IRELAND.
"'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
They're hanging men and women there for the wearin' of the green."
From France the gay, France the prosperous, France the delightful, to
Ireland the sad, Ireland the poor, Ireland the oppressed, is a
tremendous jump. Contrasts are necessary, and my readers are going to
have all they want of them.
[Illustration: CORK HARBOR.]
[Sidenote: CORK.]
Cork is a lovely city; that is, it would be a lovely city were it a city
at all. Nature intended Cork for a great city, but man stepped in and
thwarted Nature. It is situated on the most magnificent site for a city
there is in all Europe. A wonderfully beautiful river, with water
enough to float any vessel, flows through it; and at the mouth of that
river, twelve miles below, is one of the great harbors of the world.
Queenstown--I wonder that any Irishman ever consented to call it
Queenstown--is the nearest port to the great western hemisphere, and
Cork should be the center of all the trade from America.
It is twenty-four hours nearer New York than Liverpool, and should be
the final landing-place of the American lines, instead of being simply a
point to be touched.
[Illustration: QUEENSTOWN.]
Cork is a sleepy city of perhaps seventy thousand population, made up of
the handsomest men and most beautiful women and children on the face of
the globe. You shall see more feminine beauty on the streets of Cork in
an hour than you can anywhere else in a week. Homely women there are
none--beautiful women are so plenty that it really becomes monotonous.
One rather gets to wishing that he could see an occasional pair of
English feet, for the sake of variety.
The city itself is beautiful, as are all the cities of Ireland; but it
is a sad city, as are all the cities of Ireland. It is not prosperous,
and cannot be, for it is under English domination, and England will not
permit prosperity in Ireland. It is only the attachment which an
Irishman has for his own country that makes anybody stay there. With
every natural advantage, with every facility for manufacturing, for
trade and commerce, with the best harbor in the world, and the nearest
point for American trade, it has no manufactures to speak of, and no
trade whatever. Its population has decreased thirty thousand within
fifteen years, and its trade is slowly but surely dwindling to
nothingness.
The river Lea is a wonderfully beautiful stream, and Cork, which
occupies both sides of it, is a wonderfully beautiful city, and would be
an enjoyable city but for the feeling of sadness that comes to an
American the moment he sees the empty warehouses, the empty dwellings,
and the signs of decay that are everywhere.
There are churches everywhere, and churches with a history. Here is the
church of Shandon, of whose chimes Father Prout wrote:
"The bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lea."
Here is climate, soil, situation--everything to make a great controlling
city; here are a people with industry, intelligence, brains, and all the
requisites to make a great controlling city; but, despite all these
points in its favor, Cork has decreased year by year, and is to-day
absolutely nothing. The city has lost population every year; its
business is leaving it, its warehouses are empty, its streets are
deserted, its quays are silent--it is nothing.
What is the reason for this? It is all summed up in one
word--landlordism. There is no man in the world, not excepting the
Frenchman, who will work longer or harder than the Irishman. There is no
race of men who are better merchants or more enterprising dealers, and
there is no reason, but one, why Cork should not be one of the largest
and richest cities of the world. That reason is, English ownership of
Irish soil.
Irish landlordism is condensed villainy. It is the very top and summit
of oppression, cruelty, brutality and terror.
It was conceived in lust and greed, born of fraud, and perpetuated by
force.
[Sidenote: A MILD EXPRESSION OF OPINION.]
It does not recognize manhood, womanhood or childhood. Its cold hand is
upon every cradle in Ireland. Its victims are the five millions of
people in Ireland who cannot get away, and the instruments used to hold
them are bayonets and ball cartridges.
It is a ghoul that would invade grave-yards were there any profit to be
gotten out of grave-yards. It is the coldest-blooded, cruelest infamy
that the world has ever seen, and that any race of people was ever fated
to groan under.
Irish landlordism is legal brigandage--it is an organized hell.
Wesley said that African slavery was the sum of all villainies. Irish
landlordism comprises all the villainies that the devil ever invented,
with African slavery thrown in. Irish landlordism makes African slavery
a virtue by comparison. For when a negro slave got too old to work, he
was given some place in which to live, and sufficient food to keep him
in some sort of life, and clothes enough to shield him from the
elements.
