Part 21

“It might be, indeed, that there were those on both sides who thought that, if the marriage was obstructed, their own sons and daughters would have a better chance. Rose had many admirers; they might have envied John his happiness; many fathers, on the Other side, might have wished their sons to succeed with Rose. Whether I am sinister in this conjecture is more than I can say. I grant, indeed, that a great portion of it is speculation on my part. The wedding-day, however, was arranged; but, unfortunately, the fair-day of Knockimdowny occurred, in the rotation of natural time, precisely one week before it. I know not from what motive it proceeded, but the factions on both sides were never known to make a more light-hearted preparation for battle. Cudgels of all sorts and sizes (and some of them, to my own knowledge, great beauties) were provided.

“I believe I may as well take this opportunity of saying that real Irish cudgels must be root-growing, either oak, black-thorn, or crab-tree--although crab-tree, by the way, is apt to fly. They should not be too long--three feet and a few inches is an accommodating length. They must be naturally top-heavy, and have around the end that is to make acquaintance with the cranium three or four natural lumps, calculated to divide the flesh in the natest manner, and to leave, if possible, the smallest taste in life of pit in the skull. But if a good root-growing _kippeen_ be light at the fighting-end, or possess not the proper number of knobs, a hole, a few inches deep, is to be bored in the end, which must be filled with melted lead. This gives it a widow-and-orphan-making quality, a child-bereaving touch, altogether very desirable. If, however, the top splits in the boring--which, in awkward hands, is not uncommon--the defect may be remediated by putting on an iron ferrule, and driving two or three strong nails into it, simply to preserve it from flying off; not that an Irishman is ever at a loss for weapons when in a fight, for so long as a scythe, flail, spade, pitchfork, or stone is at hand, he feels quite contented with the lot of war. No man, as they say of great statesmen, is more fertile in expedients during a row; which, by the way, I take to be a good quality, at all events.

“I remember the fair-day of Knockimdowny well; it has kept me from griddle-bread and tough nutriment ever since. Hard fortune to Jack Roe O'Hallaghan! No man had better teeth than I had till I met with him that day. He fought stoutly on his own side; but he was ped then for the same basting that fell to me, though not by my hands, if to get his jaw dacently divided into three halves could be called a fair liquidation of an old debt--it was equal to twenty shillings in the pound, any how.

“There had not been a larger fair in the town of Knockimdowny for years. The day was dark and sunless, but sultry. On looking through the crowd, I could see no man! without a cudgel; yet, what was strange, there was no certainty of any sport. Several desultory skrimmages had locality, but they I were altogether sequestered from the great factions of the O's. Except that it was pleasant and stirred one's blood to look at them, or occasioned the cudgels to be grasped more firmly, there was no personal interest felt by any of us in them; they therefore began and ended, here and there, through the fair, like mere flashes in the pan, dying in their own smoke.

“The blood of every prolific nation is naturally hot; but when that hot blood is inflamed by ardent spirits, it is not to be supposed that men should be cool; and God he knows, there is not on the level surface of this habitable globe, a nation that has been so thoroughly inflamed by ardent spirits of all kinds as Ireland.

“Up till four o'clock that day, the factions were quiet. Several relations on both sides had been invited to drink by John and Rose's families, for the purpose of establishing a good feeling between them. But this was, after all, hardly to be expected, for they hated one another with an ardency much too good-humored and buoyant; and, between ourselves, to bring Paddy over a bottle is a very equivocal mode of giving him an anti-cudgeling disposition. After the hour of four, several of the factions were getting very friendly, which I knew at the time to be a bad sign. Many of them nodded to each other, which I knew to be a worse one; and some of them shook hands with the greatest cordiality, which I no sooner saw than I slipped the knot of my cravat, and held myself in preparation for the sport.

