KILLALA--THE CANADIAN GRANT TO THE FAMINE FUND AND WHAT IT HAS DONE--
BALLYSAKEERY--THREE LANDLORDS--A LANDLORD'S INTERESTING STATEMENT.
I had the very great pleasure of a drive to the ancient town of
Killala, accompanied by the wife of the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, who
superintends the orphanage and the mission schools in connection with
the Presbyterian Church of Ballina. Killala is an old town with a gentle
flavor of decay about it. It has a round tower in good preservation, and
an ancient church. I was shown the point where the French landed at the
stirring time of war and rebellion.
It makes my heart glad to hear in so many places of the benefit the
Canadian grant has been to this suffering country. I heard with great
pleasure of fishing boats along the coast named Montreal, Toronto and
other Canadian names in affectionate remembrance of the Canadian dollars
that paid for them. This grant has been a means of convincing the people
that there is such a place as Canada. The peasant mind had a sort of
belief that America consisted of two large towns, New York and
Philadelphia. In one instance the Canadian paid nets arrived on
Thursday; they were in the water on Saturday, and many boats returned
laden with mackerel. So great a capture had not been remembered for many
years. In one locality where the nets given were valued for less than
L200, it was proved that the boats had brought in during four weeks over
L1,200 worth of mackerel.
After we had taken a view of Killala we had a pleasant interview with
the good minister at Ballysakeery. Here we received one of those
welcomes that cheer the travellers' way and leave a warm remembrance
behind. The famine pressed hard upon Mayo. Many respectable people were
obliged to accept relief in the form of necessary food, seed potatoes
and seed oats. It is a noticeable fact that here, as in Leitrim--that
part at least of Leitrim in which I made investigations--the landlords
in a body held back from giving any help to the starving people on their
lands. Sir Roger Palmer gave potatoes to his tenants and sold them meal
at the lowest possible figure, thus saving them from having the
millstone of Gombeen tied round their neck. Sir Charles Gore, a resident
landlord, has the name of generosity at this time of want, and justice
at all times, which is better to be chosen than great riches. The Earl
of Arran, who has drawn a large income, he and his ancestors, from this
part of Mayo for which they paid nothing, not only gave nothing but gave
no reply whatever to letters asking for help.
The land belonging to the Earl of Arran here--I cannot undertake to
write the name of the locality by the sound--was a common waste and was
let by the Earl at two shillings and sixpence per acre to Presbyterian
tenants, who came here from the North I believe. Of course they had to
reclaim, fence, drain, cultivate for years. They built dwellings and
office houses, built their lives into the place. After they had spent
the toil of years on improvement, their rents were raised to seven and
sixpence per acre, five shillings at one rise; then it was raised to ten
shillings; the next rise was to fifteen shillings and then to twenty.
The land is not now able to bear more than fourteen shillings an acre
rent and support the people who till it. These people have been paying a
rack rent for years to this nobleman, the Earl of Arran, yet when
starvation overtook them, he had neither helping hand nor feeling heart
for them.
The distress of this last famine was so great in this corner of Mayo
that people on holdings of thirty acres were starving--would have died
but for the relief afforded. It takes some time--and more than one good
harvest--for people who have got to starvation to recover themselves
far enough to pay arrears of rent.
We visited the ruins of Moyne Abbey, which are in good preservation yet.
One of the present lords of the soil had a part of it made habitable and
lived there some time, but it is again unroofed and left to desolation.
It has been a very extensive building, stretching over a great extent of
land now cleared of ruins. What remains is still imposing.
We had a pleasant interview with the Rev. Mr. Nolan, the kind and
patriotic priest of this neighborhood, and we returned to Ballina as
gratified and as tired as children after a holiday excursion.
