Irish Wit And Humor

a deep interest in all matters connected with the history of hisnative city.SINGULAR EVENT.When Swift was a year old, an event happened to him that seems veryunusual; for his nurse, who was a woman of Whitehaven, being under theabsolute necessity of seeing one of her relations, who was thenextremely sick......JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN.HIS BIRTHJohn Philpot Curran was born at Newmarket, a small village inthe county of Cork, on the 24th of July, 1750. His father, James Curran,was seneschal of the manor, and possessed of a very moderate income. Hismother was a very extraordinary woman. Eloquent and witty, she was thedelight of her neighbors, and their chronicle and arbitress. Her storieswere of the olden time, and made their way to the hearts of the people,who delighted in her wit and the truly national humor of her character.Little Curran used to hang with ecstasy upon his mother's accents, usedto repeat her tales and her jests, and caught up her enthusiasm. Afterher death.....ARTHUR O'LEARY.Arthur O'Leary was born in the year 1729, at Acres in theparish of Fanlobbus, near Dunmanway, in the western part of the Countyof Cork. His parents were undistinguished amongst the industrious andoppressed peasantry, who at the time of his birth suffered under theoperation of the penal laws. The family from which he descended wasearly distinguished in Irish history; but if his immediate ancestorsever enjoyed a higher rank in the social scale than that which isderived from successful industry, their circumstances had changed longbefore his birth, as a name which excited the respect of his countrymen.....DANIEL O'CONNELL.DARBY MORAN.O'Connell in his celebrated speech in defence of the Rev. T. Maguire,relates the following story, in which the reader will not fail toperceive the little chance which perjury had in escaping hisdetection:--"Allow me," said he, addressing the Court, "to tell you a story, whichis not the worse for being perfectly true. I was assessor of the Sheriffat an election in the county of Clare; a freeholder came to vote underthe name of Darby Moran, and as Darby Moran both his signature and markwere attached to the certificate of Registry. He, of course, wasobjected to. It was insisted that if he was illiterate, he could nothave written his name--if literate, he should not have added his mark;in either view it was contended, with the vehemence suited to suchoccasions, that his registry was bad..... --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.