Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/221

 206 In stories 'a day' is often added on to a period of time, especially to a year. A person is banished out of Ireland for a year and a day.

The battle of Ventry Harbour lasted for a year and a day, when at last the foreigners were defeated.

There's a colleen fair as May, For a year and for a day I have sought by ev'ry way Her heart to gain.

'Billy MacDaniel,' said the fairy, 'you shall be my servant for seven years and a day.' (Crofton Croker.) Borrowed from the Irish.

The word all is often used by our rustic poets exactly as it is found in English folk-songs. Gay has happily imitated this popular usage in 'Black-eyed Susan':—

'All in the Downs the fleet was moored'—

and Scott in 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel':—

'All as they left the listed plain.'

Any number of examples might be given from our peasant songs, but these two will be sufficient:—

'As I roved out one evening two miles below Pomeroy I met a farmer's daughter all on the mountains high.'

'How a young lady's heart was won All by the loving of a farmer's son.'

(The two lovely airs of these will be found in two of my books: for the first, see 'The Mountains high' in 'Ancient Irish Music'; and for the second