disgrace to the country. There is poverty, of course, but not so much,
nor in so great a proportion, as in England. This line has been in
progress for two years and a half, and the people of this district
have received many thousands of pounds without any perceptible
improvement of position, either as to solvency or personal appearance.
They are as ragged as ever, as dirty as ever, and decidedly more
dishonest than ever. They are more extravagant in their eating and
drinking, and the women spend more in ridiculous finery; but in spite
of the wages they have earned, they have not paid their way one bit
better than before. They usually sow the land and live on the crops,
selling the surplus to pay the rent, which is usually very moderate,
and well within what the land will pay. For thirty months many
hundreds of them, thanks to Mr. Balfour, have enjoyed an additional
income of fifteen shillings a week, but they have not paid their rents
any better than before. They have so many people agitating for them,
both here and in England, that whatever they do or fail to do, they
know they are sure of substantial support. While Irishmen only were
working for them, they felt less secure, but now Mr. Gladstone and his
following have taken their cause in hand, they feel more sure of their
ground, and accordingly they have lapsed into confirmed laziness and
dishonesty. They have found out the strength of combination, and the
possibility of withholding payment of rent, and year by year they are
falling lower and lower. Their morality is sapped at the root. They
have the utmost confidence in their clergy, and their conduct being
supported, and even advised from the altar, they spend all their money
quite comfortably, sure that in case of eviction the country will be
up in arms for their assistance, and that weak but well-meaning
English tourists, seeing their apparent condition, will help them
liberally. The English tourist has much to answer for. He couples dirt
and nakedness with misfortune and poverty, and nine times out of ten
he is altogether wrong. People with five hundred pounds in the bank
will go about barefoot, unwashed, and in rags. No Englishman can
possibly know his way about until he has lived for some time in the
country, remaining in one spot long enough to find out the real state
of things. He runs about hurriedly from place to place, observing
certain symptoms which in England mean undeserved poverty and
suffering. His diagnosis would be right for England, but for Ireland
it is hopelessly wrong. What he sees is not so often symptomatic of
undeserved misfortune, as of laziness, improvidence, and rank
dishonesty. The Irish are a complaining people. Self-help is
practically unknown among them, at any rate, among the Catholic
population. They have reduced complaining to a system, or, if you
will, they have elevated it to the level of a fine art. The recent
agitations have demolished any rudimentary backbone they ever had, and
the No-rent Campaign, with its pleas of poverty and financial
inability, has done more to pauperise the people than all the famines
Ireland ever saw.
"You can do nothing for them. One great argument for Home Rule is the
fact that the people are leaving the country. Best thing they can do.
Let them get to some country where they must work or starve. Then they
will do well enough. They work like horses in America, and their
native cuteness conies out in trade with surprising results. The Irish
race make a splendid mixture, but you must not take them neat. I am
looked upon as a monster when I say, Let them go. I think it would be
best. Let them clear out of the country, and leave it to people who
can make it pay. Let Ireland be populated by Englishmen or Scotsmen,
or both, and in twenty years the country would be one of the most
prosperous in the world. Those are my opinions, and few Irishmen will
gainsay them. They think them cruel, but their truth is generally
admitted. Mr. Balfour has helped the people, and in a way which was
best calculated to put them permanently on their feet. All to no
purpose. You can't go on making lines that will not pay. You can't go
on doling out charity for ever. Take the boats, nets, and so on, given
to the congested districts. When those are gone you may give them
more. The people will be exactly where they were. A few have been
taught fishing, you say. But it will not spread. Those who have
learned the art have been taught almost by compulsion, and at the
first opportunity they will fall back into their own ways. The farmers
will not change their methods. If one among them did so he would be a
mark for derision. No Irish villager has the pluck to say, I will do
this or that because it is the best thing to do. He must do as the
others do, even to planting his farm, selling the produce, and also in
disposing of the proceeds. Nowhere is public opinion so powerful, so
tyrannical, or so injuriously conservative as in Ireland. I challenge
contradiction. Any intelligent Irishman who has lived in an
agricultural and Roman Catholic neighbourhood will admit every
statement I have made."
Later in the day I laid these observations before three Irish
gentlemen dining at the Mulranney Hotel. All three readily and fully
concurred, and there can be no doubt that these sentiments will be
unanimously confirmed by any competent tribunal in or out of Ireland,
Such being the case, the absurdity of the Home Rule agitation becomes
evident at once.
At last the sportive young engine whose playfulness and prankishness
were mentioned in my last, came whinnying up, harnessed to an empty
truck in which was a bench with a green cloth, emblematic of Ireland.
