Irish Countryfolk

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 81, 10 January 1941, Page 5

Irish Countryfolk

OW, I had my first sample of Irish kindness and generosity. I was inquiring about buses to take me further on to another seaside town where the company was assembling after the week-end, when " herself" of the hotel came to me and said, " Now don’t you be bothering your head about buses. There’s a young man here will run you over." Then, very confidentially, "He’s just gone to have a shave before he asks you." And sure enough, the borough surveyor took the afternoon off and drove me through lovely countryside, under the shadow of the Knockmeilddown Mountains, to Dungarvan. By the way, before we left the Mayor was extracted from the depths of his bicycle shop and presented to me, so I feel I left Waterford with due civic dignity! We stopped by the roadside to visit a famous little pub where the girls and boys used to gather from miles around to dance the old Irish jigs and _teels to the strains of Michael Casey’s accordion. Now this pub was a tiny white-washed cottage by the roadside with two rooms. One had a small bar at one end and no other furniture but a few chairs and the seats in the chimney. The floor was of earth trodden hard in generations of dancing, and on it, beneath the huge open chimney, burnt a glorious turf fire with an iron pot slung over it. Now Bridget and Michael had lived there all their lives, slept in the other room, and cooked all their meals at this open hearth and I have never in my life been received with more dignity than by this simple and gracious old couple. We had a most interesting talk about the war and the unfortunate activities of the L.R.A. terrorists in England, which they, and most.

sane people in Ireland, strongly deplored, and when we left to continue our journey, I felt strangely moved that I had been so fortunate as to glimpse some of the real life of Irish people so soon after my arrival-("On Tour in Southern Ireland,’ by Diana Craig, 2Y A, January 1.)