give wine to the brethren: ‘half a bottle to each’ was the generous allowance of the constitutions. In ordinary monasteries, festivals are much more frequent, and conversation is indulged at dinner on the slightest pretext. In the novitiate, where a stricter discipline prevailed, we had usually two or three every month, and on the more important feasts the midday dinner assumed enormous proportions. At Christmas the quantity of fowl and other seasonable food which was sent in occupied our strenuous attention during a full week: in fact, all our convents had the custom of celebrating the entire octave of Christmas with full gastronomic honours. So many friends conceived the happy idea of sending a gift to the ‘poor friars’ that the larder became quite a magazine of Christmas fare.
The greatest event of the year, however, was the patronal feast of the superior of the monastery. He was a warm favourite in Killarney, and there were enough comestibles (and potables) sent in to store a ship, the two neighbouring nunneries, especially, and a host of friends, vying with each other in the profusion and excellence of gifts to honour his festival. Even when a feast-day coincided with a fast-day, the restriction in solids was usually compensated by a greater generosity in fluids; we young novices were more than exhilarated on one or two occasions when dinner had been opened with a strong claret soup, accompanied by the usual pint of beer and a glass of
