Newcastlewest--I can vouch for his beer--also held a small farm of
forty-nine acres from the Earl of Devon, for which he paid the modest
rent of L11 10s. per annum--the land maintaining sixteen cows and
calves, which, on the usual local computation of L10 profit on each
cow, would leave a gain of L148 10s.--not a bad investment, as Irish
farming goes. So it was considered, and when the tenant-right was
announced as for sale by auction, two cousins of Dore, who held farms
contiguous, agreed to jointly bid for the tenant-right, and having
secured the land, to arrange its partition between themselves. They
went to L400, but this was not regarded as enough, and the
tenant-right was for a specified time held over for purchase by
private agreement. A farmer named William Quirke offered L590, which
was accepted, and the money paid. After this, the two cousins came
forward and said they would purchase the tenant-right, offering L40
more than Quirke had paid. They were told that they were too late, and
the Earl's agent (Mr. Curling) said nothing could now be done. This
was on the 13th of the present month of April. On the 14th, Mr. James
Cooke, Lord Devon's bailiff, was seen showing the purchaser Quirke
over the newly-acquired holding. Poor Quirke little knew what was at
that moment hanging over him. He had not long to wait. The dastard
demon of moonlight ruffianism was on his track.
Quirke had a son aged fourteen years, but looking two years younger, a
simple peasant lad, who cannot have injured his country very much. He
was tending a cow, which required watching, his father and mother
taking their rest while the child sat out the lonely hours in the
cowhouse. He heard something, and listened with all his ears. Not
voices, but a subdued whispering. It was the dead hour of night, two
or half-past two, and the boy was frightened. The place is lonely,
seven miles or more from Newcastlewest, and up towards the mountains.
He listened and listened, and again heard the mysterious sounds. He
says he "thought it was the fairies." He stole from the byre and went
to the house. A horrible dread had crept over him, and father and
mother were there. As he opened the door a terrible blow from behind
struck him down. He was not stunned, though felled by the butt-end of
a gun. They beat and kicked him as he lay. He gave an anguished cry.
The mother heard and recognised her boy's voice, and, waking the
father, said "Go down, they're killing my lad." The old man, for he is
an old man, went down the stairs naked and unarmed. The foul marauders
met him half-way up, and served him as they had served the boy,
throwing him down, kicking him, and beating him with butt-ends of
guns; with one terrible blow breaking three of his ribs; and saying,
"Give it up, give it up." He said he would "give it up"; promised by
all he held sacred, begged hard for his life, and implored them at
least to spare the young lad. Their reply to this was to fire a charge
of shot into the boy's legs, a portion of the charge entering the
limbs of an old woman--his grandmother, I think--who was feebly trying
to shield the lad. This was such excellent sport that more was thought
expedient. A charge of shot was fired into the father's legs, and as
one knee-joint is injured, the elder Quirke's condition is precarious
even without his broken ribs and other injuries. The cowardly hounds
then left, in their horrid disguise adding a new terror to the lonely
night. The evening's entertainment was not yet over. They crossed a
couple of fields to a house where dwelt Quirke's married son. They
burst open the door of his cottage and dragged the young fellow--he is
about twenty-five--from his bed, beating him sorely, and in the
presence of his wife firing a charge of shot into his legs. Then they
went home, each man to his virtuous couch, to dream fair dreams of the
coming Paradise, when they and their kind may work their own sweet
will, free from the fear of a hireling constabulary, and under the
aegis of a truly national senate, given to a grateful country by a
Grand Old Man.
The Quirkes know their assailants, but they will not tell. "What good
would it do me to have men imprisoned?" says William Quirke, senior.
"My lad's life might pay for it, and perhaps my own." The most
influential people of the district have remonstrated with him, argued,
persuaded, all in vain. William Quirke has a wish to remain in this
sublunary sphere. His spirit is not anxious to take unto itself the
wings of a dove, that it may fly away and be at rest. Like the dying
Methodist, whose preacher reminded him of the beauties of Paradise, he
likes "about here pretty well." Mr. Heard, Divisional Commissioner in
charge of the constabulary organisation of the Counties of Cork,
Limerick, and Kerry can get nothing out of William Quirke.