“I have often had occasion to remark--and few men, let me tell you, had finer opportunities of doing so--the differential symptomatics between a Party Fight, that is, a battle between Orangemen and Ribbon-men, and one between two Roman Catholic Factions. There is something infinitely more anxious, silent, and deadly, in the compressed vengeance, and the hope of slaughter, which characterize a party fight, than is to be seen in a battle between factions. The truth is, the enmity is not so deep and well-grounded in the latter as in the former. The feeling is not political nor religious between the factions; whereas, in the other, it is both, which is a mighty great advantage; for when this is adjuncted to an intense personal hatred, and a sense of wrong, probably arising from a too intimate recollection of the leaded black thorn, or the awkward death of some relative, by the musket or the bayonet, it is apt to produce very purty fighting, and much respectable retribution.

“In a party fight, a prophetic sense of danger, hangs, as it were, over the crowd--the very air is loaded with apprehension; and the vengeance burst is proceeded by a close, thick darkness, almost sulphury, that is more terrifical than the conflict itself, though dearly less dangerous and fatal. The scowl of the opposing parties, the blanched cheeks, the knit brows, and the grinding teeth, not pretermitting the deadly gleams that shoot from their kindled eyes, are ornaments which a plain battle between factions cannot boast, but which, notwithstanding, are very suitable to the fierce and gloomy silence of that premeditated vengeance which burns with such intensity in the heart, and scorches up the vitals into such a thirst for blood. Not but that they come by different means to the same conclusion; because it is the feeling, and not altogether the manner of operation, that is different.

“Now a faction fight doesn't resemble this at all at all. Paddy's at home here; all song, dance, good-humor, and affection. His cheek is flushed with delight, which, indeed, may derive assistance from the consciousness of having no bayonets or loaded carabines to contend with; but anyhow, he's at home--his eye is lit with real glee--he tosses his hat in the air, in the height of mirth--and leaps, like a mounteback, two yards from the ground. Then, with what a gracious dexterity he brandishes his cudgel! what a joyous spirit is heard in his shout at the face of a friend from another faction! His very 'who!' is contagious, and would make a man, that had settled on running away, return and join the sport with an appetite truly Irish. He is, in fact, while under the influence of this heavenly afflatus, in love with every one, man, woman, and child. If he meet his sweetheart, he will give her a kiss and a hug, and that with double kindness, because he is on his way to thrash her father or brother. It is the acumen of his enjoyment; and woe be to him who will adventure to go between him and his amusements. To be sure, skulls and bones are broken, and lives lost; but they are lost in pleasant fighting--they are the consequences of the sport, the beauty of which consists in breaking as many heads and necks as you can; and certainly when a man enters into the spirit of any exercise, there is nothing like elevating himself to the point of excellence. Then a man ought never to be disheartened. If you lose this game, or get your head good-humoredly beaten to pieces, why you may win another, or your friends may mollify two or three skulls as a set-off to yours; but that is nothing.

“When the evening became more advanced, maybe, considering the poor look up there was for anything like decent sport--maybe, in the early part of the day, it wasn't the delightful sight to see the boys on each side of the two great factions beginning to get frolicsome. Maybe the songs and the shouting, when they began, hadn't melody and music in them, any how! People may talk about harmony; but what harmony is equal to that in which five or six hundred men sing and shout, and leap and caper at each other, as a prelude to neighborly fighting where they beat time upon the drums of each other's ears and heads with oak drumsticks? That's an Irishman's music; and hard fortune to the _garran_* that wouldn't have friendship and kindness in him to join and play a stave along with them! 'Whoo; your sowl! Hurroo! Success to our side! Hi for the O'Callaghans! Where's the blackguard to--,' I beg pardon, decent reader; I forgot myself for a moment, or rather I got new life in me, for I am nothing at all at all for the last five months--a kind of nonentity I may say, ever since that vagabond Burges occasioned me to pay a visit to my distant relations, till my friends get that last matter of the collar-bone settled.

