and good sentiments; and they are often accompanied by a rhymed English version, made by his brother, a lesser poet.  The favourite among them is a song on a wooden beetle, lost by his wife when washing clothes at the river.  She is made to lament the loss of ‘so good a servant’ in a sort of allegory; and then its journey is traced from the river to the sea.  An old man gives me a little memory of him:  ’I saw Callinan one time when we went to dig potatoes for him at his own place, the other side of Craughwell.  We went into the house for dinner; and we were in a hurry, and he was sitting by the hearth talking all the time; for he was a great talker, so that the veins of his neck swelled up.  And he was telling us about the song he made about his own Missus when she was out washing by the river.  He was up to eighty years at that time.’  And there are accounts of the making of some of his songs that show his kindly disposition and amiability.  ’One time there was a baby in the house, and there was a dance going on near, and Mrs. Callinan was a young woman; and she said she’d go for a bit to the dance-house; and she bid Callinan rock the cradle till she’d come back.  But she never came back till morning, and there he was rocking the cradle still; and he had a song composed while she was away about the time of a man’s life, and the hours of the day, and the seasons of the year; how when a man is young he is strong, and then he grows old and passes away, and goes to the feast of the Saviour; and about the day, how bright the morning is, and the birds singing; and a man goes out to work, and he comes in tired out, and sits by the fire to talk with his neighbour; and the night comes on, and he says his prayers, and thinks of the feast of the Saviour; and about the seasons, the spring so nice, and the summer for work; and autumn brings the harvest, and winter brings Christmas, the feast of the Saviour.  In Irish and English he made that.’  And this is another story:  ’A carpenter made a plough for Callinan one time, and when it came, it was the worst ever made; and he said to his brother:  “I’ll make a song that will cut him down altogether.”  But his brother said:  “Do not, for if you cut him down, it will take his means of living from him, but make a song in his praise.”  And he did so, for he wouldn’t like to do him any harm.’  I have asked if he made any love-songs, and was told of one he had made ’about a girl he met going to a bog.  He praised herself first, and then he said he had information as well that she had fifty gold guineas saved up.’

His having been well off seems to make his poetic merit the greater in the eyes of farmers; for one says:  ’He was as good a poet, for he had a plough and horses and a good way of living, and never sang in any public-house; but Raftery had no way of living but to go round and to mark some house to go to, and then all the neighbours would gather in to hear him.’  Another says:  ’Raftery was the best poet, for he had nothing else to do, and laid his mind to it; but Callinan was a strong farmer, and had other things to think of;’ and another says:  ’Callinan was very apt:  it was all Raftery could do to beat him;’ and another sums up by saying:  ‘The both of them was great.’  But a supporter of Raftery says:  ’He was the best; he put his words so strong and stiff, following one another.’