bottom of this mischief. It was the only factory we had in Galway, and
what the people here are to do now God only knows. It gave employment
to the working classes of the town, who will now have to go further
afield. Some are off to America, some to England, some to Scotland.
Curious thing I've noticed. A Scotsman lands here with twopence, next
day has fourpence, in five years a house and farm of his own, in
twenty-five years an estate, in thirty years is being shot at as a
landowner, in forty years has an agent to be deputy cock-shot for him.
But Irishmen who go to Scotland nearly always return next year
swearing that the country is poor as the Divil. Now, how is that?
"The bag works was just short of money and management. Irishmen are
not financiers. They are always getting into holes, and waiting for
somebody to get them out. They have no self-reliance. You may hold
them up by the scruff of the neck for years and years, and the moment
you drop them they hate you like poison. Many shooting cases would
show this if impartially looked into. Pity the English do not come
over here more than they do. The people get along famously with
individual Englishmen, and sometimes they wonder where all the
murdering villains are of whom they hear from their spiritual and
political advisers. A priest said in my hearing, 'Only the best men
come over here. They are picked out to impose on you.' And the poor
folks believed him. We want to know each other better. The English are
just as ignorant as the Irish, in a way. They know no more of the
Irish than the Irish know of them. The poor folks of Connaught firmly
believe that they would be well off and able to save money but for the
English that ruin the country. And here this Jute Bag Company is
bursted up because it had not capital to carry on with. Belfast men or
Englishmen would have made it a big success. It stopped because it
could not raise enough money to buy a ship-load of jute, and was
obliged to buy from hand to mouth from retailers.
"Take the wool trade. Everywhere over Ireland you will see Wool, Wool
in big letters on placards for the farmers--notices of one sort or
another. We are the centre of a wool district. Not a single wool
factory, although the town is in every way fitted for excelling in the
woollen trade. We have a grand river, and the people understand wool.
They card and spin, and make home-made shawls and coat-pieces at their
own homes, just for themselves, and there they stop. They are waiting
for Home Rule, they say. Pass the bill, and factories will jump out of
the ground like mushrooms. Instead of taking advantage of the means at
their disposal, they are looking forward to a speculative something
which they cannot define. The English are the cause of any trouble
they may have, and an Irish Parliament will totally change the aspect
of things. Everybody is going to be well off, and with little or no
work. The farmers are going to get the land for nothing, or next to
nothing, and all heretics will be sent out of the country, or kept
down and in their proper place."
Thus spake a well-to-do Protestant, born in Galway some sixty years
ago, a half-breed Irish and Scotchman. I have now heard so many
exasperating variations of this same tune, that I should be disposed,
had I the power, to take a deep and desperate revenge by granting the
grumblers Home Rule on the spot. It would doubtless serve them right,
but England has also herself to consider.
Galway Town, May 13th.
No. 22.--THE LAND LEAGUE'S REIGN AT LOUGHREA.
This is the most depressing town I have seen as yet. Except on market
and fair days, literally nothing is done. The streets are nearly
deserted, the houses are tumbling down, gable-ends without side-walls
or roofs are seen everywhere, nettles are growing in the old chimney
corners, and the splendid ruins of the ancient abbey are the most
cheerful feature of the place. A few melancholy men stand about, the
picture of despondent wretchedness, a few sad-eyed girls wander about
with the everlasting hood, hiding their heads and faces, a few
miserable old women beg from all and sundry, and the usual swarm of
barefooted children are, of course, to the fore. The shopkeepers
display their wares, waiting wearily for market day, and dismally
hoping against hope for better times. Everybody is in the doleful
dumps, everybody says the place is going down, everybody says that
things grow worse, that the trade of the place grows smaller by
degrees and gradually less, that enterprise is totally extinguished,
that there is no employment for the people, and no prospect of any.
Those whose heads are just above water are puzzled to know how those
worse off than themselves contrive to exist at all, and look towards
the future with gloomiest foreboding. Like the man who quoted
Christmas strawberries at twelve dollars a pound, they ask how the
poor are going to live. The young men of the place seem to have quite
lost heart, and no longer muster spirit enough to murder anybody.
