THE JOLLY IRISH PARLIAMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 41

THE JOLLY IRISH PARLIAMENT.

Never was such a time of feasting and jollification as the palmy days of the Irish Parliament. The county elections were a continued scene of fighting, fun, and revelry. It was one continuous Donnybrook Fair, and the county elector, with a good coat on bis back, and money clinking in his pocket, Steps into a tent, just to spend half a crown, Steps out, meets a friend, and for joy knocks him

down With his sprig of Bhillelah and Bhamrock so

green 1 With the same gaiety of heart, the gentlemen fought their battles with more deadly weapons. At that time duelling was a recognised part of the social code. The "36 commandments " arranged by the gentlemen of Galway formed a complete set of rules on all the punctilios of the duello. According to the printed rules of Galway, seconds, if desirous, may exchange shots at right angles to their principals, and, lest the gentlemen should have forgotten their mathematics, there is a diagram to explain how this right-angled fire is arranged. The pistol was the national weapon, the long, heavy duelling pistol, which was handed to the principal by his second ; " the flints hammered, and the feather spring set." Some Irish gentlemen who had served in France tried to substitute the small sword for the pistol, and a duelling club was formed in Dublin — "a most agreeable and useful association" — the members of which styled themselves the "Knights of Tara," and who strove by practice in the fencing school and on the field of honour to bring the rapier into fashion again. But their practices were denounced as "frivolous" by the regular blazers, and national habits were too strong for the innovators. " Well hit, but no lives lost," was the bulletin most hoped for on the conclusion of a duel, for the kindly Irish nature recoiled from occasioning the death of a neighbour, and perhaps a friend, but wounds were glorious, and none could doubt the honour of one who had been winged on such an occasion.— All the Year Round.