4* 



ist December, iqoj. 



Professor Johnson Symington, M.D., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., 



President, in the Chair. 



SAYINGS, PROVERBS, AND HUMOUR OF ULSTER. 

 By Professor John W. Byers, M.A., M.D. 



(Abstract.) 



The lecturer pointed out how sayings, proverbs, and humour were 

 characteristic of a distinct race, and that a study of these features 

 enabled us to form some opinion of the history and character of 

 the people, to understand their habits and peculiarities, to in- 

 vestigate their methods of speech, and in some measure to explain 

 why they have exerted such an influence in the world's history. 



For three hundred years there had existed in Ulster (and mainly 

 the north-eastern part of that province) a race of people who by 

 their power of work, their level-headedness, and thorough self- 

 reliance, have made Belfast the great centre of Irish industries, 

 have contributed to all parts of the British empire men distinguished 

 in commerce, science, literature, statesmanship, and the arts of 

 war ; and, as pointed out by President Roosevelt in his great work 

 " The Winning of the West," have done so much in colonising 

 what was formerly called the Western States of America — those 

 lying beyond the Alleghanies. 



The Northern Irish are a mixed people, and the Ulsterman 

 from his heredity is a product by himself. Through his veins 

 there courses a stream of Scotch, English, French Huguenot, and 

 Irish blood, and so in the same individual you may sometimes 

 find the pluck and grit of the Englishman, the tenacity and fore- 

 thought of the Scotch, the industry of the Huguenot, with the keen 



