North of Ireland, and three fourths of it is beaten flat to the earth.
Wheat is injured and poor, though not so generally prostrate; Oats look
feeble, and as if half drowned; some of these are, and considerable
Barley is thrown down; Grass is light, much of it uncut, and much that
is cut has lain under the stormy or cloudy skies through the last week
and looks badly; only the Potatoes look strong and thrifty, and promise
an ample yield. I shall be agreeably disappointed if Ireland realizes a
fair average harvest this year.
Belfast is a busy, growing town, the emporium of the Linen Manufacture,
and the capital of the Province of Ulster, the Northern quarter of
Ireland. It seems prosperous, though no wise remarkably so; and I have
been painfully disappointed in the apparent condition of the rural
peasantry on the line of travel from Belfast to Dublin, which I had
understood formed an exception to the general misery of Ireland. Out of
the towns not one habitation in ten is fit for human beings to live in,
but mere low, cramped hovels of rock, mud and straw; not one-half the
families on the way seem to have so much as an acre of land to each
household; not half the men to be seen have coats to their backs; and
not one in four of the women and children have each a pair of shoes or
stockings. And those feet!--if the owners would only wash them once a
week, the general aspect of affairs in this section would be materially
brightened. Wretchedness, rags and despair salute me on every side; and
if this be the best part of Ireland, what must the state of the worst
be?
From Belfast we had railroad to Armagh, 35 miles; then 13 miles by
omnibus to Castle Blayney. We came over this latter route with ten or
twelve passengers, and a tun or so of luggage on the outside of the
Railroad Company's omnibus, with thirteen of us stowed inside, beside a
youngster in arms, who illustrated the doctrine of Innate Depravity by a
perpetual fight with his mother. Yet, thus overloaded we were driven the
thirteen miles of muddy road in about two hours, taking at Castle
Blayney another railroad train, which brought us almost to Drogheda,
some 25 miles, where we had to take another omnibus for a mile or two,
for want of a railroad bridge over the Boyne, thus reaching another
train which brought us into Dublin, 32 miles. The North of Ireland is
yet destitute of any other railroads than such patches and fragments as
these, whereby I am precluded from seeing Londonderry, and its vicinity,
which I much desired. At length we were brought into Dublin at half-past
three o'clock, or in eight hours from Belfast, about one hundred and
thirty miles.
The face of the country through this part of Ireland is moderately
rolling, though some fair hills appear in the distance. The land is
generally good, though there are considerable tracts of hard, thin soil.
Small bogs are frequently seen, but no one exceeding a dozen acres; the
large ones lying farther inland. Taking so little room and supplying the
poor with a handy and cheap fuel, I doubt that these little bogs are any
detriment to the country. Some of them have been made to take on a soil
(by draining, cutting, drying and burning the upper strata of peat, and
spreading the ashes over the entire surface), and are now quite
productive.--Drainage and ridging are almost universally resorted to,
showing the extraordinary humidity of the atmosphere. The Potato is now
generally in blossom, and, having a large breadth of the land, and being
in fine condition, gives an appearance of thrift and beauty to the
landscape. But, in spite of this, the general yield of Ireland in 1851
is destined to be meager. There is more misery in store for this unhappy
people.
We cross two small lakes some ten to fifteen miles north of this city,
and run for some distance close to the shore of the Channel. At length,
a vision of dwellings, edifices and spires bounds the horizon of the
level plain to the south-west, and in a few minutes we are in Dublin.
XLI.
WEST OF IRELAND--ATLANTIC MAILS.
GALWAY, Ireland, Aug. 2, 1851.
I came down here yesterday from Dublin (126 1/2 miles) by the first
Railroad train ever run through for the traveling public, hoping not
only to acquire some personal knowledge of the West of Ireland, but also
to gain some idea of the advantages and difficulties attending the
proposed establishment of a direct communication by Mail Steamers
between this port and our own country. And although my trip is
necessarily a hurried one, yet, having been rowed down and nearly across
the Bay, so as to gain some knowledge of its conformation and its
entrance, and having traversed the town in every direction, and made the
acquaintance of some of its most intelligent citizens, I shall at all
events return with a clearer idea of the whole subject than ever so much
distant study of maps, charts and books could have given me.
