ge turf fires, on which pots were boiling, some containing lumps of
salt beef and cabbage, while fried herrings were sending up a fragrant
odour attractive to hungry visitors. There were cold viands also
displayed, to tempt those disposed for a snack, rounds or rumps of beef,
hams, bread and cheese, and whisky enough to make every soul in the fair
moderately drunk if equally divided. Here and there were booths
containing toys and trinkets; but the great object of the fair was for
the sale of horses, cows, pigs, and poultry. Besides these were the
more pretentious booths of the frieze merchants, who were likely to run
a good trade to supply the place of the garments which would be torn
into shreds before the fair was over. In other booths, earthenware,
knives, and agricultural implements were to be procured. My
brothers-in-law having disposed of their horses at a good price,--
especially good to them, as the animals had cost them nothing since they
were foals,--we agreed to ride round the fair and see the fun, which had
now been going on for some time, while, as the eating and drinking
booths had been constantly filled and emptied, a large portion of the
visitors were already in a hilarious condition. We were passing a
booth, when a man came out, who, taking off his long frieze coat, which
he trailed along behind him on the ground, at the same time flourishing
his shillelah, shouted out--

"Who'd be after daring to put a foot on that, I should like to know?"

He hadn't gone far, when from another tent out sprang a stout fellow,
holding a cudgel big enough to fell an ox with. Rapidly whirling it in
the air, he exclaimed--

"That's what I'll dare to do!" and he made a fierce blow at the head of
the owner of the coat, which would have felled him in a moment, had he
not been prepared to defend himself with his shillelah. A clatter of
blows succeeded, when the owner of the coat fell, stunned, to the
ground.

At the same instant numbers of fellows in frieze coats, brogues, and
battered hats, rushed forth from the various tents, flourishing their
shillelahs, and shouting at the tops of their voices, some siding with
the fallen man, others with the victor, till a hundred or more were
ranged on either side, all battering away, as fast as they could move
their arms, at each other's heads. Now one party would scamper off as
if in flight; then they would meet again, and begin cudgelling each
other, apparently with the m