The Irish tenant, when he becomes old and cannot work, is thrown out
upon the roadside, with his wife and his children, to die and rot. He
has created lands with his own hands, which he is not allowed to occupy;
he has grown crops which he is not allowed to eat; he has labored as no
other man in the world has labored, without being permitted to enjoy the
fruits of his labor. The virtue of his wife and daughter are in the
keeping of the villain, who by virtue of bayonets, controls his land. In
short, to sum it all up in one word, the Irishman is a serf, a slave.
In a country that makes a boast of its freedom, he is the suffering
victim of men who claim to be Christians; he is the robbed, outraged
sufferer of a few men who are as unfeeling as the bayonets that keep him
down, as merciless and cruel as tigers.
From the above feeble utterances my readers will, I hope, get the idea
that I do not like Irish landlordism. I hope some day to get sufficient
command of words to make my meaning apparent. I really would like to
make it understood just how I feel about it.
To see Ireland you must not do as the regular tourist always does,
follow the regular routes of tourists' travel. You may go all over
Ireland, in one way, and you will not see a particle of suffering, or
any discontent. At Glengariff, for instance, the most charming spot on
the earth, you are lodged in as fine a hotel as there is anywhere; the
people are all well dressed and well fed, and the visitor wonders why
there should be any discontent.
This is a part of the English Government's policy. On these lines of
travel, which the tourist for pleasure always takes, the misery is kept
out of sight, and the mouths of the people who serve you are sealed. The
American lady traveling through that country don't like to see naked
women and squalid poverty, for it would make her uncomfortable. None of
it is shown her, and she wonders at the discontent of the Irish.
But just take a boat at Glengariff, leave the splendid hotel, and be
rowed two miles across the bay, and you begin to see Ireland, the real
Ireland. You then know why Ireland is agitated; you then see the real
reason why an Englishman is hated with an intensity that would find
expression in a rifle shot, if rifles were permitted to be owned and
used.
We took a train for Fermoy, a distance of perhaps fifty miles from Cork.
In Fermoy, a tolerably prosperous village for Ireland, the women did not
only have no shoes or stockings, but they had scarcely anything else to
wear.
"This is nothing," said the wise Mr. Redpath, who was with us; "these
people are fairly prosperous--for Ireland. I shall show you something
worth while before night."
It puzzled me somewhat to understand how anybody could be worse off than
to be walking in cold mud without any protection whatever for the feet,
but I found it at Mitchellstown, at the foot of the Galtee mountains.
[Sidenote: THE JAUNTING CAR.]
The Irish jaunting-car, being the most inconvenient and detestable
vehicle on earth, deserves a description. It should be known in order to
be avoided. A jaunting-car is simply a two-wheeled vehicle with the body
that supports the seat reversed. Instead of sitting so as to look
forward, you are on the side; the seat runs the wrong way--which is
characteristic of almost everything in Ireland. The driver sits looking
toward the horse, the passengers sit backing each other, and the concern
is so balanced that you must hold on a rail with a death-grip, or be
flung off upon the road by every jolt. As detestable as it is, it is the
national Irish vehicle, and you ride on the car, or go afoot.
[Illustration: AN IRISH WOMAN AND HER DAUGHTER ON THE ROAD TO CHURCH.]
On one of these atrocious conveyances, we left Mitchellstown at nine
o'clock in the morning, in a soaking rain-storm, the cold, misty
drizzle going through our heavy overcoats, and almost penetrating the
very marrow. The road wound along past well cultivated fields, over
picturesque streams, now up gentle declivities that gave us, or would
have given us had the day been clear and fine, an admirable view of the
valley that lay spread at the foot of the Galtee Mountains. But on that
day the picture was not a cheering one. The sun refused to shine, the
rain was cold, and the whole prospect was bleak and desolate. Then our
driver was a loquacious fellow, who had at his tongue's end hundreds of
instances of the oppression of landlords and the terrible sufferings of
the poor, evicted tenants. He talked fast, and, his whole heart being in
the subject, he talked well, oftentimes emphasizing his stories by
pointing to bare-footed, bare-legged and bare-headed women, who went
trudging along the cold, wet road, with no protection from the frightful
inclemency of the weather but a light shawl thrown over the ragged dress
that scarcely covered their bodies. These women, whom he pointed out as
evicted tenants, were not the rough, degraded-looking beggars that are
commonly supposed to overrun Ireland, and make the tourist's life one of
continual annoyance. They were bright, intelligent and handsome, and,
notwithstanding the horrors of their situation, comparatively cheerful.