County-inspector Moriarty can stir nothing, nor Major Rolleston,
Resident Magistrate, nor Inspectors Wright, Pattison, and Huddy, all
of whom have done their level best. These gentlemen assert that
obviously Quirke knows the moonlighters, and for my own part, I am
certain of it. The married son is equally dumb. "They were disguised,"
he says. "But you would recognise their voices." Then comes the
strangest assertion, "They never spoke a word." In other words, he
affirms that a number of men, not less than seven or eight, burst open
his door, dragged him from bed, maltreated and shot him, to the
accompaniment of his wife's terrified screaming and his own
protestations, without uttering a single syllable! The bold
Gladstonians whose influence removed Mr. Balfour from office and
delivered the country into ruffian hands, will say: And serve the
people right! If they will not bear witness let the victims suffer.
You cannot help people who will not help themselves. The police are
there, the magistrates are there, the prisons are there, the hangman,
if need be, is there. If they will not avail themselves of the
protection provided, let them suffer. Let them go at it. All their own
fault. Nobody but themselves to blame.
All very plausible and reasonable--in theory. Let us look a little
closer into this matter. What does William Quirke say:--"Nobody can
help an Irish farmer in a lonely part of Ireland. There are too many
ways of getting at him. Suppose I gave such evidence as would satisfy
anybody--I do not say I could--I don't know anything; but suppose I
knew and told, would a Limerick jury convict? Certainly not. Everybody
knows that. The police, the magistrates, will tell you that, every one
of them. Nobody will say anything else. Then, why rouse more enmity? I
shall give up the land even if I lose the money, the savings of a
life-time, added to a loan, which I can repay in time. That is
settled. What good would the land do me, once I were dead? I value my
life more than my money, and more especially do I think of those
belonging to me. Suppose I held on, and kept the land. Every time the
lad went out I'd expect him to be brought in shot to his mother and
me. And when I saw the lad's dead face, what would I think? And what
would I say when his mother turned round and said, 'Ye have the land,
haven't ye, William?' Our lives would not be worth twopence if I held
on. Do you remember Carey, the informer? The British Empire couldn't
protect him, though it shipped him across the world. How would I be
among the mountains here? I could be shot going to or coming from
market, my cattle houghed or mutilated, nobody would buy from me,
nobody would sell to me, nobody would work on my farm. My stacks would
be burnt. Look at the hay burnt in the last few weeks! You say I'd get
a presentment against the county--and if I did I'd have to wait till
next March for the money. Where's the capital to carry on? Suppose I
wanted thirty tons of hay between this and that. That would cost L90.
Where would I get the money? But that's not it. Life is dear, and life
might at any moment be taken. If my stacks were burnt in July I'd have
to wait a year for my money. I'd be cut off from all communication
with the people, and shunned as if I'd the plague. If I went to market
the people would leave the road to me, would cross over to the other
side when they saw me coming. You never saw boycotting; you don't know
what it means."
In a lonely stretch of gorse-bordered road, steep and rough, I came
upon two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, with rifles,
sword-bayonets, and batons. We had a chat, and I examined their short
Sniders while they admired the humble Winchester I carried for
company, and which on one occasion had acted like a charm. They
carried buckshot cartridges and ball, and had no objection to express
their views. "Balfour was the man to keep the country quiet. Two
resident magistrates could convict, and the blackguards knew that, if
caught, it was all up with them. They are the most cowardly vermin on
the face of the earth, for although if any of our men (who never go
singly, but always in twos or threes) were to appear unarmed, they'd
be murdered at sight. Yet although they often fire on us, they mostly
do it from such distances that their bullets have no effect, so that
they can run away the moment they pull the trigger. Lately things have
been looking rather blue over there." One pointed to the hills
dividing the county from Kerry. "The Kerry men are getting rifles. I
know the 'ping' of the brutes only too well. Let them get a few men
who know their weapons, and we'll be potted at five hundred yards
easily enough. Yes, they have rifles now, and what for? To shoot
sparrows? No. You can't guess? Give it up? Ye do? Then I'll tell you.
