{"id":308,"date":"2008-07-23T10:39:33","date_gmt":"2008-07-23T10:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/54.229.91.100\/libraryandarts\/library\/ehistory\/?p=308"},"modified":"2024-06-17T15:52:54","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T14:52:54","slug":"the-wrens-of-the-curragh-part-2-1867-original-pamphlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/the-wrens-of-the-curragh-part-2-1867-original-pamphlet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wrens of the Curragh – Original Pamphlet – Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"
II.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
WHEN once a wren\u2019s nest is distinguished from the natural mounds of furze amidst which it is placed, after-recognition is tolerably easy ; though at a first glance it is so much like a mere bush that you might well pass by without dreaming that it was the habitation of human creatures.\u00a0However, there are differences, of course ; and thus after I had looked for a few moments at my first nest, and glanced around and beyond it, I saw that I was in fact in the midst of a little village, with as many-homes shall I say ?\u00a0and as many inhabitants as some English hamlets whose names are well marked on the map.\u00a0Dotted about to right, and left, and onward, at intervals varying from 20 to 100 yards, were other bushes, which bore not only certain signs of man\u2019s constructive skill, but of woman\u2019s occupancy.\u00a0Suspended against the prickly sides of one of them was a petticoat, against another a crinoline ; an article so bulky and intractable that it could not well be got inside.\u00a0Indeed, the probability is that it never did get inside at all-never was inside ; but was put on and taken off, as occasion required, at the hole that served for a door.\u00a0How could<\/em> three or four large-limbed women, crinolined accordingly, live in a space no bigger than the ox\u2019s crib or the horse\u2019s stall ?\u00a0Besides, that is exaggeration.\u00a0To be particular, the nests have an interior space of about nine feet long by seven feet broad ; and the roof is not more than four and a-half feet from the ground.\u00a0You crouch into them, as beasts crouch into cover ; and there is no standing upright till you crawl out again.\u00a0They are rough, misshapen domes of furze-like big, rude birds\u2019 nests compacted of harsh branches, and turned topsy-turvy upon the ground.\u00a0The walls are some twenty inches thick, and they do get pretty well compacted-much more than would be imagined.\u00a0There is no chimney-not even a hole in the roof, which generally slopes forward.\u00a0The smoke of the turf fire which burns on the floor of the hut has to pass out at the door when the wind is favourable, and to reek slowly through the crannied walls when it is not.\u00a0The door is a narrow opening nearly the height of the structure-a slit in it, kept open by two rude posts, which also serve to support the roof.\u00a0To keep it down, and secure from the winds that drive over the Curragh so furiously, sods of earth are placed on top, here and there, with a piece of corrugated iron (much used in the camp, apparently-I saw many old and waste pieces lying about) as an additional protection from rain.\u00a0Sometimes a piece of this iron is placed in the longitudinal slit aforesaid ; and then you have a door as well as a doorway.\u00a0Flooring there is none of any kind whatever, nor any attempt to make the den snugger by burrowing down into the bosom of the earth.\u00a0The process of construction seems to be to clear the turf from the surface of the plain to the required space, to cut down some bushes for building material, and to call in a friendly soldier or two to rear the walls by the simple process of piling and trampling.\u00a0When the nest is newly made, as that one was which I first examined, and if you happen to view it on a hot day, no doubt it seems tolerably snug shelter.\u00a0A sportsman might lie there for a summer night or two without detriment to his health or his moral nature.\u00a0But all the nests are not newly made ; and if the sun shines on the Curragh, bitter winds drive across it, with swamping rains for days and weeks together ; and miles of snow-covered plain sometimes lie between this wretched colony of abandoned women and the nearest town.\u00a0Wind and rain are their worst enemies (unless we reckon in mankind), and play \u201cold gooseberry\u201d with the bush dwellings.\u00a0The beating of the one and the pelting of the other soon destroy their bowery summer aspect.