This was better than convulsively clinging to the engine while she
madly careered along narrow and dizzy precipices, every kick
threatening to be your last, and emerging from the fiery ordeal,
begrimed and swarthy, your knees half cooked by the engine fire. All
this happened on my journey from Westport to Newport, but now the
truck promised Sybaritic luxury, and if the rail should again give
way, if the bog-hole, "still gaping to devour me, opened wide," I
should at least disappear with dignity, should take my _holium cum
dignitatis_ in a truck, on a green-covered seat, and with the
consciousness that I was doing something to fill up the gap, to solace
the aching void in Ireland's bosom. Away we went, thundering along
between the quivering bogs, as through a land of brown-black
calves'-foot jelly. The line itself is sound, well-made and firm. I
had this from Mr. Hare, engineer of the Board of Works, who said that
Mr. Worthington's railways have an excellent name for solidity and
thorough, conscientious work. Mr. Hare was formally taking over the
last bit of line, that between Mulranney and Achil Sound, with which
the Midland and Great Western Company will at present have nought to
do. The company will work from Westport to Mulranney, although some
portions of the line have a gradient of one in sixty, and the
directors are shy of anything steeper than one in a hundred by reason
of the wear and tear involved to rolling stock and permanent way by
gradients requiring so much brake power. But the last seven miles they
decline to touch on the terms offered by the Government at present. No
doubt the line will be worked, and by the company aforesaid, but the
contracting parties are for the moment at a deadlock. No line between
Mulranney and the Sound could possibly pay. England is building Irish
railways to give the people a chance, as the splendid quays of
Newport, Limerick, and Galway were built.
Nothing, or next to nothing, is done on these quays. The Channel, as
it is called at Newport, is a fine expanse of water about one hundred
and twenty yards wide, leading through Newport Bay directly into the
Atlantic. Only one boat, I was told, comes into the port. I saw it
there, unloading a hundred and eighty tons of Indian corn--a Glasgow
vessel, the Harmony, a sailer, which had taken three weeks to the
voyage, which a steamer easily runs in thirty six to forty hours.
Galway was busier, but not by Irish enterprise, and Limerick was
mostly fast asleep. The people cry aloud and shout for quays,
harbours, piers, and railways; and when they are built they ask for
something else. They are without the faculty of industrial enterprise.
They are always waiting for weather, wind, and tide. They lack
resourcefulness, energy, invention. When the flour mills ceased to pay
they had no notion of using the buildings and water-power for some
other purpose. When the Coventry ribbon trade went to the dogs the
people found salvation in bicycles. If Coventry had been in Ireland
the people would have starved and murmured to the end of time.
Two miles out we came to Deradda, where eighty men were at work. Next
came Shellogah and the squeamish bit of bog. A number of men were busy
on the line, and right in front of us was a gap in the rails, the
platelayers laying the steel for dear life while the engine came up.
We slackened speed, but made no stop, and the last rail was finally
bolted as we ran upon it. Carefully and gingerly we pushed along, my
triumphal chariot in front of the engine, over the shivering
embankment, on each side of which were deep-cut channels which seemed
to have been hewn through acres of Day and Martin's blacking, so jetty
and oily seemed this Irish bog. The subsidence of yesterday had forced
the boundary walls of the line into wide semicircles, and it seemed
likely to be touch-and-go with the engine, truck, and your humble
commissioner. I took a last look at the landscape, and made a final
note, but, while inly wondering whether I should be ultimately
consumed in the form of peat or dug up and exhibited to future ages as
a bog-preserved brutal Saxon, with a concluding squash we passed the
rotten spot, and it was permissible to breathe again. "We prefer it to
sink at once," said Mr. Bennett. "Then we know the 'hard' is not far
off, and we can fill up till the line becomes solid as a rock. When it
goes down by degrees, sinking a foot to-day and a foot to-morrow, we
find our work more difficult. We never leave a bad bit till we are
assured, by careful examination and severe and repeated tests, that
all is solid and secure." He told me how much earth had been dumped on
this spot, which, like the soft place mentioned in my last, has given
Mr. Balfour's _proteges_ a world of employment. I forget the quantity,
but it sounded like an island or a small range of mountains. Soon on
the left we saw the great expanse of Clew Bay, with its three hundred
and sixty-five considerable islands, nearly all with cottages, cattle,
and pasture, but without a tree. The Yankee breezes blew refreshingly,
and the scenery around became of wildest grandeur. High mountains
hemmed us in on every side, rising one over another, huge masses of
rock impending over untrodden passes, unknown to any guide-book, and
leading no man knows whither. Some mountain sheep on the line scaled
the embankment and leaped the five-foot wall like squirrels. Then a
group of obstinate black cattle, one of which narrowly escaped sudden
transformation into beef. Then the station of Mulranney, or rather its
site, for the foundations are not yet dug out. Some neat wooden
cottages attested the contractor's care for his workmen, and the
beautiful bay with its extensive sands and lovely surroundings came
into view far below. A steep descent brought us to the hotel, an
unlicensed house kept by a Northern Protestant. A quaint and charming
place, known and prized by a select few. The Board of Works gave
Mulrannoy a pier, but the whole bay boasted only a single boat. The
people make no use of their pier. It stretches into the sea in a
lonely, melancholy way, and, so far as I could see, without a boat
near it, without a soul upon it or within half-a-mile. The Mulranians
cannot do anything with the pier until they get Home Rule. In Limerick
one day I saw a dead cat before a cottage door, in a crowded part of
Irishtown. A week later pussy was diffusing an aromatic fragrance from
the self-same spot. The denizens of this locality are waiting for Home
Rule. They cannot move their dead cats while smarting 'neath the cruel
English yoke.
