Mr. Balfour determined to educate the Araners, and to give them
sufficient help in the matter of boats and tackle to make their
education of some avail. It was useless to give them boats and nets,
for they knew not how to use them, and it is certain that any boat
club on the Birmingham Reservoir, or any tripper who has gone mackerel
fishing in Douglas Bay, could have given these fishermen much valuable
information and instruction. Having once determined to attempt on a
tolerably large scale the establishment of a fresh mackerel and fresh
herring trade with England, Mr. Balfour set about the gigantic and
discouraging task of endeavouring nothing less than the creation of
the local industry. But how were the people to be taught the
management of large boats, and the kind of nets that were used? After
much inquiry, it was decided to subsidise trained crews from other
parts of Ireland to show the local fishermen what earnings might be
theirs, and at the same time to impart needful instruction to the
Connemara and Aran people. It was also arranged to make loans for the
purchase of boats and tackle to such persons as might prove likely to
benefit by them. Accordingly arrangements were made with the crews of
seven Arklow boats to proceed to the Aran Islands, and in order to
indemnify them for the risk of working on an untried fishing ground,
each crew received a bounty of L40 from the Congested Districts Board.
But there was no use in catching fish unless it could be quickly put
on the market, and again the necessary plant proved a matter involving
considerable expenditure. A derelict Norwegian ship, which two or
three years ago had been discovered at sea and towed into Queenstown
Harbour, was purchased from the salvors, and anchored in Killeany Bay,
outside the harbour of Kilronane, the capital city of the biggest
Aran, as an ice-hulk. The Board then entered into an agreement with
Mr. W.W. Harvey, of Cork, to market the mackerel at a fixed rate of
commission, it being also arranged that he should pay the fishermen
the English market price less by a deduction of 7s. a box to cover
the cost of ice-packing, carriage, and English salesman's commission.
The ice-hulk and boxes were provided by the Board, but Mr. Harvey was
to purchase the ice and defray all the cost of labour except the
salary of a manager.
In addition to the seven Arklow crews two boats were fitted out by
Miss Mansfield for training crews from the parish of Carna, in
Connemara; and Miss Skerritt also placed two English-built boats at
the Board's disposal for the training of crews from the pretty
watering place of Clifden, also in Connemara. An Aran hooker,
belonging to Innishmore, joined the little fishing fleet, bringing up
the number to exactly a dozen boats. The Rev. W.S. Green, a Protestant
parson, who is said to have first discovered these fishing grounds,
and who threw himself into the work with wonderful enthusiasm,
superintended the experiment in the steamer Fingal, which was
specially chartered for the purpose. Mr. Green as a skilled Fisheries
Inspector, knew what he was about, and he was empowered to lend nets,
where advisable, to the Aran beginners. Away they went to sea, to
start with a fortnight's heart-breaking luck. The water in those
regions was cold, and the fish were amusing themselves elsewhere. The
ice-hulk with its two hundred tons of Norwegian ice was waiting, and
its staff of packers might cool their ardour in the hold. The mackerel
would not come to be packed, and the dozen boats, with their master
and apprentice crews, cruised up and down on the deep blue sea, with
the blue sky overhead, and hope, like Bob Acres' valour, gradually
oozing out of their finger-ends. The Arklow men began to talk of going
home again. Altogether it was a blue look-out.
At last the luck turned. On April 6th, 1892, six thousand mackerel
were despatched to the English market. The weather during much of the
season was stormy and unfavourable, but on May 18th, seventy-three
thousand three hundred and fifty mackerel were sent to Galway, thirty
miles away by sea, and were forwarded thence by two special trains.
The Midland and Western Railway, under the management of Mr. Joseph
Tatlow, has been prompt, plucky, and obliging, and runs the fish to
Dublin as fast as they arrive in Galway. During the season of ten
weeks the experienced Arklow crews made on an average L316 per boat,
and the greenhorns who were learning the business earned about L70 per
boat, although they could not fish at all at the beginning of the
season. The total number of mackerel packed on the ice-hulk amounted
to the respectable total of two hundred and ninety-nine thousand four
hundred and eighty. The "teeming treasures of the deep" were not left
untouched on this occasion, though, doubtless, "still the Irish
peasant mourns, still groans beneath the cruel English yoke."
Mr. Balfour's benefactions have not been confined to the Aran Islands.