Loughrea is disloyal as the sea is salt. The man in the street is full
of grievances. His poverty and ignorance make him the mark of lying
agitators, who arouse in his simple soul implacable resentment for
imaginary wrongs. A decent civil working-man named Hanan thus
expressed himself:--
"The town was a fine business place until a few years ago, whin the
Land League ruined it. Ah, thim was terrible times. We had murthers in
the town an' all round the town. Perhaps the people that got shot
desarved it, they say here that they did; but, all the same, the
place was ruined by the goin's on. It's no joke to kill nine or ten
people in and about a quiet little place like this. An' ever since
thin the place is goin' down, down, down, an' no one knows what will
be the ind iv it. 'Tis all the fault of the English Governmint. The
counthry is full of gowld mines, an' silver mines, an' copper mines,
an' we're not allowed to work thim. Divil a lie I spake. The
Government wouldn't allow us to bore for coal. Sure, we're towld by
thim that knows all about it, men that's grate scholars an' can spake
out iligant. Why wouldn't we be allowed to sink a coal mine in our own
counthry? Why wouldn't we be allowed to get the gowld that's all
through the mountains? 'Tis the English that wants iverything for
thimsilves, an' makes us all starvin' paupers intirely."
This serves to indicate the kind of falsehoods palmed off upon these
poor people in order to make them agitators or criminals. Hanan went
on--
"Look at the Galway Bag Factory. I'm towld that's shutting up now.
What'll the people do at all, at all, that was employed in it? An' the
English Parlimint ordhers it to be closed because it turns out bags
chaper than they can make thim in England, an' betther, and the
English maker couldn't compate. Ye know betther? I wouldn't
conthradict yer honour's glory, ye mane well; but I have it from them
that knows. Look at the Galway marble quarries. There's two sorts o'
marble in one quarry, an' tis grand stone it is, an' the quarries
would give no ind iv imploymint to the poor men that's willin' to
work. God help thim, but they're not allowed to cut a lump of stone in
their own counthry. What stops them? Sure 'tis the English Government,
an' what would it be else? A gintleman isn't allowed to cut a stone on
his own land. All must come from England. Ye make us buy it off ye,
an' us wid millions of pounds' worth of stone. Ah, now, don't tell me
'tis all rubbish. Sure, I have it sthraight from mimbers of Parlimint.
Didn't the English Governmint send out soldiers an' policemen, wid
guns an' swords, an' stop the men that wint to cut the stone in the
marble quarries I was afther mintionin' to yer honour? Yes, 'twas the
Land League that ruined this place, but 'twas the Governmint that made
the Land League by dhriving the people into it. No, I wouldn't trust
Gladstone or any other Englishman. They'll take care of thimselves,
the English. We'll get no more than they can help. What we got out o'
Gladstone we bate out o' him. We get nothing but what we conquered.
Small thanks we owe, an' small thanks we'll give."
A small farmer said, "The rints isn't low enough. The judicial rints
is twice too much, an' the price of stock what it is. We must have a
sliding scale, an' pay rint according to the price of produce. We must
have the land for half what we pay now. I wouldn't say anythin' agin'
the English. I have two brothers there an' they come over here
sometimes, an' from what they tell me I believe the English manes
well. An' the English law isn't bad at all. 'Tis the administhration
of the law that's bad. We have the law, but 'tis no use to us because
the landlords administhers it. Divil a bit o' compinsation can we get.
An' if we want a pump, or a fence, or a bit o' repairs, we may wait
for seven years, till our hearts break wid worryin' afther it. Thin
we've our business to mind, an' we've not the time nor the money to go
to law, even whin the law is with us an we have a clear case. The
landlord has his agint, that has nothin' else to do but to circumvint
us, so that the land laws don't do us the good that ye think over in
England. Ye have grand laws, says you, an' 'tis thrue for you; but who
works the laws? says I. That's where the trouble comes in. Who works
the laws? says I.
"Thin ye say, ye can buy your farms all out, says you. But the
landlords won't sell, says I. Look at the Monivea disthrict. French is
a good landlord enough, but he won't sell. The tinants want to buy,
but if ye go to Monivea Castle ye'll have your labour for your pains.
The agint is the landlord's brother, an' a dacent, good man he is. I
have a relative over there, an' sorra a word agin aither o' thim will
he spake. But when he wint to buy his farm, not an inch would he get."