The Home Rulers of Mulranney are not original. They say the same
things over and over again, merely echoing what they have been told by
others. They believe that their country has unlimited good coal, and
that the English Parliament prevents the mines being sunk for fear of
losing Irish custom. "We wish it were trap," said Mr. Bennett. "We are
always looking for it, but although we have made a million's worth of
railway, we have never seen a vestige of coal. It is safe to say that
there is no coal in Ireland, except in one or two well-known spots,
where it exists, and is mined, in small quantities." Another
enlightened Irishman, of wide experience in many lands, expressed the
conviction of the majority of his countrymen that the proposed
Parliamentary change will never take place.
"The thing is too ridiculous to be possible. The respectable portion
of the community were alarmed at first, as well they might be, knowing
as they do precisely what it means. But as time went on that alarm has
to a great extent subsided, not, as some will say, because the people
are in any degree reconciled to the idea, but purely and simply
because they see that the bill must perish when exposed to the light
of criticism. The people as a whole do not want the bill. The poorer
classes do not know in the least what it means, nor what all the
bother is about. They are told that they will be hugely benefited, but
nobody can tell them how. Of course they vote for Home Rule, because
in these parts the priest stands at the door of the polling booth and
tells them as they go in how they are to vote. He also questions them
as they come out, and they know beforehand that he will do so, and act
accordingly. They dare not tell him a lie, for fear of spiritual
trouble. They believe that the priest has their eternal future in his
hands, and this belief is encouraged by the well-known argument used
by the Roman Catholic clergy, a very familiar phrase in Ireland, "You
must do as I tell you, for _I_ am responsible. God will require your
soul of _me_ at the day of judgement!" What can the poor folks do?
Even the higher classes are not exempt from this superstitious fear.
They may be more or less freethinkers--freethinking is common among
educated Catholics who are yet compelled by custom to conform to the
outward observances of their faith--but yet, when the pinch comes,
they are influenced by the prepossessions of their childhood and
environments, and they mostly vote as they are told. They dread to
offend the priest, though not to the same extent as the poor
peasantry, who believe that confession of a wrong vote would entail
the refusal of extreme unction, and that this would mean untold and
endless torture in the world to come. And the priests preach politics
every Sunday. The people like it better than the old style of
Instruction. They call their sermons Instructions, you know, and they
instruct the people to some tune. No doubt they have a right to
persuade their flocks to follow a certain course. The temptation to
preach something which at once catches the people's attention and
furthers their own views is very great, and perhaps excusable. But is
their teaching designed or calculated to suit England? The English may
not understand the Irish question, but they may be sure that whatever
suits the Papal power does not suit them. The modern Irish priest is a
sworn foe to England. It cannot be otherwise. He springs from the
small farmer class, which has sworn to extirpate landlordism, which,
to their minds, is synonymous with British rule. The English
Parliament, hoping to win over the farmers, who are the strength of
Ireland, has made one concession after another, with what result?
Absolutely none. The property of the landlord has been sacrificed bit
by bit, in fruitless endeavour to please these people, who are more
discontented than ever. And so they will continue to be as long as
discontent pays. In Ireland the landlord is nothing, the tenant is
everything. The policy of England with regard to Irish landlords
reminds me of the man who, having to dock a dog's tail, cut off
half-an-inch every day to gradually accustom him to the loss, and to
minimise the 'suffering of the baste.'"
You can go nowhere in Ireland without meeting an Ulsterman. There was
one at Mulranney. You may know them by their accent, by their size, by
a general effect of weight, decision, and determination. They are
mostly big men, large-boned and large-limbed, of ruthless energy, of
inexhaustible vitality. They are demons in argument, tenacious and
crushing. They bowl straight over-hand and dead on the middle stump.
