IRISH ARE LOSING HUMOUR.

Bruce Herald, Volume LV, Issue 67, 1 September 1919, Page 5

IRISH ARE LOSING HUMOUR.

ELECTION QUIBS RECALLED.

Irishmen are losing their main asset,their good humour (says a writer in the Daily Express), In tlio fiercest fighting days of the Ireland of the past contested •elections had a splendid element of pantomime about them. Some of the "interruptions" were, in modern parlance, "priceless." I remember once in a rather wild and woolly Ulster rural constituency a nouvcau rich who sported an eye-glass was making a democratic appeal to the electors. "My friends," he said, "I am one of yourselves; I sprang from the people," "Divil the much of a lep ye had, "/pas the sardonic comment of one of this friends. The late Colonel Sanndorson was as popular with his Nationalist opponents as his Orange colleagues. "When his son sought South Armagh he very modestly stated that his principal claim was that he was the son of his father. The late professor T. M. Kettle, whose bones lie in Picardy, got somewhat tired of Mr Saunderson '& reiteration of the honoured name. . "Mr Saunderson has so often told 11s that he is the son of Colonel Saunderson," said Kettle with his usual benevolent smile, "that I for one am prepared to believe it." In the very earliest days of the Irish party it contained a celebrated i;character known as "Big Joe McDfinnell," .of Doo Castle. He never spoke in the Souse, but he was a very ready man on the hustings. On one occasion Joe standing as the champion of the "ould faith" in Mayo, was caught by a horrified supporter eating meat on a Friday. Instantly his popularity departed. There was a shout of derision when he appeared on the "Give him an egg, boys, to' tako tho taste of meat off his mouth !" and the egg whizzed past his ear. ' "Big Joo" was equal to the emergency. "Does anyone here know the handwriting of his Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth?" he thundered. Without waiting for a reply he whipped a letter out of his pocket and read it at th«\ top of his voice :

- "My dear, Joe, —I am well pleased to hear that you are lighting for the old faith down in Mayo. You are neither to fast nor obstain while tho good work is in.hand. "With kindest fegards for yourself and the-boys that are helping you—l romain yours very sincerely, Pope Pius IX."