some others altogether detestable. The car of the country, for
instance, is the most abominable of all civilised vehicles. Why the
numskull who invented the crab-like machine turned it round sidewise
is as absolutely inconceivable as that since dog-carts have been
introduced into the West the car should survive. But it does survive
to the discomfort and fatigue of everybody, and the especial disgust
of the writer. There is another thing in Connaught which I love not
to look upon. That is the plate of a diner at a _table d'hôte_, on
which he has piled a quantity of roast goose with a liberal supply of
stuffing, together with about a pound of hot boiled beef, and cabbage,
carrots, turnips, and parsnips in profusion--the honour of a separate
plate being accorded to the national vegetable alone. It is not
agreeable to witness the demolition of this "Benjamin's mess" against
time; and when the feat is being performed by several persons the
effect thereof is the reverse of appetising. But I would rather be
driven seventy miles--Irish miles--on a car, and compelled to sit down
to roast goose commingled with boiled beef and "trimmings," than I
would listen to a political speech from the curate of Tiernaur. By
degrees I felt an utter weariness and loathing of life creeping over
me, and I turned my face towards the sun, setting in golden glory
behind Clare Island, and lighting up the rich ruddy brown of the
mountain, behind which lay the invaded pastures of Knockdahurk. By the
way this invasion of what are elsewhere deemed the rights of property
was barely alluded to by the reverend speakers, the latter of whom,
after making all kinds of blunders, finally broke down as he was
appealing to the "immortal and immutable laws of--of--of"--and here
some wicked prompter suggested "Nature," a suggestion adopted by the
unhappy speaker before he had time to recollect himself. After this
lame and impotent conclusion, a gentleman in a green cap and sash,
richly adorned with the harp without the crown, infused some vitality
into the proceedings by declaring that the only creature on God's
earth worse than a landlord was the despicable wretch who presumed to
take a farm at an advanced rent. This remark was distinctly to the
point, and was applauded accordingly. It was indeed a significant, but
in this part of the country quite unnecessary, intimation that safer,
if not better, holdings might be found than "Hunter's Farm." As most
of the persons present had come from a long distance, some as much as
fifteen or twenty Irish miles, the subsequent proceedings, such as the
passing of resolutions concerning fixity of tenure and so forth, were
got through rapidly, and the meeting dispersed as quietly as it
assembled. The organized bodies marched off the ground in good order,
without the slightest sign of riot or even of enthusiasm. Men and
women, the latter especially, were almost sad and gloomy--for Irish
people. I certainly heard one merry laugh as I was making for my car,
and it was at my own expense. A raw-boned, black-haired woman, "tall,
as Joan of France or English Moll," insisted that I should buy some
singularly ill-favoured apples of her. As I declined for the last time
she fired a parting shot, "An' why won't ye buy me apples? Sure
they're big and round and plump like yerself, aghra"--a sally vastly
to the taste of the bystanders. It struck me, however, that the
people generally seemed rather tired than excited by the proceedings
of the day--the most contented man of all being, I take it, Mike
Gibbons, who had been driving a brisk trade at his "shebeen," the only
house of business or entertainment for miles around.
As I drove homewards on what had suddenly become a hideously raw
evening, my driver entertained me with many heartrending and more or
less truthful stories of evictions. He showed me a vast tract of land
belonging to the Marquis of Sligo, from which the original inhabitants
had, according to his story, been driven to make way for one tenant
who paid less rent for all than they did for a part. One hears of
course a great deal of this kind of thing from the poorer
folk,--car-drivers, whose eloquence is proverbial, not excepted. My
driver had assuredly not been corrupted by reading inflammatory
articles in newspapers, for, although he speaks English as well as
Irish, "letter or line knows he never a one" of either, any more than
did stout William of Deloraine. His statements, however, are strictly
of that class of travellers' tales told by car-drivers, and must be
taken with more than the proverbial grain of seasoning. I find him as
a rule very quiet until I have administered to him a dose of "the wine
of the country," and then he mourns over the desolation of the land
and the ravages of the so-called "crowbar brigade" as if they were
things of yesterday. Whether the local Press reflects the opinion of
the peasants of Mayo, or the peasants only echo the opinion of the
Press as reproduced to them by native orators, I am at present hardly
prepared to decide. One thing, however, is certain. Not only that
professional "deludher," the car-driver, but tradesmen, farmers, and
all the less wealthy part of the community still speak sorely of the
evictions of thirty and forty years ago, and point out the graveyards
which alone mark the sites of thickly populated hamlets abolished by
the crowbar. All over this part of the country people complain
bitterly of loneliness. According to their view, their friends have
been swept away and the country reduced to a desert in order that it
might be let in blocks of several square miles each to Englishmen and
Scotchmen, who employ the land for grazing purposes only, and perhaps
a score or two of people where once a thousand lived--after a fashion.
