the suggestion of General Revvers Buller, who was then in Ireland,
the agent had the tenants' houses destroyed by fire. Mr. Edward
Harrington, M. P., and Mr. Sheehan, M. P., played a prominent part in
opposing the carrying out of those evictions.
_Great Famine._--This famine started in both Ireland and England
in 1315, or thereabouts. Mothers were known to devour their own
children, and children ate their dead parents. Parents stole the
children of others to eat them. Starving women started dancing
around open air fires, to attract children so as to kill and cook
them. Dead bodies were taken from the graves to be used for food. In
jails prisoners ate each other. This famine, and the pestilence that
accompanied it coming and going, lasted about eighty-five years.
_Halley's Comet._--On the 18th of May, 1910, the earth passed through
the tail of Halley's comet. Its approach caused great fear and
excitement in some places. It is very remarkable that great wars
follow Halley's comet.
_Head Act._--By this law if an Irishman was found going on a
journey from one county to another without being accompanied by an
Englishman, dressed in English apparel, and of name and fame, it was
lawful to kill the Irishman and cut off his head. For every head cut
off the murderer was to receive one penny reward. The slaughter was
great. Incredible as this might appear to the reader, it is too
true. Deputy Earl of Desmond, representing British law in Ireland,
was responsible for this Act.
_Harrington and Esmond's Election._--This Parliamentary election
contest took place between Edward Harrington, Parnellite, outgoing M.
P. for West Kerry, and Sir Thomas Gratton Esmond, anti-Parnellite. By
the undue influence of the clergy, Sir Thomas Gratton was elected.
_Home Rule._--On Thursday, the 19th day of May, 1870, this
association sprung into existence in Dublin under the leadership
of Isaac Butt, a Protestant Nationalist. Briefly stated, the
principal object contemplated by the organization was to obtain
for the Irish people power to make their own laws and manage their
own local affairs by an Irish Parliament, and to be subject to the
English Crown, like Canada, Southwest Africa and Australia. In the
Irish Parliament there was not to be a class or creed ascendancy,
but Protestants and Catholics were to be linked together in one
bond in a free and independent Parliament. In 1871, Isaac Butt was
elected a member of Parliament for Limerick without a contest. Many
Protestants joined the Home Rule cause. In the North of Ireland there
exists a class of foreign Irish better known throughout the world
as "Orangemen." The English Unionist classes, under the false color
and pretense of peacemakers and Christians, are doing the utmost in
their power to sow the seeds of discord and dissension among the
Irish people. One of the sharpest wedges they can drive to divide
the people in Ireland is religion. They raised the cry that it was
not "Home Rule" but "Rome Rule." The wealth of the Unionist party,
or capitalist classes, of England, Scotland, Ireland, India, Africa,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada is behind them, and this class of
people are petted and pampered for keeping the Unionist party in
power.
Home rule bills were often passed by the House of Commons as
representing a substantial majority of the people of the United
Kingdom but rejected by the House of Lords. However, it may be well
to note that a fight to restore the Irish Parliament under the title
of "Repeal of the Union" started in Ireland before the doors of the
Houses of Parliament were closed.[5]
_House League._--This league was introduced into those parts in 1886,
through the Irish National League. The object of the House League was
to check the owners of houses from charging exorbitant rents to the
occupants. In Dingle, Castle Gregory, and other places, the League
fixed "fair rents" and compelled the owners to give clear receipts,
on payment of the new rents. For various reasons, the House League
was never popular. As intimidation was practiced by the House League
upon the owners of houses, the law courts held the receipts given
invalid, and the old rents were recovered.
_Influenza._--This is one of the most contagious diseases known,
and far more dangerous than most people believe. Its last serious
appearance amongst the people was in 1889-90. Every time it started
from China and traveled the world quicker than any other disease. A
letter written by one person to another, although over three thousand
miles apart, caused an outbreak of the disease. Those suffering
from any other malady, especially consumptives, were swept away to
their graves. It made many a fond mother cry. It was known to be in
Ireland in 1836-37, 1847-48, 1889-90. It is said that influenza first
appeared in the country in 1570.
