ee Pr ee 
365 
and climb up the legs, thighs, and bodies of' their assailants 
in such numbers, and with such pertinacity, as to force them to 
give way and retreat ingloriously from the battle-field, fully 
convinced that the action of the rats was governed by an 
influence against which human force was unavailing. What 
became of the rats after this day, or how long they remained 
at Querin Head, I cannot say; but I have often heard my 
father, Owen Mor O’Curry, William Macguire, and Denis 
Macgrath, three of the most expert rat-killers with the stick 
in the parish, and who were at Querin Head on the occasion, 
talk with wonder and fright of the scene in which they were 
engaged. And these were not men who were frightened at 
seeing their own precious blood copiously following the appli- 
cation of well-balanced, well-directed ‘shillelaghs’ to their 
own living skulls. No, they were men well accustomed to 
give and take in that agreeable way. 
‘I]t is acommon tradition in Limerick, and not older than 
my own boyish days, that when ships were found dangerously 
infested with rats, there were men to be found then who came 
and placed an open razor ina fixed position on the ship’s deck, 
and compelled all the rats inhertocome in succession—I do not 
know by what agency—andrub their throats tothe razor’s edge 
so as to kill themselves. 
‘< There are people still in the west of the county of Clare 
who pretend to possess a form of satire for the banishment of 
rats. One man, Thomas Keane, land surveyor, now living 
near Kilkee, told me, about the year 1820, that he had thus ba- 
nished one or more destructive rats from his mill and house at 
Belahaglass, near Dunlicky Castle, on the Kilkee coast. It 
must be remembered, that the rat satire was always composed 
in rhyme, and in the most obscure and occult phraseology of 
the Irish language. Having myself a small inkling of the 
rhyming propensity, I tried my hand at a satire on rats, in 
the house of a friend at Kilkee, in the year 1820, but I fear 
the words I made use of were too hard for the vermin to un- 