It is of no avail to point out to them that the wretchedly small
holdings common enough even now in Connaught cannot be made to support
the farmer, or rather labourer, and his family decently, even in the
best of years, and that any failure of crop must signify ruin and
starvation. Any observation of this kind is ill received by the
people, who cling to their inhospitable mountains as a woman clings to
a deformed or idiot child. And in this astonishing perversion of
patriotism they are supported in unreasoning fashion by their
pastors, who seem to imagine that because a person is born on any
particular spot he must remain there and insist on its maintaining him
and his.
Now, it is not inconceivable that a landlord should take a very
different view of the situation. Whether his estate is encumbered or
not, he expects to get something out of it for himself. It was
therefore not unnatural that advantage should have been taken of the
famine and the Encumbered Estates Act to get the land into such
condition that it would return some ascertainable sum. The best way of
effecting this was thought to be the removal of the inhabitants who
paid rent or not as it suited them, and in place of a few hundred of
these to secure one responsible tenant, even if he paid much less per
acre than the native peasant. I draw particular attention to the
latter fact, as one of the popular grievances sorely and lengthily
dwelt upon is that the oppressor not only took the land from the
people, evicted them, and demolished their cabins with crowbars, but
that he let his property to the hated foreigner for less than the
natives had paid and were willing to pay, or promised to pay, him. He
let land by thousands of acres to Englishmen and Scotchmen at a pound
an acre, whereas he had received twenty-five and thirty shillings from
the starving peasants of Connaught. This was deliberate cruelty,
framed to drive the people away who were willing to stay and pay their
high rents as of old. But the fact unfortunately was that Lord Lucan,
Lord Sligo, and other great landowners in county Mayo had found it so
difficult to get rent out of their tenants that they determined to let
their land to large farmers only, at such a price as they could get,
but with the certainty that the rent, whatever it was, would be well
and duly paid, and there would be an end to the matter. This, I hear,
is the true history of the eviction of the old tenants and the letting
of great tracts of land to tenants like Mr. Simpson on favourable
terms. The landlord knew that he would get his rent, and he has got
it, that is, hitherto.
The story of the great farm, colossal for this part of the country,
leased by Mr. Simpson from Lord Lucan, and now on that nobleman's
hands, is a curious one as revealing the real capacity of the soil
when properly handled. Twenty-two hundred Irish acres at as many
pounds sterling per annum represent in Mayo an immense transaction.
The tenant came to his work with capital and ripe experience, farmed
well, and, I am assured on the best authority, fared well, getting a
handsome return for his capital. So satisfied was he with his bargain,
that he offered to renew his agreement with Lord Lucan if he were
allowed a deduction for the false measurement of the acreage of the
farm, which had been corrected by a subsequent survey. As I am
instructed, there were not 2,200 acres, but the tenant was quite
willing to pay a pound per acre for what was there. Now, an Irish acre
is so much bigger than an English acre that thirty acres Irish
measurement make forty-nine English. Lord Lucan consequently thought
the farm cheaply let, and hesitated to make any allowance. This
negotiation began last spring, but soon became hopeless. The country
about Hollymount and Ballinrobe grew disturbed. Proprietors, agents,
and large farmers required "protection" from the constabulary, and
there was no longer anything to attract capital to the neighbourhood
in the face of a deterrent population. Hence one of the largest and
most popular farmers in Mayo has retired from the field with his
capital, and has left his landlord to farm the land himself.
Apparently Lord Lucan can do no better; for it would be difficult to
find a stranger of sufficient substance to rent and farm twenty-two
hundred acres of land, endowed with sufficient hardihood to bring his
money and his life hither under the existing condition of affairs.
