were not a whit more prompt in paying their rent than the starveling
peasants of Mayo and Connemara, who, at the best, are barely able to
keep body and soul together. Trusting far more to what I see than to
what I hear, I become aware that in these troubled districts of
Ireland, it is precisely the most favoured spots which are the most
mutinous. Ballina, the most prosperous town in Mayo, is a stronghold
of the anti-landlord party; and the Ballinrobe, Claremorris, and Cong
country, full of good land and comparatively large farmers, is the
district which has isolated Mr. Boycott, whose turnips and potatoes
will probably cost the country and the county at least a guinea a
piece. In no part of Mayo or Galway is the Land League more perfectly
organised than in Clare, yet the farmers in that county are
confessedly well off. There are some of course towards the sea, in
the direction of Loop Head, who are poorly off, but the great majority
are by no means in evil case. Ocular demonstration of this fact is
supplied by the numerous farmhouses of the better class with which the
country is studded. These are not merely large cabins, but houses,
some of which are whitewashed. The haggards are full of corn-stacks,
the rich pastures are full of kine. There is every visible evidence of
material prosperity. It is true that when one has driven up the
private road, be the same a mere "boreen" or a "shplendid avenue," the
bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds
hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the
householder is prosperous nevertheless. His larder is well supplied
with poultry and wild fowl, his cellar contains "lashings," not only
of "Parliament and pot," or "John Jamieson" and illicit "potheen," but
of port and sherry, claret and champagne. His daughters are at the
costly training schools of the Sacré Coeur, his lads are studying law
in Dublin. Yet this man is a subscriber to the Land League either by
sympathy or, as is quite as probable, by terror. Farmers of not quite
such large acreage live in almost equally luxurious style. Their
houses, that is the "show" rooms, are solidly if tastelessly
furnished. Their horses and jaunting cars carry them to chapel; they
live in the midst of rude plenty. If further demonstration be needed,
I will point to the groceries and wine stores of Ennis. There are at
least three of these almost on the scale of Fortnum and Mason's or
Hedges and Butler's. Now Ennis is what an American traveller might be
tempted to call a "one-horse" town of some six or seven thousand
inhabitants, yet its grocery and drapery stores would hardly be beaten
in York or Chester. Every imaginable eatable or drinkable can be
obtained always for ready money, and very often on credit, and I am
informed that all articles of feminine adornment, including cosmetics,
are also to be had. Passing still farther from the domain of things
seen to that of things heard of, I am assured on the best authority
that for years past the banks have not held so much money on deposit
as at the present moment. Yet nobody pays his rent. The form of
offering Griffith's valuation is gone through, albeit it is known that
that calculation is absolutely untrustworthy so far as a pasture
county like Clare is concerned.
My remarks concerning county Clare will apply, almost with greater
force, to county Limerick. The city is of course a very different
place from Ennis; but it is impossible to avoid noticing from the
window at which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in
and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till
early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people
of the West seem to have accepted Charles Lamb's humorous quibble in
good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people,
they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a
torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from
the contemplation of the Shannon at the Thomond Bridge. Of the
groggeries of Limerick and of the poison vended in them, I will
forbear to discourse, for my business just now is with the country
rather than with the town.
Having heard much of the outrages at Pallas on the Tipperary border, I
determined to drive over and visit the scene of action. For this
country the journey was a short one; fifteen or sixteen miles out and
in on an outside car is thought a mere trifle in Limerick. The trip
occupied the entire day nevertheless. As we drove out of Limerick past
the great pig-slaughtering and curing houses, we soon became aware
that an immense convergence of the farming interest on Limerick was
taking place. Car-load after car-load of well-dressed people passed
us, and then came horsemen riding in couples or by half-dozens. For
the most part the cavaliers were very well mounted, and also well and
warmly dressed in the fashion of the day. Neither Connemara nor
Claddagh cloaks were seen in the cars, nor were the blue or grey
frieze swallow-tailed coats of Mayo and Galway seen on the powerful
horses pounding along townward through the heavy road. All was sleek,
prosperous, and quite modern, and was as refreshing to look upon after
the frieze and flannel aforesaid as the green hills of Limerick and
Clare after the brown mountains of Joyce's country. I naturally asked
the meaning of such an important meeting of well-to-do folk. It was a
funeral. An old lady was to be buried, and the whole country-side for
twenty miles around had turned out to do honour to the deceased, and
to enjoy a holiday on the principle that "a wake is better than a
wedding." Not one in a hundred of those who rode by had paid his rent,
nor was he prepared to pay more than Griffith's valuation, although he
might have a deposit note for one, two, or more thousands of pounds in
his cash-box.
