horses exposed to the weather with miserably insufficient covering.
There was a general air of wetness and wretchedness from the infantry
to the cavalry barracks, and some misgivings were entertained as to
the condition of the garrison of Lough Mask House. General opinion has
set in decidedly against the Ulster contingent: horse and foot, and
police, magistrates and floating population unite in wishing the
Ulster Orangemen "five fathoms under the Rialto." In the language of
those who dwell habitually on the banks of the river the wish is
epigrammatically expressed, "May the Robe be their winding-sheet."
Originally imagined as a scheme to force the hand of the Government,
the Ulster invasion has been so far successful. The great actual
mischief has been already done. According to public opinion in Mayo,
the Government had no more than the traditional three courses open to
them--they could have let armed Ulster come in hundreds or thousands,
an invading force, and civil war would have ensued; they could have
allowed the small number of labourers really needed by Mr. Boycott to
arrive by threes and fours, at the risk of not getting alive to Lough
Mask at all; and they could do as they have done. The probable effect
of the movement, if any, will be to bring Mr. Somerset-Maxwell to the
fore at the next contest for the county of Cavan. It may be imagined
that the picked men of Monaghan are not very pleased at playing second
fiddle to an electioneering scheme. Concerning Cavan, the hope of a
fight between the men of the two counties has by no means died away.
To do justice to the Ulster men, they displayed a great deal of
earnestness at Lough Mask House this morning. In the midst of a
hurricane a large number of them went bravely out to a potato field
and worked with a conscience at getting out the national vegetables,
which ran a risk of being completely spoiled by the rain. The
potatoes, however, might, as Mr. Boycott opined, have been spoiled if
they had remained in the ground, and might as well be ruined in one
way as the other.
The remainder of the Orangemen, when I saw them, were busy in the barn
with a so-called "Tiny" threshing-machine, threshing Mr. Boycott's
oats with all the seriousness and solemn purpose befitting their task.
Nothing could have been more dreary and wretched than the entire
proceedings. Mr. Boycott himself had discarded his martial array of
yesterday, and appeared in a herdsman's overcoat of venerable age,
and, as he grasped a crook instead of a double-barrelled gun, looked
every inch a patriarch. He exhibits no profuse gratitude towards the
officious persons who have come to help him, thinking probably that he
would have been nearly as well without them. Thanks to his obstructive
assistants, he is almost overwhelmed with sympathisers gifted by
nature with tremendous appetites. Keen-eyed officers detect the
mutton-bones which tell of unauthorised ovicide, and "clutches" of
geese and chickens vanish as if by magic. There will be a fearful bill
for somebody to pay when the whole business is over, whenever that may
be.
From every quarter I hear acts of the so-called "staunchness" of the
population. When Captain Tomkinson went over to Claremorris yesterday
with dragoons to convey the carts and other impediments of the Ulster
division, it happened that one of the cart-horses lost a shoe. Will it
be believed that it was necessary to delude the only blacksmith who
could be captured with a story that the animal belonged to the Army
Service Corps? Simple and artless, the Claremorris blacksmith made the
shoe: but before he could put it on he was "infawrrumd" that the beast
he was working for was in an Ulster cart. Down fell the hammer, the
nails, and the shoe. The blacksmith was immovable. Not a blow more
would he strike for love or money; nor would any blacksmith for miles
around this place. At last the shoe was got on to the horse's foot
among the military and police; but not a soul belonging to this part
of the country would drive a cart at any price.
All this appears to point to the conclusion that when Mr. Boycott's
potatoes, turnips, and mangolds are got in, and his oats are threshed
out, when his sheep are either sold or devoured on the spot by his
hungry defenders, he will accompany the Orangemen on their return
march, at least to the nearest railway station. That neither he nor
his auxiliaries would be safe for a single hour after the departure of
the military is certain, and the expense of maintaining a huge
garrison in Ballinrobe will therefore of necessity continue until the
last potato is dug and the last turnip pulled.[1] If the weather were
only moderately favourable, the work might be got through in a week or
ten days; but if it rains as it has done to-day, it is quite
impossible to say when it will be done. As I was looking at the men
potato-digging the rain seemed to cut at one's face like a whip, and
all through the afternoon Ballinrobe has been deluged. In this
beautiful island everybody disregards ordinary rain, but the downpour
of the last few days is quite extraordinary. The river is swollen to
double its usual size, and the slushy misery endured by the military
under canvas is quite beyond general camp experience. The soldiers
have only one consolation--that the Orangemen are under canvas too.
