FARNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'
When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives were
all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the county
Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts in Dublin.
The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued that the Irish
could have no legal rights, no property in the land, because they did
not enclose it with fences, or plant orchards. True, they had boundary
marks for their tillage ground; but they followed the Eastern custom
in not building ditches or walls around their farms. They did not
plant orchards, because they had too many trees already that grew
without planting. The woods were common property, and the apples,
if they had any, would be common property too, like the nuts and the
acorns.
The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the
conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy their
own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as we have
seen, were bound to deal differently with the English settlers; but
their obligations resolved themselves into promises of freeholds and
leases which were seldom granted, so that many persons threw up their
farms in despair, and returned to their own country.
In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration of the
manner in which the natives struggled to live under their new masters.
The successors of some of those masters have in modern times taken a
strange fancy to the study of Irish antiquities. Among these is Evelyn
P. Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory
or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in
connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr. W.
Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history
of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen
Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the
massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain,
consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low
alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel,
charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and
from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these
stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before
anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was
'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till
1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The
lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through
Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and
Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and
fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an
argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former times
(when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no lord deputy
did ever venture himself into those parts, without an army of 800 or
1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the barony of Farney
to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of 250 l. payable in Dublin. After
fourteen years the same territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500
l. In the year 1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022 l.
18 s. 4 d. paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then taken gives the
several townlands and denominations nearly as they are at present.
Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his estates devolved on his
sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the former of whom
married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter
Sir Henry Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half
the barony. Ultimately the other half became the property of the
Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at
1313 l. 14 s. 4-1/2 d. Gradually as the lands were reclaimed by the
tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000 l.,
and the Shirley estate 5,000 l. The total of 8,000 l. per annum, from
this once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives
had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these
sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census in 1841 the
population of the barony exceeded 44,000 souls, and they contributed
by their industry, to the two absentee proprietors, the enormous
annual revenue of 40,000 l., towards the production of which it does
not appear that either of them, or any person for them, ever invested
a shilling.
Mr. S. Trench was amazed to find 'more than one human being for every
Irish acre of land in the barony, and nearly one human being for every
1 l. valuation per annum of the land.' The two estates join in the
town of Carrickmacross. When Mr. Trench arrived there, March 30, 1843,
to commence his duties as Mr. Shirley's agent, he learned that the
sudden death of the late agent in the court-house of Monaghan had been
celebrated that night by fires on almost every hill on the estate,
'and over a district of upwards of 20,000 acres there was scarcely
a mile without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his
decease.' Mr. Trench says, the tenants considered themselves
ground down to the last point by the late agent. As he relates the
circumstances, the people would seem to be a very savage race; and
he gives other more startling illustrations to the same effect as he
proceeds. But here, as elsewhere, he does not state all the facts,
while those he does state are most artistically dressed up for
sensational effect, Mr. Trench himself being always the hero, always
acting magnificently, appearing at the right place and at the right
moment to prevent some tremendous calamity, otherwise inevitable, and
by some mysterious personal influence subduing lawless masses, so
that by a sudden impulse, their murderous rage is converted into
admiration, if not adoration. Like the hearers of Herod or of St.
Paul, when he flung the viper off his hand, they are ready to cry out,
'He is a god, and not a man.' Of course he, as a Christian gentleman,
was always 'greatly shocked,' when these poor wretches offered him
petitions on their knees. Still he relates every case of the kind with
extraordinary unction, and with a picturesqueness of situation and
detail so stagey that it should make Mr. Boucicault's mouth water, and
excite the envy of Miss Braddon. Not even she can exceed the author of
'Realities of Irish Life,' in prolonging painful suspense, in piling
up the agony, in accumulating horrors, in throwing strong lights on
one side of the picture and casting deep shade on the other.
It is with the greatest reluctance that I thus allude to the work of
Mr. Trench. I do so from a sense of duty, because I believe it is one
of the most misleading books on Ireland published for many years. It
has made false impressions on the public mind in England, which will
seriously interfere with a proper settlement of the land question.
The mischief would not be so great if the author did not take so
much pains to represent his stories as realities 'essentially
characteristic of the country.' It is very difficult to account for
the exaggeration and embellishment in which he has permitted himself
to indulge, with so many professions of conscientious regard for
truth. They must have arisen from the habit of reciting the adventures
to his friends during a quarter of a century, naturally laying stress
on the most sensational passages, while the facts less in keeping with
startling effects dropped out of his memory. Very few of the actors in
the scenes he describes now survive. Those who do, and who might
have a more accurate memory, are either so lauded that it would
be ungrateful of them to contradict--or so artfully discredited as
'virulent' and base that people would not be likely to believe them if
their recollections were different. There is one peculiarity about Mr.