The Midland Railroad from Dublin passes by Maynooth, Mullingar, Athlone
(where it crosses the Shannon by a noble iron bridge), and Ballinasloe
to this place, at the head of Galway Bay, some twenty-five miles inland
from the broad Atlantic. The country is remarkably level throughout, and
very little rock-cutting and but a moderate amount of excavation have
been required in making the Railroad, of which a part (from Dublin to
Mullingar) has been for some time in operation, while the residue has
just been opened. (The old stage-road from Dublin to Galway measures
133 miles, or nearly seven more than the Railroad.) I presume there is
nowhere an elevation of forty feet to the mile, and with a good double
track (now nearly completed), there can be no difficulty in running
express trains through in three hours. From Dublin to Holyhead will
require four hours, and from Holyhead to London six more, making fifteen
hours in all (including two for coming into Galway) for the
transportation of the Mails from the broad Atlantic off this port to
London. Allow three more for leeway, and still the entire Mails may be
distributed in London about the time that the steamship can now be
telegraphed as off Holyhead, and at least twelve (I hope fifteen) hours
earlier than the Mails can now be received in London, to say nothing of
the saving of thirty or forty hours on the Mails to and from Ireland,
and twenty or so for those of Scotland. Is there any good reason why
those hours should not be saved? I can perceive none, even though the
steamships should still proceed to Liverpool as heretofore.
Galway Bay is abundantly large enough and safe enough for steamships,
even as it is, though its security is susceptible of easy improvement.
It has abundant depth inside, but hardly twenty feet at low water on a
bar in the harbor, so that large steamships coming in would be obliged
to anchor a mile or so from the dock for high water if they did not
arrive so as to hit it, as they must now wait off the bar at Liverpool,
only much further from the dock. But what I contemplate as a beginning
is not the bringing in of the Steamships but of their Mails. Let a small
steamboat be waiting outside when a Mail Steamer is expected (as now off
the bar at Liverpool), and let the Mails and such passengers as would
like to feel the firm earth under their feet once more, be swiftly
transferred to the little boat, run up to Galway, put on an express
train, started for Dublin, and thence sent over to Holyhead, and
dispatched to London and Liverpool forthwith. Let Irish Mails for
Galway, Dublin, &c., and Scotch Mails for Glasgow be made up on our
side, and let us see, by three or four fair trials, what saving of time
could be effected by landing the Mails at Galway, and then we shall be
in a position to determine the extent and character of the permanent
changes which are required. That a saving of fully twelve hours for
England and thirty for Ireland may be secured by making Galway the
European terminus of the Atlantic Mail Route, I am very confident, while
in the calculations of those who feel a local and personal interest in
the change the saving is far greater. But this is quite enough to
justify the inconsiderable expense which the experiment I urge would
involve.
Galway was formerly a place of far greater commerce and consequence than
it now is. It long enjoyed an extensive and profitable direct trade with
Spain, which, since the Union of Ireland with England, is entirely
transferred to London, so that not a shadow of it remains. At a later
day, it exported considerable Grain, Bacon, &c., to England, but the
general decline of Irish Industry, and the low prices of food since Free
Trade, have nearly destroyed this trade also, and there are now, except
fishing-boats, scarcely half a dozen vessels in the harbor, and of these
the two principal are a Russian from the Black Sea _selling_ Corn, to a
district whose resources are Agricultural or nothing, and a
smart-looking Yankee clipper taking in a load of emigrants and luggage
for New-York--the export of her population being about the only branch
of Ireland's commerce which yet survives the general ruin. Galway had
once 60,000 inhabitants; she may now have at most 30,000; but there is
no American seaport with 5,000 which does not far surpass her annual
aggregate of trade and industry. What should we think in America of a
seaport of at least 35,000 inhabitants, the capital of a large, populous
county, located at the head of a noble, spacious bay, looking off on the
broad Atlantic some twenty miles distant, with cities of twenty, fifty,
and a hundred thousand inhabitants within a few hours' reach on either
side of her, yet not owning a single steamboat of any shape or nature,
and not even visited by one daily, weekly, monthly, or at any stated
period? Truly, the desolation of Ireland must be witnessed or it cannot
be realized.