Every available fishing place from top to bottom of the whole west
coast has been similarly aided, and the value of their produce has
increased from next to nothing to something like fifty thousand
pounds per month. This on the authority of Father P.J. McPhilpin,
parish priest of Kilronane, Innishmore, who said:--
"We never had a Chief Secretary who so quickly grasped the position,
who so rapidly saw what was the right thing to do, and who did it so
thoroughly and so promptly. Strange to say the Liberals are always the
most illiberal. When we get anything for Ireland it somehow always
seems to come from the Tories."
Having been carried from Galway to the ice-hulk in Killeany Bay, and
having been duly put ashore in a boat, one of the first persons I saw
was Father Thomas Flatley, coadjutor of Father McPhilpin, an earnest
Home Ruler, like his superior, and like him a great admirer of Mr.
Balfour. Father Flatley wore a yachting cap, or I might have sheered
off under all sail--the biretta inspires me with affright--but his
nautical rig reassured me, and yawing a little from my course, I put
up my helm and boarded him. Too late I saw the black flag--I mean the
white choker--but there was nothing of the pirate about Father Tom. He
was kindly, courteous, earnest, humorous, hospitable, and full of
Latin quotations. Before our acquaintance was two minutes old he
invited me to dinner. Then I ran aground on an Arklow boatman, James
Doyle by name, a smart tweed-suited sailor, bright and gay. The Post
Office was near, and the letters were being given out. Three
deliveries a week, weather permitting. The parish priest was there,
grave, refined, slightly ascetic, with the azure blue eyes so common
in Connaught, never seen in England, although frequently met with in
Norway and North Germany. The waiting-women were barefoot, but all the
men were shod. The Araners have a speciality in shoes--pampooties, to
wit. These are made of raw hide, hair outwards, the toe-piece drawn
in, and the whole tied on with string or sinew. The cottages are
better built than many on the mainland. Otherwise the winter gales
would blow them into the Atlantic main. The thatch is pegged down
firmly, and then tied on with a close network of ropes. The people are
clean, smart, and good-looking. Miss Margaret Flanagan, who escorted
me in my search after pampooties, would pass for a pretty girl
anywhere, and the Aran Irish flowed from her lips like a rivulet of
cream. She spoke English too. An accomplished young lady, Miss
Margaret Kilmartin, aged nineteen, said her father had been wrongfully
imprisoned for two and a half years for shooting a bailiff. The
national sports are therefore not altogether unknown in the Arans.
Miss Kilmartin was _en route_ for America, per Teutonic, first to New
York, and then a thousand miles by rail, alone, and without a bonnet.
She had never been off the island. This little run would be her first
flutter from the paternal nest.
The Araners know little of politics, save that the Balfour Government
lifted them out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and set their
feet upon a rock and established their goings. The Balfour boats are
there, the Balfour nets are full of fish, the Balfour boys are
learning a useful occupation, and earning money meanwhile. If there is
anything in the Aran cupboards, the Araners know who enabled them to
put it there. If the young ladies have new shoes, new shawls, new
brooches; if the Aran belles make money by mending nets; if the men
sometimes see beef; if they compass the thick twist; if they manage
without the everlasting hat going round, they have Mr. Balfour to
thank, and they know it. They own it, not grudgingly or of necessity,
but cheerfully. One battered old wreck raised his hat at every mention
of the name. I saw no Morley boats. I saw no Gladstone nets. I saw no
Home Rule fish. The Araners do not care for the Grand Old Mendacium.
Perhaps they lack patriotism. It may be that they do not share what
Mr. Gladstone calls the Aspirations of a people. So far as I could
judge, their principal aspiration is to get something to eat. A
pampootied native who has often visited the main-land, and is
evidently looked upon as a mountain of sagacity and superior wisdom,
said to me--
"Not a bit they care but to look afther the wife and childher an' pray
to God for good takes o' fish. An' small blame to thim. Before Balfour
the people were starvin', an' ivery other year Father Davis that's
dead this six months would go round beggin' an' prayin' for a thrifle
to kape life in thim. The hardships and the misery the poor folks had,
God alone knows. An' would ye say to thim, 'tis Home Rule ye want?
