garrisoned by a force of sixteen policemen regularly relieved by day
and by night, every man armed to the teeth. Now and then the foinest
pisintry in the wuruld turn out to the neighbouring hills and blaze
away with rifles at the doors and windows of the little barn-like
structure. The marksmen want a competent instructor. Anyone who knows
anything of shooting knows the high art and scientific knowledge
required for long-range rifle practice. These men are willing, but
they lack science. Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with
the spoils of time, has ne'er unrolled. Mr. Gladstone might bring over
from the Transvaal a number of the Boers whose shooting impressed him
so much to coach these humble Kelts in the mysteries of rifle
shooting. Such a measure would perceptibly accelerate the passage of
the Home Rule Bill.
Such is the state of things in Bodyke at this moment. Colonel
O'Callaghan has had no penny of rent for years--that is, nothing for
himself. What has been paid by the tenants of Fort Ann and Milltown
has been barely sufficient to meet the charges on the estate. The
Colonel thinks that the more he concedes the more his people want. He
has had many narrow escapes from shooting, and rather expects to be
bagged at last. He seems to be constitutionally unconscious of fear,
but the police, against his wish, watch over him. In the few instances
in which Mr. MacAdam, his agent, has effected seizures, the people
have immediately paid up--have simply walked into their houses,
brought out the money, and planked down the rent with all expenses,
the latter amounting to some 20 or 25 per cent. They _can_ pay. The
Colonel, who lives by farming, having no other source of income, knows
their respective positions exactly, and declines to be humbugged. The
tenants believe that they will shortly have the land for nothing, and
they are content to remain in a state of siege, themselves
beleaguering the investing force, lodged in the centre of the
position. The fields are desolate, tillage is suspended, and the whole
of the cattle are driven out of sight. Armed men watch each other by
night and by day, and bloodshed may take place at any moment. The
farming operations of the whole region are disorganised and out of
joint. Six men have been arrested for threats and violence, but all
were discharged--the jury would not convict, although the judge said
the evidence for the defence was of itself sufficient to convict the
gang. A ruffian sprang on MacAdam with an open knife, swearing he
would disembowel him. After a terrible struggle the man was disarmed
and secured, brought up before the beak, and the offence proved to the
hilt. This gentleman was dismissed without a stain on his character.
MacAdam asked that he should at least be bound over to keep the peace.
This small boon was refused. Comment is needless. How long are the
English people going to stand this Morley-Gladstone management?
I have not yet been able to interview Colonel O'Callaghan himself, but
my information, backed by my own observation, may be relied on as
accurate. The carman who drove me hither said "The Bodyke boys are
dacent fellows, but they must have their sport. Tis their nature to be
shootin' folks, an' ye can't find fault with a snipe for havin' a long
bill. An' they murther ye in sich a tinder-hearted way that no
raisonable landlord could have any objection to it."
I have the honour of again remarking that Ireland is a wonderful
country.
Bodyke (Co. Clare), May 2nd.
No. 17.--RENT AT THE ROOT OF NATIONALISM.
The tenants of the Bodyke property stigmatise Colonel O'Callaghan as
the worst landlord in the world, and declare themselves totally unable
to pay the rent demanded, and even in some cases say that they cannot
pay any rent at all, a statement which is effectually contradicted by
the fact that most of them pay up when fairly out-generalled by the
dashing strategy of Mr. Stannard MacAdam, whose experience as a racing
bicyclist seems to have stood him in good stead. The country about
Bodyke has an unfertile look, a stony, boggy, barren appearance. Here
and there are patches of tolerable land, but the district cannot
fairly be called a garden of Eden. Being desirous of hearing both
sides of the question, I have conversed with several of the
complaining farmers, most of whom have very small holdings, if their
size be reckoned by the rent demanded. The farmers' homes are not
luxurious, but the rural standard of luxury is in Ireland everywhere
far below that of the English cottar, who would hold up his hands in
dismay if required to accommodate himself to such surroundings.