* Garran--a horse; but it is always used as meaning a bad one--one without mettle. When figuratively applied to a man, it means a coward

“The impulse which faction fighting gives to trade and business in Ireland is truly surprising; whereas party fighting depreciates both. As soon as it is perceived that a party fight is to be expected, all buying and selling are nearly suspended for the day; and those who are not _up_*, and even many who are, take themselves and their property home as quickly as may be convenient. But in a faction fight, as soon as there is any perspective of a row, depend upon it, there is quick work at all kinds of negotiation; and truly there is nothing like brevity and decision in buying and selling; for which reason, faction fighting, at all events, if only for the sake of national prosperity, should be encouraged and kept up.

* Initiated into Whiteboyism

“Towards five o'clock, if a man was placed on an exalted station; so that he could look at the crowd, and wasn't able to fight, he could have seen much that a man might envy him for. Here a hat went up, or maybe a dozen of them; then followed a general huzza. On the other side, two dozen caubeens sought the sky, like so many scaldy crows attempting their own element for the first time, only they were not so black. Then another shout, which was answered by that of their friends on the opposite side; so that you would hardly know which side huzzaed loudest, the blending of both was so truly symphonius. Now there was a shout for the face of an O'Callaghan; this was prosecuted on the very heels by another for the face of an O'Hallaghan. Immediately a man of the O'Hallaghan side doffed his tattered frieze, and catching it by the very extremity of the sleeve, drew it with a tact, known only by an initiation of half a dozen street days, up the pavement after him. On the instant, a blade from the O'Callaghan side peeled with equal alacrity, and stretching his _home-made_ * at full length after him, proceeded triumphantly up the street, to meet the other.

* Irish frieze is mostly manufactured at home, which accounts for the expression here.

“Thunder-an-ages, what's this for, at all, at all! I wish I hadn't begun to manuscript an account of it, any how; 'tis like a hungry man dreaming of a good dinner at a feast, and afterwards awaking and finding his front ribs and back-bone on the point of union. Reader, is that a black-thorn you carry--tut, where is my imagination bound for?----to meet the other, I say.

“'Where's the rascally O'Callaghan that will place his toe or his shillely on this frieze?' 'Is there no blackguard O'Hallaghan jist to look crucked at the coat of an O'Callaghan, or say black's the white of his eye?'

“'Troth and there is, Ned, avourneen, that same on the sod here.'

“'Is that Barney?'

“'The same, Ned, ma bouchal; and how is your mother's son, Ned?'

“'In good health at the present time, thank God and you; how is yourself, Barney?'

“'Can't complain as time goes; only take this, any how, to mend your health, ma bouchal.' (Whack.)

“'Success, Barney, and here's at your sarvice, avick, not making little of what I got, any way.' (Crack.)

“About five o'clock on a May evening, in the fair of Knockimdowny, was the ice thus broken, with all possible civility, by Ned and Barney. The next moment a general rush took place towards the scene of action, and ere you could bless yourself, Barney and Ned were both down, weltering in their own and each other's blood. I scarcely know, indeed, though with a mighty respectable quota of experimentality myself, how to describe what followed. For the first twenty minutes the general harmony of this fine row might be set to music, according to a scale something like this:--Whick whack--crick crack--whick whack--crick crack--&c, &c, &o. 'Here yer sowl--(crack)--there yer sowl--(whack). Whoo for the O'Hallag-hans!'--(crack, crack, crack). 'Hurroo for the O'Callaghans!--(whack, whack, whack). The O'Callaghans for ever!'--(whack). 'The O'Hallaghans for ever!'--(crack). 'Mur-ther! murther!--(crick, crack)--foul! foul!--(whack, whack). Blood and turf!--(whack, whick)--tunther-an-ouns'--(crack, crick). 'Hurroo! my darlings! handle your kip-peens--(crack, crack)--the O'Hallaghans are going!'--(whack, whack).

“You are to suppose them, here to have been at it for about half an hour.

“Whack, crack--'oh--oh--oh! have mercy upon me, boys--(crack--a shriek of murther! murther--crack, crack, whack)--my life--my life--(crack, crack--whack, whack)--oh! for the sake of the living Father!--for the sake of my wife and childher, Ned Hallaghan, spare my life.'