Trench's dialogues. There were never any witnesses present. He always
took the wild Irishman, on whom he operated so magically, into his
private office; or into a private room in the house of the 'subject;'
or into a cell alone, if secrets were to be extracted from a Ribbonman
in gaol. Even conversations with the gentler sex, who knelt before
him as if he were a bishop, were not permitted to reach the ear of his
chief clerk. On some matters, however, others have spoken since his
book appeared. He is very precise about the trial for an agrarian
murder in Monaghan, giving details from his own actual observation.
Mr. Butt, Q.C., who was engaged in the case, has published a letter,
stating that Mr. Trench was quite mistaken in his account. It seems
strange that he did not refresh his memory by looking at a report of
the trial in some newspaper file.
Mr. Trench 'adds his testimony to the fact that Ireland is not
altogether unmanageable,' that 'justice fully and firmly administered
is always appreciated in the end.' And at the conclusion of his volume
he says:--
'We can scarcely shut our eyes to the fact that the circumstances and
feelings which have led to the terrible crime of murder in Ireland,
are usually very different from those which have led to murder
elsewhere. The reader of the English newspaper is shocked at the list
of children murdered by professional assassins, of wives murdered
by their husbands, of men murdered for their gold. In Ireland that
dreadful crime may almost invariably be traced to a wild feeling of
revenge for the national wrongs, to which so many of her sons believe
that she has been subjected for centuries.'
There is a mistake here. No murders are committed in Ireland for
'national wrongs.' The author has gathered together, as in a chamber
of horrors, all the cases of assassination that occurred during
the years of distress, provoked by the extensive _evictions_ which
succeeded the _famine_, and by the infliction of great hardships on
tenants who, in consequence of that dreadful calamity, had fallen
into arrears. People who had been industrious, peaceable, and
well-conducted were thus driven to desperation; and hence the young
men formed lawless combinations and committed atrocious murders.
But every one of these murders was agrarian, not national. They were
committed in the prosecution of _a war_, not against the Government,
but against the landlords and their agents and instruments. It was a
war _pro aris et focis_, waged against local tyrants, and waged in the
only way possible to the belligerents who fought for home and
family. Mr. Trench always paints the people who sympathise with their
champions as naturally wild, lawless, and savage. If he happens to
be in good humour with them, he makes them ridiculous. His son, Mr.
Townsend Trench, who did the illustrations for the work, pictures the
peasantry as gorillas, always flourishing shillelaghs, and grinning
horribly. With rare exceptions, they appear as an inferior race, while
the ruling class, and the Trenches in particular, appear throughout
the book as demigods, 'lords of the creation,' formed by nature to be
the masters and guides and managers of such a silly, helpless people.
Nowhere is any censure pronounced upon a landlord, or an agent, with
one exception, and this was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Trench
at Kenmare. To his gross neglect in allowing God to send so many human
beings into the world, he ascribes the chaos of misery and pauperism,
which he--a heaven-born agent--had to reduce to order and beauty.
But there were other causes of the 'poetic turbulence' which he
so gloriously quelled, that he might have brought to light, had he
thought proper, for the information of English readers. He might have
shown--for the evidence was before him in the report of the Devon
Commission--with what hard toil and constant self-denial, amidst what
domestic privations and difficulties, Mr. Shirley's tenants struggled
to scrape up for him his 20,000 l. a year, and how bitterly they must
have felt when the landlord sent an order to add one-third to their
rack-rent. I will supply Mr. Trench's lack of service, and quote the
evidence of one of those honest and worthy men, given before the Devon
Commissioners.
Peter Mohun, farmer, a tenant on the Shirley estate, gave the
following evidence:--
'What family have you?--I am married, and have two daughters, and my
wife, and a servant boy.
'What rent do you pay?--Sometime ago I paid 3 l. 19 s. 11d. I was
doing well at that time; and then my rent was raised to 5 l. 19 s. 9
d., and sometimes 6 l., and one year 5 l. 19 s. 6 d.
'How do you account for the difference?--I do not know; perhaps by the
bog rent. We had the bog free before, and we were doing well; and then
we were cut down from the bog, and we were raised from 3 l. 19 s. 11
d. to 6 l. We are beaten down now quite.
'What does the county-cess come to?--Sometimes we pay 1 s. 6-1/2 d. an
acre, and oftener 1 s. 7-1/2 d., the half-year.
'Have you paid your rent pretty punctually?--Yes, I have done my best
so far to pay the rent.
'How much do you owe now?--I believe I shall pay the rent directly
after May; I am clear till May. I cannot pay it till harvest comes
round.
'How do you get the money to pay the rent?--When I had my land cheap,
and myself a youth, I was a good workman, and did work by the loom,
and I would be mowing in the summer season, and earn a good deal, and
make a little store for me, which has stood by me. I buy some oats and
make meal of it, and I make money in that way. It was not by my land I
was paying my rent, but from other sources.
'How much wheat have you now?--Half an acre, rather above.
