Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/549

 9»s. vi. DM. s, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 457 at dinner, "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor," &c.. being repeated a_t the time; and if one had four stones on his pjate his destiny was to be a sailor. A variation with the stones was also, " This year, next year, some time, never." This usually referred to marriage or some other desirable event in life. REES KEENE. Gosforth Rectory, Cumberland. When I was a child in Hampshire this formula was employed by counting the spikelets of the common rye-grass. J. S. ATTWOOD. COL. ROBEET PHAIRE, GOVERNOR OF CORK, 1651 (9th S. vi. 361).—Phayre, Phair, Phaier, and Fair are variants of this surname. Mac- Derraott does not include this name in a list of the principal families from the eleventh to the end of the sixteenth century given in his 'Topographical and Historical Map of Ancient Ireland '; neither does it appear in the sche- dule of the principal Irish and English landed families at the commencement of the seven- teenth century, extracted by O'Hart from 'Ortelinis Improved: or, a New Map of Ireland,' and included in his work on Irish pedigrees. This writer (O'Hart), who is, I understand, one of our greatest authorities on pedigrees, has inserted in the learned work before mentioned numerous schedules of the Anglo-Norman, Huguenot, Welsh, and other settlers in Ireland, taken from manuscript volumes in the possession of Trinity College, Dublin, and from other sources. Neither the surname Phaire nor any of its variants appear in these schedules. O'Hart, however, does throw some light on the surnames of those who came in with Cromwell, by giving in full a poem, from a MS. found among the papers of the Most Rev. Dr. Coppinger. en- titled 'Cromwell's and William's Nobility,' the opening lines of which are as follows :— The Fairs, the Blacks, the Blonds, the Bright*, The Greens, the Browns, the Greys, the Whites. He also gives Fay re as the Anglicized form of O'Maoilfaghmhair. Now to turn to the point raised by your contributor as to how Col. Phaire became possessed of estates in the counties of Cork, Wexford, Ac. On the presumption that Col. Phaire was neither better nor worse than the average Cromwellian officer, and that he was not above taking ad vantage of the needs of others, I see no reason why he should not have acquired considerable landed properties, without descending to the questionable means said to have been adopted DV so many of the "saints." What these needs were, I shall endeavour to show from contemporary sources and recognized authorities. After the surrender of the main Irish armies in 1652, Cromwell's scheme for planting por- tions of Ireland with military colonists was drafted, and published in the following year. By this scheme a considerable body of troops were to be disbanded and given land in satis- faction of arrears of pay. Thecommon soldiers, however, showed a great disinclination to become colonists. This disinclination to take up the lands, added to the great distress among the men owing to the long interval between 1652 and the actual date of the dis- bandment, 1655-6, was theofficers'opportunity of acquiring from the men, for merely nominal sums, the arrears vouchers (or debentures) which en titled the holders to land to the amount of the face values. Though these assignments were expressly forbidden until the soldiers had actually entered into possession, Dr. Petty (' Reflections on some Persons and Things in Ireland,' 1660) states that the officers were guilty of buying their own soldiers' deben- tures. He also states that the officers cheated the private soldiers out of their lots. The market value of these so-called debentures seems to have been very low; in 1653 they were freely bought and sold at 4s. and 5«. in the pound. At the " Court of Claims," which was appointed after the Restoration, it was found that the majority of the private soldiers had assigned their interests to their officers (Prendergast's ' Cromwellian Settlement'). In 1654 Col. Phaire and others were given powers to set aside lands in Orrery, Condon. Duhallo, and other baronies in the county of Cork, in satisfaction of arrears due to the troops named in a schedule annexed to the commission; and in one of the orders author- izing partial disbandment of certain regi- ments, Capt. Cartrett's company of Col. Phaire's regiment is mentioned as acquiring lands in co. Wexford (Prendergast's 'Crom- wellian Settlement'). The majority of your readers are, I am sure, acquainted with the literature dealing with this period of Irish history ; but for those who are not, and are desirous of becoming so, I append a short list of writers on " one of the most defective portions of modern Irish history." The list is as follows : J. P. Prender- zast, 'The Cromwellian Settlement of Ire- land'; the Rev. D. Murphy, S.J., 'Cromwell i Ireland'; Sir W. Petty, 'History of the Jromwellian Survey of Ireland,' edited by T. A. Larcom; and C. B. Gibson,' History of the County and City of Cork.' ALBERT GOUGH, Holywood, co. Down,