GREEN CASTLE--A LOOK INTO THE FORT--THE OLD AND THE NEW--MARS IN
WAITING--A KIND WORD FOR THE LANDLORDS--IN TIME FOR AN EVICTION--FEMALE
LAND LEAGUERS--THE "STUPID" IRISH--THE POLICE.
Went on an exploring expedition to the ruins of Green Castle. One
authority told me it had been the castle of the chief of the clan
Doherty, once ruling lord here in the clannish times. Another equally
good authority told me it was built by De Burgo in the sixteenth century
to hold the natives in awe. Whoever built it, the pride of its strength
and the dread of its power have passed away forever. It is a very
extensive ruin and covers a large tract of ground. It looks as if three
solid, high, square buildings were set, not very regularly, end to end,
the outer wall of one built in a semi-circle, and towers raised at every
corner and every irregularity of the wall. Of course the roof was on the
floor, turrets and towers have lost part of their height and stand, rent
and ragged, tottering to their fall.
A good deal is said about the Norman style of arch and the Saxon style
of arch found in old buildings. I am convinced that the arches of Green
Castle, and its architecture generally, had been formed on the pattern
of the rocks at Port-a-dorus and the other heaps along the coast. The
same massiveness, the same wedge-like stones piled together to form
arches prevail in both.
Seaward the castle sits on a steep rock, like the rock on which Quebec
sits for height, but cleaner scarped, and more inaccessible I should
think. To stand on the shore and look up, the castle seems perched on a
dizzy height, its ruined battlements and broken towers rising up into
the sky. The pretty green ivy forms a kindly hap and a garment of
beauty, both for rock and ruin. Long live the ivy green.
There is a clean, smooth new fort standing beside the ruined old castle
like a prosperous, solid, closely-shaven, modern gentleman beside
dilapidated nobility. Its fat, broad tower looks strong enough and solid
enough and grim enough for anything. Inside of the fort everything is
clean, regular and orderly, as becomes a place under the care of British
soldiers. The house, or quarters I suppose they should be called, are
clean and bright, whitewashed (I almost said pipe-clayed), to the
highest point of perfection. There are fortifications above
fortifications here, and plenty of cannon pointed at an imaginary foe.
There are cannon balls in scientific heaps waiting to be despatched on
errands of destruction. Long may they wait.
I saw the outside of the magazine, cased over with so many feet--oh, a
great number--of solid masonry, padded over that with a great many feet
of earth, containing a fabulous amount of powder--tons and tons of it.
Saw also the slippers which the worshippers of Mars put upon their
martial feet when they enter into his temple--slippers without a
suspicion of shod, hob nail or sparable, with which the heels of the
worshippers of Ceres in this country are armed. If any one of these
intruded on this domain sacred to Mars, he would in his indignation gift
them with the feathered heels of Mercury and send them off with an
abrupt message for the stars.
Had a great desire to go up to the top of the great tower and see what
could be seen from it. I was informed, delicately, that in these
disturbed times it was not thought best to admit strangers. The lonely
martello tower on the opposite sands was pointed out to me, sitting
mistress of desolations in the shadow of the rocks of MacGilligan. I was
informed of the money's worth of pile work, thousands upon thousands of
pounds sterling, on which this ugly and useless tower is sitting. As I
walked around the outside of the fort landward and seaward, I think it
quite possible to take it. I make this spiteful remark because I did not
get into the tower.
On the opposite shores of the lough at the inland end of the range that
rose above and behind the martello tower where it slopes down, I saw the
rocky figure of a woman, gigantic, solemn, sitting with her hands on her
knees looking southward. Looking for what--for the slowly approaching
time of peace, plenty and prosperity, of tardy justice and kindly
appreciation? The cost of tower and fort would give Innishowen a peasant
proprietary, loyal, grateful and loving, that would bulwark the lough
with their breasts. Burns is true--a patriotic, virtuous populace forms
the best "wall of fire around our much-loved isle."
It is not easy to get up and leave Green Castle, and the friends there
who made me feel so pleasantly at home; but hearing of evictions that
were to take place away in the interior of Innishowen, I bid a reluctant
good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Sloan at Green Castle, and hiring a special car
set off in the direction of Carndonagh. The road lies between mountains.
