IRISH WIT AND HOMOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 319, 18 January 1908, Page 4

IRISH WIT AND HOMOUR.

(By J. .1. Sullivan, Xew Plymouth, in "The Catholic .Magazine.")

Of hi* many excellent qualities there are very few which hiw stood to i\i; in such good stead. in suiinhiue and in storm, us his keen sense of the ridiculous, his ready reply, and hit, love ot fun—his wit.

I Wit has not been inappropriately termed by the French ".leu d'esprit," or a recreation of the mind. A good joke lias the same effect upon the mind a* has physical exercke upon the body. The difference l>etween Irish wit and Irish humour is inappreciable. Sydn -y Smith has defined wit as a trivial expression, a nonsensical phrase—a reninciling of apparent i-ontradictions, a smart answer, a r-lv question, an odd comparison. a bitter irony—in fact any unusual manner of speaking which pleases the fancy." Wit is mure allied with words: humour with actions; but in tli ■ Irish tin y are so happily blended thai we shall not attempt to differentiate between them.

iri-.li wit and humour are unlike the wit and luiiuoiir of other |n'npb>s. [ri-h wit in not a manufactured article like that of >onii' countries. It is *pnntan»ous. It i» not studied beforehand. I' is unlike the wit of the American authors wlmi write big books tint are care fully prepared to show droll sayings that were never spoken by anyone, and Iha t originated with themselves. "Mark Twain, the American author.

has perhaps written more books intended to lie funny than have ever been written by anyone else: but they are not genuine wit, anil tire one bv their artificialness.

But Irish wit, whether uttered in Irish or in English, is so natural and spontaneous that it is hardly to he wondered at that, although we have no Mark

Twain within the four shores of Erin Irish wit ha* liecome celebrated over al-

most half the world. Pat has the happy knack of arcom

modating himself to anv circumstances. He s, perhaps, so accustomed to mi*fortune that lie even sees humour in it at times; We have all heard of the tradesman who, having been reduced lo a very low financial watermark, had still one grand consolation left, and thiw sililoquised:— ''Well, whatever I owe. thank God there is nothing due to me." Yes, the Irishman is a believer in the theory of Sydney Smith that " wit gives lo life one of its liest flavours," and he agrees with Swift, too, that " the only person who cannot relish a joke is lie who is incapable of making one." A little Irish fun is often admirable. A young man, addressing Dean Swift, said. " Are you aware Dean, that I set up for a wit." "If you do, sir," was the trenchant reply, "you may 'set down' again." Very often the humour is apparently unconscious, as in the case of the cute, though apparently innocent, schoolboy who defined matrimony as " a place or state of punishment where some souls suffer for a time before they can go to Heaven." Sometimes it may be defined as commercial humour. Witness, for instance, the reply of a home-trainer, who was endeavouring to dispose of his horse, to a question as to whether the horse was timid. *' Timid," said he, "not at all, man; wTiy, I have known that horse to spend nights together ia a dark stable." N'obody, whoever saw it, can have forgotten the picture in "Punch" by the delightful Irish artist, Charles Kecne, representing a couple of tenants silting concealed behind a rock, one witli a pistol, the other with a blunderbuss, it is late in the evening. The faces of both are clouded a little with anxiety. They are waiting for their landlord, and he lias not come. At last, with a sigh of disappointment, one of them'says, "Arrah, Tim, I hope nothing has happened to the poor old gentleman."

