session, but as it resulted in failure, was popular with no party, and
failed to pass; it need not be entered into even briefly. 1874 saw a
dissolution of Parliament and a General Election, which resulted in the
defeat of the Liberals, and the return of the Conservatives to office.
Before this, a new Irish constitutional party pledged to the principle
of Home Government, had grown up in the House of Commons, at first under
the leadership of Mr. Butt, afterwards with new aims and widely
different tactics under that of Mr. Parnell. In 1879 an agrarian
movement was set on foot in Ireland, chiefly through the instrumentality
of Mr. Davitt, which has since become so widely known as the Land
League. It was almost immediately joined by the more extreme members of
the Irish Parliamentary party. Meetings were held in all directions, and
an amount of popular enthusiasm aroused which the more purely political
question had never succeeded in awakening. Subscriptions poured in from
America. A season of great scarcity, and in some districts of partial
famine, had produced an unusual amount of distress, and this and the
unsettled state of the Land Question all helped to foster the rising
excitement. The country grew more and more disturbed. Several murders
and a number of agrarian outrages were committed, and the necessity of
strengthening the hands of the executive began to be felt by both the
chief political parties alike.
In 1880 the Liberal party returned to power after the General Election,
and 1881 witnessed the passage through Parliament of two important Irish
measures. The first of these was a Protection of Life and Property Bill
brought in in January by Mr. Forster, then Chief Secretary of Ireland.
As was to be expected, this was vehemently opposed by the Nationalist
members, who retarded it by every means in their power, one famous
sitting of the House on this occasion lasting for forty-two hours, from
five o'clock on the Monday afternoon to nine o'clock on the Wednesday
following, and then only being brought to an end by the authority of the
Speaker. By March, however, the Bill passed, and in the following month,
April 7th, a new Irish Land Act was brought forward by Mr. Gladstone,
and was passed after much opposition the following autumn.
The full scope and purport of this Act it is far beyond the limits of
these few remaining pages to enter upon. Although, to some extent an
outcome of the Act of 1870, it cannot in strictness be called a mere
development or completion of it, being in many respects based upon
entirely new principles. The most salient of these are what are known as
the "three Fs," namely--Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent, to be decided by a
Land Court, and Free Sale. As regards the last two, it has been pointed
out with some force that the one practically does away with the other,
the only person benefited being the immediate occupier, at whose
departure that fierce competitive desire for the land which is the real
root of the whole difficulty being allowed freer play than ever. With
regard to the first, its effect may be briefly stated as that of
reducing the owner to the position of a rent charger or annuitant upon
what had before been his own estate, thereby depriving him--even where
want of means did not effectually do so--of all desire to expend capital
upon what had henceforth ceased to be his property, and over the
management of which he had almost wholly lost control. That this is a
change of a very large and sweeping character it is needless to say.
Henceforward ownership of land in Ireland is no longer ownership in the
ordinary sense of the word. It is an ownership of two persons instead of
one, and a divided ownership, even where two people work together
harmoniously, is as most of us are aware, a very difficult relationship
to maintain, and is apt to be followed sooner or later by the
effacements of the rights of one or the other. How these diverging
rights are finally to be adjusted is at this moment the problem of
problems in Ireland, and still imperatively awaits solution.
In October of the same year, 1881, Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, and other
principal members of the Land League, were arrested by order of the
Government, and lodged in Kilmainhan gaol, an event announced the same
evening by Mr. Gladstone at the Guildhall banquet. The following May the
Liberal Government resolved however, rather suddenly, to reverse their
previous policy, and the Irish leaders were set at liberty. About the
same time Lord Cowper and Mr. Forster, the Lord-Lieutenant and Chief
Secretary, resigned, and were replaced by Lord Spencer and Lord
Frederick Cavendish, who arrived in Ireland avowedly upon a mission of
conciliation.