“'So we will, but take this, any how'--(whack, crack, whack, crack).

“'Oh! for the love of. God, don't kill--(whack, crack, whack). Oh!'--(crack, crack, whack--dies).

“'Huzza! huzza! huzza!' from the O'Hallaghans. 'Bravo, boys! there's one of them done for: whoo! my darlings! hurroo! the O'Hallaghans for ever!'

“The scene now changes to the O'Callaghan side.

“'Jack--oh, Jack, avourneen--hell to their sowls for murdherers--Paddy's killed--his skull's smashed! Revinge, boys, Paddy O'Callaghan's killed! On with you, O'Callaghans--on with you--on with you, Paddy O'Callaghan's murdhered--take to the stones--that's it--keep it up, down with: him! Success!--he's the bloody villain that: didn't show him marcy--that's it. Tunder-an-ouns, is it laving him that way you are afther--let me at him!'

“'Here's a stone, Tom!'

“'No, no, this stick has the lead in it. It'll do him, never fear!'

“'Let him alone, Barney, he's got enough.'

“'By the powdhers, it's myself that won't: didn't he kill Paddy?--(crack, crack). Take that, you murdhering thief!'--(whack, whack).

“'Oh!--(whack, crack)--my head--I'm killed--I'm'--(crack--kicks the bucket).

“'Now, your sowl, that does you, any way--(crack, whack)--hurro!--huzza!--huzza!--Man for man, boys--an O'Hallaghan's done for--whoo! for our side--tol-deroll, folderoll, tow, row, row--huzza!--fol-deroll, fol-deroll, tow, row, row, huzza for the O'Callaghans!'

“From this moment the battle became delightful; it was now pelt and welt on both sides, but many of the kippeens were broken: many of the boys had their fighting arms disabled by a dislocation, or bit of fracture, and those weren't equal to more than doing a little upon such as were down.

“In the midst of the din, such a dialogue as this might be heard:

“'Larry, you're after being done for, for this day.' (Whack, crack.)

“'Only an eye gone--is that Mickey?' (whick, whack, crick, crack.)

“'That's it, my darlings!--you may say that, Larry--'tis my mother's son that's in it--(crack, crack,--a general huzza.): (Mickey and Larry) huzza! huzza! huzza for the O'Hallaghans! What have you got, Larry?--(crack, crack).

“'Only the bone of my arm, God be praised for it, very purtily snapt across!' (whack, whack).

“'Is that all? Well, some people have luck!'--(crack, crack, crack).

“'Why I've no reason to complain, thank God--(whack, crack!)--purty play that, any way--Paddy O'Callaghan's settled--did you hear it?--(whack, whack, another shout)--That's it boys--handle the shilleleys!--Success O'Hallaghans--down with the bloody O'Callaghans!'

“'I did hear it: so is Jem O'Hallaghan--(crack, whack, whack, crack)--you're not able to get up, I see--tare-an-ounty, isn't it a pleasure to hear that play?--What ails you?'

“'Oh, Larry, I'm in great pain, and getting very weak, entirely'--(faints).

“'Faix, and he's settled too, I'm thinking.'

“'Oh, murdher, my arm!' (One of the O'Callaghans attacks him--crack, crack)--

“'Take that, you vagabone!'--(whack, whack).

“' Murdher, murdher, is it strikin' a down man you're after?--foul, foul, and my arm broke!'--(crack, crack).

“'Take that, with what you got before, and it'll ase you, maybe.'

“(A party of the O'Hallaghans attack the man who is beating him).

“'Murdher, murdher!'--(crack, whack, whack, crack, crack, whack).

“'Lay on him, your sowls to pirdition--lay on him, hot and heavy--give it to him! He sthruck me and me down wid my broken arm!'

“'Foul, ye thieves of the world!--(from the O'Callaghan)--foul! five against one--give me fair play!--(crack, crack, crack)--Oh!--(whack) Oh, oh, oh!'--(falls senseless, covered with blood).