That picture epitomises a certain phase of Irish history, in its ludicrously misplaced sentiment. The same or a kindred se»timent brought poverty, exile and death itself to thousands of Irish Jacobites, who risked and 'ost all in support of a worthless English king, a Stuart, in whose family lexicon the word gratitude was unknown. The Irish theatre god is distinguished in being always ready to interpret the French phrase of "assisting at a performance." Once when Fetcher was playing "Monte Cristo" (it was a firstnight performance) in Dublin, the piece dragged its slow length along from act to act, with long waits between, until it bad become half-pact twelve o'clock before the curtain rose for the last time, and discovered Fetclier solus, dignified, impressive, silent. Monte Cristo was preparing for hi* most effective soliloquy. Me waited with impressive silence—waited just a second too long, for the suspense was broken- by a kindly critic in the gallery, who said in a tone of assumed anxiety, " 1 hope we are not i keeping you up, sir." Kedundance of words, or pleonasm, is often a characteristic of Anglo-Irish speech, but the redundance never ma ken the meaning obscure. Some time ago I met an acquaintance on the North Strand in Dublin. " Where have you I been!'' said I. "1 was in Dollymount," said he, " an' it's a purty place." "It is, said 1, " but it's not equal to liowtli or KiUarnev." '"Oh, well now," said he, "the devil a bate you could bate Dollymount and it would be hard in spite of redundance of words to praise Dollymount in stronger or clearer language. In a local paper there appeared an article on the stage Irishman, and it wan there suggested that if the representation of any other country that appeared on the stage was put down "in Irish fashion" life would become intolerable. While dealing with Irish wit and humour it would not be a digression to say (and indirectly justifying the suppression of the stage Irishman as outlined in the paper referred to), that the Iri;h brogue affords an opportunity to our traduoerg of misrepresenting us and exaggerating our faults. To my mind the Irish brogue is not a symbol of ignorance, as are the Yankee drawl or the Cockney accent. The rich, mellow brogue of the Irish peasant is racy of the Irish soil, and is nothing to be ashamed of. The Irish people have, ol course, their provincialism, but they only proclaim the fact that they are noi speaking their mother tongue, and tint though they do make a fair attempt at speaking English, they are still speaking a foreign language, acquired, but not natural. In thir respect, as in many others, is the Irishman grossly misrepresented. and the dialect which is presented to the readers of English and Ameriiß.il jmlrn.iN. aye, and even journals in this Dominion, is in reality as unfamiliar to the Irish people as it is to the inhabitants of distant Timbuctoo.

A good illustration of this was given in the New Zealand Times some time back published under "Mr Dooley," and a gross misrepresentation therein was set aside by a brilliant Irishman living in Wellington. Tlie alleged humorous, but in reality abominable, caricatures «f the Irish from time to time presented to readers of comic journals are depicted by persons as ignorant of Irish manners and customs as they are of the rudiments of common sense ami decency. • hir friend Hooligan is the beau ideal Hibernian of the comic papers. His coun-

tfrmncc h typical of ignorance and ugli

lip-s combined —tho distorted feature*, s tin* thick lip-*, tin? abnormally tr<'th. tlw unkempt and unclean appeararor. The Maek dhude<-n. if not emitting the fume* of stab* tobacco, is *ur»» to he jteepinjj fr»tn behind the rim of a battered and shape!es3 caubeen. Sueh is the embodiment of Irish manhood. Such are the ioifhsome production of artists whose distinguirdmig characteristics are radical hatred and 1 , ignoranev, and .vulgarity which often I stoops even to indecency. All latitude should b* allowed to humorist*, a little exaggeration may be but wholesale fabrication can no be allowed, for must we not remember that when tlw Britons were but painted savages the Irish were celebrated for their sanetitv and their fore?

IjOng may the Irish |>eo|ile keep their vrit, their humour, and their brogue, and may they never he ashnmeil hut always proud of them, and in so doing they will demonstrate to the world that they are worthy sons of * grand old land and faithful to the traditions of a grand old anevstrv.

UN>KED LIKE IT. ' , lie was arrayed for the society dinner. , True, his shirt-front hud been present at fix ban<|uets since last the laundress «azed upon it-* level surface; true, his wai-teoat was covered with prime, hi* '■oat with eandle-jrrease and sealing-wax: true, his countenance even was not of , the rorde-it hue—but in the lapel of his ••oat there l»lo<n!i'tl a buttonhole bouquet of To-es —red and white- which lie had that day j.unl.a-ed from the (Went harden Mark**!. " What d'> you think of thi-. v* ? ho asked a f-a-n il a<-<jitaintan«-e, pointing to his {lower*. '' And where <lo vou think I em?" Th" frien.l «aaed thoughtfully upon the < ! .: ny garments '* T*m't know/' he murmured floftly, '• Couldn't say. Did they grow there!"