246 



STRAY -AW AYS 



Joyce has called the Anglo-Irish tongue. A hundred 

 years ago the familiar speech of the poor people in the 

 South and West of Ireland was Irish, but in Ulster, 

 and in the counties of the Pale, Scotch and English 

 settlers of the lower class had long since hybridised 

 the vocabulary, and vulgarisms that are easily recog- 



" i'm as gay as garrick ! " 



nised as imported make Carleton's dialect distasteful 

 to a Southern or Western ear. In the greater part 

 of Munster and Connaught, on the contrary, the people 

 learnt their English from the gentry. The elegance 

 of a culture now outworn in the class in which it 

 originated still refines the Anglo-Irish speech of the 

 South and West. No self-respecting Southern Irish 

 peasant will admit that the weather, however fiercely 