But it was an unnatural cheerfulness, for it was noticeable that there
were lines about the mouth and around the eyes that told only too
plainly their story of want and suffering.
Even with these living evidences, we could hardly believe the stories of
cruelties committed by the landlords and their agents, which our driver
kept pouring into our ears. We could not realize that they could be
true. They seemed so absolutely barbarous that we utterly refused to
accept them, and did not, till, having gone about nine miles from
Mitchellstown, we stopped at a little roadside cabin, as they called it,
although we would have more properly denominated it a hovel.
[Sidenote: MR. DUGGAN'S FAMILY.]
At the invitation of our guide we alighted, shook the rain off from our
great coats, and entered the place to inquire for Michael Duggan, who
worked the little holding back of it. He was not at home, but his wife,
a comely, buxom woman of about forty years, asked us to be seated, at
the same time offering a small stool on which one of the girls of the
family had been sitting near the fire, taking care of an infant.
While our guide was inquiring for Mr. Duggan, we made an inspection of
the house, where a man, his wife and seven children lived. There was the
one principal room in which we were standing, which was about ten by
twelve feet, and eight feet high. There was no floor, except the
original earth. There was only one opening for a window, and that had
never known a pane of glass. In one end of the room there was a dingy,
smoky fireplace, around which were huddled three or four children,
scantily dressed in loose cotton slips that came to just below the knee.
At the other end of the room a brood of chickens disported themselves in
a pile of furze, while every few minutes a huge porker would push his
nose in at the open door, only to be driven away by one of the children.
[Illustration: A COUNTY CORK CABIN.]
The family was very interesting. The mother was tall, well formed, and
of an exceedingly pleasant appearance, while the children, shy at the
sight of so many strangers, were sturdy, healthful and _clean_. They
were bright and intelligent, and under any other circumstances and mode
of life would grow up to be eminently representative citizens.
On the return of Mr. Duggan from the fields, we went with him up the
Galtee Mountains, he explaining on the way that he was very comfortably
fixed compared with his neighbors. He said that his grandfather had
taken the little holding he occupied, when it was full of stones and
rocks, and was next to worthless. He paid a rent of three shillings an
acre for it. During his lifetime the land was partially reclaimed, the
rocks and boulders were taken out of a part of one field, and the rent
was advanced to seven shillings. His father further improved it and
raised some little crops, and the rent went up to twenty shillings. When
the present tenant succeeded to it, it was in comparatively good shape,
and with the improvements he had made, building the house, or rather
hovel, the value of the land had increased enough in the mind of the
landlord to justify him in placing the rent at two pounds.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A BETTER CLASS CABIN, COUNTY CORK.]
[Sidenote: THE ALTERNATIVE.]
That tract of land in America, if one were to go to the few districts
where such abominably bad land can be found, would be thought extremely
high if it were sold at a dollar, or four shillings an acre.
"Well, how in the world can you raise enough on such a holding to pay
such an exorbitant rent?"
[Illustration: ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.]
"I can't do it. I've tried my best, but it is absolutely impossible."
"Suppose you don't pay the rent, then what?"
"I'll be thrown out in the road, with my family and the little furniture
we have gotten together."
"In case you refuse to be thrown out of the house you have built, and
off the land you and your fathers before you made from utterly worthless
fields of rocks?"
"Then those fellows would come down upon me."
As he spoke he pointed to a flying squadron of a hundred and fifty men,
who were riding back to Mitchellstown after having evicted a number of
tenants who had been unable to pay the back rent. They were a fine
looking body of men, well mounted and well armed, each one carrying a
loaded carbine, while at his side was dangling a sword bayonet.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A CABIN IN KILLALEEN.]
But our business in hand was not speculating upon results so much as to
see the actual conditions that led to and still sustains the agitation.
So we plodded on, through the drenching rain that was coming down in
torrents, up the bleak and desolate hill side.
Along the side of the road were high stone fences, from four to seven
feet wide at the top, rather good fences for so poor a country.