"There was a young fellow fishin' here from Dublin. He went out in the
hookers an' injoyed himself all to pieces, a dacent sthrip of a boy,
but wid no more brains than a scalpeen (pickled mackerel). He got me
to be interpreter to an owld man that would spake wid him over on
Innishmair, an' the owld chap wos tellin' his throubles. So afther a
bit, the young fellow says, says he,
"''Tis Home Rule ye want,' says he.
"'No,' says the owld chap, shakin' his head, 'tis my dinner I want,'
says he.
"An' that young fellow was mad whin I thranslated it. But 'twas thrue,
ivery word iv it. 'Ah! the ignorance, the ignorance,' says he. But
then he was spakin' on a full stomach, an' 'tis ill arguin' betwixt a
full man and a fastin'.
"I wouldn't say but they'd take more notice afther a while. But
they're not used to bein' prosperous, an' they don't know themselves
at all. Ye can't cultivate politics on low feed. 'Tis the high livin'
that makes the Parliamint men that can talk for twenty-four hours at a
sthretch. An' these chaps is gettin' their backs up. In twelve months'
time they'll be gettin' consated. 'Tis Balfour that's feedin' thim
into condition. Vote against him? Av coorse they will, ivery man o'
thim. Sure they'll be towld to vote for a man, an' they'll do it. How
would they ondhersthand at all? Av 'twas Misther Balfour himself that
wanted their vote he'd get it fast enough. But 'tisn't. An' they'll
vote agin' him without knowin' what they're doin'."
Father McPhilpin said, "It is very hard to get them to move. The
Irish people are the most conservative in the world. They will not
stir for telling, and they will not stir when you take them by the
collar and haul them along. They are wedded to the customs of their
ancestors; and yet, when once they see the advantage to be obtained by
any given change, no people are so quick to follow it up. The
difficulty is to start them. The Araners had actually less knowledge
of the sea, of boats, nets, and fishing, than people coming here from
an inland place. Surprising, but quite true."
Speaking on the general question of Home Rule, I asked Father
McPhilpin if the people of Ireland would be loyal.
"Loyal to what?" said the Father, replying quickly.
"Loyal to England, to the Crown, to Queen Victoria."
"The Irish people have always been loyal--much more loyal than the
English people. You have only to look at English history. How far
shall I go back, Father Tom?" said my genial host to the coadjutor,
who just then entered the room. "Shall we go back to Henry II.? Where
shall we begin, Father Tom?"
"Well," said Father Tom, "I'd not be for going back quite so far. I
think if we began with Charles I.----"
"Very good. Now, were not the Irish loyal when the English people
disloyally favoured their Oliver Cromwell and their William the
Third?"
I proceeded with the imbibition of Father McPhilpin's excellent tea.
The answer was obvious, but Father Tom clearly believed that his
senior had me on the hip, and good-naturedly came in with a Latin
quotation or two. Both clerics were deeply interested in the condition
of the poor in their charge, and indeed all over Ireland, and their
profound belief that a Home Rule Bill would benefit the poorer
classes, by changing the conditions affecting the tenure or ownership
of land, was apparently their chief reason for advocating a College
Green Parliament. Father McPhilpin holds some honorary official
position in connection with the Aran fisheries, and from him I derived
most of my information. Another authority assured me that the Araners
were not grateful to England nor to Mr. Balfour, and spoke of the
viper that somebody warmed in his bosom with disagreeable results.
But, as Father Tom would say, _Omnis comparatio claudicat_, and all my
experience points to a proper appreciation of the great ex-Secretary's
desire to do the country good. The people know how thoroughly he
examined the subject; how he spent weeks in the Congested Districts;
how he saw the parish priests, the head men of the districts, the
cotters themselves. Every Irishman, whatever his politics, will
readily agree that Mr. Balfour knows more about Ireland than any
Englishman living, and most of them credit him with more knowledge of
the subject than any Irishman. My thorough-going friend, Mr. McCoy, of
Galway, hater of England, avowed Separatist, longing to wallow in the
brutal Saxon's gore, thinks Mr. Balfour the best friend that Ireland
ever had. "I'd agree with you there," said Mr. McCoy. "I don't agree
with charity, but I agree with putting people in a way to do things
for themselves, which is what Mr. Balfour has done."
