hara could S1.Y hlm ,ong odds an' aisly bate him." NVell, Peggy, from what you tell me of the ould bigot, I think he must be nearly as bad as the fella I heard Jim-mie Jim-mie readin' about; he was a lad that used to hang the croppies In the time of the rebellion be throw-in' a coard round their nicks an' htmgin' thim iver his shouldher. His name, I think, was Himpinstall." "And not a bad name, aither, Molly but he was- a far betther man than O Hara." ' ."Well, I'm sure I thought no wan could be worse than . a murdherin' hangman.'' c . ... "Yis, Molly, but don't, you see that Himpinstall, as you call him sint more people to heaven than the other ould bouchal is ever likely to do. An Himpinstall Him-pinstall never wint behind people's backs to cut their throats." "An" did the public boords take no notice of this visible ail only head of the Watherford Prodestants?" "Arrah what are you talkin about? There wasn't a boord in the whole South of Ireland but acted like min; an' such grand langwige as was in the resolutions; an thin, th eloquens of the speeches. I tell you I felt proud I was a Cathlic; why even in our own corporation not to mintion the other public bodies at all, the speeches of the mayor, Captin Toele an' Mr. NVhittle, an' Mr. Walsh, an' above all of Mr. Power would be enough to rise the cockles of your heart. Notice indeed: I wouldn't be surprised to hear that th' ould chap had to ordain (God bless the mark) another mini$ther to help him to read all th' thruth that was said to him since he was found out." "And Peggy, agra what answer did me ould ranther give to the public bodies?" "Soft sawdher to be sure; he was sorry inagh that any words of his gave pain to anyone!" "Well, at any rate, did the Prodes-tan' Prodes-tan' gintlemfn of the city an county stand up like min an' show to the world how cruelly the Cathlics among whom they live, an' on whose ginerous custom they have become rich, had been belied be this long-legged importation. "Aisy now, Molly, your How of indignant in-dignant eloquens is provin too much for your common sinse. They didn't do nothin o' the kind. They began givin' their bishop a good kereckther an sayin what a rale gintleman he was, just as if they thought it the most nathural thing in the world that people peo-ple should look upon gintlemin an Prodestan' Bishops as two different kinds of animals intirely. Thin they signed a big resolution which said how glad they wor that their bishop was misreported and that they knew the Cathlics to be so an' so, an' so on." "O, I. see,'. .'Peggy, they meant to say to the.-Catholics. 'NVe'll swear by our Bishop, but all the same we don't want to . lose your custom;' " - "That's the .matther in: a nutshell, Molly." "Still. an'. all you"see it might be said that me bouchal did not spake for the Protestants of Watherfoi'd.". "Deed it might, an' it was. But if he did not '. ffpake "their . opinions, ' why didn't they, condim him; and if he did, what prate have they, I'd' like .to know?" " " " "Well, Molly, to make a long story short, whin he saw he had no back-doo'res back-doo'res but brazen the 'matther out, he ups an' he gets together in the Prodestan' Pro-destan' hall a big collection of clargy an, laity, an' makes a speech far more bitther an' lyln' than the sermons that caused all the rumpus th' ould second edishun of th'" inipinitent thief!" "An' wor some of the Prodestans present who had signed the mock resolution?" reso-lution?" .. "I'm tould they were, an' that they were the loudest in their cheers at the bishop's words." "Well, in his speech did he thry to give any proof that we were ignorant and superstishus?" . , "O, ay, he minshined the Tipperary case, where an ould ' herb docthor showed a man .-who was anxious to get rid of his wife an aisy way to put her out of the way." "I remember the case well; an' do you tell me that because there was a few wicked, ignorant people in a wild backward place this ould chap wanted to make out that all the Cathlics of the south of Ireland. wor the same?" "That's his raisinin to a T." "So that if one Prodestan in a congregation con-gregation is drunk, we may say that the whole congregation was drunk?" "Eggsaetly so." ...JL'And if..O'Harawas tipsy when he preached, then be coorse all the Pro-destant Pro-destant bishops wor tipsy too?" ."Quite true." ' - "Did he give any raisin' for sayin' that we were intolerant?" ; , "O, yes, .he-gave the most beautiful raisin in the world." He said he arrived ar-rived at the conclusion that we were intolerant 'because three weeks. , after havin'. arrived at it a Salvation Army man was bet somewhere in Watherford!" Wather-ford!" "Weli, surely, liars need, long memories." mem-ories." "Dr. O'Hara does anyway. But tho beauty Of his speech was where