The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three by William Carleton
page 69 of 304 (22%)
page 69 of 304 (22%)
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Gallagher's Irish Sermons, Pastorini's History of the Christian Church,
or Columbkill's Prophecy--and, perhaps, a strolling pilgrim, the centre of a third collection, singing the _Dies irae_, in Latin, or the Hermit of Killarney, in English. * This very beautiful but simple place of worship does not now exist. On its site is now erected a Roman Catholic chapel. ** Mick was also a schoolmaster, and the most celebrated village politician of his day. Every Sunday found him engaged as in the text. At the extremity of this little circle was a plain altar of wood, covered with a little thatched shed, under which the priest celebrated mass; but before the performance of this ceremony, a large multitude usually assembled opposite Ned's shop-door, at the cross-roads. This crowd consisted of such as wanted to buy tobacco, candles, soap, potash, and such other groceries as the peasantry remote from market-towns require. After mass, the public-house was filled to the door-posts, with those who wished to get a sample of Nancy's _Iska-behagh_* and many a time has little Father Ned himself, of a frosty day, after having performed mass with a celerity highly agreeable to his auditory, come in to Nancy, nearly frost-bitten, to get his breakfast, and a toothful of mountain dew to drive the cold out of his stomach. _Usquebaugh_--literally, "water of life." The fact is, that Father Deleery made himself quite at home at Ned's without any reference to Nancy's saving habits; the consequence was, |
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