GALWAY, _Tuesday, Nov. 16th._
"Thim that is snug, your honour, is slower in payin' than thim that is
poor," said one of my informants a few days ago, just as I was setting
out for the seat of war in county Mayo. The speaker was a Connemara
man, and his remark was applied more particularly to his own region;
but the state of affairs in the neighbouring county illustrates his
opinion in the most vivid colours.
Ballinrobe is the centre of a by no means unprosperous part of
Ireland. Pretty homesteads are frequent, and well-furnished stackyards
refresh the eye wearied with looking upon want and desolation. Between
Ballinrobe and Hollymount the country is agreeably fertile; toward
Cong and Cloonbur, where Lord Mountmorres was shot, and in the
direction of Headford, on the Galway road, there is plenty of evidence
of prosperity. It is, however, precisely in the rich country lying
east of Lough Mask that the greatest disinclination to pay rent
prevails. Nowhere is the disaffected party more completely organized,
and nowhere is it, rightly or wrongly, thought that some of the
tenants could more easily pay up if they liked. As contrasted with
the hovels of the northern part of Mayo and the west of county
Galway, the houses at Ballinrobe are comfortable, and the people
apparently naturally well off. Moreover, they have a better idea of
what comfort is than the inhabitants of the seaboard. I cannot better
show this than by describing the houses in which I passed part, at
least, of the last two Sundays.
When I arrived at Ballinrobe on Wednesday last it was almost
impossible to obtain quarters either for love or money. I had
telegraphed beforehand to that most civil and obliging of
hotel-keepers, Mr. Valkenburgh, of Ballinrobe, to secure rooms for me
and send a car to Cong. The car came, and the driver with whom I had
the debate already recorded, but it had been impossible to obtain a
room for me anywhere. Mr. Valkenburgh's own house was crammed to the
roof with closely laid strata of guests, from the American reporter
under the roof to the cavalry officer in the front parlour. There was
nothing for it but to be bedded out--a severe infliction in some parts
of Ireland. The polite hotel-keeper finally bethought him that in the
house of a widow, who had only four officers of Hussars staying with
her, a stray corner could be found; and I was finally established in
the widow's drawing-room or best parlour, in which a cot, only a foot
too short for me, was placed.
The excellent woman, whose house was converted into military
quarters, is by no means rich. Her late husband was in the office of a
neighbouring landlord, and would appear to have been just getting on
in the world when he died. He certainly lived in a house properly so
called; not a house in the Irish meaning of the word, which includes a
Connemara cabin. It is only one storey high. The ground floor is
occupied by two parlours, a kitchen, and offices; the bedrooms being
upstairs. There are curious signs of better times about the place. My
bed was far too short, but by the side of it was an old-fashioned
square pianoforte. There was no carpet on the floor, but the lamp was
a very good one, and well trimmed. The fire was entirely of turf, but
of enormous size, and on the mantelpiece were some excellent
photographs. Hens clucked as they hopped on to the table, and a
red-headed colleen was perpetually chasing a cat of almost equally
ruddy hue, but everybody was mightily civil and kindly. The room was
full of peat-smoke, but the eggs were undeniably fresh; so that there
were compensations on every side. The widow, her step-daughter, and
the colleen before mentioned did all the work. They made my bed, what
there was of it, they tended the fire with unflagging zeal, they
brought water in very limited quantity for the purposes of ablution,
they dried my boots and clothes with almost motherly care and
tenderness when I came in out of the pouring rain. In fact, nobody
could have been kinder or more attentive, and when Major Coghill was
laid up by his accident their sympathy was almost overwhelming. Yet I
believe that we annoyed them and deranged the tenor of their lives by
our matutinal habits. Perhaps they might have been strong enough to
resist my desperate efforts to get a cup of tea at some time before
nine o'clock in the morning, but the officers' servants were too
strong for them. They came and knocked the house up betimes, and then
the bustle of the day began.
