io6 MANNERS. 



there enables me to exhibit a very different pifture ; in doing 

 this, 1 {hall be tree to remark, wherein I think the conduct of 

 certain glafles may have given rile to general and confequently 

 injurious condemna-ticn. 



There are three races of people in Ireland, fo diftinft, as to 

 ftrike the leaft attentive traveller : thefe are the Spanifh which 

 are found in Kerry, and a part of Limerick and Corke, tall 

 and thin, but well made, a long vifage, dark eyes, and long 

 black lank hair. The time is not remote when the Spaniards 

 had a kind of fettlement on the coaft of Kerry, which feem- 

 ed to be overlooked by government. There were many of 

 them in Queen Elizabeth's reign, nor were they entirely driven 

 otit till the time of Cromwell. There is an ifland of Valentia 

 en that coaft, with various other names, certainly SpaniiK. 

 The Scotch race is in the North, where are to be found the 

 features which are fuppofed to mark that people, their accent, 

 and many of their cuftoms. In a diftricl, near Dublin, but 

 more particularly in the baronies of Bargie and Forth in the 

 counry of Wexford, the Saxon tongue is fpoken without any 

 mixture of the Irifrt,and the people have a variety of cuftoms 

 mentioned in the minutes, which diftinguifh. them from their 

 neighbours. The reft of the kingdom is made up of mongrels. 

 The Milelian race of Irifh, which may be called native, are 

 Scattered ever the kingdom, but chiefly found in Connaught 

 and Munfter ; a few confiderable families, whofe genealogy 

 is undoubted, remain, but none of them whh confiderabie 

 poiTeffioBs, except the O : Briens and Mr. O'Neil, the former 

 have near twenty thoufand pounds a year in the family ; the 

 latter half as much, the remnant of a property once his an- 

 ceftors, which now forms fix or feven of the greateft eftates in 

 the kingdom. O'Hara and M'Dermot are great names in 

 Connaught, and O'Donnohue a confiderable one in Kerry ; but 

 I heard of a family of O'Drifchai's in Corke, who claim an ori- 

 gin prior in Ireland to any of the Milefian race. 



The only divifions which a traveller, who pavfed through the 

 kingdom, without making any refidence, could make, would 

 be into people of confiderable fortune and mob. The interme- 

 diate divifion of the fcale, fo numerous and refpeftable in Eng- 

 land, would hardly attraft the leaft notice in Ireland. A refi- 

 dence in the kingdom convinces one, however, that there is 

 another clafs in general of fmall fortune, country gentlemen 

 and renters of land. The manners, habits and cuftoms of 

 people of confiderable fortune, are much the fame every 

 where, at leaft there is very little difference between England 

 and Ireland, it is among the comfhon people one muft look for 

 thofe traits by which we discriminate a national character. 

 The circumftances which ftruck me mod in the common Irifh 

 were, vivacity and a great and eloquent volubility of fpeech, 

 one would think they could take fnuff and talk without tiring 

 till doomfday. They are infinitely more chearful and lively 



than 