he said that the liberty of the Prodestan' pulpit was in danger." "So, Peggy; the liberty of the Prodestan Pro-destan pulpit manes the liberty of slandher an' incitemint to murdher the Cathlics?' "Well,. Molly, I must sav that for your age you have a very clear head." "None of your plaumauce now, Peggy; Peg-gy; but, tell me, alanna, did O'Hara take any notice jn his speech of the resolution the Prodestans had signed?" "He did. in his own vinimous way. He tould the public, be accident if you Plase, that he had prached wan of the sermons in Watherford cathaidhral as long ago as last Christmas." "So that. Peggy, the Prodesdans knew all along what was prached." "Arrah, to be sure they did, but we wouldn't know that only the boyo that has 'no respect for the eighth commandment com-mandment let the cat out o' the bag. He tould on himself, too, in a way " "An' how was that?' "Well, you see. in the beginnin', he eaid he compared his notes with the liT'011.',311' in his Peech in lot " that the notes wor "O, the want o' mimory agin! Did speech "Dythin ClSe in hlS iniPinitent "Well, not much more." "But tell me, Mofly. what coorse our own. clergy took ur.dher such thryin' circumstances?" "They acted with the greatest mod- vearf T a.nd kfp siience tiJl lence was almost a sin; bud whin they did which was convained be the mavor at he requist of all the laidin' min of the S'hejr V?ke with a logic which must have made me ould what-do-you-im squirm. Canon Flynn sthruck the nan on the head every time. 'Deed ne did not mince his words but told some plain truths. 1 rally bleeve he was the man that sthruck O'Hara most. Father O'Donneli, too. made a fine speech. Jle showed where the intolerance in-tolerance railly lay.' "I've been thinkin', Mollv, while you were talkin' about the priests of another an-other chap that I heard Jimmie readin' about, that fell asleep an' stopped so for two or three hundred years an' it has sthruck me that perhaps O'Hara was wud Crummel in Droghedy, that be fell asleep Jn some crucked position an that his legs kep growln'.till he was wakened to help to prache Martin Mar-tin Luther's docthtine." "Throth Molly, it may be that you are right: that would account for his peculiarities of x both mind and body at any rate. Bud don't you see that you were hardly givin' me that attin-tion attin-tion which a woman of my years and the nathure of me subjeck demanded." demand-ed." "O Molly, alanna, don't be vexed would me, sure I couldn't help me fancy runinn away would me, an besides, be-sides, I could make a very good guess how the priests would act, God bless them." "I, too, Molly, have been thinkin the whole matther over, an' 1 came to the conclushun that we would never have heard of the sermons only for ourselves." our-selves." "I'm at a loss to know how that could be, Peggy.1' :" "Well, you mast admit that this O'Hara chap is at laste a shrewd customer, cus-tomer, an' he must have been takin' stock of us for a long time." "NVell ,an' what has that got to io with id?" :" "O, id has uvery thing to "do would id. In the- first''5 place he must have noticed how anxious we always are to' pull off our caubeens or make our curcheys to the Prodestan ginthry, or to their hangers-on for that matther. In the nixt place he must have seen that we never' give our custom to a Cathlic if ther's 'any soart .of a Prodestan Prodes-tan handy." "" "Bud, sure.' Ppggy, that only shows our tolerance."" - . ' "That may be, Molly, bud to my mind it shows our want of backbone just as much. I'd like to know which Is uppermost in our minds whin we pass a Cathlic shop an' give our custom cus-tom to a Prodestan wan to respect the Prodestan for bein" a Prodestan or to despise the Cathlic for bein' a Cathlic. Cath-lic. Well, in the1 third place, me bouchal must have twigged the action of some of our shoneens in bein' will-in will-in enough to pass rawmaysh resolutions resolu-tions at the public boords, an immay-jately immay-jately afther. toady to the Prodestan bigwigs. He could harl fcsip comin' to the conclusion' that If he kicked us we would turn : around an' polish his shoes." "What ought to; be done would the Prodestans. that are on the public boords, Peggy?" ; Suouib sub-i s. tpjBui U9jpnqo puy "I very sthrongly hould that they should be shoved off whin the proper time comes. The thruest word that O'Hara said in his speech was that the Cathlic bishop of Belfast would not be thraited be the Belfast corp' ration as the Waterford corp'ration thraited himself." "An' wouldn't the Belfast City fathers fa-thers call on Dr. Henry to resign his sate on the sylem board an' on the board of tecknickal edjukation?" "Arrah ketch the Belfast bigots havin hav-in him on any boord they could keep him off of; an it plainly follows that