My grandfather, John Hussey, lived at Dingle, his mother being a member
of the well-known Galway family of Bodkin. He was an offshoot of the
Walter Hussey who had been converted into an animated projectile by the
underground machinations of Cromwell's colonels. He was a very little
man, who had a landed property at Dingle, did nothing in particular, and
received the usual pompous eulogy on his tombstone. I never heard that
he left any papers or diaries, and I do not think that he ever went out
of Kerry--he had too much sense.

A rather diverting story in which his sister was the heroine may be
worth telling, if only because it was so characteristic of the period.

In those days, as now, Husseys and Dennys were closely associated, and
both my great-aunt and Miss Denny, known locally as the 'Princess
Royal,' were going to a ball. At that time it was the fashion for the
girls of the period to wear muslin skirts edged with black velvet. The
muslin was easily procured; not so the velvet, which was eventually
obtained by sacrificing an ancient pair of nether garments belonging to
my great-grandfather.

After the early dinner then fashionable, each of the damsels was
departing for the Castle, with a swain at the door of her sedan-chair,
when our kinswoman, Lady Donoughmore, who was on the door-step watching
them off, enthusiastically shouted:--

'Success to the breeches! Success to the breeches!'

Imagine the horrified confusion of the poor 'Princess Royal,' not then
eighteen.