"Why, you see," said Mr. Duggan in reply to an inquiry as to how they
found time to make such solid substantial fences, "those stones were
every one taken from that field there, and having no other place to put
them we made a fence, and our rent was raised on us for doing it, worse
the luck."
[Sidenote: ANOTHER CABIN.]
We looked into the field whence these stones were taken. It was as
uninviting a piece of ground as can be imagined, still full of huge
boulders, rocks, weeds and the never-dying heather. It was not capable
of supporting a sparrow, yet for the slight improvement that had been
made, the rent had been raised. Great inducement that for a man to work!
Seeing a little low, thatched cabin just off the road, we asked in all
simplicity, if it had any history, for by this time it was beginning to
dawn upon us that almost everything in that vicinity had some story
connected with it. But we were totally unprepared for the reply.
[Illustration: A QUIVER FULL.]
"No, there's no history about it. It is simply the dwelling place of a
family of people who are daily expecting to be evicted because they
can't pay the rent, the father having been unable, through sickness, to
work all of the season."
The idea that human beings, made in God's image, having the power to
think, to reason and to act, could live, even exist, in such a hovel as
that was so incredible that we insisted upon going over and seeing how
it was done.
Wading through mud and slush coming over our shoe-tops, we bent our
heads and entered. The room, if so it could, by a stretch of the
imagination, be called, was so low that we could not stand erect. The
cold bare earth that constituted the floor was damp and slippery as the
rain came trickling down through the broken thatch and formed little
pools on the ground. Near a suggestion of a fire, were huddled a woman
and four children, the eldest not more than eight years of age. As we
entered they all arose. We were horrified to see that they were as usual
without stockings or shoes, and their clothing was so torn and ragged
that it afforded no warmth whatever. The mother and her little girls
were blue with cold. Their features were pinched with hunger. Their
whole appearance indicated the want and suffering they had been
patiently enduring for years.
Over in one corner of the room was what they called a bed. It consisted
of four posts driven into the ground. On stringers were laid a few rough
boards; on these boards were dried leaves and heather, covered by a few
old potato sacks. There was where this family of six persons slept.
There was no window in the house, the only light and ventilation being
furnished by the door and the cracks in the thatched roof.
It was too horrible and we went out again into the rain--there we could
at least get a breath of fresh air. We asked our guide how these people
managed to keep the breath of life in them. He said they lived as their
neighbors did, on potatoes and "stirabout."
"What is 'stirabout'?"
"It is a sort of a mush made of Indian meal and skimmed milk. They have
that occasionally, for a little luxury, or when the potatoes are so
scarce that they think they must husband them."
"You don't mean to say that these people actually live on that fare?
that they have nothing else? They at least have meat with their
potatoes?"
"God bless you, sir," and the honest man's eyes filled with tears, "they
never know the taste of meat. There has not been a bit of meat in my
house since last Christmas, when we were fortunate enough to get a bit
of pig's head. But up here they don't even have that."
[Sidenote: A TERRIBLE SEVEN HOURS.]
Surely this must have been an exceptional case. It was impossible that
even in that country there could be more than one or two instances of
such utter and abject woe and misery.
But Mr. Duggan told us to the contrary. He said that the house we had
just left was only a fair sample of what was to be seen all over the
Galtee Mountains. To be convinced, we trudged painfully through the rain
for seven long hours.
We toiled through fields that in America would not be accepted as a
gift. Here, if the exorbitant rent charged for them could not be paid,
the holders were evicted. We went through roads so wretchedly bad that
teams could not travel over them. Yet taxes had to be paid by those who
had holdings on either side. We saw fields that had been reclaimed from
the original state, had been made productive, and had been the cause of
the eviction of the holder because he could not pay the rent which the
improvements brought upon him. He had been thrown off the land and it
was rapidly going to waste again. Large patches of heather, which is
worse than the American farmer's bane, the Canada thistle, were growing
over it, choking all other forms of vegetation. It would only take
another season to make the land so worthless that three years of hard
work would be required to put it back to the condition it was in when
the holder had been compelled to leave it, after having devoted the best
years of his life to reclaiming and making it productive.
After seven hours of such sights as these, which cannot be described, we
were wet, weary and mad. We had seen enough for one day, and were ready
to go back. All during the long drive to Mitchellstown not a word was
said. The subject was too terrible to discuss.