_Invisible-Blood-Jobbers._--These are false and corrupt political
leaders who for blood-money, and in hopes of receiving positions with
pay, power, and false honor, are seducing the young men of Ireland
into that mad and insane war now raging in Europe.
_Ivy Day._--The anniversary of Parnell's burial. Ivy is an evergreen,
therefore it is worn on Sunday following the 6th of October to keep
the memory of C. S. Parnell forever green in the hearts of his
followers.
_Kennels and Hunting._--Formerly hunting was very much carried on
in the peninsula. Every Sunday during the hunting season the sides
of our mountains and valleys resounded with the yells of packs of
half-starved beagles kept by middlemen. With the disappearance of the
latter class, the beagles also followed, save a few exceptions.
_Kerry Bonds._--Persons who were unable to pay their tithes in full
when demanded and overdue, gave a bond bearing interest. The system
appears to be peculiar to the promontories of Kerry for some time,
but finally became extinct. Many of these bonds were given for tithes
illegally levied.
_Kerry Cows Know Sunday._--This old saying is handed down to us as a
relic of the wicked famine which started in 1739, when living cattle
were bled once a week and the blood boiled with milk, cabbage or
grass to make a Sunday meal for the family. (See 1713.)
_Kerry Election._--This election took place in February of 1872. It
was the first great flame kindled between the Home Rule party and
the landlord classes in the county. The landlords were so irritated
by the speeches delivered by the Blennerhassett supporters that they
were determined to make their power felt and destroy the Home Rule
party. The candidate chosen by the Home Rule party was a Protestant
gentleman named Ponsby Blennerhassett from Kells. James A. Dease, a
Roman Catholic gentleman from West Meath, was selected by the family
of the Earl of Kenmare for the landlords. Dr. Moriarty, a Roman
Catholic bishop, did all in his power to elect the nominee of the
Kenmare family. In face of terror and landlord's oppression, in open
voting the Home Rule candidate was elected by the Roman Catholics
of Kerry. Many patriotic priests took sides with Blennerhassett.
This gentleman remained true to the Home Rule party, but the Home
Rule party, led by Sir Isaac Butt, was considered too mild. (See my
"History of County Kerry" for a full account of this election.)
_Kissing the Blarney Stone by the Silver Tongue of Kerry and
Others._--There is a saying among some people that Counselor Hussey
of Farnakilla, known as the "Silver Tongue" of Kerry, kissed the
Blarney stone in Blarney Castle, County Cork, and thereby secured
his sweet, fluent, silver-tongued speech. He is not the only person
hereabouts who is said to have kissed the Blarney stone. Everyone
from the South of Ireland who has secured a fluent or flattering
speech is credited with visiting it. As some individuals will be
found ignorant enough to ascribe such a virtue to the stone and tell
others in foreign lands that it possesses such, I am going a little
outside my province to remove it as far as possible. If you _were
forever rubbing your tongue to the Blarney stone, you would find no
virtue in it whereby your speech will be improved_, and I dare say
Silver Tongue of Dingle never kissed the stone.
Thousands of legends and stories are woven about it, but these were
written for amusement, and the circumstances connected with kissing
the stone supplied good food for legends and diversion.
There is a castle called "Blarney Castle" about six miles on this
(Kerry) side of the City of Cork, within the Village of Blarney
in the County of Cork. This castle contains a stone bearing the
following inscription:
CORMACH MCCARTHY
_Fortis me Fieri Facit_
A. D. 1446.
or the like. In 1602 an Irish chieftain named Cormach McDermod
Carthy, who held the castle against the English, when hard pressed,
concluded a truce with the Lord President, kissed the Blarney
stone which his forefathers placed there, thereby leaving the Lord
President and the English under the impression (without promising)
that the castle would be surrendered as soon as McCarthy would reason
with his followers and remove some of his belongings. The Lord
President sent messengers to the English officers, gladly informing
them that he "got Blarney" from McCarthy without much trouble.
