mean roof of Mortough Boy Branhagh, an honest farmer’s house, the same year wherein the most potent monarch of Great Britain, our present sovereign, bowed his imperial triple crown under the boughs of an oak tree, where his life depended on the shade of the tree leaves.”

There are several of the official letters of the Marquis preserved in his Memoirs, dated from Aughnanure, and written during the stormy period of which we have made mention.

The Castle of Aughnanure has passed from the family to whom it originally belonged; but the representative and the chief of his name, Henry Parker O’Flaherty, Esq. of Lemonfield, a descendant in the female line from the celebrated Grania Waille, still possesses a good estate in its vicinity. P.

THE IRISH IN ENGLAND.

NO. 1.—THE WASHERWOMAN.

BY MRS S. C. HALL.

The only regular washerwomen extant in England at this present moment, are natives of the Emerald Isle.

We have—I pray you observe the distinction, gentle reader—laundresses in abundance. But washerwomen!—all the washerwomen are Irish.

The Irish Washerwoman promises to wash the muslin curtains as white as a hound’s tooth, and as sweet as “new mown hay;” and she tells the truth. But when she promises to “get them up” as clear as a kitten’s eyes, she tells a story. In nine cases out of ten, the Irish Washerwoman mars her own admirable washing by a carelessness in the “getting up.” She makes her starch in a hurry, though it requires the most patient blending, the most incessant stirring, the most constant boiling, and the cleanest of all skillets; and she will not understand the superiority of powder over stone blue, but snatches the blue-bag (originally compounded from the “heel” or “toe” of a stocking) out of the half-broken tea-cup, where it lay companioning a lump of yellow soap since last wash—squeezes it into the starch (which, perhaps, she has been heedless enough to stir with a dirty spoon), and then there is no possibility of clear curtains, clear point, clear any thing.

“Biddy, these curtains were as white as snow before you starched them.”

“Thrue for ye, ma’am dear.”

“They are blue now, Biddy.”

“Not all out.”

“No, Biddy, not all over—only here and there.”

“Ah, lave off, ma’am, honey, will ye?—’tisn’t that I mane; but there’s a hole worked in the blue-rag, bad luck to it, and more blue nor is wanting gets out; and the weary’s in the starch, it got lumpy.”

“It could not have got ‘lumpy’ if it had been well blended.”

“It was blended like butther; but I just left off stirring one minute to look at the soldiers.”

“Ah, Biddy, an English laundress would not ‘run after the soldiers!’”

Such an observation is sure to offend Biddy’s propriety, and she goes off in a “huff,” muttering that if they didn’t go “look afther them, they’d skulk afther them; it’s the London Blacks does the mischief, and the mistress ought to know that herself. English laundresses indeed! they haven’t power in their elbow to wash white.”

Biddy says all this, and more, for she is a stickler for the honour of her country, and wonders that I should prefer any thing English to every thing Irish. But the fact remains the same.

The actual labour necessary at the wash-tub is far better performed by the Irish than the English; but the order, neatness, and exactness required in “the getting up,” is better accomplished by the English than the Irish. This is perfectly consistent with the national character of both countries.

Biddy Mahony is without exception the most useful person I know, and she knows it also; and yet it never makes her presuming. It is not only as a washerwoman that her talent shines forth: she gets through as much hard work as two women, though, as she says herself, “the mistress always finds fault with her finishing touches.” There she stands, a fine-looking woman still, though not young; her large mouth ever ready with its smile; her features expressive of shrewd good humour; and her keen grey eyes alive and about, not resting for a moment, and withal cunning, if not keen; the borders of her cap are twice as deep as they need be, and flap untidily about her face; she wears a coloured handkerchief inside a dark blue spotted cotton gown, which wraps loosely in front, where it is confined by the string of her apron; her hands and wrists have a half-boiled appearance, which it is painful to look at—not that she uses as much soda as an English laundress, but she does not spare her personal exertions, and rubs most unmercifully. One bitter frosty day last winter, I saw Biddy standing near the laundry window, stitching away with great industry.

“What are you doing, Biddy?” “Oh, never heed me, ma’am, honey.”

“Why, Biddy, what a state your left wrist is in!—it is positively bleeding; you have rubbed all the skin off.” “And ain’t I going to put a skin on it?” she said, smiling through the tears which positive pain had drawn from her eyes, in spite of her efforts to conceal them, and showing me a double piece of wash leather which she was sewing together so as to cover the torn flesh. Now, was not that heroism? But Biddy is a heroine, without knowing it.

And in common with many others of her sex and country, her heroism is of that patient, self-denying character which “passeth show.” She is uniformly patient—can bear an extraordinary quantity of abuse and unkindness, and knows quite well that to a certain degree she is in an enemy’s country. Half the bad opinion of the “low Irish,” as they are often insultingly termed, arises from old national prejudices; the other half is created by themselves, for many of them are provokingly uproarious, and altogether heedless of the manners and opinions of those among whom they live. This is not the case with Biddy; she has a great deal of what we are apt to call “cunning” in the poor, but which we genteelly denominate “tact” in the rich. While you imagine she is only pulling out the strings of her apron, she is all eye, ear, and understanding; she is watchful as a cat; and if she indulges in an aside jest, which sometimes never finds words, on the peculiarities of her employers, there is nothing very atrocious in the fact. Poor Biddy’s betters do the same, and term it “badinage.” It is not always that we judge the poor and rich by the same law.

With young servants the Irish Washerwoman is always a favourite: she is cheerful, tosses a cup to read a fortune in perfection, and not unfrequently, I am sorry to say, has half of a dirty torn pack of cards in her pocket for the same purpose. She sings at her work, and through the wreath of curling steam that winds from the upraised skylight of the laundry, comes some old time-honoured melody, that in an instant brings the scenes and sounds of Ireland around us. She will rend our hearts with the “Cruskeen laun,” or “Gramachree,” and then strike into “Garryowen” or “St Patrick’s Day,” with the ready transition of interest and feeling that belongs only to her country.

Old English servants regard the Irish Washerwoman with suspicion; they think she does too much for the money, that she gives “Missus” a bad habit; and yet they are ready enough to put their own “clothes” into the month’s wash, and expect Biddy to “pass them through the tub;” a favour she is too wise to refuse.

Happily for the menage of our English houses, the temptation to thievery which must exist where, as in Dublin, servants are allowed what is termed “breakfast money,” which means that they are not to eat of their employers’ bread, but “find