'How much oats have you?--Half a rood.
'How much potato land shall you have?--Three and a half roods besides
the garden.
'Have you any clover?--Very near a rood of clover.
'What is the smallest quantity of land that you think a man who has
no other means of support can subsist and pay rent upon?--I was paying
rent well myself when I had three acres, when I was paying 3 l. 19 s.
11 d.
'You weave a little?--Yes, but very little; but there was a good price
for the barrel of wheat, and for pigs, and so I made a little store.
But as for any man to support himself out of a small farm, at the
high price of land, and the price of labour that is going, it is
impossible.
'What is the smallest farm upon which a man can support himself at the
present rate of rent, taking a man with five or six children?--That is
a hard question.
'Supposing a man to pay 35 s. an acre, and to have two acres, and to
be obliged to live out of the farm, do you think he could do it and
pay rent?--He could not; his land must be very good. Unless he lived
near a town, and had cheap land, it would be impossible. But a man
with five acres, at a moderate rent, he could support his family upon
it.
'What should you earn at weaving?--I only weave for my own family. I
weave my own shirt.
'Do your family ever spin any wool and weave it?--Yes.
'Do you live upon the Shirley estate?--Yes.
'How much bog do you require to keep your house in fuel?--Half a rood,
if it was good; but it is bad bog ground, red mossy turf, white and
light; it requires more than the black turf.
'What do you pay for half a rood of turf?--It is 13 s. 4 d. for a
rood--that is, 6 s. 8 d. for half a rood. There is 4 s. 6 d. paid for
bad bog.
'Do you pay anything for the ticket of leave to cut?--Yes, I do; I
have not a ticket unless I pay 6 d. for it.
'That is over and above the 4 s. 6 d.?--Yes.
'Did you ever pay more than 6 s. 8 d. for the bog in the late agent's
time?--He took the good bog off us; we were paying 6 s. 8 d. for it.
They left us to the bad bog, and we do not pay so high for that.
'Was the good bog dearer or cheaper than the bad bog at 4 s. 6
d.?--Half a rood of the good bog was worth half an acre or an acre of
the other. The bad bog smokes so we have often to leave the house: we
cannot stay in it unless there is a good draught in the chimney.'
The Rev. Thomas Smollan, P.P., has published a letter to the Earl of
Dunraven, a Catholic Peer, to whom Mr. Trench has dedicated his book.
In this letter the parish priest of Farney says:--
'In pages 63 and 64 Mr. Trench tells his readers that on the very
night the news of the late agent's sudden death, in the county
courthouse of Monaghan, reached Carrickmacross, "fires blazed on
almost every hill on the Shirley estate, and over a district of more
than 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile without a bonfire blazing
in manifestation of joy at his decease." This paragraph, my lord,
taken by itself and unexplained in any way, would at once imply that
the people were inhuman, almost savages, whom Mr. Trench was sent to
tame--that they were insensible to the agent's sudden death, a death
so sudden that it would make an enemy almost relent. Mr. Trench
assigns no cause for this strange proceeding except what we read in
page 64, and what he learned from the chief clerk, viz., "that the
people were much excited, that they were ground down to the last point
by the late agent, and they were threatening to rise in rebellion
against him," &c. One would think that Mr. Trench having learned so
much on such authority, would have set to work to try and find out
the cause of the discontent and apply a remedy. He does not say in his
book that he did so, but seems still unable to understand this to him
incomprehensible proceeding. However, I am of opinion that Mr. Trench
knew the whole of it, if not then at all events before "The Realities"
saw the light, for in a speech of his, when Lord Bath visited Farney
(page 383), he said, "A dog could not bark on the estate without
it coming to his knowledge." And therefore I say that a man so
inquisitive as to find out the barking of a dog on the Bath estate,
who had so many sources of information close at hand, could not have
been long without knowing the causes of the "excitement, threatened
rebellion, bonfires, &c., on the Shirley estate," if he had only
wished for the information. Either he knew the cause of all this when
he wrote his book, or he did not. If he did, I say he was bound
in fair play to tell it to the public; if he did not know it his
self-laudation in his speech goes for nought. But, my lord, with your
permission, I will inform your lordship, Mr. Trench, and the public,
as to some of the causes of so remarkable an occurrence, which could
not pass unobserved by Mr. Trench. At the memorable election of 1826,
Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., and Colonel Leslie, father of the present
M.P., contested the county of Monaghan, and the former brought all
his influence to bear on his tenants to vote for himself (Shirley)
and Leslie, who coalesced against the late Lord Rossmore. The electors
said "they would give one vote for their landlord, and the other they
would give for their religion and their country;" the consequence was,
Shirley and Westenra were returned, and Leslie was beaten. Up to this
time Mr. Shirley was a good landlord, and admitted tenant-right to
the fullest extent on the property, but after that election he never
showed the same friendly feelings towards the people. Soon after the
election Mr. Humphrey Evatt, the agent, died, and was succeeded in the
agency by Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who very soon set about surveying and
revaluing the estate, of course at the instance of his master, Evelyn
John Shirley, Esq. He performed the work of revaluation, &c., and
the result was that the rents were increased by one-third and in
some cases more. The bog, too, which up to this time was free to the
tenants, was taken from them and doled out to them in small patches of
from twenty-five to forty perches each, at from 4 l. to 8 l. per
acre. At the instance of the then parish priest, President Reilly, Mr.
