SLIGO SOCIETY
The habitations of the peasantry are very mean but progressively improving: the walls are sometimes of stone, but more generally of sods roofed with sticks and thatched with heath and straw, or rushes, in alternate layers. The fuel is turf: the use of coal brought from England, Wales, and Scotland, in trading vessels which return laden with grain, is confined to the town of Sligo and its vicinity. The food is potatoes with an occasional admixture of oaten bread, milk, eggs, fresh or salted herrings, and other sea-fish. The clothing is chiefly home-made frieze. The women are dressed in stuffs and druggets of domestic manufacture; cottons for upper garments are now much worn, and few are to be seen without stockings and shoes, at least on Sundays and holidays.
The English language is generally spoken through every part of the county, but elderly people in the mountainous districts still speak Irish. A striking difference is perceptible between the population here and that of the northern counties: the former is a much more diminutive race, and the character of the countenance indicates a different origin. Early marriages are encouraged, and the ceremony is attended with much expense: the favourite season for marrying is from Christmas to Lent, being that least occupied in agriculture. The disputes arising at fairs or markets, or in their dealings with each other, were frequently and are still occasionally decided by arbitration before persons chosen by the parties at variance: these judges are called Brehons, and are generally recompensed for the loss of time devoted to hearing the cause by being regaled with whiskey at the expense of the parties; but these customs are falling into disuse, and most of the disputes are now taken to the petty or quarter sessions.
Attendance on the wakes of deceased friends and neighbours is another source of expense. The estimation in which a man has been held during life is judged of by the attendance on these occasions and at his funeral: to be absent is therefore considered a serious offence, and much expense is incurred in procuring the necessary refreshments for the numbers that attend. Although this ancient custom of waking the corpse and attending the funeral is still kept up, the Irish cry or howl is now rarely heard.
In the mountain parish of Kilmacteige there is a tract of country which for several years has scarcely ever been free from a low malignant typhus fever, of which great numbers die after a lingering illness of fifteen or twenty days: the cause is attributed to the moist and chilly nature of the soil, and not to any peculiarity in the dietetics of the people.
In the same parish are two wells much resorted to for devotional purposes: one of them, called Tubber Art, is celebrated for its efficacy in restoring to health persons whose cases had proved hopeless under the ordinary modes of treatment. In a rock near the entrance to the old church in Innismore, or Church Island, in Lough Gill, is a cavity called "My Lady's Bed," in which women who lie down and repeat a certain formulary believe themselves to be secured from the peril of death in childbed.
Among the natural curiosities may be mentioned a singular peculiarity in a stream in Glenduff, in which, when the wind blows strong from the south-west, at every gust the stream, which flows perpendicularly down the mountain, is divided into two, and one part flows to the bottom, while the other is carried back up the mountain, and as long as the gust continues the channel of the stream is quite dry.
At the base of Knocknaree mountain is a chasm, commonly called "The Glen," apparently formed by some violent convulsion of nature: it is about a mile long, of considerable breadth and depth, in several parts well furnished with trees and enlivened by small cascades. Sulphureous and chalybeate springs are found among the mountains of Tyreragh, where also the common spring and river waters are peculiarly pure and pellucid. This county gives the title of Marquess to the family of Browne.
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