Briefly stated, the case of the tenants is based on an alleged
agreement on the part of Colonel O'Callaghan to make a reduction of
twenty-five per cent. on judicial rents and thirty-seven and a half
per cent. on non-judicial rents, whenever the farming season proved
unfavourable. This was duly carried out until 1891, when the question
arose as to whether that was or was not a bad year. The tenants say
that 1891 was abnormally bad for them, but that on attending to pay
their rent, believing that the reductions which had formerly been
made, and which they had come to regard as invariable, would again
take place, they were told that the customary rebate would now cease
and determine, and that therefore they were expected to pay their
rents in full. This they profess to regard as a flagrant breach of
faith, and they at once decided to pay no rent at all. The position
became a deadlock, and such it still remains. They affect to believe
that the last agent, Mr. Willis, resigned his post out of sheer
sympathy, and not because he feared sudden translation to a brighter
sphere. They complain that the Colonel's stables are too handsome, and
that they themselves live in cabins less luxurious than the lodgings
of the landlord's horses. There is no epithet too strong to express
their indignation against the devoted Colonel, who was described by
one imaginative peasant, who had worked himself up to a sort of
descriptive convulsion, as a "Rawhacious Vagabone," a fine instance of
extemporaneous word-coining of the ideo-phonetic school, which will
doubtless be greedily accepted by Nationalist Parliamentarians who,
long ago, exhausted their vocabulary of expletives in dealing with Mr.
Gladstone and each other.
The Bodykers have one leading idea, to "wait yet awhile." Home Rule
will banish the landlords, and give the people the land for nothing at
all. The peasantry are mostly fine-grown men, well-built and
well-nourished, bearing no external trace of the hardships they claim
to have endured. They are civil and obliging, and thoroughly inured to
the interviewer. They have a peculiar accent, of a sing-song
character, which now and then threatens to break down the stranger's
gravity. That the present state of things is intolerable, and cannot
last much longer, they freely admit, but they claim to have the tacit
sympathy of the present Government, and gleefully relate with what
unwillingness police protection was granted to the agent and his men.
They disclaim any intention of shooting or otherwise murdering the
landlord or his officers, and assert that the fact that they still
live is sufficient evidence in this direction. Said one white-headed
man of gentle, deferential manner:--
"The days o' landlord shootin' is gone by. If the Boys wanted to shoot
the Colonel what's to hinder them? Would his double-barrel protect
him, or the four dogs he has about him, that he sends sniffin' an'
growlin' about the threes an' ditches. If the word wint out he
wouldn't live a day, nor his agint nayther. An' his durty emergency
men, that's posted like spies at the house beyant, could be potted any
time they showed their noses. An' couldn't we starve thim out?
Couldn't we cut off their provisions? Why would we commit murther whin
we have only to wait till things turn round, which wid the help of God
will be afore long. We're harassed an' throubled, always pullin' the
divil by the tail, but that won't last for ever. We'll have our own
men, that ondershtands Oireland, to put us right, an' then O'Callaghan
an' all his durty thribe'll be fired out of the counthry before ye can
say black's the white o' my eye; an' black curses go wid thim."
The caretakers are not accessible. Stringent orders forbid the giving
of information to any person whatever. This is unfortunate, as a look
at their diaries would prove amusing. They must feel like rabbits
living in a burrow bored in a sporting district, or the man in the
iron mask, or the late respected Damocles, or the gentleman who saw
the handwriting on the wall. Their sleep must be troubled. They must
have ugly dreams of treasons, stratagems, and spoils, and when they
wake, swearing a prayer or two, they doubtless see through the gloom,
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN (I quote from memory), in lurid letters on
the ceiling of their stronghold. Their waking visions and their daily
talk must be of guns and pikes, of graves and coffins, shrouds and
skeletons. Perhaps they, like Mr. MacAdam and some others, have
received missives sprinkled with blood, and ornamented with skulls and
cross-bones, those famous national emblems which the Irish tenant
sketches with a rude, untutored art; bold, freehand drawings, done in
gore by hereditary instinct. It may be that they see the newspapers,
that they learn how the other day the house of a caretaker at
Tipperary was, by incendiaries, burned to the ground, the poor fellow
at the time suffering from lockjaw, taking his food with difficulty,
owing to his having some time previously been shot through the face.
Or they may read of the shooting case at Castleisland, and how Mr.