whin he is not on he could not be put off, doesn't it? An', moreover, Molly, I ask you, as an honest woman, would id be pathriotic to put min on the public, pub-lic, boords, who, when the time came to defind the fair fame of their city an' county, slunk out of the meetin' like whipped curs, without recordin' their votes in the intherests of thruth an justice, or, worse stilh- stayed avay j from the meetin's like double-dailin' cowards. I say that in this matther 'whoever is not with us is agin us,' and so away with thim." "Begor, Peggy, you'd win any wan to your way of thinkin." "Thank you, Molly. But thin there is the wider queshon of how the Prd-destan Prd-destan shopkeepers an' ' merchants as a body ought to be thraited be Cathlics." Cath-lics." "Here comes Johnnie Looby an I think we couldn't do better than get his opinion on this point." "God save you, Johhnle." "Dheea dhuth, agrah." 1 "How do you think, Johnnie, the Cathlics ought to act towards the Prodestan Pro-destan shopkeepers an' merchants over this O'Hara business?" "Iss bug ahaw shay guth, alanna." "O, bud we want your opinyun very bad, Johnnie." "Well, ladies, as I have always found both of you offhand in me dailings would you, I don't mind if I give you my opinion, an' I may tell you without flatthery it isn't to uverywan I'd spake me mind. I have weighed the matter would mesef more than wance, an' we agreed unanimously on the followin' points: In the first place it would be unfair to dhraw our custom from the Prodestans w-ho refused to sack their Cathlic hands at the biddin' of th' ould figurehead from the palace beyant. In the next place it sartinly isn't fair to the Cathlic shopkeepers of the town to be supportin' min who never give a keenoge for a Cathlic purpose. "Thirdly, it's not right for Cathlics to support Prodestans who keep no Cathlic hands. And in the last place it may be laid down as a safe rule that in gineral Cathlics ought to give to Cathlic Cath-lic houses more support than they gave 'em in the past. "It surely is a strange commintory on our boasted indepindence an' on our brave Cathlic sperrit, -that when dhry we dhrink Protestan beer, when sick We sind for a Prodestan docthor an dhrink Prodestan medsin, when we do up our houses we use Prodestan paint i when we go to law we must, have Pro-' destan liars, if we want printin' done we go to a Prodestan printer, if we have to order a book a Prodestan has to do it for us, an' if we are only git-tin' git-tin' a 'bike' nothin. me dear, will do us only to go to .an admirer of 'ould J leggins.' God help us we have no back- j bone. Yit we don't grudge it to 'em, I if they only take and be thankful live an' let live." "Air" Johnnie aviek. what ought to be done to make the directhers of the ; Great Southern stop thraitin' their Cathlic servants as outcasts an' givin' all the fat jobs to their Bleuschool and Raggedschool pets?" "Well, acushla, I tnink abler heads than mine ought to settle that matther, an' atween you an' me an' the wall, it's long ago id should be done; bud as ye axed me I'll jest tell ye what I think. I'm tculd that the Cathlic shareholders are in the majority; any wan that would be anxious to know could find out in the custom house in Dublin on payment of a small fee. Whin that pint is settled a committee of Cathlic share-houlders share-houlders could be formed privately an' a couple of the numbers of that body could be appinted to attend the nixt meeting of the shareholders to ax con-thrairy con-thrairy queshons; thin whin the votin' for new . directhers would cum along they could have the proxies of all the Cathlics who could not attind; and I'm tellin' ye they'd very soon put in their min. Bud thin they shou'd take care an' not put in shoneen Cathlics, for jest as there's no bird so dirty as the wan that fouls her own nest, so there's no Catholic is so ready to do a dirty job as the wan who, while pretendin' to be pice an' patriotic, is always on the look out to rub skirts would the bigots whose manners he is thryin' to imitate, an' whose sosity he would damn his mane little sowl to get into." "O. holy Moses, here's Jimmie to his supper, an' I haven't the tay wetted would all the time I lost talkin' of that crucked ould disciple of parclishun." "Arrah, don't be too hard on him; sure he has set us thinkin'; an action always follies sarious thought. He is a blessin' In disguise, so he is." "Weil, he appears to be in disguise, anyhow." "Slawn lath. Goodbye, Johnnie, an' many thanks for your very clear views. An' take my tip an' call in future any fine lie you may hear an 'O'Hara.' " We are not In sympathy-w;th Johnnie's John-nie's suggested policy, but the above certainly shows that the Catholics have been anything but "intolerant" in the past." |