Now, I have been assured by the Irish priests and people that whatever
faults your Commissioner may have, prejudice against Ireland and the
Irish is not one of them. But at the risk of being thought a
censorious Saxon I must confess that I am quite at issue with Western
Ireland on the question of early rising. It is impossible to get
anybody out of bed in the morning except the Boots at an hotel, and
then the chances are that no hot water is to be obtained.
A housemaid in one of the Mayo hotels on coming up to make a fire
complained bitterly, not of the toil of coming up stairs, but of the
early hour of ten, and do what I would I could get nothing done
earlier. On another occasion I was told that people out West rose late
because the "day is long enough for hwhat we have got to do." I
retorted that they did not do it, but fear that my remark was put
down to prejudice. It is not my function to indulge in sweeping
assertions, but if I were asked why the Western people do not prosper
I should be inclined to reply--Because they will not turn out early in
the morning.
But they are pleasant people in Ballinrobe nevertheless. Our widow
never complained of our unearthly hours any more than we did of the
turf smoke which communicated a high flavour to all our habiliments.
The widow, although not rich, is evidently "snug" in her
circumstances. She has a farm or two, part of which is underlet of
course. This is another peculiarity of Irish life very remarkable to
the stranger. Everybody seems to do work by deputy. A proprietor of a
landed estate, not worth a thousand pounds a year when interest is
paid on the various mortgages, would never think of being his own
agent--that is doing his own work on his own estate. Not at all. He
employs an agent who, thinking him rather small fry, neglects him or
hands him over to the bailiff, who again transfers him to his
"headmen," so that three people are paid for looking on before anybody
does anything. This practice also may be in part the cause of the
decay of the wild West.
I have been so far particular in my remarks concerning the Ballinrobe
widow, in order to compare the inland standard of comfort with that
prevailing on the sea-coast. Just before the Ulster invasion as it is
called here, I was induced to go to Omey Island. It is a place of evil
repute for poverty, but is as healthy as it ought to be, having the
blue Atlantic for one lung and the brown hills of Connemara for the
other. It is one of those interesting islands which become peninsulas
at low tide, a charming natural feature making it a matter of tidal
calculation whether one can drive on board of them or not. It is not
as bad as Innishark, which requires a trained gymnast to effect a
landing, for it only needs nimbleness of brain instead of that of
limbs.
While that zealous and hard-working young minister of the gospel,
Father Rhatigan, was saying mass, and visiting that part of his flock
congregated at Claddaghduff Chapel, I made my way over the
intermittent isthmus of dry, hard, fine sand. It was an agreeable
change from the road, which for some distance had lain over a "shaved
bog"--that is, a locality from which the peat had been cut away down
to its rocky bed. For some distance nothing was visible but stones, on
which the rain came plashing down like a cataract. But the aspect and
situation of Omey Island are such as to suggest to the speculative
mind another and better Scheveningen without anything between it and
Labrador. The island is not, however, purely sandbank, as Scheveningen
appears to be, for it has a nucleus of rock, the sand being a later
accumulation, every year increasing in volume, after the manner
observed in Donegal, or as stones are amassed at Dungeness. I had
heard wild stories of Omey Island, of troglodytes, hungry dwellers in
rocky seaside caves, and rabbit-people burrowing in the sand. As
Maundeville observes, "Verilie I have not seen them," but I can quite
understand how the story was spread.
Over against the inhabited part of the island is what is now a mere
sandbank. It is now covered with sand, and not a soul dwells thereon.