The incident just narrated, moreover, appears to prove that one object
at least of the party of agitation has been achieved. To
politico-economists it will appear a Pyrrhic victory. Capital is
effectually scared from this part of Ireland, and those who have
invested money on mortgage and found themselves at last compelled to
"take the beast for the debt" are bitterly regretting their ill-judged
promptitude. A large farm between this and Achill, or near Ballina on
the north, or in the country extending from the spot where Lord
Mountmorres was shot, towards Ballinrobe, Hollymount, Claremorris, or
Castlebar, could hardly be let now at any price, even where the
neighbours have not actually taken possession, as at Knockdahurk.
Landlords have apparently the three proverbial courses open to them.
They cannot sell their land, it is true; but they can let it lie
waste, they can farm it themselves "if," as a trustworthy informant
said to me just now, "they dare," or they can let it directly, as of
old, to small tenants, who will come in at once and perhaps pay what
they consider a fair rent in good years. It is folly to expect them to
pay at all when crops are bad. And then there is the inevitable delay
and uncertainty at all times which has led to the system of
"middlemen" of which so much has been said and written. The middleman
is that handy person, to the landlord, who assures him of a certain
income from his property by buying certain rents at a deduction of 30
or 40 per cent., and collecting them as best he can. To the landlord
he is a most useful man of business, thanks to whom he can count upon
a certain amount of ready money. To the peasant he appears as a
fiendish oppressor.
Touching this word "peasant," a great deal of misconception concerning
the condition of the people of the West and their attitude towards
their landlords will be got rid of by substituting it for the word
"farmer." It is absurd to compare the tenant of a small holding in
Mayo with an English farmer--properly so called. The latter is a man
engaged in a large business, and must possess, or, as I regret to be
obliged to write, _have been_ possessed of capital. The misuse of the
word farmer and its application to the little peasant cultivators here
can only lead to confusion. The proper standard of comparison with the
so-called Mayo farmer is the English farmer's labourer. In education,
in knowledge of his trade, in the command of the comforts of life, a
Mayo cultivator of six, eight or ten acres is the analogue of the
English labourer at fourteen shillings per week. The latter has nearly
always a better cottage than the Mayo man, and, taking the whole year
round, is about as well off as the Irishman. The future of neither is
very bright. The Wessex hind may jog on into old age and the
workhouse; the Irishman may be ruined and reduced to a similar
condition at once by a failure of his harvest. Neither has any
capital, yet the Irishman obtains an amount of credit which would
strike Hodge dumb with amazement. He is allowed to owe, frequently one
year's, sometimes two years' rent. Indeed, I know of one particularly
tough customer who at this moment owes three years' rent--to wit,
24l.--and will neither pay anything nor go. Now for an English
labourer to obtain credit for a five-pound note would be a remarkable
experience. His cottage and his potato patch cost him from one to two
shillings per week; but who ever heard of his owing six months', let
alone three years', rent? But this is the country of credit; and, so
far as I have seen, nobody is in a violent hurry either to pay or to
be paid, bating those who have lent money on mortgage. And even they
are not in a hurry to foreclose just now.
CASTLEBAR, _Oct. 28._
The marked--I had almost written ostentatious--absence of weapons at
the meetings of the last two Sundays has attracted great attention.
From perfectly trustworthy information I gather that appearances are
in this matter more than usually deceitful. It is impossible to doubt
that the large population of this country is armed to the teeth. Since
the expiration of the Peace Preservation Act the purchase of firearms
has been incessant. At the stores in Westport, where carbines are
sold, more have been disposed of in the last five months than in the
ten previous years, and revolvers are also in great demand. The
favourite weapon of the peasantry, on account of its low price and
other good qualities, is the old Enfield rifle bought out of the
Government stores, shortened and rebored to get rid of the rifling.