The lithe and sinuous Celt is no match for them. No matter how he
twists and turns they grab him up, and, will he, nill he, fix him in
front of the argument. They are adepts in cornering an opponent by
keeping him to the point. You cannot catch them napping, and you
cannot turn their flank. They are contented enough, except that they
sigh for more worlds to conquer. They delight in difficulties, and
demolish Home Rulers with a kind of contempt as if the work were only
fit for children. They seem to be fighting with one hand, with great
reserve of power, and, after doubling up an opponent, they chuck him
over the ropes, and look around, as if, like Oliver, asking for
"more." My Mulranney friend said:--
"Bull confessedly does not know what to do, and he calls in two sets
of Irish experts (we'll say) and asks for their opinions. One set of
Irishmen never quarrel with anybody and always pay their debts. The
other set quarrel with everybody and don't pay what they owe. One set
are successful in everything, the other set are successful in nothing.
One set have always been friendly and helpful to Bull, the other set
have always been unfriendly and obstructive to him. He proposes to
reject the advice of the successful, amicable, helpful men, who have
always stuck up for him, and to follow the advice of the quarrelsome,
unsuccessful, unfriendly men, who have always spoken ill of him and
have spent their energies in trying to damage him. Bull must be a
fool--or rather he would be if he meant to act in this foolish way. He
will not do so; that can never be. But why waste so much time?"
I submitted that this waste was due to Mr. Gladstone, and not to
England at all. He said--
"There is no England now. There's nothing left but Gladstone."
Of course he was wrong, but the mistake is one that under present
circumstances any loyal Irishman might easily make.
Mulranney (Co. Mayo), June 17th.
No. 37.--ON ACHIL ISLAND.
The final spurt from Mulranney to Achil Sound was pleasant, but devoid
of striking incident. This part of the line is packed and ballasted,
and the _Gazette_ engine sobered down to the merely commonplace,
dropping her prancing and curveting, with other deplorable excesses of
the first two runs, and pushing my comfortable truck with the
steadiness of a well-broken steed. No holding on was required, as we
ran between the two ranges of mountains which guard the Sound, and
along the edge of a salt-water creek, which seemed to be pushing its
investigations inland. Barring the scenery the ride became
uninteresting by its very safety. The line for the most part is based
upon the living rock, and there were no exciting skims over
treacherous bogs, no reasonable chance of running off the line, no ups
and downs such as on our first flight were remindful of the switchback
railway, no hopping, jumping, or skipping. Anybody could have ridden
from Mulranney to Achil. There was no merit in the achievement. All
you had to do was to sit still and look about. You could no longer
witch the world with noble truckmanship. We ran over a bridge built to
replace one washed away by a mountain torrent. The engineer who
constructed the first had failed to realise that the tinkling rivulet
of summer became in winter a fiercely surging cataract. The Achil
Mountains loomed in full view, Croaghaun to the left, Sliebhmor
(pronounced Slievemore) the Great Mountain, in front, with many others
stranger still of name. Then the Sound came in sight, with the iron
viaduct-bridge which has turned the island into a peninsula. Then the
final dismount, and a scramble among rusty rails, embankments,
sleepers, and big boulders strewn about in hopeless chaos. Then the
little inn, with a stuffed fox and a swan in the porch. A glance at
the day-before-yesterday's paper, which has just arrived, and is
considered to serve up news red-hot; and then invasion of the island.
A few hookers are anchored near the swivel-bridge of the viaduct, in
readiness for their cargoes of harvesters for England and Scotland,
and now and then big trout and salmon throw themselves in air to see
what is going on in the world around them. A group of men who are
busily engaged in doing nothing, with a grace and ease which tells of
long experience, manifest great interest in the stranger, whom they
greet civilly and with much politeness. Men, women, and children are
digging turf in a bog beside the road. All suspend operations and look
earnestly in my direction. This is one of the amenities of Irish life.
Driving along a country road you see men at work in a field. They stop
at the first rumble of the car, and leaning on their spades they watch
you out of sight. Then they resume in leisurely style, for work they
will tell you is scarce, and, to their credit be it observed, they
show no disposition to make it scarcer still. They husband it, hoard
it up, are not too greedy, leave some for another day. They dig
easily, with a straight back, and take a long time to turn round. The
savage energy of the Saxon is to them unknown. Why wear themselves
out? "Sweet bad luck to the man that would bur-rst himself as if the
wuruld wouldn't be afther him. Divil sweep the omadhaun that would
make his two elbows into a windmill that niver shtops, but is always
going. Fair an' aisy goes far in a day. Walkin' is betther than
runnin', an' standin' is betther than walkin', an' sittin' is betther
than standin', an' lyin' is betther than any o' thim. Twas me owld
father said it, an' a thrue wurud he shpoke, rest his sowl in glory."