276 Some Characteristics of Irish Folklore.
alike for a paucity rather than a wealth of folk customs, and to-day we find genuine folk beliefs merged on the one hand in clerical superstitions, on the other shorn ruthlessly away. Ireland has been doomed to a lack of continuity in every- thing but trouble. On social conditions I have hardly touched — in part they explain the difficulty in obtaining records of Irish folklore. Oral traditions are swamped in time, especially in a land where class division was marked by so unbridged a gulf Ireland knew no middle classes. There were "the quality" and the peasants — between lay a nondescript omntjnn gatiiermn of those who grasped a fleeting and fictitious importance and power through the curse of absenteeism — petty ofificials, agents, middle- men of all sorts — a blight everywhere, and nowhere in the world more than in Ireland. The solid Yeoman class that has contributed so largely to the prosperity of England cannot for a moment be compared to the Irish squireens.^*
Yet, despite the changes and chances of Ireland's par- ticularly troubled world, customs have lived through strife, rebellions, terrors, famine, and disease, to die out when more peaceful and prosperous times smiled on the land. Some have died because, in the turmoil of events, they had lost all meaning and sent'iment for even the most con- servative ; many that linger are clearly verging into this category .^-^ A friend who told me that her father always "lit the Christmas candle — one in the dining-room and another in the kitchen for the servants — tried to discover a reason for the practice, but could not gather more than " it was ' something to do with the Virgin Mary.' " In the
- ^ " In the usual course of things these men are not often to be found in the
society of gentry ... At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the country." Edgeworth, The Absentee (Morley's Univ. Lib. Edit.), p. 154. Further, to get any grasp on Irish folklore, one must study the various "settlements," from prehistoric times to our own.
^^ Patron at Kilmanman.