I judge that of nearly thirty thousand people who live here not ten
thousand have any regular employment or means of livelihood. The
majority pick up a job when they can, but are inevitably idle and
suffering two-thirds of the time. Of course, the Million learn nothing,
have nothing, and come to nothing. They are scarcely in fault, but those
who ought to teach them, counsel them, employ them, until they shall be
qualified to employ themselves, are deplorably culpable. Here are
gentlemen and ladies of education and wealth (dozens where there were
formerly hundreds) who year after year and generation after generation
have lived in luxury on the income wrung from these poor creatures in
the shape of Rent, without ever giving them a helping hand or a kind
word in return--without even suspecting that they were under moral
obligation to do so. Here is a Priesthood, the conscience-keepers and
religious instructors of this fortunate class, who also have fared
sumptuously and amassed wealth out of the tithes wrenched by
law-sanctioned robbery from the products of this same wretched
peasantry, yet never proffered them anything in return but conversion to
the faith of their plunderers--certainly not a tempting proffer under
the circumstances. And here also is a Priesthood beloved, reverenced,
confided in by this peasantry, and loving them in return, who I think
have done far less than they might and should have done to raise them
out of the slough in which generation after generation are sinking
deeper and deeper. I speak plainly on this point, for I feel strongly.
The Catholic Priesthood of Ireland resist the education of the Peasantry
under Protestant auspices and influences, for which we will presume they
have good reason; but, in thus cutting them off from one chance of
improving their social and intellectual condition, they double their own
moral responsibility to secure the Education of the Poor in some manner
not inconsistent with the preservation of their faith. And, seeing what
I have seen and do see of the unequaled power of this Priesthood--a
power immensely greater in Ireland than in Italy, for there the Priests
are generally regarded as the allies of the tyrant and plundering class,
while here they are doubly beloved as its enemies and its victims--I
feel an undoubting conviction that simply an earnest determination of
the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland that every Catholic child in the
country shall receive a good education would secure its own fulfilment
within five years, and thenceforth for ever. Let but one generation be
well educated, and there can be no rational apprehension that their
children or grandchildren will be allowed to grow up in ignorance and
helplessness. Knowledge is self-perpetuating, self-extending. And,
dreadfully destitute as this country is, the Priesthood of the People
can command the means of educating that People, which nobody without
their cooeperation can accomplish. Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an
earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thousands
and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents,
from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign
lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without
earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which
the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every
parish would gladly proffer them. There is really no serious obstacle in
the way of this first great step toward Ireland's regeneration if the
Priesthood will zealously attempt it.
But closely allied to this subject, and not inferior to it in
importance, stands that of Industrial Training. The Irish Peasantry are
idle, the English say truly enough; but who inquires whether there is
any work within their reach? Suppose there was always _something_ to do,
what avails that to millions who know not how to do that precise
something? Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of
Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years
old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend
roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that
labor. She answered, "Six-pence a car-load." "How long will it take you
to break a car-load?" "_About a fortnight._" Further questions
respecting her family, &c., were answered with equal directness and
propriety, and with manifest truth. Here was a mere child, who should
have been sent to school, delving from morning till night at an
employment utterly unsuited to her sex and her strength, and which I
should consider dangerous to her eyesight, to earn for her poor parents
a half-penny per day. Think of this, ye who talk, not always without
reason, of "factory slaves" and the meagre rewards of labor in America.
In any community where labor is even decently rewarded, that child
should have been enabled to earn every day at least as much as her
fortnight's work on the stone-heap would command. And even in Galway, a
concerted and systematic Industrial Education for the Poor would enable
her to earn at some light and suitable employment six times what she now
does.
In every street of the town you constantly meet girls of fourteen to
twenty, as well as old women and children, utterly barefoot and in
ragged clothing. I should judge from the streets that not more than
one-fourth of the females of Galway belong to the shoe-wearing
aristocracy. Now no one acquainted with Human Nature will pretend that
girls of fourteen to twenty will walk the streets barefoot if the means
of buying shoes and stockings by honest labor are fairly within their
reach. But here there are none such for thousands. Born in wretched huts
of rough stone and rotten straw, compared with which the poorest
log-cabin is a palace, with a turf fire, no window, and a mass of filth
heaped up before the door, untaught even to read, and growing up in a
region where no manufactures nor arts are prosecuted, the Irish
peasant-girl arrives at womanhood less qualified by experience,
observation or training for industrial efficiency and usefulness than
the daughter of any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, not _all_ the
Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but
a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and
utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and
ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and
undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness,"
which means only inability to do what one has never even _seen_ done, is
not confined to any class or nation, and should be regarded with every
allowance.