McCarthy, who was only borrowing time and quietly strengthening his
castle, then set about and with fair promises and false pretext day
by day put off the Lord President until he was reinforced by the
Spaniards. Even then the Lord President was firmly assuring his
countrymen that he "got Blarney" for them.
However, when the English found that instead of the Lord President
having Blarney Castle he had nothing but McCarthy's honey and
flattering speeches and they then had a hard fight before them, the
Lord President became the laughing stock of both English, Irish and
Spaniards, who mockingly would say of him, "He got Blarney."
If you will ever visit Blarney for the purpose of kissing the Blarney
stone, you may be prepared for all sorts of tricks. The more earnest
you appear about kissing it, the more fables you will be told about
it. If a man is too feeble looking to climb, those in the Village of
Blarney will most likely point out another broken stone lying on the
ground belonging to the castle, telling him that a drunken blackguard
dug it out of its place for carrying it away to make money by
improving people's speech, and let it fall down and it was smashed,
and then it lost its virtue.
If you are young and active, they will point out to you another stone
about one hundred feet from the ground and tell you you must go up to
the top of the castle and be held by the heels and leave your head
and body hang downwards outside the parapet wall of the castle. Of
course, you will say that is impossible for you to do. Then you are
told you must go home without improving your speech.
_Land League and Irish National League._--On the 28th of April, 1879,
the Land League was founded in Irishtown, West Mayo, by the late
Michael Davitt. The object of this League was to abolish landlordism
and make tenant farmers owners of their own holdings. Charles Stewart
Parnell was placed at the head of this new organization, and on
the 8th of June, Parnell and Davitt appeared at a monster meeting
held at West Port. The Land League was suppressed by the Coercion
Act, but the spirit was untouched. The name was changed to the
Irish-National-League and Parnell chosen as its president. The Land
League succeeded in its object.
_Landlords or Their Land Agents' Approval Necessary to
Marriages._--Within my personal recollection in this part of the
country tenant-farmers had to go to the landlords or their agents
or secretaries and get their landlord's approval of their sons' and
daughters' marriages. If a farmer's son got married and the landlord
or his agent was not consulted in his case, he would have to canvass
for great influence when it would be time for him to become tenant,
and even then he would stand great danger of never being accepted.
The parents of the parties to be married would pretend to their
landlord's agents that, owing to the holding being small or the
quality of the land bad, they received a very small fortune. Castle
Gregory was about the first place which I noticed to rebel against
the system. Whenever a landlord, his agent or secretary passed by,
the custom was to lift the hat off the head. Tenant farmers or
any member of their families not doing so were looked upon very
unfavorably thereafter. With the Land League, these customs rapidly
began to decline.
_La Varaha na Feir, or The Killing of People in Dingle by the
Military._--It appears a fierce encounter took place between soldiers
and civilians in upper Main Street and Goat Street, Dingle, resulting
in the killing of several persons. I regret I have forgotten
grandmother's story in which was given the date, loss of life and
circumstances that led to it.
_Lieth Broath, or Quirn._--This is a kind of hand millstone for
grinding corn which formerly could be found in almost every house in
the barony, but at present has almost entirely disappeared.
_Middlemen and the Conacre System._--Middlemen were landlords between
the head landlords and the cultivators. Head landlords with large
properties, wishing to live away in some other country, divided their
properties and let them to persons called "middlemen." The middleman
divided his portion and sublet the same at about treble the rent he
was paying his head landlord. A third middleman would parcel his up
into small divisions and sublet at an enormous profit. With a string
of middlemen between the head landlord and the cultivator, an acre
let by the head landlord to his immediate lessor for five shillings
per acre might cost the cultivator five pounds. But that was not
the worst. Very often a man was required to pay two or three times
for the same patch of ground--even the man paying for his little
"hundred" of ground had sometimes to pay twice for his little patch
of potatoes--because two men would be claiming title to the land.