But there were people there once who clung to their stone cabins till
the sand finally covered them; so that they might fairly be described
as dwellers or burrowers therein. At last their cabins became sanded
up, and the poor folk moved to their present situation. Now I have
seen superb potatoes grown literally in the sand at Scheveningen, and
was not surprised to hear that Omey Island was once so famous for the
national staff of life that few cared to grow anything else. But there
are difficulties everywhere, and it is parlous work to break up ground
at Omey. There is too much fresh air; for it blows so hard that people
are afraid to disturb the thin covering of herbage which overspreads
the best part of the island. "If ye break the shkin of 'um, your
honour, the wind blows the sand away and leaves your pitaties bare.
And, begorra, there are nights when the pitaties thimselves 'ud be
blown away."
Statements like this must always be taken at a reduction, but,
judging from my own experience, Omey is a "grand place for weather
entirely." Half of the island is rented by a considerable farmer, for
these parts. He pays a hundred pounds a year for his farm at Omey, and
a hundred and fifty for another cattle farm up on the hills. When I
said he "pays," I am not at all sure whether he has paid up this year
or not, but he has flocks and herds, and of course is a responsible
tenant. Yet he lives with his family in but a "bettermost" sort of
cabin. His wife treated me most hospitably; in fact, she paid me too
much honour, for she insisted that I should not sit round the fire
with the countryfolk, but occupy the best parlour, a room large
enough, but blackened with smoke, and unutterably depressing, despite
the cabinet pianoforte opposite the fireplace. Musical instruments of
torture appear to be considered a necessary mark of competence in
Western Ireland, just as a big watch-chain is in certain parts of
England. Not a soul on Omey Island could play the pianoforte, thank
heaven; so it remained with its back against the wall, as mute
evidence of solvency. There was no carpet on the floor, which was of a
fine dirt-colour, and the chickens, ducks, and geese circulated freely
about.
Here now was a man paying, or promising to pay, 250l. a year in rent,
and who yet seemed to have not the faintest idea of comfort. It should
be recollected that my visit was paid on a Sunday, when his family
would be seen at their best; but the girls were running about with
bare feet and dirty faces, and the neighbouring gossips, also
barefooted and dirty beyond all imagination, were hanging round the
fire, talking amongst themselves about the stranger, and half mad with
curiosity concerning him. The farmer lived, it is true, in a wild
place; but sand is so clean a thing in itself that it is a mystery how
his tribe of children got so abominably dirty.
The drive homeward past Streamstown was wet enough, but still
interesting in many ways. In no part of Ireland has the curse of
middlemen been felt more severely than in Connemara. The middleman is
specially abhorrent to the people when he is one of themselves. He is
"not a gentleman, sure," is a deadly reproach in this part of the
country. Practically he is objectionable because, being one of the
people, he is aware of their tricks and their ways, and suspects them
as they hate and suspect him. What would be urbanity on the part of
the real "masther" is in the middleman viewed as deceit. The sharp
tone of command endurable in a superior is resented when employed by a
person of low origin. And it would seem that middlemen are not as a
race persons of agreeable character. All the old rags of feudalism
which have hung about Connemara long after their annihilation
elsewhere, have been saved wherever it was possible by the middleman.
I am not quite certain that any one of these has ever "hung out his
flag for fish" after the manner of the old proprietors who, when they
wanted fish for dinner, made their tenants obey their signal and put
back, whatever might be the chance of the night's catch. This flag
was, so "men seyn," hung out often by the Bodkins, the ancient owners
of Omey Island, but how long it is since it was last done is hardly
worth while to inquire. Far more interesting is the much talked of
"survival" of feudalism in the shape of what is called "duty work."
Something analogous to the _corvée_ existed, I believe, in Hungary
till a comparatively recent period, when it was commuted for rent.
Within the limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about "duty
work" clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser
island of Turk such work has been insisted on and "processed" for
within twelve or eighteen months. Vexatious processes are not
undertaken just now for very obvious reasons.
"Duty work," so far as I can gather, is, or was--for no such work will
be done again in Ireland--a modified, form of the _corvée_. Here and
there it was enforced in various shapes. At Omey, in Aughrisbeg, at
Fountainhill, and at the lesser isle of Turk, the conditions varied
greatly. The general principle appears to have been that besides rent
in money, fine on entry, and dues analogous to tithes on stock of pigs
and poultry, a certain number of days in the year were the property
of the landlord. The usual term was about a week in spring and a week
at harvest-time. In some places five days only were exacted; in others
three. In the case concerning which I am best instructed, five days in
spring and five in harvest-time were demanded, together with any one
day in the year on which the tenant might be wanted, at a wage of
sixpence. If the tenant refuse "duty work" he may be sued in
court--the damage incurred by his default being generally assessed at
five pounds.