Magilicuddy suggests that such cases be made public, that the people
may know something of the present lawlessness of the country, or of
the narrow squeak of Mr. Walshe, a schoolmaster, living just outside
Ennis, who barely escaped with his life from two bullets, fired at
him, because his wife had been appointed mistress of the girls; or the
sad affair of Mr. Blood of the same district, who being an admittedly
kind and amiable man, is compelled to be always under the escort of
four armed policemen for that he did discharge a herdman without first
asking permission from the local patriots. Or they may meditate on the
fate of the old man near Clonmel, who was so beaten that he has since
died, his daughter, who might have aided him, having first been
fastened in her room. These and a hundred similar instances of outrage
and attempted murder have crept into print during the last few days.
Red ruin and the breaking-up of laws herald the Home Rule Bill. And
if the premonitory symptoms be thus severe, how shall we doctor the
disease itself?
The other day I stumbled on Mr. Lynn, of Dublin, whom I first met at
the Queen's Hotel, Portadown, County Armagh. He said, "We ought to
know what the Home Rule Bill will do. We know the materials of which
the dish is composed, we have seen their preparation and mixing, we
now have the process of cooking before us, and when we get it it will
give us indigestion."
The Bodykers have a new grievance, one of most recent date. They had
found a delightful means of evasion, which for a time worked well, but
the bottom has been knocked out of it, and their legal knowledge has
proved of no avail. To pay rent whenever a seizure was effected was
voted a bore, a calamitous abandonment of principle, and a loss of
money which might be better applied. So that when MacAdam made his
latest seizures, say on the land of Brown and Jones, these
out-manoeuvred tenants brought forward friends named Smith and
Robinson who deeply swore and filed affidavits to the effect that the
cattle so seized belonged to them, Smith and Robinson to wit, and not
to the afore-mentioned Brown and Jones, on whose land they were found.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish. Colonel O'Callaghan, or his agent,
were processed for illegal distraint, and the evidence being dead
against the landlord, that fell tyrant had on several occasions to
disgorge his prey, whereat there was great rejoicing in Bodyke. The
new agent, however, is a tough customer, and in his quality of Clerk
of Petty Sessions dabbles in legal lore. He found an Act which
provides that, after due formalities, distraint may be made on any
cattle found on the land in respect of which rent is due, no matter to
whom the said cattle may belong. The tenants are said to have been
arranging an amicable interchange of grazing land, the cows of Smith
feeding on the land of Brown, and _vice versa_, so that the affidavit
agreement might have some colour of decency. The ancient Act
discovered by the ardent MacAdam has rendered null and void this
proposed fraternal reciprocity, and the order to conceal every hoof
and horn pending discovery of the right answer to this last atrocity
has been punctually obeyed, the local papers slanging landlord and
agent, but seemingly unable to find the proper countermine. No end of
details and of incident might be given, but no substantial increase
could be made to the information, given in this and my preceding
letter. The tenants say that the landlord perversely refuses the
reductions allowed in better times, and the landlord says that as a
practical farmer he believes that those upon whom he has distrained or
attempted to distrain are able to pay in full. He declares that he has
not proceeded against those who from any cause are unable to meet
their obligations, but only against the well-to-do men, who, having
the money in hand, are deliberately withholding his just and
reasonable due, taking advantage of the disturbed state of the country
and the weakness of the Government to benefit themselves, regardless
of the suffering their selfishness entails on innocent people.
In striking contrast to the turbulence of the Bodyke men is the
peaceful calm of the Castleconnel people. I have had several pleasant
interviews with Lady de Burgho, whose territory embraces some sixty
thousand acres, and who, during a widowed life of twenty-two years,
has borne the stress and strain of Irish estate administration, with
its eternal and wearisome chopping and changing of law, its
labyrinthine complications, its killing responsibilities. Lady de
Burgho is, after all, very far from dead, exhibiting in fact a
marvellous vitality, and discoursing of the ins and outs of the
various harassing Land Acts, and the astute diplomacy needful to save
something from the wreck, with a light, airy vivacity, and a rich
native humour irresistibly charming. The recital of her troubles,
losses, and burdens, the dodgery and trickery of legal luminaries, and
the total extinction of rent profits is delivered with an easy grace,
and with the colour and effervescence of sparkling Burgundy. To be
deprived of nine-tenths of your income seems remarkably good fun; to
be ruined, an enviable kind of thing. Lady de Burgho commenced her
reign with one fixed principle, from which nothing has ever induced
her to deviate. Under no conceivable circumstances would she allow
eviction. No agent could induce her to sign a writ. "I could not sleep
if I had turned out an Irish family," says Lady de Burgho, adding,
with great sagacity, "and besides eviction never does any good." So
that this amiable lady has the affections of her people, if she
handles not their cash. And who shall estimate the heart's pure
feelings? Saith not the wisest of men that a good report maketh the
bones fat? Is not the goodwill of the foinest pisintry in the wuruld
more to be desired than much fine gold? Is it not sweeter also than
honey or the honeycomb?