Pushing along this lively road we entered a famous part of Ireland,
the Golden Vale, so called from its great fertility. Great part of the
land here is composed of alluvial bottoms, a large area of which was
drained by the Mullkear Cut, through the exertions of Mr. William
Bredin, of Castlegard, a charming old fortress overgrown with
creepers, and standing like a sentry over the more modern part of the
dwelling. As we neared Pallas I was reminded that I was on classic
ground, and that Old and New Pallas and Pallas Green formed the scene
of the never-to-be-forgotten feud of the "Three and Four Year Olds,"
the tradition whereof hath a rich and racy savour. Readers of the
_Daily News_ will hardly need to be reminded that this historic
vendetta commenced with a dispute concerning the age of a bull, one
disputant maintaining that the animal was four, while the other
insisted he was but three years old. The matter was settled, or was
rather put on the footing of a "mighty pretty quarrel," by a desperate
fight, wherein one of the combatants was either slain or grievously
maimed, whereupon his cause was taken up by his family and friends,
and a feud inaugurated which lasted many years, and led to the death
of a considerable number of persons, besides continual "diversion" in
the way of faction fights. Pallas is in the midst of the Golden Vale,
a deliciously pastoral country, admirably fitted on such a glorious
spring-like morning as that of yesterday for the sports of shepherds
and shepherdesses as Watteau and Lancret loved to limn. But the first
object which catches the eye in Pallas is not a bower of ribbons and
roses, but a stiff-looking police barrack. Close at hand is the
railway station, another unlovely edifice, and lounging about in
groups are seventy or eighty of the gloomiest and most sullen-looking
people I have seen in this country. The very little cheerfulness there
is in Connaught is quite absent from Munster, or at least the
Tipperary border of county Limerick. I learn that the occasion of this
general loafing is a "rent-gathering," or rather an attempt to gather
rent, and that Mr. Sanders, the agent for the Erasmus Smith School
Trusts, is sitting, but not in receipt of custom. There has been the
usual talk of Griffith's valuation and the usual result of not a
shilling being paid; the present fear on the part of landlords of
fixity of tenure being established being so great that nobody will
accept payment according to Griffith lest his receipt should be taken
as permanently settling the value of his land for ever. No money
passes, as a matter of course, and the tenants mutter among
themselves, "nor ever will." One neck-or-nothing friend of the people
assures me that Griffith and rent and the rest of it is all
"botheration," and that Pallas folk are going to "have their own"
again, as was once said of a Stuart king, who did not get it
nevertheless. I am not assuming that the opinion of a farmer anxious
to get rid of his principal debt is that of all Munster; I merely give
his observation for what it is worth, and as a sign that the hope of
concession is gradually enlarging demand.
Driving in the direction of Castlegard, I pass the signs of an
eviction which took place at least a fortnight ago. The outgone
tenant's bedsteads and wash-hand-stands are piled up against the wall
as if crying to Heaven for vengeance against the oppressor. The
display strikes me as entirely theatrical, for it is well known that
vengeance is not left to Heaven by Pallas people, but confided to
Snider bullets. The bailiff's left in charge of the house have been
attacked, and yesterday an iron hut for lodging four policemen on the
disputed property was brought to Pallas station. It went no further,
however, for neither horse nor cart could be got to convey any
fragment of the accursed fabric to the spot required. It is expected
that the district will, after this display of "tyranny" on the part of
the police, "strike" against them and refuse to supply them with food
or forage. Pursuing the road past Castlegard I meet another crowd of
tenants and learn that they also have been to a rent gathering, and
have been offered acceptance of Griffith's valuation if the balance
between that and the rent be considered as a "reduction" without
prejudice to further arrangements, and without fixing a standard of
value. This proposition remains under consideration, and is favourably
viewed by the tenants. It seems, however, that everybody is afraid, or
pretends to be afraid, to act without the sanction of the Land League.
I am vastly inclined to think that in many parts of the country
farmers pretend to be more scared than they really are, but around
Castlegard they have evidently some cause for alarm. I called upon a
farmer who has committed the unpardonable crime of failing to be, as
Ouidà would say, "true to his order." He has been so lost to all the
sentiments of manhood and of patriotism as to pay his rent. No sooner
was it known that he was guilty of this dastardly deed than he was
spoken of as a marked man, and three nights ago a Snider bullet was
fired through his front door into the hall of his newly-built house.
I saw the hole made by the bullet through the door, and also the mark
where it tore out a piece of the balusters before striking the
ceiling.
The farmer in question is one of those extraordinary persons who only
exist in Ireland. He is a sturdy, pleasant-looking man of forty, and
has made his way despite what would appear intolerable difficulties.
He has farmed for some considerable time about thirty-three acres of
good land, and must have worked hard, for during that time he has had
a large family to maintain. His father died but a short time since,
and reduced the number by one, but he now supports his mother and his
aged aunt and uncle, as well as his wife and himself and six children.