Now it does not require any very clear perception to discover that
among agriculturists or fishermen "duty work" is an improper mode of
levying tax. In spring and autumn, and especially in the latter, the
tenant requires for getting in his own crop precisely the week that
the landlord is entitled to claim. Yet he must leave his own to assist
his landlord. On one of the little islands, let to a middleman, all
the evil features of the _corvée_ are brought into prominence. The
island produces three kinds of sea-weed, the so-called "red weed," cut
off the rocks and used for kelp; the "black weed" on the shore, used
for manure for potato-fields--often the only manure to be got; and the
drift, or mixed weed.
After spring tides there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks,
half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the
other on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their
master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of
seeing their own washed away during the night.
From Ballynakill--where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like
waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated
villages, and an "exterminated" people--to the supremely wretched
islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A
people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite
below the level of civilization.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This prediction was literally fulfilled.]
VII.
MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE.
ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Nov. 21st._
At the seat of war by Lough Mask, I was informed that it would be
sheer waste of time to go to Clare; that all was peaceful in the
county which Daniel O'Connell formerly represented in Parliament; that
at Ennis, under the shadow of the Liberator's statue, rebel commotion
was unknown. All was quiet. It was true that people did not pay their
rent, but that was all. I should waste my time, and so forth. But no
sooner had I set foot in Ennis than I found that the _jacquerie_ which
broke out in Mayo and Galway had reached county Clare, and that at
least one gentleman living close to the principal town is at war with
his tenants and the country side.
The condition of affairs at Edenvale is in many respects even more
curious than that at Lough Mask House. There is none of the pomp and
circumstance of open war. There is not a soldier or a policeman on the
premises. All is calm and pastoral. From a lodge so neat and trim
that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through
a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink
of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is
ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door,
which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain,
by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor.
All such signs of peace, order, and plenty are very noteworthy after
one has been four or five weeks in Mayo and Galway, and convey a first
impression that law, order, and civilization generally are to the fore
in county Clare. The large and handsome drawing-room strengthens the
conviction that here at least life and property are secure. It is true
that several double-barrelled guns are on the hall-table; but country
gentlemen in Ireland go out shooting as they do elsewhere. Several
large dogs, too, are running about outside the house; but as Mr.
Richard Stacpoole is a celebrated sportsman, there is nothing
wonderful in that.
Mr. Stacpoole, whose appearance and manner are as frank as his welcome
is hearty, is by no means reticent as to the matters in debate between
him and the tenants holding from him and other members of his family
for whom he acts as agent. To the question whether he goes in fear of
his life, he replies, "Not at all; I take care of that," and out of
the pocket of his lounging jacket he takes a revolver of very large
bore. It is a curious picture, this drawing-room at Edenvale. On his
own hearth-rug, in his own house, with a silky white Maltese lapdog
and a beautiful terrier nestling at his feet, stands no English or
Scotch interloper, agent, middleman, or "land-grabber," but the
representative of one of the oldest, most honourable, and, I may add,
till recently most honoured families in the county, with his hand on
the pistol which is never out of his reach by day or night. There was
once no more popular man in Clare. His steeplechasers win glory for
Ireland at Liverpool, whether they return a profit to their owner or
not. He keeps up, with slight assistance from members of the Hunt, a
pack of harriers, and hunts them himself. His cousin, the late Captain
Stacpoole, of Ballyalla, was the well-known "silent member" who for
twenty years represented Ennis in Parliament. Finally, he is spending
at least 3,000l. a year in household expenses alone; but he never
leaves his revolver; and he is in the right, for not two hours ago a
local leader declared to me with pale face and flaming eyes that he
would "gladly go to the gallows for 'um."