To carry out the Home Rule Bill. Yes, I do think so. Will you tell me
this? Who will in future collect rates and taxes? The tenants do not
think they will have any more rent to pay. Lots of them will tell you
that. These very men have the members of the Irish Parliament in their
hands. That is; they can return whomsoever they choose. The
representation of the country is in their hands. And the priests agree
with them. No difference there, their object is one and the same, and
when the priests and the farmers unite, who can compel them to pay up?
Is the Irish Legislature which will be returned by these men--is it a
likely body to compel payment of tribute to the hated Saxon at the
point of the bayonet? When the British Government, with all the
resources of Gladstonian civilisation, failed to put down boycotting,
how do you suppose a sympathetic Government, returned by the farmers,
consisting of farmers' sons, with a sprinkling of clever attorneys,
more smart than honest, will proceed with compulsory action? Why they
could do nothing if they wished, but then they will have no desire to
compel. The English people are only commencing their troubles. They
don't know they're born yet. Gladstone will have some explaining to
do, but he can do it, he can do it. He'd explain the shot out of the
Quirke family's legs. Ah! but he's a terrible curse to this country."
The other officer said:--"Our duty is very discouraging. We are
hindered and baffled on every side by the people, whose sympathies are
always against the law. Now in England your sympathies are with the
law, and the people have the sense to support it, knowing that it will
support them, so long as they do the right thing. It was bad enough to
have the people against us, but now things are a hundred times worse.
When Balfour was in power, we felt that our labour was not in vain. We
felt that there was some chance of getting a conviction--not much,
perhaps, but still a chance. Now, if we catch the criminals redhanded,
we know no jury will convict. We try to do our duty, but of course we
can't put the same heart into it as we could if we thought our work
would do any good. And another thing--we knew Balfour, so long as we
were acting with integrity, would back us up. Now we never know what
we're going to get--whether we shall be praised or kicked behind. This
Government is not only weak but also slippery. Outrages are
increasing. News of three more reached the Newcastlewest Barracks this
very day. We had a man on horseback scouring the mountains for
information. The outraged people sometimes keep it close. What's the
good, they say. We hear of the affair from other people, and the
principals, so to speak, ask us to make no fuss about it, as they
don't want to be murdered. The country is getting worse every day.
We'll have such a bloody winter as Ireland never saw."
Another small moonlighting incident, now appearing for the first time
on this or any other stage. Some tenants years ago were evicted on the
Langford estates. Negotiations were proceeding for their proximate
restoration, but nothing could be settled. A few days ago a small
farmer named Benjamin Brosna, aged 55, agreed with the proper
authorities to graze some cattle on the land in question pending the
arrangement of the matter. A meeting at Haye's Cross was immediately
convened by two holy men of the district, to wit, Father Keefe, P.P.,
and Father Brew, C.C., both of Meelin, and under the guidance of these
good easy men, it was resolved that any man grazing cattle on the
Langford land was as bad as the landlord, and must be treated
accordingly. On the same day, April 18, or rather in the night
succeeding the day of the meeting, eleven masked and armed men entered
Brosna's house, and one of them, presenting a gun, said, "We have you
now, you grass-grabber." Brosna seized the gun, and being hale and
active, despite his 55 years, showed such vigorous fight that he fell
through the doorway into the yard along with two others, where he was
brutally beaten, and must have been killed--it was their clear
intention--but for the pitchy darkness of the yard and the number of
his assailants, who in their fury fell over each other, enabling
Brosna, who being on his own ground knew the ropes better than they,
in the darkness to glide under a cart and escape over an adjacent
wall, where he hid himself. They lost him, and returned to the house,
firing shots at whatever they could damage, and smashing everything
breakable, from the windows upwards. Brosna will lose the sight of one
eye, which is practically beaten out. His servants, named Larkin, have
been compelled to leave by means of threatening letters. Their father
has also been threatened with death unless he instantly removes them
from Brosna's house.