Shirley gave 5 l. per year to a few schools on his property, without
interfering in any way with the religious principles of the Catholics
attending these schools; but the then agent insisted on having the
authorised version of the Bible, without note or comment, read in
those schools by the Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr.
Kernan, could not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism,
and insisted on the children being withdrawn from the schools. For
obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic parents were treated most
unsparingly. I have before me just now a most remarkable instance
of the length to which this gentleman carried his proselytising
propensities, which I will mention. In the vestry, or sacristy,
attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school taught by a man named Rush,
altogether independent of the schools aided by Mr. Shirley, and by
largely subsidising the teacher, the then agent actually introduced
his proselytism into that school too. The priests and people tried
legal means to get rid of the teacher, but without success, and in the
end the people came by night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in
the morning when the teacher came he had no house to shelter him.
The Catholics were then without a school, and in order to provide the
means of education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under
the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of
National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure
building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting"
Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of them
from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends over an area of
fifteen miles by ten, Father Keone went on the next Sunday to the
neighbouring chapels outside the Shirley estate, told his grievances,
and on the next day the people came with their horses and carts and
left sand, lime, and stones in sufficient quantities to build the
house inside the chapel-yard. The priest and people thought it
necessary to "thatch" their old chapel, and, though strange it may
seem, the agent actually served an ejectment process on the father
of the two boys who assisted the priest to make the collection at the
chapel door for so absolutely necessary a work. I may add, this man
owed no rent. Lastly, the then agent was in the habit of arranging
matrimonial alliances, pointing out this girl as a suitable match for
that boy, and the boy must marry the girl or give up his farm. These
facts being true, my lord, and more which I might state, but that I
have trespassed too much already on your lordship's time, I ask you,
my Lord Dunraven--I ask any impartial man, Irishman or Englishman--for
whom Mr. Trench wrote his "book," is it strange or wonderful that the
Catholic people, so treated, would rejoice--would have bonfires on
the hill tops at their deliverance from such conduct? I flatter myself
that you, my lord--that the learned reading public--that the English
people would sympathise with any people so treated for conscience'
sake; and having pronounced the sentence of condemnation against Mr.
Trench for not having noticed these facts, that you will direct your
name to be erased from the "book." I have the honour to remain,
my lord, with the most profound respect, your lordship's faithful
servant.'
'THOMAS SMOLLAN, P.P.
'Clones, Feb. 15, 1869.'
The electors of Monaghan, in their simplicity, thought they were
fairly exercising the rights conferred by the constitution when they
gave one vote for the landlord, and one for their religion and their
country, thus securing the return of one Liberal. But Mr. Shirley soon
taught them that the blessings of our glorious constitution belong not
to the tenant, but to the landlord; and so he punished their mistake
by adding one-third to their rent, and depriving them of proper fuel.
Not content with this, he carried the war into their chapels and
schools, and punished them for their religion. These facts may help to
explain the scenes which Mr. Trench describes so poetically.
The persecuting agent died suddenly in the court-house. The landlord
and a new agent, Mr. Trench, arrived at Carrickmacross; and the
tenants presented a petition, imploring him to remove the new and
intolerable burden that had been put on their shoulders. They were
told to come back for an answer on the following Monday:--
'"Monday! Monday!" was shouted on all sides. The most frenzied
excitement ensued. Hats were thrown in the air, sticks were flourished
on all sides, and the men actually danced with wild delight. After a
little time, however, the crowd cleared away, and the news flew like
wildfire over the town and country, that the whole tenantry were told
to come in on Monday next, that they might know the amount of the
reduction to be granted, and have all their grievances removed!'
Mr. Shirley quickly repented having given the invitation, and sent out
a circular countermanding it, and requesting the tenants to stay at
home. On Monday, however, a vast excited mass assembled to hear his
_ultimatum_, which was announced by the new agent. 'He would not
reduce their rents. They might give up their lands if they pleased;
but they had little or no cause of complaint.' They insisted on his
mounting a chair and making a speech. He softened the message as well
as he could. When he had done there was a dead silence. In describing
what follows Mr. Trench surpasses the wildest romancers in piling
up the agony. I copy the description that the reader may see the
difference between romance and history.
'There was a dead silence when I stopped speaking. It was broken by a
stentorian voice.
'"Then you won't reduce our rents?"
