Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1886 — In Connemara. [ARTICLE]

In Connemara.

The rain was still falling when Ballynahinch was left behind; but on the moor to the left two witchlike figures were seen, their heads half wrapped in plaid shawls, their limbs showing through wet, short skirts, and their small red feet find legs flying from tuft to tuft of the moss. They were native girls, driving the small coal-black cattle of these wild uplands, and the sight of the driver, an ancient friend, put them in the wildest spirits. They swooped down on the car and were soon seated, laughing and singing, brushing the wet from their tangled hair and their hair from their red cheeks, but not forgetting to smooth the skirts of the rough homespun modestly about their bare extremities. They were redolent of peat smoke, like the poteen they brew here in spite of all the constables; of good health, good humor, and of that indescribable fragrance which comes from living almost entirely out of doors. Presently we drew up before their own home. They seized various parcels coming to them from Galway, and in a twinkling they plunged into a comfortable-looking cabin of large size like a brace of colts, with a flourish of their red heels. The men and boys of the family wore shoes; doubtless Sundays those same headlong lasses turn out as well shod as any in Connemara. A few years hence these girls will be in the United States puzzling an American mistress by their ignorance on some points and unnatural acuteness on others. If she could see the interior of some of these cabins she would only wonder how they ever learn to use the resources of “modern improvements.” Much is being done in Ireland to give all children a good schooling in the elements of book wisdom, but there is no provision for the training of servants, wherefore there is much wailing in American households, great misunderstandings, and many chances of profitable places lost to this class of emigrants. For this reason it is to be feared that our young friends, when better clothed, housed, and fed than they are now, will be no longer so jolly and devil-may-care.— Cor. Hew York limes.