“'Ha, hell's cure to you, you bloody thief; you didn't spare me with my arm broke'--(Another general shout.) 'Bad end to it, isn't it a poor case entirely, that I can't even throw up my caubeen, let alone join in the diversion.'

“Both parties now rallied, and ranged themselves along the street, exhibiting a firm phalanx, wedged close against each other, almost foot to foot. The mass was thick and dense, and the tug of conflict stiff, wild and savage. Much natural skill and dexterity were displayed in their mutual efforts to preserve their respective ranks unbroken, and as the sallies and charges were made on both sides, the temporary rash, the indentation of the multitudinous body, and the rebound into its original position, gave an undulating appearance to the compact mass--reeking, dragging, groaning, and buzzing as it was, that resembled the serpentine motion of a rushing water-spout in the clouds.

“The women now began to take part with their brothers and sweethearts. Those who had no bachelors among the opposite factions, fought along with their brothers; others did not scruple even to assist in giving their enamored swains the father of a good beating. Many, however, were more faithful to love than to natural affection, and these sallied out, like heroines, under the banners of their sweethearts, fighting with amazing prowess against their friends and relations; nor was it at all extraordinary to see two sisters engaged on opposite sides--perhaps tearing each other as, with dishevelled hair, they screamed with a fury that was truly exemplary. Indeed it is no untruth to assert that the women do much valuable execution. Their manner of fighting is this--as soon as the fair one decides upon taking a part in the row, she instantly takes off her apron or her stocking, stoops down, and lifting the first four pounder she can get, puts it in the corner of her apron, or the foot of her stocking, if it has a foot, and marching into the scene of action, lays about her right and left. Upon my credibility, they are extremely useful and handy, and can give mighty nate knockdowns--inasmuch as no guard that a man is acquainted with can ward off their blows. Nay, what is more, it often happens, when a son-in-law is in a faction against his father-in-law and his wife's people generally, that if he and his wife's brother meet, the wife will clink him with the _pet_ in her apron, downing her own husband with great skill, for it is not always that marriage extinguishes the hatred of factions; and very often 'tis the brother that is humiliated.

“Up to the death of these two men, John O'Callaghan and Rose's father, together with a large party of their friends on both sides, were drinking in a public-house, determined to take no portion in the fight, at all at all. Poor Rose, when she heard the shouting and terrible strokes, got as pale as death, and sat close to John, whose hand she captured hers, beseeching him, and looking up in his face with the most imploring sincerity as she spoke, not to go out among them; the tears falling all the time from her fine eyes, the mellow flashes of which, when John's pleasantry in soothing her would seduce a smile, went into his very heart. But when, on looking out of the window where they sat, two of the opposing factions heard that a man on each side was killed; and when on ascertaining the names of the individuals, and of those who murdered them, it turned out that one of the murdered men was brother to a person in the room, and his murderer uncle to one of those in the window, it was not in the power of man or woman to keep them asunder, particularly as they were all rather advanced in liquor. In an instant the friends of the murdered man made a rush at the window, before any pacifiers had time to get between them, and catching the nephew of him who had committed the murder, hurled him head-foremost upon the stone pavement, where his skull was dashed to pieces, and his brains scattered about the flags!

“A general attack instantly took place in the room, between the two factions; but the apartment was too low and crowded to permit of proper fighting, so they rushed out to the street, shouting and. yelling, as they do when the battle comes to the real point of doing business. As soon as it was seen that the heads of the O'Callaghan's and O'Hallaghans were at work as well as the rest, the fight was recommenced with retrebled spirit; but when the mutilated body of the man who had been flung from the window, was observed lying in the pool of his own proper brains and blood, such a cry arose among his friends, as would cake (* harden) the vital fluid in the veins of any one not a party in the quarrel. Now was the work--the moment of interest--men and women groaning, staggering, and lying insensible; others shouting, leaping, and huzzaing; some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens blurting, like over-grown children, on seeing their own blood; many raging and roaring about like bulls;--all this formed such a group as a faction fight, and nothing else, could represent.