With all these mouths to feed he has built him, well and solidly, a
thoroughly good house, with extensive outbuildings and other
improvements, obviously worth many hundreds of pounds. It might be
thought the people of Pallas and Castlegard would have been proud of
him; but he has paid his rent, and is marked for "taboo," if for
nothing worse.
Trudging across some fine pastures, and jumping sundry ditches, we
regain the main road and our car, and proceed on that instrument of
torture back to Pallas. Here we find the "threes" and the "fours," not
at issue with each other, but united like brothers against the common
enemy. Fearful howls arise from the railway bridge and the railway
station, both covered with Palladians, male and female. A thoroughly
good Irish yell of execration acts differently on different persons.
The blood of those unaccustomed to it is apt to turn cold at the
savage sound; but, with a little practice, "the ear becomes more Irish
and less nice," and a good howl acts as a stimulant on the spirits of
many landlords and agents. All the screeching at Pallas is brought
about by the departure of Mr. Sanders, who, escorted by the police
till he is safely off, rentless, but undismayed, slips away in the
train, leaving the "Threes" and "Fours" to talk the matter over, not
unaided by the presence, in the spirit, of all-powerful "John
Jamieson."
TIPPERARY, _Tuesday Night._
Another proof has been given that it takes more people to do less in
Ireland than in any other country in the world. The attitude of the
combined "Three and Four Year Olds" was yesterday so threatening that
the authorities decided that the police-hut at Pallas could only be
erected in the teeth of the Palladians by dint of an overwhelming
display of force. There is no doubt of the wisdom of this policy. A
small force, insufficient to overawe the country side, only provokes
the resistance it is unable to overcome, but a strong detachment of
redcoats thoroughly cows the adventurous spirits of the most mutinous
localities. What threatened at one moment to become a civil war in
Mayo was put down without the loss of a drop of blood by an imposing
military force, and the lesson so well illustrated at Ballinrobe is
hardly likely to be lost in other rebellious districts. Yesterday, the
affair at Pallas came to such a pitch that extraordinary measures were
resolved upon. A bailiff had been shot because he, in the execution of
his duty, occupied the dwelling of an evicted farmer, one Burke; hence
it was decided that a police-hut should be built on the ground lately
occupied by Burke, but, as readers of the _Daily News_ are aware, the
Palladians actually struck against the police, and proceeded to
"Boycott" those "myrmidons" after the most approved manner. Not only
did Pallas refuse to aid in conveying the materials for a police-hut
to a short distance from the railway station, but prevented the police
from doing their work themselves. Yesterday, the whole border-folk of
county Limerick and county Tipperary turned up at Pallas, and the
conduct of the crowd was such as to lead persons by no means of an
alarmist character to expect an ugly morrow. The authorities had
determined that a police-hut should be erected on the spot chosen, and
the populace had equally made up their minds that although "the
makings" of a hut had been brought to Pallas railway station, they
should remain there, and never be allowed to defile the land of
Burke's farm. The police, despite their barrack, which looks strong
enough to bear a siege, were obviously unable to quell the people, and
it would hardly have been politic to let the latter enjoy a victory;
consequently it was determined to employ the military to convoy the
police-hut, or rather its _disjecta membra_, from the railway to its
proposed site.
It was pitch dark at five o'clock this morning, the hour for parade at
the fine new barracks at Tipperary. The air, too, was keen, and the
detachment of the gallant 48th Regiment ordered for service at Pallas
paraded in no very affectionate spirit towards the Palladians. The
ill-humour of the 48th is easily accounted for. After twelve years'
service abroad no regiment would be cheered by the announcement that
instead of Portsmouth its destination was Queenstown, _en route_ for
Tipperary. Such, however, has been the fate of the unlucky 48th, from
whom the mob of Pallas, or any other centre of mutiny, could expect
but little mercy. Tempers, however, brightened at sunrise, and by the
time the hundred men under the command of Captain Cartwright and
Lieutenants Fraser and Maycock arrived at the Tipperary station every
one was in a good-humoured, contemptuous frame of mind. Everybody knew
that there was no chance of a row, and that the very presence of all
the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men would make it certain that
a blank would be drawn. The whole military plan of campaign had been
well imagined. While the 48th came on from Tipperary the 9th came on
also by rail from Limerick, together with a half battery of the Royal
Artillery. It must not, however, be supposed that cannon was deemed
necessary to quell the ardent spirits of Pallas. The guns were left at
Limerick, and only the waggons brought as a means of conveyance for
the makings of the hut. But the Limerick contingent was imposing
nevertheless. It consisted of 105 men of the 9th Regiment, of a
squadron of Hussars, who went by road, and of the artillery
before-mentioned, who came, like the infantry, by rail. So well was
the movement timed by Colonel Humphreys, R.A., in command, that the
trains from Tipperary and Limerick met almost exactly at New Pallas