\u00a0They get crazy ; they fall toward this side and that ; they shrink in and down upon the outcast wretches that huddle in them ; and the doorposts don\u2019t keep the roof up and the clods don\u2019t keep it down :-the nest is nothing but a furzy hole, such as, for comfort, any wild beast may match anywhere ; leaving cleanliness out of the question.\u00a0Of course, I did not make all these observations at a first visit.\u00a0It was afterwards that I found No. 5 Bush (they are called No. I Bush, No. 2 Bush, and so forth by the wrens themselves) was a really superior edifice in its way-larger, better than any other ; and well it should be, for it was the abode of five or six women.\u00a0Other nests were smaller, and fast going to decay ; but even in the smallest three women were harboured, while one was tenanted by as many as eight.\u00a0Altogether, there are ten bushes, with about sixty inhabitants.\u00a0In them they sleep, cook, eat, drink, receive visits, and perform all the various offices of life.\u00a0If they are sick, there they lie.\u00a0Brothers and mothers and fathers go to see them there.\u00a0There sometimes-such occurrences do happen-they lie in child-bed ; and there sometimes they die.<\/div>\n
My eyes had not taken in one-tenth of what is above described, when they were brought to bear upon the group of women which had first arrested my attention.\u00a0They were three members of the family of No. 5 Bush.\u00a0One was a perfectly neat-looking girl, washed, combed, and arrayed in a clean starched cotton gown, and with bright white stockings and well-fitting boots ; she had evidently just completed the one toilette of the day.\u00a0Two others squatted at the bush door, and they were foul as any Hottentots.\u00a0One filthy frieze petticoat worn about the loins, another thrown loosely over their backs-that was all their clothing.\u00a0Their towzled hair hung down upon their naked shoulders, and straggled upon their unwashed faces, as they sat in a full stream of gossip.\u00a0All three were fine limbed women, large and sturdy ; as, indeed, are many of the inhabitants of this Arcadian village.\u00a0Now and then I came across some fragile creature, her strength broken ; but these were the exceptions rather than the rule, certainly.\u00a0And several of them were not only fine-looking, but well-mannered girls-when sober <\/em>; and I had an opportunity of seeing a letter written by one in as pretty and \u201cladylike\u201d a hand as if it had been traced at a davenport in Belgrave-square, instead of on the bottom of a tin pot on the Curragh.<\/div>\n
\u201cGood day to you, sir, and will you walk into our little house ?\u201d\u00a0This greeting was addressed to me by the woman in the clean cotton gown, and that in a voice and with a manner that had nothing in them but simple civility.\u00a0At the same moment her companions rose up, and one of them attacked my carman, Jimmy Lynch, with language that was absolutely appalling.\u00a0Now my courage was first put to the test, no less by the civil invitation than by the astounding outburst of this black-haired young virago.\u00a0To walk into the little house was what I had come for ; and there was the invitation to make myself acquainted with a Curragh interior, and the domestic economy of the wren.\u00a0It was not with any alacrity, however, that I bowed my head and crept into the bush-leaving Jimmy to bear with the monstrous blasphemies, the raving obscenities, of the girl of eighteen outside.<\/div>\n
It was washing day at No. 5 Bush-with one of its tenants, at least ; and she appeared to be engaged upon all her clothes at once (excepting only a single frieze petticoat which she did wear)-in a tin saucepan.\u00a0Another young woman idly squatted near the doorway, was bidden to get up \u201cand give the gintleman a sate ;\u201d when it appeared that she was sitting on another saucepan, bottom upward.\u00a0This vessel was perforated all over, at the sides and at the bottom alike ; the only explanation of which seemed to me at the time to be that this was an Irish device for letting the fire get more readily at the water ; however, I learned the real use of a perforated saucepan afterwards.\u00a0With apologies to Miss Clancy, I accepted the \u201csate\u201d she proffered, and disposing myself upon it with more or less of grace, looked about me to discover the appointments of a wren\u2019s nest.<\/div>\n