Back on the ice-hulk by favour of Thomas Joyce, of Kilronane, skipper
and owner of a fishing smack. Mr. William Fitzgerald showed the
factory, the great hold with the ice, the windmill which pumps the
hulk, the mountains of boxes for fish, the mackerel in process of
packing, sixty in a box, most of them very large fish. An unhappy
halibut, which had come to an untimely end, stood on his tail in a
narrow basket, his mouth wide open, looking like a Home Rule orator
descanting on the woes of Ireland. He was slapped into a box and
instantly nailed down, which summary process suggested an obvious
wish.
Mr. Fitzgerald said: "The fisheries have been a great success, and
have done much good. The spring fishery paid well on account of the
great price we got for the mackerel. It is not customary to catch fish
so early, but when you can do it it pays splendidly. Just now the
price is not up to the mark, but we hope for better times. The Arklow
men are not subsidised this year. They didn't need it. The ground
proved productive, and they were glad to come on their own hook. If
they had required a second subsidy they would not have got it."
"Why not?"
"I'm no politician," said Mr. Fitzgerald. "The Araners are so strong
and hardy that they would surprise you. They will stand all day on the
ice, with nothing on but those pampooties, and you would think they'd
need iron soles, instead of a bit of skin. They work hard, and come
regularly and give no trouble. No, I could not find any fault with
them. They mostly speak Irish among themselves. It's Greek to me, but
I can make out that they think a great deal of Mr. Balfour."
A week on the hulk would be refreshing, for on one side there is no
land nearer than America. However, I have to go, for the Duras is
getting uneasy, so I leave the hulk, the mackerel, the big sea trout
which are caught with the mackerel, and steam back to Galway. A
splendid fellow in the cabin discloses his views. "We must have
complete independence. We shall start with 120,000 men for the Army of
Independence. That will be only a nucleus. We shall attract all the
brave, chivalrous, adventurous spirits of America. England has India
to draw from. Trot your niggers over, we'll make short work of them.
We draw from America, Australia, every part of the world. We draw from
24,000,000 of Irishmen all willing to fight for nothing, and even to
pay money to be allowed to fight against England. An Irish Republic,
under the protection of America. That's the idea. It's the natural
thing. Work the two countries together and England may slide. We'll
have an Independent Irish Republic in four years; perhaps in three
years. Rubbish about pledges of loyalty. The people must be loyal to
themselves, not to England. Our members will do what the people want,
or they will be replaced by men who will. We have the sentiments of
the people, backed by the influence of religion, all tending to
complete independence. Who's going to prevent it? We'll have a
Declaration of Independence on Saint Patrick's Day, 1897, at latest.
Who'll stop it? Mr. Gladstone? Why long before that time we'll convert
him, and ten to one he'll draw up the document. What'll you bet that
he doesn't come over to Dublin and read it in THE HOUSE?"
Galway, May 20th.
No. 25.--THE PRIESTS AND OUTRAGE. THEY NEVER CONDEMNED IT.
The people of Moycullen with whom I have spent a day are hardly
patriotic. So far as I can gather, they have always paid their rents
and worked hard for their living. They know nothing of Home Rule, and
they do not murder their friends and neighbours. They send forth a
strong contingent of men to work on Mr. Balfour's railway between
Galway and Clifden, and find the weekly wages there earned very
convenient. They vote as they are told, and do not trouble themselves
with matters which are too high for them. If a candidate proposes to
make the land much cheaper, or even to spare the necessity of paying
any rent at all, the Moyculleners give him their voice. Like every
Catholic villager in Ireland they look to Father Pat, Tom, Dick, or
Harry for advice, and the good priest gives them the right tip. He
points out that Micky O'Codlin promises to support such legislation as
shall place the land in the hands of the tillers of the soil, while
the Protestant Short declares that the thing is not honest, and cannot
be done. The result is precisely what might be expected. The
Nationalist members are returned, and Mr. Gladstone, with his most
grandiose manner, and with the abject magnanimity he always shows when
thoroughly beaten, comes forward and declares he can no longer resist
the aspirations of a people. The Separatist sheep tumble over each
other in their nervous anxiety to keep close on the heels of the
bell-wether, and the Empire is threatened with disintegration to suit
the convenience of a party of priests. An eminent Roman Catholic
lawyer of Dublin, a Home Ruler, said to me:--
"I vote for Home Rule because the sooner the thing is settled the
better, and it will never be settled until we get Home Rule in some
form or other. The country is weary of the agitation of the last
twenty years, and I am of opinion that Home Rule would do much to
restore the freedom of Ireland. For Ireland is in a state of
slavery--not to England, but to the priesthood. I believe in the
fundamental doctrines of the faith, but I don't believe everything the
priests choose to tell me. I am ready to admit that they have more
spiritual gifts and graces than anybody else, but I will not believe
that they know more about politics, and I will not submit to their
dictation. They control the course of affairs both sacred and secular.