The valley through which the road threads its way is varied enough; in
parts bog of the wildest, and barren-looking fields sloping up to as
barren, rocky mountains in their tattered covering of heather, black in
its wintry aspect as yet--mountain behind mountain looking over one
another's shoulders ever so many deep with knitted brows, wrinkled into
deep gullies. One of these mountains (Sliabh Sneach, snow mountain)
deserves its name; snowy is its cap, and snow lingers in the scarred
recesses running down its shoulders. We passed fair, carefully cultured
farms and farm houses, spotlessly white under the shade of trees. Other
farms meeting these ran up far on the mountain side. The white houses,
with which the mountain sides are plentifully dotted over, show very
plainly, and are rather bare-looking and unsheltered among the dark
heather. There are more dwellings on the same space in Innishowen among
the hills than in the parts of the Donegal mountains where I have been.
The people seem better off and more contented. Many of them have a kind
word for their landlords.
In no part of Innishowen that I saw is the same wretchedness and misery
apparent as I saw in "northern Donegal." There is, there must be a less
crushing set of office rules. As an instance of this, the car driver
informed me that the high, utterly heath-clad mountains were allowed to
the people for pasturage, with very little if anything to pay. This
accounts for the number of sheep I saw trotting about with lambs at
their feet, twins being the rule and even triplets far from uncommon. My
informant told me that lambs in early autumn were worth from thirty-five
shillings to two pounds when fit to kill. I thought this a fabulous
price, but it was confirmed to me by a cattle dealer on the train from
Derry to Limavady. If a small farmer had many lambs to sell, he would
have material help in making up the rent. My driver had three acres of
land; he told me if he owned it out and out, after he got it paid for,
he could lived comfortably. He had two horses and a car, and let out his
car for hire. I considered that if he got much call for his car he might
do that--a special car for four or five miles costing $1.25, and if the
driver is a hired man he often depends on his chance, so there must be
25 cents for him also.
It is very necessary, if one wants to see anything of the country to get
off regular routes at regular times, so posting becomes a necessity.
Suddenly we became aware of a great crowd assembled at a group of small
houses a little off the public road, and turned our horse's head in that
direction. There were a great many cars--well there might be, for there
were seventy police on the ground, under the command of a police officer
named McLeod. There was an immense crowd of people, who were entirely
unarmed, not even a shillelagh among them; but if knitted brows and
flashing eyes mean anything, there were men there capable, if any
incident set pent-up rage free, to imitate the men of Harlech, who, with
plaided breasts, encountered mail clad men. A large proportion of the
crowd were women and girls, for there is a flourishing branch of the
Ladies' Land League here.
The tenants to be evicted were, some of them, tenants of the Rev.
William Crawford. I was told by what seemed good authority that the
tenants did not owe much rent, but were pressed just now to punish them
for joining the Land League. It was believed that the tenants were able
to pay, but there was a strike against what they believed exorbitant
rent. The evictions were to demonstrate the landlord's power to compel
them to pay. There was a great crowd.
The policemen were formed in fours, and the crowd howled and hooted as
they proceeded to the first house, McCallion's. The policemen took up a
position convenient to the house, and a few were stationed at the door.
The under sheriff was on the spot.
The little cottage was neat and tidy, white-washed of course. I was not
inside; I did not like to go; those who were said it was very clean and
neat. A room with a few ornaments, a table and some chairs, and a
kitchen with its dresser and table, and a few chairs and stools. The
rent was L14 6s. The tenant stated that he objected to pay the rent on
account of it being too high. The family were sad-looking, but were very
quiet. A paper was presented to him to sign, acknowledging himself a
tenant at will, and promising to give up the holding on demand; on
signing the paper, he got a respite of six months.
The crowd then went to the house of James McCauley, when the same form
was gone through and the same respite granted.
The next house was John Carruthers'. Here the crowd were very much
excited, the women screeched, the men howled, and the poor constabulary
came in for unlimited hooting.