Little observation was needed to make the inventory complete.\u00a0The most important piece of furniture was a wooden shelf running along the back of the nest, and propped on sticks driven into the earthen floor.\u00a0Some mugs ; some plates ; some cups and saucers ; a candlestick ; two or three old knives and forks, battered and rusty ; a few dull and dinted spoons ; a teapot (this being a rather rich establishment), and several other articles of a like character, were displayed upon the shelf ; and a grateful sight it was.\u00a0I declare I was most thankful for the cups and saucers ; and as for the teapot, it looked like an ark of redemption in crockery ware.\u00a0If they were not, as I told myself when my eyes first rested on them, the only human-looking things in the place, they did give one a comfortable feeling of assurance that these wretched and desperate outcasts had not absolutely broken with the common forms and habits of civilized life.\u00a0And that this feeling was not a strained or singular one I learned afterwards in conversation with a soldier.\u00a0This gentleman averred to me on oath, with the air of a man who is going to startle you out of all false and maudlin sympathies, that wrens used cups and saucers \u201cjust like other people.\u201d<\/div>\n
There was little furniture in the nest beside the shelf and its decorations.\u00a0Beneath it was heaped an armful of musty straw, originally smuggled in from the camp stables ; this, drawn out and shaken upon the earth, was the common bed.\u00a0A rough wooden box, such as candles are packed in, stood in a corner ; one or two saucepans, and a horrid old tea-kettle, which had all the look of a beldame punished by drink, were disposed in various nooks in the furzy walls ; a frying-pan was stuck into them by the handle, in company with a crooked stick of iron, used as a poker ;\u00a0and-undoubtedly that<\/em> was there \u2013a cheap little looking-glass was stuck near the roof.\u00a0These things formed the whole furniture and appointments of the nest, if we exclude a petticoat or so hung up at intervals.\u00a0There was not a stool in the place, and as for anything in the shape of a table, there was not room even for the idea of such a thing.\u00a0Except for the cups and saucers, I doubt whether any Australian native habitation is more savage or more destitute ; he <\/em>can get an old saucepan or two, and knows how to spread a little straw on the ground.\u00a0Nor were any of the other nests (and I believe I looked into them all) better or differently furnished.\u00a0The only difference was in the quantity of crockery.\u00a0In every one the candle box was to be found.\u00a0I discovered that it was the common receptacle of those little personal ornaments and cherished trifles which women in every grade of life hoard with a sort of animal instinct.\u00a0In every one an upturned saucepan was used for a seat when squatting on the earth became too tiresome.\u00a0In all the practice is to sleep with your head under the shelf (thus gaining some additional protection from the wind) and your feet to the turf fire, which is kept burning all night near the doorway.\u00a0Here the use of the perforated saucepan becomes apparent.\u00a0It is placed over the burning turf when the wrens dispose themselves to rest ; and, as there is no want of air in these dwellings, the turf burns well and brightly under the protecting pot.\u00a0Another remembrance of a decent life is seen in the fact that the women always undress themselves to sleep upon their handful of straw, their day clothes serving to cover them.<\/div>\n
While I was making the particular observations which were afterwards expanded into the above-described generalities, I was not allowed to remain silent, of course.\u00a0However, by dint of a little management I contrived to confine the conversation to tobacco and whisky, my pouch and flask (well filled in expectation of a call upon them) furnishing the primary subjects of discourse.\u00a0\u00a0 Both topics were handled with such freedom and dexterity that in less than fifteen minutes they were fairly exhausted.\u00a0I thereupon proposed to take leave, and was not opposed by anything like the cajolery or the solicitation for money that I expected to encounter.\u00a0The women were quite sober, and therefore well-behaved : which I found to be a common characteristic.\u00a0I verily do believe that the whole world contains no spectacle of degraded humanity so complete as those unfortunate women present when they come home in roaring groups from their hunting grounds, drunk. Their flushed faces, their embruted eyes, their wildly flowing hair, their reckless gestures, and, above all, their strong voices competing in the use of the most hideous language depravity ever invented, make such a scene as I believe can be matched nowhere under the sun.\u00a0But the same women who in such circumstances seemed to be possessed with a determination never to be outdone in violence, or blasphemy, or obscenity, are, when sober, of civil conversation and decent demeanour.\u00a0This is true not of one or two, but of many of them.