The work of refashioning the superannuated rifles and adapting them
for slugs and buckshot has, I hear, been performed for the most part
in America, whence the guns have been re-imported into this country
in large quantities. It is believed that the suppression of arms on
the occasion of large gatherings is due to the judgment of popular
leaders, who are naturally averse to any display which would afford
the Government a pretext for disarming the inhabitants. There is,
however, no doubt that the people of this district are more completely
armed than at any previous period of Irish history. A ten-shilling gun
license enables any idle person to walk about anywhere with a gun on
his shoulder, but this privilege is rarely exercised. Two mornings ago
four men passed in front of the Railway Hotel at Westport with guns on
their shoulders, but such occurrences are very rare, the only
individuals who carry weapons ostentatiously being landlords, agents,
and the Royal Irish Constabulary affording them "protection." This
protection is always granted when asked for, but many landlords have
an almost invincible repugnance to go everywhere attended by armed
police. Lord Ardilaun, I hear, has organised a little bodyguard of his
own people, in preference to being followed about by the tall dark
figures now frequent everywhere in county Mayo from Achill to Newport,
from Ballina to Ballinrobe, and from Claremorris to Westport. Still,
anything like a "rising in the West" is regarded here as chimerical;
and the arming of the people as aimed only at the terrifying of
landlords. No apprehension of any immediate outbreak or collision
with the authorities is entertained in the very centre of disturbance.
It may be added that, owing to the firm yet gentle grip of the
Resident Magistrate, Major A.G. Wyse, late of the 48th Regiment, a
veteran of the Crimea and of the war of the Indian Mutiny, the
Government has this district well in hand, and is kept perfectly
informed as to every occurrence of the slightest importance.
Meanwhile, the possibility of armed resistance to the serving of
civil-bill and other processes is averted by the presence of an
overwhelming body of armed constabulary. Fifty men and a couple of
sub-inspectors attended the serving of some civil-bill processes
towards Newport only a few days ago, and a similar body attended to
witness an abortive attempt at eviction on Miss Gardiner's property
near Ballina.
From all that I can ascertain, the position of the Lord-Lieutenant of
the country is by no means enviable. Having succeeded in losing his
chief tenant and been compelled, in order to farm his own land in
safety, to ask for "protection," he is now embroiled with a portion at
least of the Castlebar people, who think, rightly or wrongly, that the
lord of the soil and collector of tolls and dues has something to do
with providing the town with a market-place. Into the merits of the
question it is hardly necessary to enter. Suffice it to say that the
local Press has taken advantage of the occasion to renew the popular
outcry against "this old exterminator." Perhaps it does not hurt
anybody very much to be called an "exterminator," especially when the
extermination referred to occurred thirty years ago. The instance is
merely worth citing as showing the undying hatred felt in this part of
the country towards those who, acting wisely or unwisely, after the
famine, determined to get rid of a population which the soil had shown
itself unequal to support. There is no doubt that Lord Lucan brought
"a conscience to his work" and made a solitude around Castlebar. "On
the ruins of many a once happy homestead," continues the local scribe,
"do the lambs frisk and play, a fleecy tribe that has, through
landlord tyranny, superseded the once happy peasant." It is also urged
as an additional grievance that the sheep, cattle, and pigs raised by
"the old exterminator" are sent from the railway station "to appease
the appetite of John Bull." Thus Lord Lucan and in a minor degree John
Bull are shown up as the destroyers of the Irish peasant and devourers
of that produce which should have gone to support him in that
happiness and plenty which he enjoyed--at some probably apocryphal
period. Be this, however, as it may, the personal hatred of the
"exterminator" is a fact to be taken into account in any attempt to
reflect the public opinion of this part of Ireland.
Those able to look more impartially on the matter than is possible to
the children of the soil can perceive that the decay only too visible
in many parts of Mayo is due in great measure to causes far beyond
the control of exterminators, or even of the arch-devourer John Bull
himself. In the old time, before the famine and before railroads and
imported grain, this far western corner of Ireland had a trade of its
own. I am not prepared to believe that the enormous warehouses of
Westport were ever filled to overflowing with merchandise, being
inclined rather to assign their vast size to that tendency towards
overbuilding which is a permanent characteristic of a generous and
hopeful people. Perhaps the trade of Westport might have expanded to
the dimensions of the gaunt warehouses which now look emptily on the
sea, but for adverse influences. At the period of the old French war
Westport was undoubtedly a great emporium for grain, especially oats,
for beef, pork, and military stores, which were shipped thence to our
army in the Peninsula. But other sources of supply and improved means
of communication have left the little seaport on the Atlantic, as it
were, on one side, and such vitality as exists in the coasting trade
of this part of the country is rather visible at Ballina than at
Westport. It is quite possible that under the old condition of affairs
the peasant whose oats were in brisk demand for cavalry stores fared
better than his son who fell on the evil days of the famine; but there
can be no doubt that the decline of Mayo as an exporting county can
hardly be laid to the charge of the depopulators of the land. So far
as can be descried through the cloud of prejudice which involves the
entire question, the land was no longer able to feed its inhabitants,
much less afford any surplus for sale or export.
