The difference of the English and Irish character is nowhere more
plainly discerned than in their respective kitchens. With the former,
this apartment is probably the cleanest, and certainly the most
orderly, in the house. It is rarely intruded into by those unconnected,
in some way, with its business. Everything it contains is under
the vigilant eye of its chief occupant, who would imagine it quite
impossible to carry on her business, whether of an humble or
important nature, if her apparatus was subjected to the hands of the
unauthorised. An Irish kitchen is devoted to hospitality in every sense
of the word. Its doors are open to almost all loungers and idlers; and
the chances are that Billy Bawn, the cripple, or Judy Molloy, the deaf
old hag, are more likely to know where to find the required utensil
than the cook herself. It is usually a temple dedicated to the goddess
of disorder; and, too often joined with her, is the potent deity of
dirt. It is not that things are out of their place, for they have no
place. It isn't that the floor is not scoured, for you cannot scour dry
mud into anything but wet mud. It isn't that the chairs and tables look
filthy, for there are none. It isn't that the pots, and plates, and
pans don't shine, for you see none to shine. All you see is a grimy,
black ceiling, an uneven clay floor, a small darkened window, one or
two unearthly-looking recesses, a heap of potatoes in the corner, a
pile of turf against the wall, two pigs and a dog under the single
dresser, three or four chickens on the window-sill, an old cock
moaning on the top of a rickety press, and a crowd of ragged garments,
squatting, standing, kneeling, and crouching, round the fire, from
which issues a babel of strange tongues, not one word of which is at
first intelligible to ears unaccustomed to such eloquence.

And yet, out of these unfathomable, unintelligible dens, proceed in due