How’s the craic? You don’t want to know

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN — Ireland’s ancient Gaelic chieftains employed professional farters who were part of a repertoire of performers who entertained their courts, according to the magazine Arch’ology Ireland.

The farters, known as braigetoir, performed for the chieftains and their guests during banquets and their skills were “much appreciated.”

In an article “A breath of fresh air: rectal music in Gaelic Ireland,” Greer Ramsey of the Armagh Museum says the arts of the wind-breakers shocked some English visitors who regarded the Irish courts as barbaric.

Other entertainers included jesters, acrobats, bards, musicians and the druth (congenital idiot).

The braigetoir were joined by another unusual performer, the crossan, a genital contortionist.

The crossan’s party tricks included “distending his cheeks and his bag (possibly testicles/scrotum) for comic effect.”

Ramsey writes that the descriptions of old Irish court entertainment and the craic the chieftain’s enjoyed are not flattering.

“Gone is the land of saints and scholars,” he said.

In 1578, an Englishman John Derricke wrote an account of Irish life accompanied by sketches that show performers exposing their buttocks toward a chieftain during a Gaelic dinner party.

Ramsey said Derricke “clearly struggled to appreciate the charms and customs of Irish hospitality, which often revolved around the Gaelic chieftain and his followers.”

Derricke noted “they have no courtlike guile,” lacked tables, sat on straw and preferred wooden plates to finer pewter.

It was even known, he said, for court bards, intoxicated by alcohol and excitement, to insult, punch or even stab their own lord.

“In this general chaotic scene, the final straw for Derrick must have been the lack of dining etiquette exemplified by the ensemble of professional farters or braigetoiri,” Ramsey writes.

Another English traveler of the period, Fynes Moryson, was equally unimpressed by what he found writing that the “the wild [as I may say] meere Irishe, inhabiting many large provinces, are barbarous and most filthy in their diet.”

The professional farters are also listed as king’s entertainers in Fergus Kelly’s book, “A guide to early Irish law.”

Ramsey said a Romanesque window from Berrymount, Co. Cavan, has a carving of a “male exhibitionist figure.”

“The figure is bent over with legs apart, showing the cleavage of his buttocks and dangling testicles.

“This could be interpreted as a crossan — the lewd genital contortionist. However, it may be the earliest representation of a braigetoir.”

Ramsey wrote that a professional farter Joseph Pujol (1857-1945) — who was known as “Le Petomane” or one who can break wind at will — later became one of the highest paid acts in the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

“Few sounds were apparently beyond his range — an amorous bullfrog, the sound of ripping cloth and musical instruments, as well as the farting mannerism of people from a range of occupations.

“Pujol pushed the boundaries of his act to the limits. Inserting a rubber tube . . . he placed a little flute at the end of it on which he would play tunes.

“The audience, including royalty, simply could not get enough of Le Petomane.”

Pujol’s “gift” was written up in two medical journals and his postures and methods were described as “both as brilliant as they are surprising and unforeseen.”