The Marquis of Sligo, whose agent, Mr. Smith, was shot at--and
missed--last year, is almost as unpopular as Lord Lucan, for not only
have most of the people been swept from his country, but the rent was
raised on the remainder no longer ago than 1876. It is probably this
nobleman who was in the mind of the humourist who pointed out that the
shooting of an agent was hardly likely to intimidate that "distant
Trojan," the landlord. The Lucan and Sligo lands in Mayo have,
therefore, been managed on nearly parallel lines, and it is curious to
contrast with them the management of Sir Robert Blosse's estate. This
is another very large property, and has been conducted on the exactly
opposite principle to that pursued by Lords Sligo and Lucan. The
people have been let alone; they retain the holdings their fathers
tilled, and they have tided over bad times so well that their April
rents have, to my certain knowledge, been all paid. What will occur in
November it is unnecessary to predict, but it may be remarked, by the
way, that the Irish landlord, whose rents do not overlap each other,
is in an exceptionally fortunate position.
When I was at Ballinrobe the other day I was much struck with the
unanimity with which everybody had agreed to leave that unfortunate
gentleman, Mr. Boycott, in the lurch. That his servants should revolt,
that his labourers should go away, that strangers should be bribed or
frightened away from taking their place, are things by no means
unparalleled even in the most manufacturing town in England. But that
his butcher and baker should strike against their customer was a new
experience hardly to be explained on any ready-made theory. I confess
that I was so much astonished that I preferred waiting for facts
before committing myself to any explanation. At this moment I have no
hesitation in stating that the tradespeople of the smaller towns in
the west are neither strong enough to resist the pressure put upon
them by the popular party nor very much disposed to defend their right
to buy and sell as they please. On the same principle apparently that
a great nobleman of the Scottish Lowlands has, since the last
election, made his sovereign displeasure known to his tenants, have
the party of agitation made "taboo" any tradesmen who have dared to
run counter to the current of present opinion. When a baker is told he
must not do a certain thing he obeys at once, and, with a certain
quickness and suppleness of intellect, casts about to see how he can
best represent himself as a martyr. "Pay rint, Sorr," said a
well-to-do shopkeeper to me two days ago; "and how are thim poor
divils to pay rint that cannot pay me? And how am I to pay any one
when I can't get a shillin' ov a soul?"
This little incident will explain how the opportunity of shirking
responsibility is seized upon by many. To begin with, the advantage is
with the assailant, for the custom of any one farmer or agent is a
small matter compared with that of the country side. It is therefore
manifestly to the interest of the little shopkeeper to curry favour
with the populace rather than with those set in authority over them.
Again, the petty trader would fain, after the example laid down by
Panurge, pray to God for the success of the peasant in order that he
might "de terre d'aultruy remplir son fossé"--that the till might be
filled if the agent's book remained empty. As I have previously
explained, everybody owes to somebody, or is owed by somebody, in this
island of weeping skies and smiling faces. The peasant owes his
landlord, who owes the mortgagee or the agent. And the peasant has
another creditor--the little trader who works on the credit extended
to him from Dublin or Belfast. Beyond a certain limit the little
shopkeeper cannot go. So he likes to be threatened, to be made
"taboo," to be a martyr, and then presses the tenants who have paid no
rent to the landlord to pay him "as they can afford to, begorra, if
they hould the harvest." This advice of Mr. Parnell's is keenly
relished by many, and has gained him, from a poet, whose Hibernian
extraction speaks in his every line, the incomprehensible title of
"Young Lion of the Fold."