\u00a0So I had no more difficulty in getting out of No. 5 Bush than if I had been making a morning call at home.\u00a0The person who was washing her clothes in the saucepan bade me good day with an expression of her assurance that I had a good heart, while Miss Clancy simply hoped I would keep my promise to come again when they were less occupied with domestic cares.\u00a0When I got outside I found that Jimmy Lynch had been less fortunate than the Saxon stranger whom he had conducted to the strange place.\u00a0He was still engaged in wordy conflict, and was so completely beaten that he retreated upon the car upon my first appearance, and started off before I was fairly settled on it.\u00a0\u201cDid any one iver hear the like ov them devils ?\u201d he roared.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s disghusting intirely !\u201d<\/div>\n
But ready as Jimmy was to \u201ccall\u201d upon the energies of Scottish Queen, I insisted upon his going slowly through the bush village, and then I was enabled to see on a first visit that its inhabitants at any rate were all of one kind and looked all alike.\u00a0In the first place every woman is Irish. There is not a single Englishwoman now in the nest, though there were two of our countrywomen there lately : these girls, however, went away with a regiment ordered elsewhere.\u00a0Then the wrens are almost all young-the greater number of them being from seventeen to five-and-twenty years old.\u00a0Then they almost all come out of cabins in country places, and seem still to enjoy-most of them-some remains of the fine strength and health they brought from those wretched cots.\u00a0Then there was a common look, shocking to see, of hard depravity-the look of hopeless, miserable, but determined and defiant wickedness.\u00a0Fine faces, and young ones too, were marred into something quite terrible by this look, and the spirit of it seemed to move in the lazy swing of their limbs, and was certainly heard in their voices.\u00a0And lastly they are dressed alike.\u00a0All day they lounge in a half-naked state, clothed simply in the one frieze petticoat, and another equally foul cast loosely over their shoulders, though towards evening they put on the decent attire of the first girl I met there.\u00a0These bettermost clothes are kept clean and bright enough ; the frequency with which they are seen displayed on the bushes to dry shows how often they are washed, and how well.\u00a0These observations apply to the cotton gown, the stockings, the white petticoat alone-frieze and flannel never know anything of soap and water at all apparently.\u00a0The \u201cCurragh petticoat\u201d is familiarly known for miles and miles around : its peculiarity seems to be that it is starched but not ironed. The difference in the appearance of these poor wretches when the gown and petticoat are donned and when they are taken off again (that is to say, the moment they come back from the \u201chunting grounds\u201d) answers precisely to their language and demeanour when sober and when tipsy.\u00a0In the one condition they are generally as well behaved and civil as any decent peasant women need be ; in the other they are like raging savages, with more than a savage\u2019s vileness.<\/em><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

III.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A COMMUNITY like that which I am attempting to describe naturally falls into some regular system, and provides for itself certain rules and regulations.\u00a0Fifty or sixty people separated from the rest of the world and existing in and by rebellion against society, naturally form some links of association ; and when the means of life are the same, and shameful and precarious ; when those who so live by them are poor as well as outcast ; and when, also, they are all women, we may assure ourselves that a sort of socialistic or family bond will soon be formed.\u00a0It is so amongst the wrens of the Curragh.\u00a0The ruling principle there evidently is to share each other\u2019s fortunes and misfortunes, and in happy-go-lucky style.\u00a0Thus the colony is open to any poor wretch who imagines that she can find comfort in it, or another desperate chance of existence.\u00a0Come she whence she may, she has only to present herself to be admitted into one nest or another, nor is it necessary that she bring a penny to recommend her.\u00a0Girls who have followed soldiers to the camp from distant towns and villages-some from actual love and hope, some from necessity or desperation-form a considerable number of those who go into the bush ; and I also learn that the colony sometimes receives some harvester tired of roaming for field work, to whom the free loose life there has, one must suppose, attractions superior to those of the virtuous hovel at home.