At the present moment they are running the British Empire. You cannot
get away from the fact that they return the Irish majority, and you
will admit that the Irish majority is now the ruling power. Let me
illustrate my point.
"You in England think we have the franchise in Ireland. Nothing of the
kind. There may be a hundred thousand in the North who vote as they
think proper, but an overwhelming majority of the South are absolutely
in the hands of the clergy, who in many cases lead or drive them in
hundreds to the poll."
Here an English civil engineer said:--"When I was engaged on a line at
Mayo I actually saw the priest walking in front of some hundreds of
voters brought into the town from the rural districts. I was driving
along in a car, and my driver shouted 'Parnell for ever!' He was
struck on the head and face, his cheek cut open, and himself knocked
off the car. How the priestly party do hate the Parnellites! I wonder
what would happen if the Nationalists got into power."
"They would exterminate each other, if possible," said the Dublin man.
"We should have an awful ferment, a chaos, an immediate bankruptcy.
But let us have it. Let us make the experiment, and thus for ever
settle the question. To return to the priests. The people of Ireland
have not the franchise, which is monopolised by a few thousand priests
and bishops. The Nationalist members, the dauntless seventy-one, are
as much the nominees of the Catholic clergy as the old pocket-borough
members were nominees of the local landlords. And the same thing will
hold good in future. People tell you it will not be so, but that's all
humbug. It may be different in five-and-twenty years, when the people
are educated, when the National Schools have done their work, but half
that time is enough to ruin England. Thanks to agitators, Ireland
cannot be any worse off than she is."
Some time ago there was a Convention in Dublin, a Home Rule
Convention. There were five hundred delegates, sent up by the votes of
the people. Four hundred and nine were priests, who had returned
themselves. Can the English Gladstonians get away from the
suggestiveness of this fact? Is it sufficiently symptomatic? Can they
not diagnose the progress of the disease?
One of the Galway Town Commissioners, also a Roman Catholic, declared
that the Irish people, once the kindliest, most honest, most
conscientious amongst the nations of the earth, had for years been
taught a doctrine of malevolence. "They were naturally benevolent, but
their nature has been changed, and I regret to say that in a large
measure the priests are responsible for the change. Where once mutual
help and perfect honesty reigned, you now find selfishness and mutual
distrust. The priests have made the altar a hustings, and even worse
than electioneering has been done on that sacred spot. From the altar
have been denounced old friends and neighbours who had dared to have
an opinion of their own, had dared to show an independent spirit, and
to hold on what they thought the true course in spite of the
blackguard population of the district. Take the case of O'Mara, of
Parsonstown. He was the principal merchant of the place, a very kindly
man, of decided politics, a Catholic Conservative, like myself. He
sold provisions to what the local priest called the 'helmeted minions
of our Saxon taskmasters.' In other words, he sold bread to the
constabulary at a time when outrage and murder were being put down
with a strong hand. The priest threatened him with boycotting, his
friends urged him to give way, and let the police get their 'prog'
from a distance, but O'Mara, who was an easy-going man, and who had
never obtruded his politics on anyone, showed an unexpected obstinacy,
and said he would do as he chose, spite of all the priests on earth.
They denounced him from the altar, but, although they tried hard, they
failed to ruin him. In other cases, clerical influence has dragged men
from positions of competency and caused them to end their days in the
workhouse. Then, again, the priests never denounced outrage. They
might have stopped the fiendish deeds of the murderous blackguards
whose evil propensities were fostered and utilised by the Land League,
but they said no word of disapproval. On the contrary they tacitly
favoured, or seemed to favour, the most awful assassinations. When the
Phoenix Park murders took place, a Galway priest whom I will not
name said that he had been requested to ask for the prayers of the
faithful in favour of Mr. Burke, one of the murdered men, who belonged
to an old Galway family. And what was the remark made by that follower
of Jesus Christ? He said, 'I have mentioned the request. You can pray
for his soul--_if you like_.' What he meant was plain enough."