KERRY ELECTIONS
An election in most places is an occasion for breaking heads, abusing
opponents, and other similar demonstrations of ardent local
philanthropy. Such opportunities are never lost by Kerry men, whose
heads are harder and whose wits are sharper than those of the average
run of humanity. If you are a real Kerry man of respectable convictions,
and self-respecting into the bargain, you will never let the man who is
drinking with you entertain any opinions but your own at election times.
If he contradicts you, it's up with your stick and a crack on his skull,
and as that only tickles him up--having much the effect of a nettle
under a donkey's tail--you then go outside and mutually destroy as much
of each other as can be effected in a fight. Some weeks later, when the
vanquished is able to crawl away from the dispensary doctor, and so save
his own life amid the dire forebodings of that physician, who refuses to
answer for the consequences, you begin to drink with him again just to
show there is no ill-feeling; which of course there is not, if you and
he are both real Kerry men. Naturally, if you get a sullen, revengeful,
calculating Protestant from the North, it's another matter, for he'll be
far too friendly with the constabulary and won't hold with the good old
local ways approved by every Kerry Papist and tolerated by most of the
priests.
In 1851 there was a Kerry election. A Protestant candidate stood, and so
did one who in those days was a Whig. I went stoutly for the
Protectionist, but the priests plumped for the Free Trader, and their
congregations have been regretting it ever since.
One tenant was driving in a gig with me to the poll when a priest passed
me on the road and said to my tenant:--
'May the blast of the Almighty be upon you, for I know you are being
taken to vote the wrong way.'
The tenant got very nervous, for in those times it was generally
believed that the priests had power to change men into frogs and toads,
a superstition by no means obsolete even now in lone districts. However,
I took him along very easily, giving him the benefit of the roll of my
tongue as to what he should do, and before he reached the polling-booth
he recovered and voted for the Tory.
A Mr. Scully from Tipperary was the Whig candidate, and the family was
not popular in its own county.
A Cork man, making inquiries of a Tipperary man about him, was
answered:--
'I don't know this gentleman personally, but I believe we have already
shot the best of the family.'
Mr. Scully was a very amusing man, and in the House of Commons he used
to go by the nickname of 'old Skull.'
Lord Monk accosted him by this name one night, and Mr. Scully replied:--
'If you have taken the "e y" off your own name, my lord, it is no reason
you should do it off mine.'
Here is another story of him.
Mr. Dillwyn said to him, a Roman Catholic:--'I have lived sixty years in
this world, and I don't yet know the difference between the two
religions.'
'Bydad,' retorted Scully, 'you will not have been five minutes in the
other without finding it out.'
Shortly after the franchise was enlarged--which threw Imperial
Parliament at the mercy of the ignorant--old Lord Kenmare died and the
present peer was called up to the House of Lords.
Lord Kenmare was the most popular landlord in Kerry, and he selected a
Roman Catholic cousin of his, Mr. Dease, to stand for the county, Mr.
Roland Blennerhasset, a young Protestant landlord, being started against
him in support of Home Rule principles.
The Roman Catholic bishop and most of the priests backed Mr. Dease, but
the Home Rule candidate beat him by three to one. Some of the priests,
who were very obnoxious to the people, supported Mr. Blennerhasset, and
were then idolised, whilst a very popular parish priest, who canvassed
for Mr. Dease, had to run for his life.
From thenceforth no one but a Home Rule candidate had any chance in
Munster, and Mr. Roland Blennerhasset, having seen the error of his
ways, afterwards became a Unionist candidate in England. He is a very
clever man, who was quite young then, but has now blossomed into a K.C.
in London, and is mighty shrewd about speculations.
The election was great fun except for the stones and bricks, of which
enough were thrown about to build a city without foundations. Mr. Dease
got a blow on his ribs at Castle Island, which told on his health, and
he died soon afterwards. He was a brother of Sir Gerald Dease, and a man
very much liked.
It was during this election that I was fired at one night at Aghadoe,
returning from Puck Fair at Killorghin. A rumour was started that it was
the work of one of the tenants on Sir George Colthurst's Cork estates,
and the Tralee correspondent of the _Examiner_ telegraphed his belief in
this, adding 'so repugnant are Kerry men to these dastardly outrages.'
They took to them as greedily as a duck to water in later times, as all
the world knows; and in the light of subsequent events it is delightful
to remember that the _Freeman_ stated, 'All condemn this dastardly act,
for Mr. Hussey is universally respected.'
It atoned for this lapse into truth by subsequently taking my name in
vain hundreds of times in the bad periods that were ahead.
There had been a libel case between the Rev. Denis O'Donoghue, parish
priest of Ardfert, and myself. The address of this cleric in proposing
Mr. Blennerhasset at the nomination had annoyed those he assailed
intensely. Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after
that I strained every nerve to defeat Father O'Donoghue's nominee.
This is an extract from his speech at Ardfert:--
'Sam Hussey is a vulture with a broken beak, and he laid his voracious
talons on the consciences of the voters. (Boos.) The ugly scowl of Sam
Hussey came down upon them. He wanted to try the influence of his dark
nature on the poor people. (Groans). Where was the legitimate influence
of such a man? Was it in the white terror he diffused? Was it not the
espionage, the network of spies with which he surrounded his lands? He
denied that a man who managed property had for that reason a shadow of a
shade of influence to justify him in asking a tenant for his vote. What
had they to thank him for?'