\u00a0She walks in and is welcome : welcome are far less eligible immigrants too. Suppose a woman with child who has followed her lover to the camp and loses him there, or is admonished with blows to leave him alone ; or suppose a young wife in the same condition is bidden by her martial lord to go away and \u201cdo as other women do\u201d (which seems to be the formula in such cases) ; they are made as welcome amongst the wrens as if they did not bring with them certain trouble and an inevitable increase to the common poverty.\u00a0I am not speaking what I believe they would do, but what they have done.\u00a0It is not long since that a child was born in one of these nests ; and wrens had made for baby what little provision it was blessed with ; wrens smiled upon its birth (it was a girl) ; and wrens alone tended mother and child for days before it was born, and for a month afterwards :- then the unfortunate pair went into the workhouse.\u00a0The mother of the babe which had so strange and portentous a beginning of life had followed its gallant father to the camp from Arklow-a fishing village many a mile away ; but he unfortunately diverted his benevolence into other channels, and she sought refuge amongst the bushwomen when her trouble was near.\u00a0They did what they could for her, and brought her safely through without recourse to the doctor.<\/div>\n
Although the birth of an infant is a novel event in the annals of the Curragh, the appearance of a mother with her baby in arms is by no means\u00a0rare ; and though a child is certainly as much an \u201cincumbrance\u201d there as it can be anywhere, no objection is ever made to it.\u00a0In fact, a baby is obviously regarded as conferring a certain respectability upon the nest it belongs to, and is treated, like other possessions, as common property.\u00a0At the present time there are four children in the bush.\u00a0The mother of one of them is the young woman whose amazing abuse routed my carman, as previously related.\u00a0Her outrageous blasphemies were uttered over the face of the unhappy little one as it lay at her breast.\u00a0But even she seems to have the tenderest love for the babe : she never could bear to think of parting with the \u201cpoor darlint,\u201d she says, and she stays at home with it as much as possible, doing duty as watcher at night, while the others are away.\u00a0The children all seemed to be well cared for.\u00a0We shall see that an egg is always bought for Mary Maloney\u2019s baby when the day\u2019s provisions are procured, and I found one bright curly-headed little fellow in possession of a doll.\u00a0Another, a certain little Billy Carson, was produced to me on a Sunday morning, in a rig of which the whole nest seemed proud.\u00a0He was arrayed in a pretty light coloured stuff frock, for which, I was assured, as much as seven and sixpence had been paid.\u00a0Should the children fall sick they would be taken at one to the workhouse ; for the doctor is never seen in the bush.\u00a0In sickness the wrens administer to themselves or each other such remedies as they happen to believe in, or are able to procure ; and when these fail, and the case seems hopeless, application is made at the police barracks at the camp, and the half-dying wretch is carried to Naas Hospital, nine miles off.\u00a0The medical officers in the camp are, of course, kept too busy amongst the men who are the wrens\u2019 friends to have any time to spare for the wrens themselves.\u00a0Something more must be said upon that subject by-and-by.<\/div>\n
The communistic principle governs each nest, and in hard times one family readily helps another, or several help one ; the deeps are not deaf to the voice of the lower deeps.\u00a0None of the women have any money of their own.\u00a0What each company get is thrown into a common purse, and the nest is provisioned out of it.\u00a0What they get is little indeed ; a few halfpence turned out of one pocket and another when the clean starched frocks are thrown off at night make up a daily income just enough to keep body and soul together.\u00a0How that feat is accomplished at all in winter-in such winters as the last one-which was talked of only three weeks ago as a dreadful thing of yesterday and its recurrence dreaded as a horrible thing of to-morrow-is past my comprehension.\u00a0It is an understanding that they take it in turns to do the marketing, and to keep house when the rest go wandering at night ; though the girl whose dress is freshest generally performs the one duty, and the woman whose youth is not <\/em>the freshest, whose good looks are quite gone, the other. And there are several wrens who have been eight or nine years on the Curragh-one or two who have been there as long as the camp itself.