Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/105



domestic customs of the Celtic peasantry of Ireland, which have survived apparently unaltered from very early times, cannot be gathered from books, or still less by passing travel amongst them: one has to be closely acquainted with their inner life, with their modes of thought, and one must know also something of their language. The writer was born and bred in County Galway, and thus is intimately acquainted with the Irish-speaking peasantry of the West of Ireland, which enables him to give a short account here of some customs which will perhaps be of the more interest as they relate to the mode of courtship and marriage.

In the usual biography or story of domestic life an early chapter has generally some notice of courtship as a preliminary to marriage; but, if its subject be an Irish peasant, the courtship would have to be omitted as non-existent. As a custom it is unknown among the more primitive Celts; indeed, in many cases, marriages take place even without the contracting parties having previously seen each other at all, and, putting aside the unamorous peasant himself, it is also the aim of every father to get his daughter into a home where there is a fair holding, paying from £8 to £12 rent, and for this class of farm as a home for his daughter he knows he must be prepared to give her as a "dot" about £40 cash and a cow.

A young man hears that in some parish within the narrow range of his geographical knowledge there is a maiden whose marriage portion may be suitable to his expectations; as an