This statement was so diametrically opposed to that of Mr. John Cook,
of Londonderry, who said that the farmers had ceased to buy, owing to
their belief that the land would shortly become their own on much
better terms than they could at present obtain, that I tramped to
Monivea, a distance of six miles from Athenry, for the purpose of
ascertaining, if possible, how far my Loughrea friend's assertion was
borne out by facts. Monivea is a charming village, built round a great
green patch of turf, whereon the children play in regiments. Imagine
an oblong field three hundred yards long by one hundred wide, bounded
at one end by high trees, at the other by a great manor house in
ruins, the sides closed in by neat white cottages and a pretty
Protestant Church, and you have Monivea, the sweetest village I have
seen in Ireland. Here I interviewed four men, one of whom had just
returned by the Campania from America, to visit his friends after an
absence of many years. This gentleman was a strong Unionist, and
ridiculed the idea of Home Rule as the most absurd and useless measure
ever brought forward with the object of benefiting his countrymen.
"What will ye do wid it when ye've got it?" he said; "sure it can
never do ye any good at all. How will it put a penny in yer pockets,
an' what would ye get by it that ye can't get widout it?" Two farmers
thought they would get the land for a much lower rent. They said that
although the landowner, Mr. French, was an excellent, kind, and
liberal man, and that no fault at all could be found with his brother,
the agent, yet still the land was far too dear, and that a large
portion of it was worth nothing at all. "I pay eight and sixpence an
acre for land that grows nothing but furze, that a few sheep can
nibble round, an', begorra, 'tis not worth half-a-crown. Most iv it is
worth just nothin' at all, an' yet I have to scrape together eight
and sixpence an acre," said he. "'Tis not possible to get a livin' out
iv it."
"Thin why don't ye lave it?" said the man from Missouri.
"Why thin, how could I lave the bit o' ground me father had? Av ye
offered me a hundhred acres o' land for nothin' elsewhere, I vow to
God I would rather stay on the bit o' rock that grows heath and gorse,
if I could only get a crust out iv it, far sooner," said the grumbler.
"An' d'ye think Home Rule will enable ye to do betther? Ye'll believe
anythin' in Monivea. Ye are the same as iver ye wor. It's no use
raisonin' wid yez at all. Sure, the counthry won't be able to do
widout loans, an' who'll lind ye money wid an Irish Parlimint?"
"Why would we want money whin there's gowld to be had for the diggin',
av we got lave to dig it?" said the man of Monivea.
The villagers believe that England prevents their mining for coal,
gold, silver, copper; that the British Government tyrannically puts
down all enterprise; that Home Rule will open mines, build railways,
factories, institute great public works; that their friends will flock
back from America; that all the money now spent out of the country
will be disbursed in Ireland for Irish manufactures; that the land
must and will become their own for nothing, or next to nothing; and in
short, that simultaneously with the first sitting of an Irish
Parliament an era of unprecedented prosperity will immediately set in.
The two farmers confirmed what I have been told of the reluctance of
the landlords to part with an acre of the land, and said that men had
returned from America with money to buy farms, and after having
wandered in vain over Ireland were fain to go back to the States,
being unable to purchase even at a fancy price. They have been told
this by persons in whom they had implicit trust, and I am sure they
believed it. A fairly educated man, who had travelled, and from whom I
expected better things, has since assured me that the stories about
compulsory closing of mines and quarries had been dinned into him from
infancy, and that he was of opinion that these assertions were well
founded, and that they could not be successfully contradicted.
Everywhere the same story of English selfishness and oppression. He
cited a case in point. "Twenty years ago there was a silver mine in
Kinvarra. It gave a lot of employment to the people of those parts,
and was a grand thing for the country at large. The Government stepped
in and closed it. I'm towld by them I can believe that 'twas done to
keep us poor, so that they could manage us, because we'd not be able
to resist oppression and tyranny, we'd be that pauperised. England
does everything to keep us down. They have the police and the soldiers
everywhere to watch us that we'd get no money at all. So when they see
us starting a factory, or a fishery, or opening a mine or a quarry,
the word comes down to stop it, and if we'd say No, this is our own
country, and we'll do what we like in it, they'd shoot us down, and we
couldn't help ourselves. I'm not sayin' that I want Home Rule or
anything fanciful just for mere sentiment. We only want our own, and
Home Rule will give us our own."