The day of their arrival--May 6, 1882--has been made only too memorable
to the whole world by the appalling tragedy which took place the same
evening in the Phoenix Park, where Lord Frederick and Mr. Burke, the
Under Secretary, while walking together in the clear dusk, were murdered
by a party of miscreants, who escaped before any suspicion of what had
occurred had been aroused, even in the minds of those who had actually
witnessed the struggle from a distance. For many months no clue to the
perpetrators of the deed was discoverable, and it seemed to be only too
likely to be added to the long list of crimes for which no retribution
has ever been exacted. Happily for Irish credit this was not the case,
and six months later, in the month of January, 1883, a series of
inquiries carried on in Dublin Castle led to the arrest of no less than
seventeen men, all of whom were lodged in prison and bail for them
refused. Amongst these was a man of somewhat higher social standing than
the rest, a tradesman, and member of the Dublin Council, the notorious
James Carey, who not long afterwards turned Queen's evidence, and it was
mainly through his evidence, supplemented by that of two others, that
the rest of the gang were convicted. At the trial it was proved that the
murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish had formed no part of the original
scheme, and had merely arisen accidentally out of the circumstance of
his having joined Mr. Burke, who, upon the resignation of Mr. Forster,
the Chief Secretary, had been selected by the Invincibles as their next
victim. Conviction was without difficulty obtained against all the
prisoners, and five were shortly afterwards hanged, the remainder
receiving sentence of penal servitude, either for life or long periods.
Carey's own end was a sufficiently dramatic one. He was kept in prison,
as the only way of ensuring his safety until means could be found to get
him out of the country, and was finally shipped some months later to the
Cape. On his way there he was shot dead by a man called O'Donnell, who
appears to have gone out with him for the purpose. His fate could
certainly awaken no pity in the most merciful breast. By his own
confession not only had he to a great degree planned the murder and
helped to draw the others into it, but had actually selected the very
weapon by which it was accomplished, so that of all the miscreants
engaged in the perpetration he was perhaps the deepest dyed and the
most guilty.
Since then, and indeed all along, the struggle in Ireland itself has
been almost wholly an agrarian one. The love of and desire for the land,
rather than for any particular political development, is what there
dominates the situation. A heavy fall of prices has led to a widespread
refusal to pay rent, save at a considerable abatement upon the already
reduced Government valuations. Where this has been refused a deadlock
has set in, rents in many cases have not been paid at all, and eviction
has in consequence been resorted to. Eviction, whether carried out in
West Ireland or East London, is a very ugly necessity, and one, too,
that is indelibly stamped with a taint of inhumanity. At the last
extremity, it is, however, the only one open to any owner, _qua_ owner,
let his political sympathies or proclivities be what they may, so that
it does not necessarily argue any double portion of original sin even on
the part of that well-laden pack-horse of politics--the Irish
landlord--to say that his wits have not so far been equal to the task of
dispensing with it.
Within the last two years only one question has risen to the surface of
politics which gravely affects the destinies of Ireland, but that one is
of so vast and all-important a character that it cannot be evaded. The
question I mean, of course, of Home Rule. Complicated as its issues are,
embittered as the controversy it has awakened, dark still as are its
destinies, its history as a piece of projected, and so far unsuccessful,
legislation has at least the merit of being short and easily stated. In
the month of December, 1885, just after the close of the general
election, it began to be rumoured as forming part of the coming
programme of the Liberal leader. On April 8, 1886, a Bill embodying it
was brought forward in the House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone; upon June
7th, it was rejected upon the second reading by a majority of thirty,
and at the general election which followed was condemned by a large
majority of the constituencies.
And afterwards? What follows? What is its future destined to be? Will it
vanish away, will it pass into new phases, or will some form of it
eventually receive the sanction of the nation? These are Sphinx
questions, which one may be excused from endeavouring to answer, seeing
that the strongest and most far-reaching heads are at this moment intent
upon them--not, so far as can be seen, with any strikingly successful
result. The Future is a deep mine, and we have not yet struck even a
spade into it.
