284 IRELAND 



deserving of notice. Forty or fifty years ago 

 the social life of the Irish peasantry was of a 

 most interesting kind. Its distinguishing fea- 

 tures was the celidh — a gathering of the villagers 

 in the house of one or other of their number, 

 where, after the day's work was done, they 

 would tell stories, relate folk lore, sing Irish 

 songs, recite poems, or listen to the village 

 fiddler, perhaps also dancing an Irish jig to 

 his accompaniment. Occasionally the indoor 

 gatherings would be varied by dances at the 

 cross-roads. So it was that the life even in out- 

 of-the-way villages in Ireland exercised a great 

 charm on the people, and such conditions must 

 have had much to do with the devotion with 

 which Irish men and Irish women all the world 

 over regard their native land. But with the 

 growth of political and agrarian troubles this 

 poetic side, as it were, of Irish character began 

 to die out ; life in the villages became dull and 

 monotonous, and the younger people especially 

 found the longing for a more active and a more 

 pleasurable existence irresistible. In England 

 in such circumstances as these the country 

 people would migrate to some large town or 

 city ; but in Ireland the magnet that draws the 

 peasantry from the villages in which they were 

 born is America. 



