CH. VIII.] PUBLIC-HOUSES OR SMALL TAVERNS. 207 



corn is at a low price, a contraband distillation is carried on. 

 The distillation is made in out of the way places, away 

 from any roads, and it is very dangerous to attack the 

 illicit dealers. This trade is so considerable, that it is 

 reckoned at three-fifths of the whole consumption. 



Drunkenness is of rare occurrence, and is only seen at 

 fairs and in the small markets. The labouring classes 

 have not the means of indulging in drink ; the small shop- 

 keepers are the only people who have money to spend in 

 this way : drunken w T omen are never seen. The greatest 

 drinkers are the fishermen and those who work in the 

 mines. 



REMARKS. 



The fact of the increase in the number of small 

 public-houses is not peculiar to Ireland ; it is com- 

 mon to all Europe. Old people can still recollect 

 the time when scarcely any of the villages had a 

 house of the kind. What the villagers consumed 

 they consumed in their own families ; and those who 

 left their homes to go to a distance, found ho- 

 spitality at the castle, or the richest house in the 

 village, or in a monastery, and at all events the 

 parsonage was always a resource. Such was pecu- 

 liarly the state of Ireland ; but from the moment 

 that an attack was made upon the whole fabric of 

 society that is to say, when its dissolution com- 