'"I have already given you Mr. Shirley's answer upon that point," said
I. "Stranger as I am, it is impossible for me to form any opinion as
to whether they are too high or not."
'"_Down on your knees, boys!_" shouted the same voice; "we will ask
him once more upon our knees!" and to my horror and amazement the vast
crowd, almost all at least who were in my immediate vicinity, dropped
suddenly on their knees, and another dead silence ensued.
'It was a dreadful spectacle. Their hats were on their heads, and
their sticks in their hands, some leaning upon them as they knelt,
others balancing and grasping them. It was fearful to see the attitude
of supplication, due only to a higher power, thus mingled with a wild
defiance.
'"_We ask you upon our knees, for God's sake, to get us a reduction of
our rents!_" again the same voice cried aloud.
'I was greatly shocked. I instantly got down off the chair. I
entreated them to rise. I told them that I was distressed beyond
measure, but that I had given them the only message I was authorised
to give; and quite overcome by such a scene, I endeavoured to move
again across the crowded space from the office, in order to enter the
house, and report proceedings to Mr. Shirley, intending to request
that he would himself appear and address his excited tenantry.
'The moment I moved towards the door, the vast crowd leaped again to
their feet; I was instantly surrounded, hustled, and prevented from
getting near it. I bore this good-humouredly, and the door being
quite close to me, I had no doubt they would ultimately let me in. But
whilst this scene was going on, a shout was raised by those who were
at a distance up the road leading to the town, and who had not heard
what had been said. "Bring him up--bring him up, and let us see him!"
In a moment I was seized, and though I resisted to my utmost, I was
dragged up the narrow road which led from Shirley House to the town. I
was kicked and beaten, and pushed and bruised, my hat knocked off, and
my clothes torn; and in this state I was dragged into the main street
of Carrickmacross.
'Here a scene of the wildest excitement took place, some cried one
thing--some another. I was beaten again, my clothes torn off my back,
and sticks whirled over my head. Four or five policemen met me as I
was being dragged along, but they might as well have attempted to
stop the rushing of an Atlantic wave, as to stern the crowd that had
assembled around me; _and they only looked on and let me pass_.'
If the sub-inspector, who was present, and his men acted in this
manner, I venture to say it is the only instance in the whole history
of the force in which the Royal Irish constabulary were guilty of such
a cowardly neglect of duty. However, not only the police, but the best
part of the crowd deserted this strange gentleman, and he was 'left
in the hands of the vilest and most furious of the mob.' Where was Mr.
Shirley? Where were the clergy and the respectable inhabitants of the
town? The mob dragged him along towards Loughfea Castle--a mile and a
half--whither they heard Mr. Shirley had fled, still beating, kicking,
and strangling their victim, without any object; for how could they
serve their cause by killing an agent who had never injured them? And
how easy it was to kill him if they wished! But here comes the climax;
he asked the murderous multitude to let him stop a few moments to
breathe--he then proceeds: 'I shall never forget that moment. I was
then about a mile from the town on the broad and open road leading to
Loughfea Castle. I turned and looked around me, thinking my last
hour was come, and anxious to see if there was one kind face, one
countenance, I had ever seen before, who could at least tell my
friends how I had died. But I looked in vain. The hills were crowded
with people. The long line of road was one mass of human beings,
whilst those immediately around me, mad with excitement, seemed only
to thirst for my blood.
'Having got a few moments' breathing-time, and seeing all appeal to
be vain, I turned again on my way, determined, however, to hold out
to the last, as I felt that to fall or to faint must be certain death.
Just then I became conscious of an able hand and a stout heart beside
me, and I heard a whisper in my ear: "They are determined to have your
blood, but hold up, they shall have mine first." The speaker grasped
my arm firmly under his own, and walked on steadily by my side.
'By this time I was _completely naked with the exception of my
trousers_. My coat, even my shirt, had been torn off, and I walked on,
still beaten and ill-treated, like a man to execution; my head bare,
and _without any clothes from my waist upwards_. To increase the
misery of my situation, I found that my friend had been beaten and
dragged away in spite of himself, and again I was left alone in the
hands of those merciless men. I felt also I could now go no further,
and that a last effort must be made before my senses left me from
exhaustion. Stopping therefore once more, I asked to be led towards a
high bank at the roadside, and leaning against this I turned and faced
those whom I now believed would soon become my murderers.
'"I can go no further," said I; "what have you brought me here for?
What do you want me to do?" Again the same voice which I had first
heard at the office, though I could not identify the speaker from the
shouting and confusion around me, cried aloud, "We want a reduction of
our rents, will you promise to get us that?"
'There are times of instant danger, when it is said that the whole of
a man's past life rushes before him in the spaces of a single moment.
