r on
the islands between Ochterard and Bally na hinch. As soon as I was able,
I helped my mother in making and disposing of the whiskey and in selling
the fruit. As for the other children, they all died when young, of
favers, of which there is always plenty in Scotland Road. About four
years ago--that is, when I was just fifteen--there was a great quarrel
among the workmen about wages. Some wanted more than their masters were
willing to give; others were willing to take what was offered them.
Those who were dissatisfied were called bricks; those who were not were
called dungs. My father was a brick; and, being a good man with his
fists, was looked upon as a very proper person to fight a principal man
amongst the dungs. They fought in the fields near Salford for a pound a
side. My father had it all his own way for the first three rounds, but
in the fourth, receiving a blow under the ear from the dung, he dropped,
and never got up again, dying suddenly. A grand wake my father had, for
which my mother furnished usquebaugh galore; and comfortably and dacently
it passed over till about three o'clock in the morning, when, a dispute
happening to arise--not on the matter of wages, for there was not a dung
amongst the Irish of Scotland Road--but as to whether the O'Keefs or
O'Kellys were kings of Ireland a thousand years ago, a general fight took
place, which brought in the police, who, being soon dreadfully baten, as
we all turned upon them, went and fetched the military, with whose help
they took and locked up several of the party, amongst whom were my mother
and myself, till the next morning, when we were taken before the
magistrates, who, after a slight scolding, set us at liberty, one of them
saying that such disturbances formed part of the Irish funeral service;
whereupon we returned to the house, and the rest of the party joining us,
we carried my father's body to the churchyard, where we buried it very
dacently, with many tears and groanings."

"And how did your mother and you get on after your father was buried?"

"As well as we could, yere hanner; we sold fruit, and now and then a drop
of whiskey, which we made; but this state of things did not last long,
for one day my mother seeing the dung who had killed my father, she flung
a large flint stone and knocked out his right eye, for doing which she
was taken up and tried, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, chiefly
it was thought because she had been heard t