Part 37 (2/2)
Powerful Performance!
For the Benefit of Mr. Joe Cullen, The Donegal Old Favourite On which occasion the ladies and gentlemen of the Donegal Amateur Dramatic and Variety Club will Appear.
Then followed the programme. There were to be four scenes from ”The Ever Popular Play Ent.i.tled Robert Emmet,” also ”The Laughable Sketch Ent.i.tled The Cottage by the Sea,” also ”The Irish Farce, Miss Muldowedy from Ireland,” the whole to be interspersed with variety turns by members of the club, as well as Mr. Cullen. ”Don't Miss This Treat,” the poster concluded. ”Motto, 'Fun without Vulgarity.'”
Blessing the chance which had brought us to Donegal upon this day, I hastened back to the hotel, showed the poster to Betty, and three minutes later, we were sallying forth in quest of the town-hall, whose entrance proved to be up a little court just across the street. The prices of admission, so the bill announced, were ”2s., 1s. and 6d.,” and I consulted with the abashed young man at the door as to which seats we should take. He advised the s.h.i.+lling ones, and we thereupon paid and entered. I wondered afterwards where the two s.h.i.+lling seats were, for the s.h.i.+lling ones were the best in the house.
Although it was nearly time for the performance to begin, we were almost the first arrivals; but we soon heard heavy feet mounting the stair, and quite a crowd of men and boys began to file into the sixpenny seats at the rear. A few girls and women came forward into the s.h.i.+lling seats; but from the look of them, I suspected that they were deadheads, and I fear that Mr. Cullen did not reap a great fortune from that benefit!
There was a tiny stage at one end of the hall, and the stage-manager, after the habit of all such, was having his troubles, for he could not get the footlights--a strip of gas-pipe with holes in it--to work. We thought for a while that he was going to blow himself up, and the whole house along with him; but he gave up the struggle, at last; the pianist played an overture, and the curtain rose.
I have never seen the whole of ”Robert Emmet,” but from what I saw of it that night, I judge that it must have been written for a star, for n.o.body does much talking except Emmet himself. He, however, does a lot; and it was fortunate that, in this instance, he was impersonated by Mr.
Cullen, for I am sure none of the other actors could have learned the part. Mr. Cullen proved to be a hatchet-faced old gentleman without any teeth; but he had a pleasing voice, and Emmet's grandiloquent speech from the dock was greeted with applause.
Of the two farces I will say nothing, except that they were really not so bad as one would expect, once the actors had recovered from their embarra.s.sment when they perceived two strangers present; but the feature of the evening was the songs, which were many and various and well-rendered. I remember only one of them, which we then heard for the first time, but which we were to hear many times thereafter, a lilting, catchy air, in which the audience a.s.sisted with the chorus, which ran something like this:
It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go; It's a long way to Tipperary, The sweetest land I know.
Good-bye, Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square; It's a long, long way to Tipperary, But my heart is there.
It is the old, old theme of the Irish exile longing for home; the theme of I know not how many poems, from the time of St. Columba, banished overseas and ”thinking long” of
Derry mine, my own oak grove, Little cell, my home, my love;
down through Father Dollard's lilting ”Song of the Little Villages”:
The pleasant little villages that grace the Irish glynns Down among the wheat-fields--up amid the whins; The little white-walled villages, crowding close together, Clinging to the Old Sod in spite of wind and weather: Ballytarsney, Ballymore, Ballyboden, Boyle, Ballingarry, Ballymagorry by the Banks of Foyle, Ballylaneen, Ballyporeen, Bansha, Ballysadare, Ballybrack, Ballinalack, Barna, Ballyclare,
to the tender verses by Stephen Gwynne with which I will close this already, perhaps, too-poetical chapter:
Ireland, oh, Ireland! centre of my longings, Country of my fathers, home of my heart, Overseas you call me, ”Why an exile from me?
Wherefore sea-severed, long leagues apart?”
As the s.h.i.+ning salmon, homeless in the sea-depths, Hears the river call him, scents out the land, Leaps and rejoices in the meeting of the waters, b.r.e.a.s.t.s weir and torrent, nests him in the sand;
Lives there and loves; yet with the year's returning, Rusting in his river, pines for the sea; Sweeps down again to the ripple of the tideway, Roamer of the ocean, vagabond and free.
Wanderer am I, like the salmon of thy rivers; London is my ocean, murmurous and deep, Tossing and vast; yet through the roar of London Reaches me thy summons, calls me in sleep.
Pearly are the skies in the country of my fathers, Purple are thy mountains, home of my heart: Mother of my yearning, love of all my longings, Keep me in remembrance, long leagues apart.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MAIDEN CITY
a.s.s far back as its history goes, Donegal was the seat of the O'Donnells, that powerful clan of which the choicest flowers were Hugh Roe and Red Hugh, and here they had their castle, on a small bluff overlooking the waters of the River Eask. It still stands there, remarkably well-preserved considering its vicissitudes, one of the handsomest semi-fortified buildings in existence anywhere. It is by far the most interesting thing to be seen in the town of Donegal, and we set out for it immediately after breakfast next morning.
Donegal we found by daylight to be a pleasant little town, with a single street of two-storied houses curving down over the hill toward the river, and a few narrow lanes branching off from it, after the traditional fas.h.i.+on of the Irish village. The castle is nestled in a bend of the river, which defends it on two sides, and there is still a trace of the moat which used to defend the other two. The best view of it is from the bridge crossing the river, and surprisingly beautiful it is, with its gabled towers and square bartizan turrets and mullioned windows. The picture opposite this page shows how the castle looks from the land side, with one of the square turrets, perfectly preserved; but the mullioned windows are the most striking feature of this side of the building, which was the domestic side, and so had larger openings than the one overlooking the river, which was more open to attack.
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