If ever there be such a time, this was such to me. I stood there,
exhausted, without one friendly face on which to rest, and surrounded
by _the worst of ten thousand men who seemed determined to have a
victim_. I knew and felt all this. So I said very quietly, as a last
effort to save my life, and hoping they would name something I could
promise to ask,
'"And what reduction will you be content with?"
'Again the same voice replied,
'"We will never pay more than one-half our present rents."
'"Then," said I, "there ends the matter, _I never will promise that_."
'There was a pause, and a dead silence. I stood _naked and bareheaded
before them_. They stood opposite to me, with their sticks clenched in
their hands, ready to strike. I looked at them, and they at me. They
hesitated; _no one would strike me first_. I saw that they wavered,
and instinctively, in a moment I _felt_ that I had won. This sudden
revulsion of feeling--though I was still externally motionless--sent
the blood throbbing to my temples with a rush that became almost
oppressive. But the strange pause continued--when at length a shout
was raised from the old stentorian voice again, "Stand off, boys--for
your lives! no one shall harm him--he is a good man after all!" and in
a moment I was surrounded by a new set of faces, who dashed furiously
towards me. They raised me on their shoulders, swept my old enemies
away from me, procured me some water to drink, and carried me, now
completely overcome, exhausted, and almost fainting, into the demesne
of Loughfea.
'Here again these suddenly converted friends desired me to get up on
a chair, and speak to the crowd now assembled before the castle. I did
so. A reaction for the moment had taken place within me, and I felt
some return of strength.
'I told the people I had never injured them. That it was a shame, and
a disgrace of which I had not believed any Irishman to be capable, to
treat a stranger as they had dealt with me that day. That in my own
country I could have as many to fight for me as were now against me,
and in short I abused them right heartily and soundly. They bore it
without a murmur. My new friends cheered me vociferously, and I was
carried, now quite unable to walk, into the Castle of Loughfea. Mr.
Shirley's architect here appeared upon the scene, and perceiving that
the people were much exasperated at not finding Mr. Shirley at the
castle, and that some of the most violent were disposed in consequence
to make a fresh attack upon me as I was being carried exhausted inside
the gates, he promised to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and
in some degree calmed their feelings. The excitement was past. Mr.
Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly dispersed.
'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to
Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and scarcely
able to stand--musing over the strange transactions which had happened
that day--and wrapped in a countryman's frieze coat which had been
borrowed to cover _my nakedness_.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.]
When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask him to turn
to the history of this transaction--bad enough in itself--and see
what fancy and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes
'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian,
writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in his
mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners as his
_sworn evidence_:
'_William Steuart Trench, esq., agent._
'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they
originated?--There have been none, except _during a late short period
of peculiar local excitement_.
'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what then
occurred?--I think my best mode of doing so will be by handing in
the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local magistrate for
the information of government.--[_The witness read the following
letter_:--]
'Dear Sir--In reply to your communication, enclosing a letter from Mr.
Lucas, requesting that I should give a statement of the particulars
which occurred to me in Carrickmacross, on Monday last, I beg leave to
lay before you the facts, as follows:--
'Mr. Shirley has recently appointed me to the agency over his Monaghan
estate. We both arrived here on Thursday, the 30th of March, and on
the following morning we went together into the office; and having
remained there about an hour, we were much surprised, on our return,
to find an immense mass of people outside the door, who immediately
presented a petition to Mr. Shirley, requesting a reduction of rent.
'Mr. Shirley declined giving an immediate answer to such an unexpected
request; but having read the petition, he told them he would give an
answer to it on the Monday following. By Saturday, however, he had
arrived at a full conclusion upon the point, and, anxious to avoid any
unpleasant altercation with his tenants, he thought it advisable to
let his determination be known as soon as possible; and accordingly,
on Saturday, he issued and circulated a printed notice, stating the
determination at which he had arrived, and declining any further
communications upon the subject. I enclose a copy of the notice.
'Notwithstanding this notice, the people came in on Monday in immense
numbers; and at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, the upper part of
the street opposite to Shirley House, where we were residing, was
filled with dense masses of men. I then thought it my duty to go out,
and repeat to them in my capacity as agent, the determination at which
their landlord had arrived. I did so in the mildest terms. I told them
I had been able to go over only a part of the estate; but that from
what I had seen, I was of opinion that a better system of farming
and of general management of their land, was in my judgment much more
required than a reduction of the rent. That I knew Mr. Shirley had the
kindest feeling towards them, and that I was myself quite prepared and
willing to render them any assistance--to go to every man's farm, if
possible, and to assist them by my counsel and advice. But that as Mr.
Shirley had come to a determination to make no present reduction in
his rental, I did expect that all who were able to pay their rents
would come in and do so; that the utmost leniency would be extended
towards those who could not pay; but that my duty was plain, and if
those who really were able to pay, refused to come forward and do
so, that I had no alternative left but to take advantage of the power
which the law afforded for the recovery of the rent--and this I was
fully prepared and determined to do, if driven to that unpleasant
necessity. I also made some further observations, of less importance;
but my manner towards them was quiet and calm, and I expressed myself
most anxious to do everything in my power to promote their welfare and
comfort.