I was introduced at Ballina to a landlord, a fine, clever-looking man,
with that particularly well-kept and well-fed appearance which is as
characteristic of the upper classes in Ireland as a hunger-bitten,
hunted look is characteristic of the poor. I would not like to employ as
strong language in speaking of the wrongs of the tenantry as this
gentleman used to me. He is both landlord and agent. He condemned all
the policy of the Government toward Ireland in no measured terms. Spoke
of the emigration that is going on now, as well as the emigration that
had taken place after the last famine, as men going out to be educated
for and to watch for the time of retribution. Retribution for the
accumulated wrongs which mis-government had heaped upon Ireland he
looked upon as inevitable, as coming down the years slowly but surely to
the place of meeting and of paying to the uttermost farthing. Well, now,
these are queer sentiments for a landlord to hold and to utter publicly.
He acknowledged freely that a great part--a very great part--of the
excessive rents extorted on pain of eviction, the eviction taking place
when the unfortunate fell behind, were really premiums paid on their own
labor. Furthermore, he acknowledged that he himself had raised the
tenants' rents on the estates for which he was agent, compelling them to
pay smartly for the work of their own hands. He spoke highly of the
people as a whole, of their patience, their kindliness to one another,
and their piety. He spoke of the case of one man, a peasant, who could
only speak broken English, who came under his notice by coming to him to
sell rye-grass to make up his rent. This man with the imperfect English
was a tenant of the gentleman's brother. He held three acres, two roods
of land in one place at a rent of L7 5s, where his house stood; one
acre, at L1 4s. Of course he or his ancestors built the house. His poor
rate and county cess is 16s, or $46.25 yearly for four acres, two roods
of land. If they got it for nothing they could not live on it, say some.
The best manure that can be put upon land is to salt it well with rent,
say Mr. Tottenham and Mr. Corscadden. Well, this man since the famine,
has no stock but one ass and a few hens. He cut and saved his rye-grass
himself, sold it for L3 10s, sold his oats for L3 4s 6d; had nothing
more to sell; had remaining for his wife and two little ones a little
meal and potatoes. He is a year and a half behind in his rent, and
likely, after all his toil and struggle, to be set on the roadside with
the rest. He has no bog near, there is none nearer than over five miles,
except some belonging to Miss Gardiner. Of course that mild and sober
spinster that will not oblige her own tenants has nothing in the way of
favor for outsiders. It took him twelve days last year to make
sufficient turf to keep the hearth warm. He went to the bog in the
morning on his breakfast of dry stirabout, with a bit of cold stirabout
in his pocket to keep off the hungry grass, as the peasant calls
famished pains, and walked home to his dry stirabout at night, having
walked going and coming eleven Irish miles over and above his day's
work. He drew home seventy ass loads of turf at the rate of two loads
per day--twenty-two Irish miles of a walk. Let Christians imagine this
man at his toil in his thin clothing, poor diet and bed of straw with
scanty coverlet, toiling early and late to pay an unjust rent. Often
after his hard day's work he has gone out at night with the fishers and
toiled all night in hopes of adding something to his scanty stores. Said
the landlord, "The vilest criminal could not have a harder life than
this God-fearing uncomplaining peasant. What I tell you I drew from him,
for he made no complaint." "You have a hard life of it, my man," said
the landlord to him. He was not his tenant. "Well, sir, sure God is good
and knows best," was the man's answer.
I was very much astonished at this gentleman's narrative and his other
admissions, and I ventured to enquire for my own satisfaction had he
made restitution to the tenants. "Have you, sir, restored what you have
robbed?" I did not suggest the four-fold which is the rule of that Book
which we acknowledge as a guide and law-giver. "I am doing so," he
replied, and he handed me a printed address to the tenants, offering
twenty-five percent reduction on arrears, if paid within a certain time.
Now, I was very much interested in this gentleman and in his opinions,
but I could not bring myself to agree with him that this was
restitution. However, I state the matter and leave it to that
enlightened jury, the readers of the _Witness_, "too large to pack
at any rate," and let them give their decision. I think myself that a
little of the Sermon on the Mount, applied conscientiously, would be
good for those who hold the happiness of Ireland in their hands. When
justice becomes loud-voiced and likely to pass into vengeance, they talk
of giving a little as charity.