Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/178

 CH. XI.] Arithmetic, some at 'Short Accounts' (i.e. short methods of Mental Arithmetic), others at Book-keeping. For there were then no fixed Programmes and no Inspectors, and each master (in addition to the ordinary elementary subjects) taught just whatever he liked best, and lit up his own special tastes among his pupils.

So far have these words, church, chapel, scallan, hedge-school, led us through the bye-ways of History; and perhaps the reader will not be sorry to turn to something else.

Rattle the hasp: Tent pot. During Fair-days—all over the country—there were half a dozen or more booths or tents on the fair field, put up by publicans, in which was always uproarious fun; for they were full of people—young and old—eating and drinking, dancing and singing and match-making. There was sure to be a piper or a fiddler for the young people; and usually a barn door, lifted off its hinges—hasp and all—was laid flat, or perhaps two or three doors were laid side by side, for the dancers; a custom adopted elsewhere as well as in fairs—

'But they couldn't keep time on the cold earthen floor, So to humour the music they danced on the door.' (: Old Song.)

There was one particular tune—a jig—which, from the custom of dancing on a door, got the name of 'Rattle the hasp.'

Just at the mouth of the tent it was common to have a great pot hung on hooks over a fire sunk in the ground underneath, and full of pigs cheeks, flitches of bacon, pigs' legs and croobeens galore, kept