'_I then attempted to return to the house, across the street; but
the mob closed in upon me, and prevented my doing so_, _and with much
violence dragged me up into the town, where I was repeatedly struck
and kicked, and nearly strangled, and my coat torn to pieces._
'_The mob continued thus to ill-treat me for about a mile along the
road to Lough Fea, Mr. Shirley's residence, repeatedly kicking me,
especially when I showed symptoms of exhaustion, and pressing their
hands violently upon my throat, till I was almost overcome by fatigue,
heat and pain._
'_All this appeared to be done for the purpose of forcing me to
promise to induce Mr. Shirley to lower the rents to 10 s. per acre
(upwards of fifty per cent.). This I refused to do. They then brought
me on to Lough Fea, where they thought Mr. Shirley was; and upon not
finding him, they appeared much exasperated. Mr. Shirley's architect
then appeared, and by promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their
favour, and by requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming
in a manner like the present, he induced them to desist from further
injury to me._
'Believe me, dear Sir, very truly yours,
'(Signed) 'WILLIAM STEUART TRENCH.
'Carrickmacross, April 8, 1844.
'What has been the general demeanour of the people towards you since
that time?--Though they resisted my measures for the recovery of the
rent, _to myself they have been perfectly civil; nor have I received
any personal insult or unpleasantness, arising from the above cause
since that period._
'How long did this kind of combination exist?--For about six months.'
Setting aside the embellishments, let us note one or two differences
as to facts. In the book the suddenly converted friends placed him on
a chair and asked him to make a speech before the castle door. He did
so, and there is a grand statuesque picture of the hero, naked to the
waist, and standing on the chair as lofty pedestal. In the torn coat
the artist could never have made him look like Apollo. Even the shirt
would have been too commonplace; so off went the shirt. Three or four
times attention is directed to the fact of the nakedness by the hero
himself, while the pencil of the filial illustrator has rendered him
immortal in this primitive costume. In his speech he 'abused them
heartily and soundly.' Yet they cheered him vociferously, and then
carried him into the castle, where he could get nothing to cover his
nakedness but a countryman's frieze coat. It was when he had been
cheered vociferously, and kindly carried in, that Mr. Shirley's
architect appeared on the scene. Mr. Trench has not been just to that
gentleman, for he really came to his rescue, and perhaps saved his
life, by giving the people the only sensible advice they got that day.
In his sworn statement, made twenty-five years ago, Mr. Trench said:
'Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by promising to speak
to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a
deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, _he
induced them to desist from further injury to me._'
If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic scenes which
have fascinated so many readers, the 'Realities' would lose much
of their gilding. Indeed, in most cases the internal evidence is
sufficient to convince us that the sensationalist has been laying on
his colours pretty heavily. In the sketch of the Farney rent campaign,
however, I am willing to accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian. It
is a most suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could
be done by driving the agricultural population to desperation. A
general strike against the payment of rent would convulse society.
If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the island, the
landlords would be in serious difficulty. The British army might then
have become rent collectors, as they had been tithe collectors in
1831.'
Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his legal
rights to the utmost. The bailiff was sent to warn the backward
tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere received the same
answer--'We will pay no rent till our grievances are redressed.' Now
all the missiles of the law were showered on the recusants--notices
to quit, _latitats_, processes for arrears, &c. Grippers,
process-servers, keepers, drivers, were in full requisition. The
grippers were to arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been
obtained at the quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch
the crops that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the
cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs to pound. These constituted the
landlord's army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if
necessary.
On the other hand, the tenants organised a body called the 'Molly
Maguires'--stout young men dressed up in women's clothes, their
faces disguised and besmeared in the most fantastic manner. These men
waylaid and maltreated the officers of the law so severely, that in a
short time no money could induce a gripper, process-server, driver or
bailiff to show his nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley,
as commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates
to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle they
could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The expedition
started one fine morning, led on by the mounted bailiff, a fat man,
trembling like a hare at the thought of encountering the 'Molly
Maguires.'
Mr. Trench's description of this foray is very graphic:--'No sooner
had this formidable party appeared upon the roads in the open country,
than the people rushed to the tops of the numerous hills with which
the district abounds; and as we moved forward, they ran from one hill
to another shouting and cheering with wild defiant cries, and keeping
a line parallel to that in which our party was travelling.
'The object of our expedition was clearly understood by the people;
and the exact position of our company was indicated to those in
the lowlands by the movements of the parties on the hills; and
accordingly, as we advanced, every beast belonging to every tenant who
owed rent was housed or locked up, or driven somewhere away. Thus, as
we had no legal right to break open any door, or take any cattle out
of any house, but only to seize those we might find in the open fields
and upon the lands of the defaulting tenants, we soon perceived (as
we might have known before we started) that we were likely to return
without success. The bailiff declared with a sigh, "that not a hoof
nor a horn was left in the whole country-side."