I could continue indefinitely, continuing my remarks to the
occurrences of one month or so; and if I abruptly conclude it is
because time presses, my return to civilisation having been effected
at 3.30 this morning, after a ten miles' mountain walk, followed by
three hours' ride in the blissful bowels of an empty cattle-truck.
But for the good Samaritan of a luggage train I must last night have
camped beneath the canopy of heaven. No scarcity of fun in
Ireland--which beats the world for sparkling incident.
Rathkeale (Co. Limerick), April 24th.
No. 14.--LAWLESSNESS AND LAZINESS.
The fruits of Gladstonian rule are ripening fast. Mr. Morley's visit
to Cork _en route_ for Dublin corresponds with Inspector Moriarty's
visit to the Irish capital. Mr. Moriarty is the county inspector in
whose district most of the recent outrages have been perpetrated, and
is therefore able to give the Irish Secretary plenty of news. His
report will doubtless remain secret, as it is sensational. Mr. Morley
has too much regard for the sensibilities of Mr. and Mrs. Bull, and
when the Limerick inspector, entering the State confessional of Dublin
Castle, advances and says, "I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes,
like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks
to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon
the fretful porcupine,"--when Mr. Moriarty utters the familiar and
appropriate words the Irish Secretary will say with deprecatory
gesture, "Enough, enough. 'Twas ever thus. This is the effect of
kindness. What ho, my henchmen bold! A flagon, a mighty flagon of most
ancient sack. I feel that I am about to be prostrated. Such is the
fate of greatness. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. It is a
great and glorious thing, To be an Irish Sec. But give to me my hollow
tree, A crust of bread and liberty. The word is porpentine, not
porcupine, Mr. Inspector. A common corruption. Verify your quotations.
Have them (in future) attested by two resident magistrates. And now to
work. All in strict confidence. Let not the world hear of these
things. Let not the people know that violence and rapine walk
hand-in-hand with my administration. Nameless in dark oblivion let it
dwell. Let it be _sub rosa, sub sigilla confessionis, sub-auditer,
sub_ everything. Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in Askalon, for
behold, if the people heard, they would marvel, and fear greatly;
and--be afraid."
The officer would then produce his budget, with its horrors, its
indecencies, its record of trickery, treachery, cowardly revenge, and
midnight terrorism. The local press correspondents of the rural
districts are nearly all Nationalists, and they either furnish garbled
reports, or none at all. The reporters of Conservative papers,
comparatively Conservative, I mean, are also Nationalists. The Irish
themselves know not what is taking place ten miles away. How is
England to learn the precise state of things? I have fished up a few
recent samples of minor occurrences which will form part of Mr.
Moriarty's news. These smaller outrages invariably lead up to murder
if the victim resist. They are so many turns of the screw, just to let
the recalcitrant feel what can be done. In the large majority of cases
he gives way at the first hint. Let us relate some neighbouring
experiences.
David Geary, of Castlemahon, late in the evening heard an explosion at
the door of his cottage. He ran out, and found a fuse burning, lying
where it had been cast, while a volley of large stones whizzed past
his head. There had been some litigation between a man named Callaghan
and a road contractor, and Geary had allowed the road contractor's men
to take their food in wet weather under his roof.
On April 15, at two in the morning, a party of masked moonlighters
visited the cottage of Mrs. Breens, of Raheenish, and having fired two
shots through the parlour window, shattering the woodwork by way of
letting the widow know they were there, fired a third through her
bed-room window to expedite the lady's movements. Almost paralysed
with fear, she parleyed with the besieging force, which, by its
spokesman, demanded her late husband's gun, threatening to put
"daylight through her" unless it were instantly given up. It was in
her son's possession, and she hurried to his room. The young dog came
on the scene, and instead of handing out the gun, fired two shots from
a revolver into the darkness. Whereupon the band of Irish
hero-patriots outside fled with electric speed, and returned no more.
