Tag: customs

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Hallow E’En – 1938

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Collected by Brian MacMahon from Nicholas and Mrs Mac Mahon
Toonagh N.S. Co. Clare
Principal Proinnsias Gordún

First Mammy makes a cake and puts a ring and a sixpence into it. Then whoever gets the ring will be married and whoever gets the sixpence the richest of the family. Then we get a long cord and hang it from the ceiling and fasten an apple and a candle on to the cord to see who would get a bite of the apple.


We get three saucers and we put water in one and earth in the other and salt in the last one. Then we put a handkerchief around someone’s eyes and he would put into one of the saucers. If he put his hand into the saucer of earth he would be first to die; if he put his hand into the saucer of water he would be be first to cross the sea and if he put his hand into the saucer of salt he would be first to be married.
Next we put two beans down on the flag of the fire and name someone to be the husband and wife. We leave the beans there until one of them jumps. If they did not jump the people they stood for would not marry. If one of them jumped the pair would not like one another and whichever of them jumped we would make a show of the person for whom it stood.


Here are some tricks. The First is pinning a cup of water to the wall. First you get a cup of water and a pin and be pretending to another person how to do it. You put the cup on to the wall and put the pin under it. Then let the pin fall and the person goes to pick it up. While he is bending down for it you spill the cup of water on top of him.
Another trick is to place a stick on the ground so that you cannot jump over it. To do this you get a stick and put it up near the wall.
Another still is to kiss a book inside and outside without opening it. Geta book and kiss it inside in the house and go out and kiss it outside.
Putting yourself through the keyhole is another. Write your name on a piece of paper and pass it through the keyhole.
Putting your right hand where your left hand cannot touch it is another. Place it on the left elbow.

duchas.ie
The Schools’ Collection, Vol.0613, P.105

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The Connaught Smuggler – 1881 (concluded)

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Cork Examiner, Supplement 23rd July, 1881 (abridged)

Galway Cathedral Photo; Norma Scheibe
Galway Cathedral
Photo; Norma Scheibe

“Madam,” said he.
“You must excuse me for stopping you.  While I have every desire to be civil to a lady, I have received information I can depend on, that you have just landed from the East India fleet with a quantity of goods about you.  You must submit to be searched; which I must now proceed to do, in the most accurate manner consistent with my respect for your sex and quality.”
Biddy was at this account, no doubt, surprised and distressed, but in no way thrown off her centre.  Without any hesitation, she replied;
“Sir, many thanks to you for your civility. I am quite aware you are but acting according to information, and doing what you consider your duty; and sir, in order to show how much you are mistaken, I shall at once alight.  I am sure, sir, a gentleman like you will help a poor, infirm woman, labouring under my sad complaint, to alight with ease. The mare – bad manners to her – is skittish, and it requires all my servant’s hands to hold her.”

To the servant she said;
“Luke, avick! This gentleman insists on taking me down.  Hold hard the beast while I am alighting – I’ll do my endeavours to get off – there sir – so Button” (speaking to her horse).
“Now, hold up your arms, sir, and I will gently drop. Yes, that will do.”
And with that she plopped herself into the little dapper excise man’s arms.
A summer tent, pitched on a Syrian meadow might as well bear up against the down tumbling avalanche as this spare man could the mountain of flesh that came over him in the form of Biddy.  Down he went sprawling, as Biddy had intended he should do, and she uppermost, moaning and heaving over him. And there they lay, when with stentorian voice, Biddy cried to her boy Luke;
“Luke, bouey, ride off; never mind me! The gentleman, I’m sure will help me up when he can! Skelp away mo bouchall.”
In the meanwhile, the excise man lay groaning and Biddy moaning.

I shall not attempt to describe the remainder of this scene. I leave it to the imagination of the reader to suppose that the smuggler kept her position just so long as she thought it gave time enough for her property being carried far away from the hands of the overwhelmed gauger.

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Seizure of Steam Trawlers – Galway Bay – 1896

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Trawl Net U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Wikimedia Commons
Trawl Net
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Wikimedia Commons

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 4, 22 May 1896, Page 4

Special court was held in Galway for the purpose of trying the charges of illegal fishing preferred against the masters of two steam trawlers seized by a gunboat in Galway Bayfor illegal fishing etc.
The presiding magistrates were Messrs J O. Gardiner, P. M. and M. A. Lynch JP. The prosecution was carried on by Mr Underdown, head of the Customs, and the Inspectors of Fisheries, on whose behalf Messrs Blake and Kenny, solicitors, appeared. The defendants, J. T. Wales, of the trawler Traiton, and John Pettit, of the trawler General Roberts, were represented by Mr Gerald Clonerty, solicitor.

It appears that in the absence of Mr Pinkerton, Mr John Dillon put a question in Parliament which brought about the sending of a gunboat to watch illegal fishing in Galway Bay. Many complaints had been made by Claddaghmen of their boats being nearly run down by steam trawlers fishing the bay in the night time contrary to the fishery regulations.

The very first night the gunboat arrived in the bay the defendants’ vessels were seized. They were each fined £5 and costs for fishing within the prohibited limits, and £25 and costs for steaming about and trawling without having their lights on as prescribed by the bye-laws. Both vessels were from Milford Haven.