'At length when about to return home, without having secured any
booty whatever, we came unexpectedly upon a poor little heifer calf,
browsing quietly on the long grass beside a hedge. The bailiff having
ascertained that she was grazing on the land of a tenant who was
a defaulter, we seized upon the unhappy little beast, and drove it
ingloriously home to the pound at Carrickmacross, a distance of about
two miles, amidst the jeers and laughter of the populace, at the
result of our formidable day's driving.'
Thus baffled, Mr. Shirley resolved to try another move.
He applied to the authorities in Dublin for an order for 'substitution
of service.' That is, instead of delivering the legal notices at the
houses of the parties, which was impracticable, they were to be posted
up on the chapel-door. To effect this object, a large police force
was necessary, and it was accompanied by a stipendiary magistrate. 'As
soon as the party came near the chapel grounds a shout of defiance was
raised by the peasantry, who began to crowd into the chapel yard, and
with uplifted sticks and threatening gestures swore that they would
never allow the walls of the chapel to be desecrated by such a notice.
The bailiff, a most respectable and temperate man, did his utmost to
pacify the excited mob. He reasoned with them as best he could;
and assured them that no desecration was intended--that he was only
carrying out the law, which required that the notice should be posted
on the chapel walls. But his voice had no more power than if he
had spoken to a storm of wind; they leaped and danced madly about,
whirling their sticks over their heads, and shouting that they would
never allow him to touch the sacred edifice.
'The stipendiary magistrate now ordered him to do his duty, and that
he would be protected in doing it by the police, and he, trembling
with fear, as well he might, at length approached with the notice in
his hand to post it in due form. No sooner had he approached towards
the chapel than a volley of stones sent him staggering back, though
none actually struck him. The police were now ordered to advance. They
did so amidst another shower of stones. The storm of missiles still
continuing and several of the police having been struck and injured,
they were at length ordered to fire. They aimed low, and directing
their fire straight into the crowd of stone-throwers, they soon
checked the vigour of the assault--six or seven men fell under the
volley and rolled upon the ground. There was a short pause, a dead
silence ensued--but it was only for a moment, and before the police
could recover themselves and load again, a furious rush was made upon
them by the enraged populace. Stones were seen flying as thick
as hail; and finally the police, apprehending that they must be
annihilated if they remained, ran to their cars, which were waiting at
a little distance, and drove into Carrickmacross as fast as the horses
could gallop, accompanied by the stipendiary magistrate!
'The field thus quickly won, remained in the possession of the
insurgents. One of the rioters was killed upon the spot--shot through
the body. The others who fell were only slightly injured; one had his
ear taken off, another was wounded in the finger, another shot in the
arm.'
This was 'the battle of Magheracloon.' Mr. Trench wisely recommended
a cessation of hostilities till the harvest was gathered in, promising
the landlord that he would then by quiet means, acting on the tenants
individually and privately, induce them to pay their rents. He
succeeded, but as Mr. Shirley declined to adopt his plans for the
better management of the estate, he resigned.
He came back, however, after some years, as agent to the Marquess of
Bath--a post which he occupies still, being manager-in-chief at the
same time of the large estates of the Marquess of Lansdowne, in Kerry,
and Lord Digby, in the King's County. In all these undertakings,
ably assisted by his sons and his nephew, he has been pre-eminently
successful. If the Farney men had been driven off in 1843, or swept
away by the famine, it would have been said that their fate was
inevitable, nothing could be made of them. They were by nature prone
to disorder and rebellion. Well, Lord Bath visited his estate in 1865.
On that occasion a banquet was given to the tenants, at which Mr.
Trench made an eloquent speech. Referring to the outbreak in 1848, he
said: 'And yet never, my Lord, never even in the worst of times, did I
bate one jot of heart or hope in the noble people of Farney, never for
one moment did I doubt their loyalty to their Queen, their loyalty to
their country, their respect for their landlord, and above all, that
they would be true and loyal to themselves.' So much for the incurable
perversity of the Celtic race, for the 'black morass of Irish nature'
that can never be drained!
The people of Farney got justice, and they were contented and orderly.
They got security, and they were industrious and thriving. They
got protection under the constitution, and they were loyal. Densely
peopled as the estate is, the agent could not coax one of them to
emigrate; and after his former experience at Farney, he did not
venture on eviction, though, no doubt, he would gladly repeat the
Kenmare experiment in thinning the masses with which he has had to
deal. Mr. Horsman, a prophet of the same school of economists, says
that Providence sent the famine to relieve the landlords, by carrying
away a third of the population, and he seems to think it desirable
that another third should be got rid of somehow.