The next place was the joint residence of Owen and Denis Quigley, joint
tenants of a little patch. The cottage is in a gulley on the mountain
side, about a mile of crooks and turns from John Carruthers' house. The
crowd was very large that was gathered round the door. As the police
came up how they did howl! How they did shout, "Down with Harvey (the
agent), and the Land League for ever." Some of the women declared
themselves willing to die for their country.
Another man was evicted, a tenant of Mr. Hector McNeil. The rent here
was L22 3s and the valuation L18 10s. Like the rest he said he could not
pay it because it was too high.
At the next place a young lady Land Leaguer delivered a speech--Mary
McConigle, a rather pretty young girl. Her speech was a good deal of
fiery invective, withering sarcasm and chaff for the police, who winced
under it, poor fellows, and would have preferred something they could
defend themselves from--bayonets, for instance--to the forked lightning
that shot from the tongue and eyes of this female agitator. Whatever
would be the opinion of critics about it, Mary McConigle voiced the
sentiments of the people and was cheered by the men and kissed by the
women. There were a good many speeches made at different times.
Father Bradley, a tall, sallow young priest with a German jaw, square
and strong and firm, spoke very well, swaying his hearers like oats
before the wind. He praised them, he sympathized with them, he
encouraged them, putting golden hopes for the future just a little way
ahead of them, but through it all ran a thread of good advice to them to
be self-restrained and law-abiding. I think I rather admired Father
Bradley and his speech. I had a little conversation with him afterward.
He said the lands were really rented too high, too high to leave for the
cultivator of the soil anything but bare subsistence in the best of
years; and when bad years followed one another, or in cases of sickness
coming to the head of the family, want sat down with them at once.
Mr. Cox, the representative of the Land League, was also there, and made
a speech. He and some gentlemen of the press arrived in a car with
tandem horses. Such grandeur impressed upon the people the belief that
they were connected with law and landlords, so, in enquiring the way,
they found the people very simple and ignorant. When they came where
roads met they were at a loss to know how to proceed, and a countryman
whom they interrogated was both lame and stupid; when he knew, however,
who Mr. Cox was, he recovered the use of his limbs and brightened up in
his intellect in a truly miraculous manner. There were other speeches
during the forenoon of the evictions from Father O'Kane, the gentle
little priest of Moville, Mr. McClinchy, the Poor Law Guardian, and
others.
The greatest success of the day as to speech-making was, after all, the
speech of Mary McConigle, to judge of its present effect--no one else
was kissed. The gist of most of the speeches which I heard, or heard of,
was, advising to hope, to firmness, to stand shoulder to shoulder, and a
counsel to be law-abiding, wrapped up in a little discreet blarney.
As we drove away in the direction of Carndonagh we passed on the way a
wing of the Ladies' Land League, marching home in procession two and
two. A goodly number of bareheaded sonsie lasses, wrapped in the
inevitable shawl; rather good-looking, healthy and rosy-cheeked were
they, with their hair snooded back, and gathered into braids sleek and
shining. Brown is the prevailing color of hair among the Irish girls in
the four counties I have partly passed through. These Land League
maidens reminded me of other processions of ladies which I have seen
marching in the temperance cause. They were half shame-faced, half
laughing, clinging to one another as if gathering their courage from
numbers.
Carndonagh, which we reached at last, is another clean, excessively
whitewashed little town, straggling up a side hill, with any amount of
mountains looming up in the near distance.
A little after we arrived the Carndonagh contingent of the police on
duty at the evictions came driving in, horses and men both having a
wilted look. The drivers came in for some abuse as they took their
horses out of the cars on the street. One old man could not at all
express what he felt, though he tried hard to do so, and screeched
himself hoarse in the attempt.
The police, as they alighted down off the cars, made for their barracks--
a tall white house standing sentry at a corner. As one entered, a
little child toddled out to meet him with outstretched arms. He stopped
to kiss and pet the child, looking fatherly and human. I am sure the
little kiss was sweet and welcome after the howls and hoots of the crowd
and the sarcastic eloquence of Miss McConigle. I pity the police; they
are under orders which they have to obey. I have never heard that they
have delighted in doing their odious duty harshly, and the bitter
contempt of the people is, I am sure, hard to bear.