In every controversy, no matter how fierce the waves, how thick the air
with contending assertions, there is almost always, however, some fact,
or some few facts, which seem to rise like rocks out of the turmoil, and
obstinately refuse to be washed or whittled away. The chief of these, in
this case, is the geographical position, or rather juxtaposition, of the
two islands. Set before a stranger to the whole Irish problem--if so
favoured an individual exists upon the habitable globe--a map of the
British islands, and ask him whether it seems to him inevitable that
they should remain for ever united, and we can scarcely doubt that his
reply would be in the affirmative. This being so, we have at least it
will be said one fact, one sea-rock high above the reach of waves or
spray. But Irishmen have been declared by a great and certainly not an
unfavourable critic--Mr. Matthew Arnold--to be "eternal rebels against
the despotism of fact." If this is so--and who upon the Irish side of
the channel can wholly and absolutely deny the assertion?--then our one
poor standing-point is plucked from under our feet, and we are all
abroad upon the waves again. Will Home Rule or would Home Rule, it has
been asked, recognize this fact as one of the immutable ones, or would
it sooner or later incline to think that with a little determination, a
little manipulation, the so-called fact would politely cease to be a
fact at all? It is difficult to say, and until an answer is definitely
received it does not perhaps argue any specially sloth-like clinging to
the known in preference to the unknown to admit that there is for
ordinary minds some slight craning at the fence, some not altogether
unnatural alarm as to the ground that is to be found on the other side
of it. "Well, how do you feel about Home Rule now that it seems to be
really coming?" some one inquired last spring, of an humble but
life-long Nationalist. "'Deed, sir, to tell the truth, I feel as if I'd
been calling for the moon all me life and was told it was coming down
this evening into me back garden!" was the answer. It is not until a
great change is actually on top of us, till the gulf yawns big and black
under our very eyes, that we fully realize what it means or what it may
come to mean. The old state of things, we then begin to say to
ourselves, was really very inconvenient, very trying to all our tempers
and patience, but at least we know the worst of it. Of the untravelled
future we know nothing. It fronts us, with hands folded, smiling
blankly. It may be a great deal better than we expect, but, on the other
hand, it may be worse, and in ways, too, which as yet we hardly foresee.
Whatever else Home Rule may, would, could, or should be, one thing
friends and foes alike may agree to admit, and that is that it will mark
an entirely new departure--a departure so new that no illustration drawn
from the last century, or from any other historical period, is of much
avail in enabling us to picture it to ourselves. It will be no
resumption, no mere continuation of anything that has gone before, but a
perfectly fresh beginning. A beginning, it may be asked, of what?
LIX.
CONCLUSION.
"Concluded not completed," is the verdict of Carlyle upon one of his
earlier studies, and "concluded not completed," conscience is certainly
apt to mutter at the close of so necessarily inadequate a summary as
this. Much of this inadequacy, it may fairly be confessed, is
individual, yet a certain amount is also inherent in the very nature of
the task itself. In no respect does this inadequacy press with a more
penitential weight than in the case of those heroes whose names spring
up at intervals along our pages, but which are hardly named before the
grim necessities of the case force us onwards, and the hero and his
doings are left behind.
Irish heroes, for one reason or another, have come off, it must be
owned, but poorly before the bar of history. Either their deeds having
been told by those in whose eyes they found a meagre kindness, or else
by others who, with the best intentions possible, have so inflated the
hero's bulk, so pared away his merely human frailties, that little
reality remains, and his bare name is as much as even a well-informed
reader pretends to be acquainted with. Comparing them with what are
certainly their nearest parallels--the heroes and semi-heroes of Scotch
history--the contrast strikes one in an instant, yet there is no reason
in the nature of things that this should be. Putting aside those whose
names have got somewhat obscured by the mists of the past, and putting
aside those nearer to us who stand upon what is still regarded as
debateable ground, there are no lack of Irish names which should be as
familiar to the ear as those of any Bruce or Douglas of them all. The
names of Tyrone, of James Fitzmaurice, of Owen Roe O'Neill, and of
Sarsfield, to take only a few and almost at random, are all those of
gallant men, struggling against dire odds, in causes which, whether they
happen to fit in with our particular sympathies or not, were to them
objects of the purest, most genuine enthusiasm. Yet which of these, with
the doubtful exception of the last, can be said to have yet received
anything like a fair meed of appreciation? To live again in the memory
of those who come after them may not be--let us sincerely hope that it
is not--essential to the happiness of those who are gone, but it is at
least a tribute which the living ought to be called upon to pay, and to
pay moreover ungrudgingly as they hope to have it paid to them in
their turn.
Glancing with this thought in our minds along that lengthened chronicle
here so hastily overrun, many names and many strangely-chequered
destinies rise up one by one before us; come as it were to judgment, to
where we, sitting in state as "Prince Posterity," survey the varied
field, and judge them as in our wisdom we think fit, assigning to this
one praise, to that one blame, to another a judicious admixture of
praise and blame combined. Not, however, it is to be hoped, forgetting
that our place in the same panorama waits for another audience, and that
the turn of this generation has still to come.