Then there was the usual staff of office men, rent warners, bog
rangers, bailiffs and under-strappers who claimed tributes as well as
the middlemen. Tenants were called upon to cut, save and draw home
corn, hay, turf and sea manure for nothing, leaving the women and
children attend to the tenant's own crops. Whether the middlemen were
of Irish descent or foreign, Catholic or Protestant it did not matter
much to the tenant, as they were nearly all oppressors of the worse
kind imaginable.[6]
The middleman of the Eighteenth Century were the very scum of society
and the seeds of immorality. They destroyed and brought to sorrow
most young girls that put any confidence in them or entered their
service. Parnell's land agitation destroyed the last of them.
_Molly McGuires._--This name was given to three secret societies
The first was an Irish secret society, formed in or about the year
1833, in the Barony of Farney Co., Monogham, Ireland, to co-operate
with the Ribbon-Men, and was called after C. McGuire, a leader in
the Irish wars of 1641. The object of this society was to resist
the distraining of cattle for rent, then common with landlords and
middlemen. At that time very often a poor tenant had to pay five or
six times for the same piece of ground, for which he had already
paid his immediate lessor, because the immediate lessor, or landlord
failed to pay one of the middlemen or landlords over him. (See
Middlemen.) Distraining a tenant's cattle, impounding them, and
selling them at auction before his eyes, in the name of British law
and justice, for another man's debts, of which he had no knowledge or
control and provided no legal remedy, to him appeared a wicked law.
The McGuires applied the most desperate remedies available. Disguised
as women, they rescued the cattle, flung boiling water and porridge
on bailiffs, clubbed and stoned process servers, broke the locks on
the pounds and released the cattle.
The activities of this society were confined to Ireland. Dressing in
women's clothing caused the name "Molly" to be given to them.
As other new tenant-league societies grew up, they began to decline
about the year 1856.
The second and next Molly McGuires was an Irish-American secret
society, with many branches in the coal mine districts of
Pennsylvania, U. S. A. This society took the name of the Irish
society, but these societies had no other connection whatsoever
with each other, _only in name_. The first qualification required
by the American society was that its members should be Irishmen by
birth, or descent, and also Catholics. This society took an active
part in politics, and had its secret signs and passwords conveyed
to them from England, through a Board of Erin. For being a secret
organization, the Catholic Church declared against its members.
From amongst the local branches of the society in the anthracite coal
mines of Northeastern Pennsylvania another notorious secret criminal
inner ring of Molly McGuires was formed. They converted the local
branches of the Molly McGuires, for their own protection, against the
encroachments of English miners (Cousin Jacks and Cousin Germans
included), on their jobs. Many of these Irish miners, previous to
their coming to America, worked in the coal mines in England. In
the latter country they received very poor treatment. They left
that country carrying with them a deep hatred for anything that was
English. Through secret societies, churches and lodges, to which
bosses and superintendents belonged. English miners were making
their way in amongst the Irish miners and Irishmen discharged. This
was the start of the trouble. Soon the Molly McGuires by violence,
conducted secretly, started at getting rid of superintendents, bosses
and police hostile to them. In face of their condemnation by their
church, they went forward, the most religious dropping away from the
society.
In the war between the North and South, there was an increased
demand for coal. English, Welsh and German miners were sent into the
mines to work, and Irishmen of American birth or who were American
citizens, taken away to fight. Replacing Irishmen that were fighting
for America, with their most hated foes, the English, also with Welsh
and Germans, caused trouble, with the result that they began to
oppose conscription, and some army officers were roughly handled.
From this onward, rough handling, burning, faction fights and murder
went on in the coal mines. The Molly McGuires were blamed for nearly
all crimes, no matter who committed them. On or about the year 1865,
they killed a colliery superintendent, which attracted widespread
attention.