\u00a0At that time, and long after, they had not even the shelter of a regular built nest. I asked one of these older birds how they contrived their sleeping accommodation then.\u00a0Said she, \u201cWe\u2019d pick the biggest little bush we could find, and lay undher it-turnin\u2019 wid the wind.\u201d \u201cShifting round the bush as the wind shifted ?\u201d\u00a0\u201cThrue for ye.\u00a0And sometimes we\u2019d wake wid the snow coverin\u2019 us, or maybe soaked wid rain.\u201d\u00a0\u201cAnd then how did you dry your clothes ?\u201d\u00a0\u201cWe jist waited for a fine day.\u201d\u00a0Only four or five years ago the wrens were not allowed upon the common at all-at any rate, nowhere near the camp.\u00a0They were hunted off on account of the extravagant behaviour of one of the women in the presence of a lady (related to a general officer) who was riding on the Curragh.\u00a0The wretched creature\u2019s audacity cost her companions dear ; they were driven from the common and their hovels were destroyed.\u00a0A ditch in \u201cFurl-lane,\u201d leading to Athy, was for some time afterwards their only home-those who would not seek shelter in the workhouse or the gaol ; as to which places they have no preference whatever.\u00a0But by degrees they re-established themselves on the common, and there they remain, a credit to the country.\u00a0I may mention here what I had nearly forgotten-which would be a pity-that there is beside the colony I have described another small hive of wrens on the other side of the camp.\u00a0Their nest is pitched in a field belonging to an intelligent Scotchman.\u00a0It contains a family of seven.\u00a0In consideration of the shelter afforded to these wretched creatures by the humane proprietor of the field, who holds a good deal of land round about, they keep a sharp look out for trespassers on the Scotchman\u2019s grounds.\u00a0In this way they probably save the cost of a couple of men and their dogs.\u00a0Indeed the proprietor himself is said to rate their services much higher, and to boast that \u201cthe wrens do his work better than twenty policemen.\u201d<\/div>\n
Whisky forms, no doubt, a very important part of these poor wretches\u2019 sustenance.\u00a0Whisky kills in the end, or it swiftly destroys all that is comely or healthy in woman or man ; but it can scarcely be doubted that without it the wren could hardly live at all.\u00a0She would tell you existence would be impossible without it ; and unfortunately it would be of little use to answer that \u201cenough\u201d may be good for food, but \u201ctoo much\u201d is poison.\u00a0They get it easily ; they get it from the soldiers when they can get nothing else ; and hunger and cold and wet dispose them too readily to go home with their heads full of drink though their pockets are empty.\u00a0Then at any rate they are warm ; the appetite for food is drowned ; they are drunk, and being drunk \u201cdon\u2019t care;\u201d and how not to care cannot always be an undesirable end when your lot is cast amongst the Curragh bushes.\u00a0But of course even the seasoned wren cannot live by whisky alone ; and I took some pains to ascertain how she did live.\u00a0Nothing in the world can be got out of the plain itself, not even water ; and the nearest town or village is three or four miles off.\u00a0But there is the camp within something like half a mile ; and though the wrens are forbidden, under severe penalties, to appear within three hundred and sixty yards of certain defined limits of the camp, the severity of this regulation is relaxed on three days of the week, when a sort of market is held there.\u00a0A certain number of the wrens are then allowed to approach and make purchases, \u201cjust like other people.\u201d\u00a0But the market days at the camp are only three out of the weekly seven-Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday ; and though as a rule the camp\u2019s sweethearts do<\/em> find means to get their daily bread, they have to get it from day to day.\u00a0At Tuesday\u2019s market Tuesday\u2019s food may be bought ; but Wednesday\u2019s food there is no money for yet.\u00a0Nor can all they need be bought at the camp market ; and so they pay frequent visits to a certain little store or chandler\u2019s shop.\u00a0Learning this, I also visited the store, for opportunities of observing the particular purchases of the wren.\u00a0Bread and milk and potatoes were the most conspicuous articles in the shop-in fact, the only articles to be seen in any quantity ; and so it was easy to discover what the good-natured little woman behind the counter was chiefly called upon to supply.