station a little before nine o'clock this morning, just as the busbies
of the Hussars appeared upon the bridge. Pallas was evidently taken by
surprise, for any movement on a western Irish town before nine in the
morning may be taken as a night attack. The people of the border of
county Limerick and county Tipperary are quite ready to "muster in
their thousands" at a convenient hour, but they are sure to be taken
at a disadvantage before nine o'clock. The Palladians rubbed their
eyes to find the classic battle-ground of the "Three Year Olds" and
"Four Year Olds" occupied by the matutinal redcoats, and horse, foot,
and artillery already in possession. As Pallas woke up about a
hundred and fifty or a couple of hundred roughs made up "the name of
a crowd," but those in command were informed that this poor show of
resistance was really a feint, and that no sooner would the materials
for the hateful hut be put in motion than a rush would be made by the
people collected "in thousands" behind the village, either upon the
railway station or upon the convoy in motion. I had no opportunity of
getting round behind the village to review the supposed thousands who
were to make the ugly rush and overwhelm the redcoats, but I have a
strong impression that the Palladian army might have been dubbed the
"Mrs. Harris" brigade. With the respected Mrs. Prigg, I disbelieve in
its existence absolutely. Two arguments will destroy it. On the one
hand, it is incredible that thousands of persons were out of their
beds at ten minutes to nine A.M.; on the other, if they had sat up all
night in the hope of a fight with the police they would most certainly
have anticipated that diversion by a preliminary "shindy" among
themselves, and have broken up in disorder.
But when horse, foot, artillery, and police converge on a disaffected
spot, it is hardly the province of their commander to disbelieve in
the existence of an enemy. Colonel Humphreys accordingly made the
wisest use of his forces. He had at his disposal 200 infantry, a
squadron of cavalry, a demi-battery of artillery, and 70 armed
constables--in all about 350 men. His first care was to secure his
base, the railway station, and this _point d'appui_ was strongly
garrisoned by the 48th Regiment. Then the road between the station and
Burke's farm was strongly patrolled--so strongly as to keep up an
unbroken line of communication between the farm and the railroad. When
this was established, the procession, bearing the materials of the
hut, set forth. First went the armed police, then an escort of
Hussars, and then the Artillery waggons, carrying the pieces of the
hut, guarded by the soldiers of the 9th Regiment. It is hardly
necessary to add that no attempt at rushing or crowding the station
was made by the populace. Father Ryan, the parish priest, behaved in
the most praiseworthy manner, and exhorted the people to be quiet; but
my own impression is that they were already completely cowed by the
sudden appearance of the military from two quarters at once. By no
means wanting in keenness of perception, they knew that, if ordered to
do so, the soldiers will fire "at" them, and not vaguely, after the
manner of the police. So the whole affair passed off quietly, and
after trebling the ordinary police garrison of Pallas, the military
returned to their respective quarters. A beginning has been made of
building the hut, and at the moment of writing (9 P.M.) all is quiet
at Old and New Pallas, as well as at Pallas Green. Whether the blood
of the "Threes" and "Fours" will endure the sight of the detested hut
gradually rising on the farm of the sainted Burke remains to be seen;
but it it is doubtful whether the "Boys" will attempt a _coup de
main_. Should such an attempt be made, the police would be compelled
to make a desperate resistance, and serious consequences would
certainly ensue. There is a curious contrast between the state of the
"Three and Four Year Olds" yesterday and to-day--between the bragging
of the one and the cowed look of the other. There is also something of
amusement, were not the entire question all too serious, in the sudden
and contemptuous withdrawal of the troops to-day, after having shown
the Palladians that, however they felt about the hut, it should be
built, and law and order maintained "maugre their teeth."
XI.
GOMBEEN.
CORK, _December 2nd._
Among the many spectres which haunt the sadly-vexed West and South of
Ireland, there is one far more grim and real than the _spectre vert_
who is either buried for ever and aye, or has undergone gradual
transformation since '98 into Repeal of the Union, Young Ireland,
Fenianism, Nationalism, and finally perhaps into Anti-Landlordism;
albeit this latter avatar of an ancient and familiar spirit is by no
means imbued with the poetic attributes of the original spectre.
During my stay in Ennis and Limerick I succeeded in holding somewhat
protracted conversations with three landed proprietors, three of the
largest land-agents in Ireland, two bank managers, an influential
lawyer, three leaders of the people, and one probable assassin.
Through the discourse of all of these--varied and contradictory as
much of it necessarily was--I could see distinctly one ugly shadow, as
of an old man filthy of aspect, hungry of eye, and greedy of claw,
sitting in the rear of a gloomy store looking over papers by the light
of a miserable tallow dip. From the papers the figure turned to a heap
as of bank-notes, and there was in the air the chink of money. For the
name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is _gombeen_; which, in
the Irish tongue, signifies usury.