James McParlan, an Irish Catholic detective, joined the society and
became one of its leaders. After three years a member he secured
damaging evidence which led to the execution of the ringleaders and
imprisonment of a large number of the Molly McGuires.
_Moonlighting._--In 1878 this name was assumed by an unknown leader
in this county (Kerry), who wrote threatening letters containing
a diagram of a coffin, skull-bones and a rifle. He signed himself
"Captain Moonlight." Small bands of men, secretly armed and
disguised, went by night and raided the houses of land grabbers,
emergency men and bad land agents. Gladstone and Foster's Coercion
Acts, prohibiting the holding of meetings or allowing the people any
means whatsoever of seeking a redress of their grievances forced this
regrettable but necessary evil. In some cases in those moonlighting
raids lives were taken, and to satisfy the Government and the
ascendency class many innocent persons were hanged and others sent to
penal servitude. The police and landlord under-strappers manufactured
many crimes for which moonlighters and land leaguers were wrongly
blamed and punished.[7]
_National School Teachers Slapping Their Pupils for Speaking
Irish._--The movement for the preservation and revival of the Irish
language put a stop to the National school teachers' habit of beating
their pupils for speaking their native language.
When I was in Old Mexico I found the peons and Indians made use of
a number of words corresponding in sound and meaning to words in the
Irish language.
_Ogham Characters._--These are a species of ancient Irish writings,
marks and lines cut into upright pillar and monumental stones which
are very numerous in Corkaguiny. It is said that the term Ogham was
first applied to the sacred writings of our Druids.
_Orangemen._--These are foreign Irishmen espousing the cause of
William of Orange, who on the 1st of July, 1690, defeated dirty King
James of England at the Battle of the Boyne. About the year 1795
Orangemen began to organize. Their first oaths and declarations were
that they would never rest satisfied until they would be victoriously
knee-deep in Papist blood, i. e., Catholic blood. In suppressing
Irish societies, administering those oaths were also forbidden,
and in 1857 the Lord Chancellor ordered that justices of the peace
should not be members of Orange clubs. Orangemen in their 12th of
July celebrations wrecked Catholic churches and police of the Orange
type in our locality often celebrated the 12th of July by assaulting
civilians, afterwards arresting them.
(See Supplementary History County Kerry for a clear account of the
Battle of the Boyne, the Fall of Limerick and the Broken Treaty of
Limerick.)
_Parnellite Splits._--On the 6th day of December, 1890, this
unfortunate Parnellite split took place. On the 17th of November
of that year a decree of divorce was granted to Captain O'Shea,
separating him from his wife on the grounds of improper conduct with
Parnell. Three days after the decree was pronounced by the court, a
meeting of the Irish Parliamentary party was held in Linster Hall
Dublin. Here Justin McCarthy proposed and Timothy Healy seconded
that Parnell possessed the confidence of the Irish nation and five
days after the Irish Parliamentary party unanimously elected him
their leader. While these proceedings were taking place amongst the
Irish Nationalists, Gladstone addressed a letter to John Morley,
Chief Secretary of Ireland, demanding Parnell's resignation from the
leadership. Parnell refused to yield to Gladstone's dictation.
Immediately the bishops and priests of Ireland were ranked in all
their fury against Parnell and his supporters. During the whole of
the years 1891, 1892 and 1893, almost on every Sunday the priests
from the altars were denouncing the Parnellites. Young priests out
of college were allowed to go to the utmost extremities. The whole
country was very much divided, even members of the same family
differed--the father argued against the son and the son did the
same against the father. One party was called Parnellites and the
other Anti-Parnellites. It was very plain that the Irish people were
very unwilling to throw aside their fallen chief, especially at the
bidding of one of Parnell's former political foes.
Parnell was a Protestant and divorces were pretty numerous in
England, therefore many considered the question outside of the
jurisdiction of the Catholic clergy, while English church and
statesmen could not consistently make such a demand upon Irishmen.
For the first time, here the clergy met serious opposition from the
people. At meetings priests were hooted. Fights with fists and sticks
became frequent.