Tipperary and Kilkenny peasantry are proverbially tall; Connemara has
been famed for its "giants," and many of both sexes throughout the
south, are, spite of their rags, fine figures, and graceful in their
movements. While looking at them, we have ceased to wonder at what has
been regarded as no better than the arch-agitator's blarney, when he
spoke of the Irish as the "finest pisantry in the world;" and we have
even felt saddened as we mentally contrasted with what we saw before
us the bearing and appearance of our own southern labourers. For
the tattered Irish peasant, living in a mud hovel, is, after all, a
gentleman in his bearing; whereas there is generally either a cringing
servility or a sullen doggedness in the demeanour of the south
Saxon labourer. The Irishman is, besides, far more intelligent and
ready-witted than the Saxon husbandman. The fact is that the Irishman,
if underfed, has not been overworked. His life has not been one of
unceasing and oppressive labour. Nor has his condition been one
of perpetual servitude. With all his poverty, he has been, to a
considerable extent, his own master. Half-starved, or satisfying his
appetite on light and innutritious fare,--far worse housed and
clad than the poorest English labourer, often, indeed, almost
half-naked,--oppressed by middle-men, exactors of rack-rent; with
all this the Irish cottier has been, from father to son, and
from generation to generation, _a tenant, and not merely a day
labourer_.'[1]

[Footnote 1: 'Essays for the Times, on Ecclesiastical and Social
Subjects,' by James H. Rigg, D.D. London, 1866.]