An Industrial School, especially for girls, in every town, village and
parish of Ireland, is one of the crying needs of the time. I am
confident there are in Galway alone five thousand women and girls who
would hail with gratitude and thoroughly improve an opportunity to earn
six-pence per day. If they could be taught needle-work, plain
dressmaking, straw-braiding, and a few of the simplest branches of
manufactures, such as are carried on in households, they might and would
at once emerge from the destitution and social degradation which now
enshroud them into independence, comfort and consideration. Knowing how
to work and to earn a decent subsistence, they would very soon seek and
acquire a knowledge of letters if previously ignorant of them. In short,
the Industrial Education of the Irish Peasantry is the noblest and the
most hopeful idea yet broached for their intellectual and social
elevation, and I have great hope of its speedy triumph. It is now being
agitated in Dublin and many other localities, a central and many
auxiliary schools having already been established. But I will speak
further on this point in another letter.
Galway has an immense and steady water-power within half a mile of its
harbor, on the outlet of Lakes Corrib and Mash, by means of which it
enjoys an admirable internal navigation extending some sixty miles
northward. Here Manufactures might be established with a certainty of
commanding the cheapest power, cheapest labor and cheapest fuel to be
had in the world. I never saw a spot where so much water power yet
unused could be obtained at so trifling a cost as here directly on the
west line of the town and within half a mile of its center. A beautiful
Marble is found on the line of the Railroad only a few miles from the
town, and all along the line to Dublin the abundance and excellence of
the building-stone are remarkable. Timber and Brick come down the Lake
outlet as fast as they are wanted, while Provisions are here cheap as in
any part of the British Isles. Nature has plainly designed Galway for a
great and prosperous city, the site of extensive manufactures, the
emporium of an important trade, and the gateway of Europe toward
America; but whether all this is or is not to be dashed by the fatality
which has hitherto attended Irish prospects, remains to be seen. I trust
that it is not, but that a new Liverpool is destined soon to arise here;
and that, should I ever again visit Europe, I shall first land on the
quay of Galway.
XLII.
IRELAND--SOUTH.
DUBLIN, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 1851.
I had hoped to see all of Ireland that is accessible by Railroad from
this city, but Time will not permit. Having remained here over Sunday, I
had only Monday left for a trip Southward, and that would just suffice
for reaching Limerick and returning without attempting Cork. So at 7
yesterday morning I took the "Great Southern and Western Railroad," and
was set down in Limerick (130 miles) at a quarter before 1, passing
Kildare, with its "Curragh" or spacious race-ground, Maryborough and
Thurles on the way. Portarlington, Mount Melick, Mountrath and
Templemore--all considerable towns--lie a few miles from the Railroad,
on the right or west, as Naas, Cashel and Tipperary are not far from it
on the left; while another Railroad, the "Irish South-Eastern," diverges
at Kildare to Carlow, Bagnalstown and Kilkenny (146 miles from Dublin)
on the South; while from Kilkenny the "Kilkenny and Waterford" has
already been constructed to Thomastown (some 20 miles), and is to reach
Waterford, at the head of ship navigation on the common estuary at the
mouth of the Suir and Barrow, when completed.
I left the Great Southern and Western at Limerick Junction, 107 miles S.
S. W. of Dublin, and took the crossroad from Tipperary to Limerick (30
miles), but the main road proceeds south-westerly to Charleville, 22 1/2
miles further, and thence leads due south to Mallow, on the Blackwater,
and then south by east to Cork, 164 1/2 miles from Dublin, while another
railroad has just been opened from Cork to Bandon, 18 3/4 miles still
further south-west, making a completed line from Dublin to Bandon, 183 1/2
miles, with branches to Limerick, Tipperary and Kilkenny, the latter to
be continued to Waterford. In a country so easily traversed by
Railroads, and so swarming with population as Ireland, these roads
should be not only most useful but most productive to their
stockholders, but they are very far from it. Few of the peasantry can
afford to travel by them, except when leaving the country for ever, and
their scanty patches of ground produce little surplus food for
exportation, while they can afford to buy little that the Railroads
bring in. Were the population of Ireland as well fed and as enterprising
as that of New-England, with an industry as well diversified, her
Railroads would pay ten per cent, on their cost; as things now are, they
do not pay two per cent. Thus the rapacity of Capital defeats itself,
and actually impoverishes its owners when it deprives Labor of a fair
reward. If all the property-holders of Ireland would to-day combine in a
firm resolve to pay at least half a dollar per day for men's labor, and
to employ all that should present themselves, introducing new arts and
manufactures and improving their estates in order to furnish such
employment, they would not only speedily banish destitution and
ignorance from the land but they would double the value of their own
possessions. This is one of the truths which sloth, rapacity and
extravagance are slow to learn, yet which they cannot safely ignore. The
decay and ruin of nearly all the "old families" in Ireland are among the
penalties of disregarding it.