\u00a0I say good-natured little woman, for her manner to the degraded creatures who flocked to her shop was very considerate ; and they seemed to be thoroughly appreciative of its spirit.\u00a0Bread, potatoes, milk, candles-these were the things most in demand.\u00a0Thus, one woman carried off a stone of potatoes (12 lb.), twopenn\u2019orth of milk, (in a tin can with a cross handle), a fourpenny loaf of bread, a penny candle, and \u201can egg for Mary Maloney\u2019s baby.\u201d\u00a0Other women made purchases of tobacco, tea, and sugar ; and when these articles are added to the others a pretty complete account is given of the wren\u2019s provender.\u00a0Flesh meat is a rare luxury ; though sometimes a few meagre slices of bacon give token of its presence amidst half a stone of potatoes.\u00a0Nor is tobacco a luxury merely.\u00a0That weed is a well-known stifler of hunger-a fact which the wren discovers for herself before long.\u00a0Water is<\/em> a luxury. They would have to buy every pint of it, were they not permitted (on account of a little casualty which may be mentioned by-and-by) to get it from the military train. As it is, they do buy water sometimes of good-natured Mrs. Westley.\u00a0I was in her shop one day when several wrens were marketing there.\u00a0All were served but one-a civil and decent-looking girl, whom she detained while she carefully unfolded a little parcel.\u00a0\u201cThere, Nelly,\u201d said she, presenting the wren with a sprig of lavender, \u201cput it with your clothes, my dear ; it\u2019ll make \u2018em smell nice.\u201d\u00a0Nelly had never seen a lavender sprig before evidently ; but she took it respectfully, tucked it into the bosom of her gown, and no doubt folded it in that garment when it was set aside.\u00a0For, as I have said, the women-put off their decent clothes immediately they have no further use for them as ornaments ;<\/em> for in that sense the print gown and \u201cCurragh petticoat\u201d are regarded.\u00a0\u201cFine feathers make fine birds\u201d is a saying as well understood in the bush as anywhere else.\u00a0Thus, Bridget Flanagan, who had the honour of coming from the capital, was able to put down the pretensions of one of her companions who spoke of Dublin ladies as equals, by exclaiming, \u201cYou set yourself along wid such as thim !\u00a0Where\u2019s your fine clothes ?\u00a0Where\u2019s your jewlree ?\u201d<\/div>\n
From all this a fair idea may be gained, I hope, of the intolerable life of the Curragh wren-intolerable to such of us, at any rate, as have any sense of public decency or public duty.\u00a0We do not hear now of women being found dead amongst the furze, as they say used sometimes to happen, but surely things are terrible enough as they are to demand notice and remedy.\u00a0It was the death of one of the wretched creatures which led to the granting of water to them from the camp supplies.\u00a0In the nest where I spent one uncomfortable night, out of a desire to get my lesson thoroughly, a woman named Burns was suddenly taken ill, and in the morning was found dead amongst her companions.\u00a0In this case a surgeon was brought, and there in the nest (I shuddered as the story was told to me) a surgical examination was made of the poor wretch\u2019s body.\u00a0An inquest was afterwards held in the same shameful place, and evidence taken of her companions.\u00a0The medical evidence showed that the woman had perished through exposure to the weather and the drinking of foul water-collected anywhere on the common.\u00a0A verdict to that effect was accordingly returned by the jury, who subscribed the handsome sum of thirteen shillings towards defraying the funeral expenses.\u00a0She was buried in Kildare churchyard, to which better home she was attended by her companions.\u00a0That must have been a pretty sight for the parson. \u00a0No similar death has happened in the colony since Mary Burns perished.\u00a0The unfortunate creatures hold out as long as they can, and then crawl to the hospital or the workhouse to die there.<\/div>\n
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PART 2 of the pamphlet on The Wrens of the Curragh to celebrate the 300th ARTICLE<\/u> on <\/em><\/strong>EHISTORY<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0– all spellings etc. have been retained<\/div>\n
[Apparently the pamphlet (based on the original newspaper article) was written by a reporter of the Pall Mall Gazette, James Greenwood, who visited the Curragh in 1867 – typed and edited by Claire Connelly – re-edited by Roy O’Brien]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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