Peeps at Many Lands by Katharine Tynan

An English person in Ireland may find himself astray because he will have no clue to the minds of the people. I once heard two English ladies returning from an Irish trip say to each other across a railway-carriage, otherwise full of Irish people, that the Irish all told lies. This was a rash judgment and a harsh one; I do not know what the occasion of it was. Sometimes the Irish, through their naturally gracious manners, will say the thing that will please you best to hear rather than the absolute truth by rule of thumb. There is the well-known, well-founded complaint about Irish distances; a peasant will tell you that you are three miles from a place when you are really seven. Now, of course you may be misled by the difference between the Irish and English mile; and thereby hangs a tale. The Irish or Plantation measure was adopted by Cromwell's planted English, so that they might get a bigger slice of land than was intended for them. But if you are told you have three Irish miles to go and find that you have seven, almost certainly the thought uppermost in your misinformant's mind was: "The crathur! Sure, he'll think nothin' of it if he believes it's only three miles; and the spring 'ud be taken out of him altogether if he thought he'd seven weary miles before him yet. And, sure, by the time he's travelled the three miles he won't be far off the seven."

The Irish mind, besides being very nimble, is subtle and complicated. It may have gone off on an excursion before answering you which you in your Anglo-Saxon plainness would never dream of; and your truth may not be the Irish truth at all, and yet both of them be the genuine article.