AUTHORITIES.
* * * * *
Adamnan, "Life of St. Columba" (_trans_.).
Arnold (Matthew), "On the Study of Celtic Literature."
Bagwell, "Ireland under the Tudors."
Barrington (Sir Jonah), "Personal Recollections," "Rise and Fall
of the Irish Nation."
Brewer, "Introduction to the Carew Calendar of State Papers."
Bright (Rt. Hon. J.), "Speeches."
Burke (Edmund), "Tracts on the Popery Laws," "Speeches and Letters."
Carlyle, "Letters and Speeches of Cromwell."
Carew, "Pacata Hibernia."
Cloncurry, "Life and Times of Lord Cloncurry."
Clogy, "Life and Times of Bishop Bedell."
Cornwallis Correspondence.
Croker (Rt. Hon. W.), "Irish, Past and Present."
Davis (Thomas), "Literary and Historical Essays."
Davies (Sir John), "A Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was
never Subdued."
Dennis, "Industrial Ireland."
Domenach (Abbé), "Larerte Erinn."
Dymock (John), "A Treatise on Ireland."
Duffy (Sir Charles Gavin), "Four Years of Irish History."
Essex, "Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of."
Froude (J.A.), "History of England," "The English in Ireland."
Giraldus Cambrensis,
"Conquest of Ireland," Edited by J. Dimock,
Master of the Rolls Series, 1867;
"Topography of Ireland," Edited by J. Dimock,
Master of the Rolls Series, 1867.
Green, "History of the English People."
Grattan, "Life and Speeches of Rt. Hon. Henry Grattan."
Halliday, "Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin."
Hennessy (Sir Pope), "Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland."
Hardiman, "History of Galway."
Howth (Book of), from O'Flaherty's "Iar Connaught."
Joyce, "Celtic Romances."
Kildare (Marquis of), "The Earls of Kildare."
Lodge, "Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica."
Lecky, "History of England in the Eighteenth Century,"
and "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland."
Leland, "History of Ireland."
Maine (Sir H.), "Early History of Institutions,"
"Village Communities, East and West."
Max Müller's Lectures.
M'Gee (T. Darcy), "History of Ireland."
McGeoghegan, "History of Ireland."
Mitchell (John), "History of Ireland."
Montalembert, "Monks of the West."
Murphy (Rev. Denis), "Cromwell in Ireland."
Madden, "History of Irish Periodical Literature."
McCarthy (Justin), "History of Our Own Times."
O'Connor (T.P.), "The Parnell Movement."
O'Flaherty, "Iar Connaught."
Petty (Sir W.), "Political Anatomy of Ireland."
Petrie (Dr.), "Round Towers of Ireland."
Prendergast, "Tory War in Ulster,"
"The Cromwellian Settlements."
Richey (A.G.), "Lectures on the History of Ireland."
Smith (Goldwin), "Irish History and Irish Character."
Spenser (Edmund), "View of the State of Ireland."
Stokes (Miss), "Early Christian Architecture of Ireland."
Stokes (Professor George), "Ireland and the Celtic Church."
Tone (Wolfe), "Autobiography."
Vere de (Aubrey), "Queen Meave and other Legends of the Heroic Age,"
and "Legends of St. Patrick,"
Walpole, "Kingdom of Ireland."
Webb (Alfred), "Compendium of Irish Biography."
Wilde (Sir W.), "Lough Corrib,"
and "The Boyne and the Blackwater."
Young (Arthur), "Tour in Ireland."
INDEX.
Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 359
Act of Supremacy, 152
Act of Uniformity, 278
Adamnan, 43
Adare, 188
Affane, battle of, 183
Aidan (Saint) and Irish monk, 45
Alcansar, battle of, 184
Allen, an Irish priest, 184
Allen, hill of, 14
Allen, John, Archbishop of Dublin, 146
Allen, the Fenian prisoner, 406
Andrews, Dean of Limerick, 237
Angareta, mother of Giraldus, 78
Angelsea, settlement of, 67
Anglo-Norman invasion, 76
Annals of Lough Cè, 109
Anselm (Saint), Archbishop of Canterbury, 81
Arctic hare, the, 4
Ard-Reagh, or Over-king, 91
Ardscul, battle of, 108
Arklow Head, 93
Armagh, Book of, 33
Armagh, cathedral of, burnt by Thorgist, 55
Armdu, a Viking, 68
Arran, isles of, 38
Art McMurrough, or Art Kavanagh, 119;
master of Leinster, 119;
has recourse to Black-rent, 123;
entertained by Richard II., 120;
knighted, 120;
thrown into prison, 120;
released, 120;
he hastens to Meath, 121;
defeats the royal army, 121;
he again meets Richard II. in battle, 121;
victorious, 123
Ascendency, the Protestant, 307
Ashton, Sir Arthur, a royalist officer, 261
Askeaton, castle of, 187;
destroyed, 188
Association, Loyal National Repeal, 386
Attainder, Bill of, drawn and passed, 287
Athenry, battle of, 110;
enfeebled state, 175
Athlone, fortress of, 104, 292
Athy, bridge of, 128
Aughrim, battle of, 293
Augustine (Saint), 44
D'Aguilar, Don Juan, 215
D'Avaux, Count, envoy to James II., 283
B
_Baculum Cristatum_, or Staff of St. Patrick, 158
Baggotrath, battle of, 260
Bagnall, Sir Henry, 198;
Tyrone marries his sister, 201;
becomes his enemy, 201;
he marches against Tyrone, 204;
he is shot, 205;
his army defeated, 205;
fort of Blackwater surrendered, 205
Ballinasloe, town of, 293
Baltimore, stronghold of pirates,127
Baltinglass, Lord, 189
Bannockburn, battle of, 108;
its effects on Ireland, 108
Bannow, bay of, or "FitzStephen's stride," 83
Barnabie FitzPatrick, 157
Barries descendants of Nesta, 76
Barri, Robert de, 83
Barrington's Bridge, 107
Barrymore, Lord, 141
Beare O'Sullivan, 215
Bedell, bishop of Kilmore, 245
Beltane, Celtic festival of 1st May, 14
Belgic, colony of, 6
Bellingham, Sir Edward, 162
Belrath, castle of, 141
Ben Edar, now Howth, 17
Benignus, first disciple of St. Patrick, 35
Benturb, battle of, 255
Bermingham, Sir John de, victor of Athenry, 110, 111
Beresford, Chief Commissioner of Customs, 351
Bernard, Saint, of Clairvaux, 81
Betas, Celtic houses of hospitality, 14
Black-rent, use of, 119, 123, 129
Blackwater river, 183;
battle of, 203
Blaney, Mr., member for Monaghan, 243
Book of Aicill, Aryan law, 25
Book of Armagh, 33
Book of Howth, the, 140
Borough, Lord, deputy, 203
Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, 304, 320
Boyle, primate, 280
Boyne, battle of the, 288
Bramhall, primate, 277
"Brass Band," 403
Brehons, judges or law makers, 19, 25
Brian Boru, or Boruma, 60, 61;
he defeats the Danes, 61;
seizes throne of Cashel, 63;
over-runs Leinster, 63;
subdues Ossory, 63;
attacks Meath, 63;
burns the stronghold of Tara, 63;
becomes Ard-Reagh in Malachy's place, 63;
he is called Brian of the Tribute, 64;
he becomes master of Ireland, 64;
his victory at Clontarf, 66;
he marches against Brodar, 68, 69;
is killed, 69;
mourned and buried, 69, 70.
Bridget (Saint), 47;
sacred fire of, 47
Brodar, a Viking, 66;
killed Brian, 67
Brown, Archbishop of Meath, 159;
deprived, 161
Bruce, Edward, in Ireland, 107;
battle of Bannockburn, 108;
its effects, 108;
Bruce lands at Carrickfergus, 108;
defeats Richard de Burgh, 108;
defeats Sir Edmund Butler at Ardscul, 108;
victorious at Kells, 108;
meets his brother, 108;
is crowned king, 109;
devastates the country, 109;
defeated and killed at Dunkalk, 110
Bruce, King Robert of Scotland, 108
Burren, district of the, in North Clare, 269
Burgh, Sir William FitzAldelm de, 103
Burgundy, Duchess of, 132, 136
Burke, Edmund, 330
Burke, Mr. Thomas, murder of, 411
C