A voice: 'Rack rents.'
'They knew the man from his boyhood, from his _gossoonhood_. He knew
him when he began with a _collop_ of sheep as his property in the world.
(Laughter.) Long before he got God's mark on him. It was not the man's
fault but his misfortune that he got no education. (Laughter.) He had in
that parish schoolmasters who could teach him grammar for the next ten
years. The man was in fact a Uriah Heep among Kerry landlords.
(Cheers.)'
The result of this and other incentives to irritability was that the
voters for Mr. Dease had to be escorted by troops and constabulary.
The sporting proclivities had already been shown over a race. In the
County Club at Tralee there was an altercation between Mr. Sandes and a
leading 'Deasite' as to the rival merits of a bay mare belonging to one
and a chestnut horse owned by the other.
Quoth Mr. Sandes:--
'I'll run you a two mile steeplechase for a hundred guineas if you like,
and I'll call my horse Home Rule--do you call yours Deasite; each to
ride his own horse.'
No Kerry man could refuse such a challenge, and the race excited more
interest than the election.
Mr. Sandes won, leaving 'Deasite' nowhere, and this helped Mr.
Blennerhasset to head the poll.
More than one man is asserted to have voted for:--'Him you know that me
landlord wants me to vote for.'
But I should say several dozen voted for:--
'Him you know that the priest, God bless him, tells me to vote for.'
The libel over which the action arose was alleged to have been published
in the _Cork Examiner_, and the words complained of were pretty sturdy.
The jury returned a verdict of one farthing for the plaintiff priest,
and I do not think he derived as much advertisement out of it as Miss
Marie Corelli obtained from a similar coin of the realm.
Of course all this should have shown me that I had in my own interests
better keep clear of Kerry politics, but after I had bought the Harenc
estate, I stood for Tralee as a Tory against The O'Donoghue, who was a
Nationalist. I never supposed I was going to get in, but I really had a
capital run for the Parliamentary Handicap, though I was weighted by
political convictions and penalised by my creed. The priests made a most
active set against me. There were only fifty Protestants on the
register, and yet I managed to get one hundred and thirty votes, for
which suffrages some eighty honest men must have been well worrited in
the confessional.
The O'Donoghue polled one hundred and eighty votes, and I believe a good
many of his supporters had strong views on the currency question, and he
was backed by a wealthy merchant. The constituency is now merged into
the county, and the remotest chance of returning a rational member is
now at an end.
The O'Donoghue did not stand after the merging of the constituency,
though he was well used to electioneering work and had fought me very
pleasantly, with as much devil about him as would make an angel
palatable.
I did not much care for the whole thing. Still I was always a bit of a
stormy petrel rejoicing in a gale, and my capacity has not waned even in
my eightieth year.
The mob indulged in some lively work. A good many windows of houses
belonging to my supporters were broken and a man stabbed.
The polling day was made the occasion of a public holiday, which meant
that the bulk of the population was imbibing a great deal more than was
compatible with the laws of equilibrium. Some amusement was caused by
the panic of The O'Donoghue's supporters at the votes I was getting, and
presently they brought up in cars one poor man in an advanced stage of
consumption, and another unable to walk from old age.
It was a wearisome day to me; but before its close it became abundantly
evident that if the electors were allowed to exercise a free discretion
and vote according to their consciences, I should have headed the poll
by a large majority. However in Ireland man proposes and the priest
disposes.
At a meeting of the Conservative electors in Cork, Mr. Standford read a
telegram announcing the return of The O'Donoghue in Tralee, which was
received with hisses. He said the reason I had stood there was a
requisition, signed by Sir Henry Donovan, in the presence of nine grand
jurors of the County of Kerry, calling on me to do so. Sir Henry Donovan
had since turned over to The O'Donoghue from the man he had forced into
the field. Now that would teach them not to be fooled by Liberal
promises. It almost made him believe no truth, no honour, and no
sincerity existed among their opponents.
This was received with applause, which was renewed with laughter when
Mr. Young observed:--
'I will make one remark. I think Sir Henry Donovan and The O'Donoghue
are well met.'
To show that strong views in my favour were not confined to Protestants,
I may quote the following letter written from the Augustinian Convent in
Drogheda by J.A. Anderson, O.S.A.:--
'If the electors of Tralee return Mr. O'Donoghue (_alias_ The
O'Donoghue) as their representative in the coming Parliament, they will
be false to Ireland, false to the men that galvanised the dead body that
Gavan Duffy left on "the dissecting table" before starting for
Australia, and they will have the honour (?) of returning to Parliament
the greatest political renegade to Irish nationality that this
generation has known.'
A lady has recently drawn my attention to a footnote in Mr. Lecky's
_History of Ireland_, where is quoted from a letter of my ancestor,
Colonel Maurice Hussey, the following opinion:--
'It--i.e. Tralee--was a nest of thieves and smugglers, and so it always
will be until nine parts of ten of O'Donoghue's old followers be
proclaimed and hanged on gibbets on the spot.'
So when O'Donoghues have troubled me, it is a case of history repeating
itself, and if the percentage of the followers of the modern chieftain
had been 'removed'--as the modern phrase in Ireland ran--according to
the manner advocated by my ancestor, I could have voted in Parliament
against dismembering the Empire to gratify the eagerness of an old man
to truckle to the traitors of the country intrusted to his care.