Certain mortgagees who wished to appropriate certain lands offered
liberal terms to Lady de Burgho on condition that she would for three
years absent herself from Ireland, holding no communication with her
tenants during that period. Lady de Burgho objected. She said, "If I
accepted your terms my people on my return would believe, and they
would be justified in believing, that I had been for three years
incarcerated in a lunatic asylum." Tableau! Three American gentlemen
visiting Castleconnel told Lady de Burgho that the success of the
present agitation in favour of Home Rule would be the first step
towards making Ireland an American dependency, a pronouncement which
is not without substantial foundation. The feeling of the masses is
towards America, and away from England. To the New World, where are
more Irish than in Ireland (so they say) the poorer classes look with
steadfast eye. To them America is the chief end of man, the earthly
Paradise, the promised land, the El Dorado, a heaven upon earth. Every
able-bodied man is saving up to pay his passage, every good-looking
girl is anxious to give herself a better chance in the States. Nearly
all have relatives to give them a start, and glowing letters from
fortunate emigrants are the theme of every village. The effect of
these epistles is obvious enough. Home Rule, say the Nationalists,
will stop emigration. That this is with them a matter of hope, or
pious belief, is made clear by their conversation. They give no good
reason for their faith. They are cornered with consummate ease. The
plausibilities gorged by Gladstonian gulls do not go down in Ireland.
They are not offered to Irishmen. "Made in Ireland for English gabies"
should be branded upon them. The most convincing arguments against the
bill are those adduced by Home Rulers in its favour. Here is a
faithful statement of reasons for Home Rule, as given by Alderman
Downing, of Limerick, and another gentleman then present whose name I
know not:--
"When you allow the Irish Legislature to frame its own laws, disorder
and outrage will be put down with an iron hand. We have no law at
present. Put an Irish Parliament in Dublin, and we would arrange to
hang up moonlighters to the nearest tree. Everybody would support the
law if imposed from Dublin. They resent it as imposed by Englishmen in
London."
"I am not in favour of handing over the government of Ireland to the
present leaders of the Irish party. I believe that, once granted Home
Rule, they would disappear into private life, and that we should
replace them by better men. What reason for believing this? Oh, I
think the people would begin to feel their responsibility. Do I think
the idea of 'responsibility' is their leading idea? Perhaps not at
this moment, but they will improve. You think that the people may be
fairly expected to return the same class of men? Perhaps so. I hope
not. I should think they would see the necessity of sending men of
position and property. Why don't they send them now? Simply because
they won't come forward; that class of men do not believe in Home
Rule."
I humbly submitted that this would prevent their coming forward in
future, and that if Home Rule were admittedly bad under the present
leaders, there was really no case to go to a jury, as there was no
evidence before the court to show that the leaders would be dropped.
On the contrary, there was every probability that the victorious
promoters of the bill would be returned by acclamation. Further, that
if Home Rule be gladly accepted as a pearl of great price, to drop the
gainers thereof, to dismiss the men who had borne the burden and heat
of the day, would be an act of shabbiness unworthy the proverbial
gratitude and generosity of the Irish people.
Alderman Downing would only exclude them from Parliamentary place, and
would not exclude all even then. The bulk of them might be found some
sort of situation where decent salaries would atone for the dropping.
Would that be jobbery? "Ah, you ask too many questions."
Let it be noted that although the greater part of the Irish
Nationalist members are everywhere rejected beforehand by superior
Home Rulers, as unfit for an Irish Parliament, they are apparently for
that very reason sent to the House of Commons as the best sort to
tease the brutal Saxon. The bulldog is not the noblest, nor the
handsomest, nor the swiftest, nor the most faithful, nor the most
sagacious, nor the most pleasant companion of the canine world, but he
is a good 'un to hang on the nose of the bull.
