NOT THE MAN FOR GALWAY. 313 



the apartments reported habitable, than the country for 

 fifty miles round complotted, as I verily believe, to 

 inundate us with their company. A sort of saturnalia^ 

 called the house-warming, I thought destined to continue 

 for ever ; and after having endured a purgatorial state 

 for several weeks, and the tumult and vulgar dissipation 

 had abated, swarms of relations to the third and fourth 

 generation of those that loved us, kept dropping in, 

 in what they termed the quiet, friendly way, until * the 

 good house Money-glass '* was outstripped in hospitality 

 by my devoted mansion. Although ten long miles 

 from a post-town, we were never secure from an inroad. 

 Men who bore the most remote affinity to the families 

 of O'Shaughnessey or O'Toole, deserted the corners 

 of the earth to spoliate the larder ; and persons who, 

 during the course of their natural lives, had never before 

 touched fishing-rod or fowling piece, now borrowed 

 them * for the nonce,' and deemed it a good and sufficient 

 apology for living on me for a fortnight Pedlars 

 abandoned their accustomed routes ; friars diverged 

 a score of miles to take us on * the mission ; * pipers 

 infested the premises ; and even deserters honoured 

 me with a passing call, * for the house had such a name.' 

 All and every calculated on that cursed ceade fealteagh. 

 An eternal stream of the idle and dissipated filled the 

 house — the kitchen fire, like the flame of Vesta, was 

 never permitted to subside — and a host of locusts 

 devoured my property. 1 Hved and submitted, and 



* This once celebrated mansion is immortalized in the old ballad 

 called " Bumper Squire Jones," which chronicles the princely 

 hospitalities of that puissant and hard-headed family. lyike " the 

 Kilruddery Foxchase," it was a mighty favourite with the stout old 

 sportsmen in those merry days. More popular airs have caused these 

 popular and soul-stirring lyrics to be disused, and, Uke those whose 

 feats they recounted, they are now almost forgotten. 



