IN THE LAND OF BREFFNE. By Maud Godley. (Elkin Mathews.
6s.) Miss GODLEY takes rank among those writers who have known how to reproduce the quaintness or the charm of character and speech in those parts of Ireland where the Gaelic influence is still plainly discernible through an English form. Whether there is any part of Ireland to which this description does not apply is doubtful ; Miss Barlow, whose work she recalls, really wrote of County Dublin ; anyhow, Breffne, the old provincial kingdom represented by Leitrim, Cavan and parts of the counties that touch them, comes well within it. Miss Godley has a fine ear for the shades of dialect and the talk of her people has in it something of Connaught, with mixtures from Donegal ; for instance the idiom " he be to do it," mean- ing that he had to (with a sort of suggestion that nature was the constraining force). The people who are written of in the " Irish R.M." stories say in such a case, " he should do it " ; but they are either of Galway or West Cork.. Miss .Godley's book consists of sketches rather than of short stories—and some- times
they are sketches of a type, for instance, the strolling " thravellers," who were often artists as well as pedlars and " thradesmin." Dudley Gallagher was " a thrained musician ' an' a taught dancer." . ,
. " He'd rise such a storm of music wid the pipes as fiver ye hoard an 'ud be playin' for the balls whereiver he'd go. . . . The people was all very innocent and gay thim times, an' there was odjous great dancin' in the counthry, what wid the dancin' masters an' the taught dancers, an' whin Dudley 'ud be along to play for thim, • the'd niver be tired dancin', but wald be at it tillthe daylight. An' • thin the dancers 'ud lift the ball money for Dudley, en' a the did well for him, an' he was plazed Avid what he got," he'd give thim a :night of the music free."
That was the old Ireland ; Miss Godley thinlis it has vanished. Miss Edith Sornervfik could probably give her testimony to change that 'sad opinion.
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