The Home Rule party, the Nationalist patriots who know full well the
falsity of these and such-like beliefs, are responsible for this
invincible ignorance. Hatred and distrust of England are the staple of
their teachings, which the credulous peasantry imbibe like mother's
milk. The peripatetic patriots who invade the rural communities seem
to be easy, extemporaneous liars, having a natural gift for
tergiversation, an undeniable gift for mendacity, an inexhaustible
fertility of invention. Such liars, like poets, are born, not made,
though doubtless their natural gifts have been improved and developed
by constant practice. Like Parolles, they "lie with such volubility
that you would think Truth were a fool." The seed has been
industriously sown, and John Bull is reaping the harvest. Is there no
means of enlightenment available? Is there no antidote to this poison?
I am disposed to believe that if the country were stumped by men of
known position and integrity much good would be done. Leaflets bearing
good names would have considerable effect. The result might not be
seen at once, but the thing would work, and the people have less and
less confidence in their leaders. The most unlettered peasant is a
keen judge of character, and, given time, would modify his views. The
truth about the mines, given in clear and simple language, would have
a great effect. Education is fighting for the Union. Time is all the
Loyalists require. The National Schools must, in the long run, be
fatal to political priestcraft and traitorous agitation.
To return to Loughrea. I walked a short distance out of the town to
see the place where Mr. Blake, Lord Clanricarde's agent, was so foully
murdered. A little way past the great Carmelite Convent I encountered
an old man, who showed me the fatal spot. A pleasant country road with
fair green meadows on each side, a house or two not far away, the
fields all fenced with the stone walls characteristic of the County
Galway. "'Twas here, Sorr, that the guns came over the wall. Misther
Blake was dhrivin' to church, at about eleven o'clock o' a foin
summer's mornin'. His wife was wid him, an' Timothy Ruane was runnin'
the horse--a dacent boy was Tim, would do a hand's turn for anybody.
The childer all swore by Tim, be raison he was the boy to give them
half-pince for sweets and the like o' that. So they dhrove along, and
whin they came tin yards from this, says Tim, sittin' in front wid the
reins, says he, 'Misther Blake, I see some men at the back iv the
ditch,' says he. 'Drive on, Tim,' says Misther Blake, 'sure that's
nothin' to do with aither you or me.' An' the next instant both of
thim wor in Eternity! Blake and poor Tim wor kilt outright on the
spot, an' nayther of them spoke a word nor made a move, but jist
dhropped stone dead, God rest their sowls. An' the wife, that's
Misthress Blake, a good, kind-hearted lady she was, was shot in the
hip, an' crippled, but she wasn't kilt, d'ye see. Blake was a hard
man, they said, an' must have the rint. An' poor Tim was kilt the way
he wouldn't tell o' the boys that did it. 'Twas slugs they used, an'
not bullets, but they fired at two or three yards, an' so close that
the shot hasn't time to spread, an' 'tis as good as a cannon ball. Who
were they? All boys belongin' to the place. Mrs. Blake dhropped, an'
they thought she was dead, I believe. Some thinks she was shot by
accident, an' that they did not mane to kill a wake woman at all. But
whin they shot Tim, to kape his mouth shut, why wouldn't they shoot
the woman?"
Seven men were arrested, and everybody in the place was believed to
know the murderers. The police had no doubt at all that they had the
right men. All were acquitted. No evidence was offered. No witness
cared to meet the fate of Blake. Silence, in this case, was golden,
and no mistake about it.
Walking from the railway station along the main street, in the very
heart of the town, you see on your left the modest steeple of the
Protestant church, some fifty yards down Church Street. The town is
built on two parallel streets, and Church Street is the principal
connecting artery, about a hundred yards long. Exactly opposite the
church the houses on the right recede some five or six feet from the
rank; and here poor Sergeant Linton met his death. He was an Antrim
man, a Black Presbyterian, and a total abstainer. His integrity was so
well known that he was exempted from attendance at the police
roll-call. He was death on secret societies, and was thought to know
too much. In the soft twilight of a summer's eve he left the main
street and sauntered down Church Street. When he reached the
indentation above-mentioned a man shot him with a revolver, and fled
into the main street. The unfortunate officer gave chase, pursuing the
assassin along the principal thoroughfare, his life-blood ebbing fast,
until, on reaching the front of Nevin's Hotel, he fell dead. Arrests
were made, and, as before, the criminal was undoubtedly secured. Again
no evidence. The murderer was liberated, but he wisely left the
country, and will hardly return. A policeman said: "There was no doubt
about the case. The criminal was there. Everybody spotted the man,
even those who did not see him shoot. But nobody spoke, and if they
had spoken he would have got off just the same. The people of this
happy country have brought the art of defeating the law to its highest
perfection. The most ignorant peasants know all its weak spots, and
they work them well, very well indeed, from their own point of view.