The Great Unknown said:
"You must admit that English Rule has not been a success. Home Rule is
admittedly an experiment--well, yes, I will accept the word risk--Home
Rule is admittedly, to some extent, a risk, but let us try it. And if
the worst comes to the worst we can go back again to the old
arrangement."
The speaker was a kindly gentleman of sixty or sixty-five years, and,
like Alderman Downing, spoke in a reasonable, moderate tone. Doubtless
both are excellent citizens, men of considerable position and
influence, certainly very pleasant companions, and, to all appearance,
well-read, well-informed men. And yet, in the presence of Unionist
Irishmen, the above-mentioned arguments were all they ventured to
offer. Arguments, quotha? Is the hope that the ignorant peasantry of
Ireland will return "the better class of men," who "do not believe in
Home Rule" an argument? Is the as-you-were assertion an argument? What
would the Irish say if Mr. Bull suggested this movement of
retrogression? We should have Father Hayes, the friend of Father
Humphreys, again calling for "dynamite, for the lightnings of heaven
and the fires of hell, to pulverise every British cur into
top-dressing for the soil." We should have Father Humphreys himself
writing ill-spelt letters to the press, and denouncing all liars as
poachers on his own preserves. We should have Dillon and O'Brien and
their crew again leading their ignorant countrymen to the treadmill,
while the true culprits stalked the streets wearing lemon-coloured kid
gloves purchased with the hard-earned and slowly-accumulated cents of
Irish-American slaveys. The Protestants would be denounced as the
blackest, cruellest, most callous slave-drivers on God's earth. And
this reminds me of something.
Doctor O'Shaughnessy, of Limerick, is the most wonderful man in
Ireland. His diploma was duly secured in 1826, and Daniel O'Connell
was his most intimate friend, and also his patient. The Doctor lived
long in London, and was a regular attendant at the House of Commons up
to 1832. Twice he fought Limerick for his son, and twice he won
easily. The city is now represented by Mr. O'Keefe, and Mr.
O'Shaughnessy is a Commissioner of the Board of Works in Dublin. The
Doctor has conferred with Earl Spencer on grave and weighty matters,
and doubtless his opinion on Irish questions is of greatest value. His
pupil and his fellow-student, Dr. Kidd and Dr. Quain (I forget which
is which), met at the bedside of Lord Beaconsfield, and medical men
admit the doctor's professional eminence. His eighty-four years sit
lightly upon him. He looks no more than fifty at most, is straight as
a reed, active as a hare, runs upstairs like a boy of fourteen, has
the clear blue eye and fresh rosy skin of a young man. He would give
the Grand Old Man fifty in a hundred and beat him out of his boots. He
might be Mr. Gladstone's son, if he were only fond of jam. The Doctor
said several hundred good things which I would like to print, but as
our many conferences were unofficial this would be hardly fair.
However, I feel sure Doctor O'Shaughnessy will forgive my repeating
one statement of his--premising that the Doctor is a devout Catholic,
and that he knows all about land.
"The Protestants are not the worst landlords. The hardest men, the
most unyielding men the tenants have to meet are the Roman Catholic
landlords, the new men."
Here is some food for thought. These few words, properly considered,
cover much ground. The Doctor is a Home Ruler, an ardent lover of his
country, one of the best of the many high-minded men I have met in
Ireland. Were such as he in the forefront of the battle, John Bull
might hand the Irish a blank cheque. The consciousness of trust is of
all things most binding on men of integrity. But for Mr. Gladstone to
hand the honour of England to Horsewhipped Healy and Breeches O'Brien,
showing his confidence in them by permitting it to be taken round the
corner--that is a different thing. I forgot to mention a remarkable
feature in the history of Limerick City, a parallel of which is found
in the apocryphal castle in England for which the unique distinction
is claimed that Queen Elizabeth never slept there. And so far as I can
learn, Tim Healy has not yet been horsewhipped in Limerick.
Bodyke (Co. Clare), May 2nd.
No. 18.--HARD FACTS FOR ENGLISH READERS.