At Ardagh the police found a haystack burning. They saved about ten
tons, but Patrick Cremmin claims L88 from the county. He had offended
somebody, but he declares he knows not the motive. In other words, he
wants to let the thing drop--bar the L88. Another stack of hay, partly
saved by the police, was burnt because evictions had taken place:
damage L20, which the county must pay. R. Plummer, a labourer with
Brosna, whose case was given in my last, has received a letter
threatening him with death unless he left Brosna's employ. Some say
the name is Brosnan or Bresnahan. Beware of the quibbling of Irish
malcontents, who on the strength of a misprint or a wrongly-spelt
name, boldly state that no such person ever existed, and that
therefore the case is a pure invention. Here is a specimen of the
toleration Loyalists and Protestants may expect:--A special train
having been run from Newcastle to Limerick to enable people to attend
a Unionist meeting in the latter city, the Nationalists took steps to
mark their sense of the railway company's indiscretion, and a train
soon afterwards leaving Newcastle for Tralee, they hurled a great
stone from the Garryduff Bridge, smashing the window of the guard's
van and doing other injury. At Gurtnaclochy, to deter a witness in a
legal case, a threatening letter was sent, sixty yards of a sod fence
thrown down, and a coffin and gun neatly cut on the field. On the
Roman Catholic Chapel wall at Ashford a notice was posted threatening
with death anyone who bought hay or turnips from a boycotted man, and
the same day a man named Herlihy received a threatening letter. On
April 15 a party of armed, disguised men with blackened faces, called
on a poor man at Inniskeen, and having smashed the windows, tried to
force the door, but stopped to parley. They called on "Young Patrick"
to hand out the father's gun, and the young man complied. Being
twitted with this he said, "I want to live. If I had refused the gun
my life would not be worth twopence. I would be 'covered' from a bush
or a fence when I walked out, or shot dead in the door as I looked
down the lane, as was done in another case. I know the parties well,
but I would not give evidence. Neither will I give the police any more
information. It would not hurt the criminals, but it would hurt me.
For while the jury would not convict, the secret tribunal that sat on
me would not be so merciful, and many a man would like the distinction
of being singled out to execute the secret decrees of the Moonlight
fraternity." Another person standing by said, "What happened at
Galbally, near Tipperary? A priest denounced a Protestant named Allen
from the altar, and a week after the man was shot dead in his tracks.
Everybody knew perfectly well who did the deed. All knew the man who
wanted Allen's land, and it was thought that there was evidence enough
to hang him twenty times. He is alive and well, and if you go any
Saturday to the Tipperary market Father Humphreys will introduce you
to him. He was discharged without a stain on his character, and brass
bands met him on his return, also a torchlight procession."
In Ireland, even more than in England, brass bands are necessary to
the expression of the popular emotion. Brass bands met Egan, the
liberated, everywhere. Brass bands accompanied the march of O'Brien's
mourners at the Cork funeral last week. Not a murderer in Ireland
whose release would not be celebrated with blare of brass bands, and
glare of burning grease. Mr. Morley could not land in Cork, however
privately, for he did not wish to speak, without a brass band being
loosed on his heels. The great philosophical Radical, the encyclopaedia
of political wisdom, the benefactor, the saviour, the regenerator of
Ireland, left Cork to the strains of the Butter Exchange Band--_con
amore_, _affetuoso_, and doubtless _con spirito_. Yet some will say
that the Irish are not grateful! Mr. Morley stayed at the hotel I had
just left, the Royal Victoria, which I justly described as a hot-bed
of sedition. It was here, in room No. 72, that Dalton so terribly
punched the long-suffering head of Tim Healy. At the Four Courts,
Dublin, I saw a waiter who witnessed the famous horsewhipping in that
city. I asked him if it were a severe affair, or whether, as the
Nationalist papers affirmed, only a formality, a sort of
Consider-yourself-flogged. How that waiter expanded and enjoyed the
Pleasures of Memory! "It was a most thrimindious affair, Sorr.
McDermott was a fine, powerful sthrip of a boy, an' handled the
horsewhip iligant. Ye could hear the whack, whack, whack in the
refreshment room wid the doors closed, twenty yards away. It was for
all the world a fine, big, healthy kind of batin' that Tim got. An'
the way he wriggled was the curiousest thing at all. 'Twas enough to
make yer jump out of yer skin wid just burstin' with laffin'."