Suppose ten of Linton's comrades had seen the shot fired, and that
they had immediately caught the assassin, with the revolver in his
hands. The jury would not have convicted him. Yes, I know that the
judge in certain cases can set aside the verdict of the jury. If you
did that in Ireland it would cost some lives. Wouldn't there be a
shindy! And then there's strong judges and weak judges. Judges don't
like being shot more than other people. And Irish judges are made of
flesh and blood. Look at O'Halloran's case. I was in the Court when it
was tried. A moonlighting case. The police caught a man on the spot,
with a rifle having a double load. The thing was clear as the sun at
noonday. Acquitted. The jury said, 'Not guilty'; and the man went
quietly home. The administration of justice with a weak judge, or with
a strong judge who feels a weak Government behind him, is a farce in
Ireland.
"What will happen if we do not get the Bill? I think there will be
some disturbance--the ruffians are always with us--although the people
do not want Home Rule. I mean, they don't care about it. The bulk of
the people would not give sixpence for Home Rule. They have been told
it will pay them well, and they go in for that. Not one of them would
have Home Rule if it cost him a penny, unless he believed he'd get
twopence for his outlay. It's the land, and nothing else. The party
that puts the land question on a comfortable footing will rule Ireland
for ever. That's the opinion of every man in the force, in Loughrea or
elsewhere. We have a curiosity here--a priest who goes against Home
Rule. A very great man he was, head of a college or something, not one
of the common ruck, and he's dead against it, and says so openly. The
_Tuam News_ used to pitch into him, but he didn't care, so they got
tired of it. No good rowing people up when they laugh at you."
An old woman of the type too common in Ireland came up as the officer
left me, and said:--
"Musha, now, but 'tis the foin, handsome man ye are, an' ye've a
gintleman's face on ye, bedad ye have, an,'" here she showed a
halfpenny in her withered claw, "this is all I got since I kem out,
and me that's twistin' wid the rummatacks like the divil on a hot
griddle; the holy Mother o' God knows its thrue, an' me ould man,
that's seventy or eighty or more--the divil a one o' him knows his own
age--he's that sick an' bad, an' that wake intirely, that he couldn't
lift a herrin' wid a pair o' hot tongs; 'tis an ulster he has, that
does be ruinin' him, the docthor says; bad luck to it for an ulster
wid a powltice, an' he's growlin' that he has no tobacky, God help
him. (Here I gave her something.) Almighty God open ye the gates in
heaven, the Holy Mother o' God pour blessin's upon ye. 'Tis Englishmen
I like, bedad it is; the grandest, foinest, greatest counthry in the
wuruld, begorra it is--an' why not?"
This outburst somehow reminded me of a certain gentleman I met at the
Railway Hotel, Athenry. He said, "I'm a Home Ruler out and out. The
counthry's widin a stone's throw o' Hell, an' we may as well be in it
althegither."
"Now, Mr. Kelly," said the charming Miss O'Reilly, "you are most
inconsistent; you sometimes say you are a Conservative----"
"Aye, aye," assented Mr. Kelly, "but that's only when I'm sober!"
The Loughreans are quiet now, but the secret societies which dealt so
lightly with human life are still at work, and the best-informed
people believe that the murderous emissaries of the Land League, whose
terrorism ruined the town, are only kept down by a powerful and
vigilant police. I have only described three of the murders which took
place in the town and neighbourhood during a comparatively short
period. Add Mr. Burke and driver Wallace; both shot dead near
Craughwell. J. Connor, of Carrickeele, who had accepted a situation as
bog-ranger, _vice_ Keogh, discharged. Shot. Three men arrested. No
evidence. Patrick Dempsey, who had taken a small farm from which
Martin Birmingham had been evicted. Shot dead in the presence of his
two small children, with whom he was walking to church. No evidence.
No convictions, but many more crimes, both great and small. So many
murders that outrages do not count for much.
It is to the men who are directly responsible for all these horrors
that Mr. Gladstone proposes to entrust the government of Ireland.
Loughrea, May 16th.
No. 23.--THE REIGN OF INDOLENCE.