Michael Davitt, Dr. Tanner, and others, and most of the population,
all the Catholics in fact, became members of the Land League. The area
of the island is about forty thousand acres, a vast moorland, with
miles of bog, and hills and mountains in every direction. There are
also several large lakes, which abound with white trout. The
cultivated portions of the land only seem to dot the great waste,
which nevertheless supports a population of some five thousand
persons. The houses are mostly filthy, the people having cattle which
live with the family. I approached a house to make inquiries, and was
driven from the open door by the smell issuing from the interior. The
next was sweeter, having perhaps been more recently cleaned out. Only
one room, with a big turf fire, creating an intolerable atmosphere. A
bed filled one-third of the floor, most of the remainder being
occupied by two cows. A rough deal table near the bed comprised the
furniture, and visitors, therefore, must sit on the sleeping
arrangement. A civilised Irishman said:--"Two cows, two clean cows
only, and you're surprised at that! Where have you been? Where have
you been brought up? Let me tell you something, and when you get to
Dugort ask the doctor there whether I am correct. A family not far
away were stricken down with typhus fever. The people are mostly
healthy and strong, although living under circumstances which would
soon kill people not used to them, or not enjoying the same splendidly
pure air. Well, the poor folks, eight of them, were all down at once,
and no wonder, for when I visited them I never saw such a sight in my
life. There were three in one bed in one corner, three in one bed in
another corner, and two in shake-down beds on the floor. In the same
room were a mare and foal, three cows, one pig under a bed, and a
henroost above, on the ceiling. What would the sanitary authorities of
Birmingham say to that menagerie in a sick room? Somebody wrote to the
Local Government Board, and the Board referred the matter to the Poor
Law Guardians. But the Guardians themselves kept cattle in their
houses. It is the prevailing custom. Wherever you go in Achil, you
will find cattle in the houses, along with the family, sharing the
same room. The people cannot be moved from this custom. A large
landowner built some good cottages for them, and offered them rent
free, on condition that they would not live with the cattle. The
people would not accept, so they got the houses at last on their own
terms, and took the cows with them as before. They say that the cows
enjoy the warmth and give better milk. They also say that the big turf
fire stands them in lieu of feed to some extent. The Achil folks are
hopeless in the direction of improvements. They have had the
Protestant Colony at Dugort before them for more than sixty years--a
well-housed, well-clad community, living clearly and respectably,
paying their way, and keeping at peace with all men, but they have not
moved an inch in the same direction. They bury their dead in the old
savage way, without any funeral rites, except such as the relatives
may have in their minds. The priest says no prayer, reads no service,
does not attend in his official character, unless specially engaged
and paid. Usually he does not attend funerals at all, although he may
sometimes join the procession as a mark of respect. And the weddings
are arranged in a way you might think barbarous. A young man fancies a
girl he sees at mass, or at a funeral. He gets a bottle of whiskey and
goes to see the father, who nearly always wishes to get the daughter
off his hands, without any regard whatever for the poor girl's
feelings. I was present at one of these negotiations. 'What will you
give with her?' said the young fellow, a boy of eighteen or so. 'Three
cows and a calf,' said the father. 'So-and-so got three cows and a
calf and a sheep.' said the suitor. The father pondered a bit, but
eventually, not to be behind, conceded the sheep. The lover tried a
bit further. Somebody else had three cows and a calf and a sheep and a
lamb, but the old man stood firm, and the bargain was struck, with
mutual esteem, after several hours' haggling and a second bottle of
whiskey. I called in the evening to learn the girl's fate. She had
been two years in service and had got unorthodox notions. She
screamed with affright when the father brought the fellow forward and
told her what was arranged. She had seen him before, but had never
spoken to him, and the sight of him had always been most repugnant to
her. She ran away into the bogs, but the country was up, and she was
soon found. Then after a sound beating she was handed over to the
ardent swain along with the cows, and so forth, nominated in the bond.
"They marry early or go to America. The boy is usually seventeen or
eighteen, the girl fifteen or sixteen. I have known girls marry at
thirteen. Not long ago a boy I knew well, a mere weakling, unable to
do even a boy's work, got married. He was seventeen, or nearly
seventeen, but he didn't look it. They believe that their poverty,
such as it is, is due to the predominance of England. Their hatred of
the English is very pronounced, but a casual visitor will not see it.
He has money to spend, and they flock round him in a friendly way. But
let him live among them! They tried to boycott the Protestant
settlement, and if their priests had ruled on that occasion they would
have starved us out or would have made things so unpleasant that we
must have left the field. That was during the Land League agitation.
The Protestants declined to join and vengeance was declared, but
Bonaventure, head of the monastery, forbade it. He is a splendid
fellow, not like the ordinary priests at all. So they were saved. But
let this change come about, once let that bill become law, and all
Protestants must leave the island, must give up the land they have
tilled and tended until it is like a garden, and seek their fortunes
elsewhere. That is a certainty. Ask everyone you meet, and you will
find that each will say just the same thing."
A smart car driver, named Matthew Henay, was dubious as to the
benefits accruing from Home Rule. His driving was a study, and his
conversations with Maggie, his little mare, were both varied and
vigorous. "Now me little daughter, away ye go. That's the girl now. Me
little duck, ye go sweetly. There's the beauty, now. Maggie me love,
me darlint, me pride; ye know ivery word I spake. Yes, she does, Sorr.
She ondhershtands both English an' Irish. I can dhrive her in both,
but I have an owld woman o' me own that can only dhrive her in Irish.
Home Rule will do no good at all. Twinty years I wint to England to
harvest, an' eighteen iv it to the same masther an' on the same farm.
An' ye don't get me to belave all I hear widout thinkin' a bit. An' I
say, get out o' that wid yer talk o' mines an' factories, an' rubbish.
Where's the money to come from? says I. That's what nobody knows.
Sure, we'd be nothin' widout England. A thousand goes from this part
every year, an' even the girls brings back ten to fifteen pounds each.
That's all the circulation of money we have. An' as all we get's from
England, I say, let us stick to England, but nobody agrees wid me.
There's the girl, now. Away ye go, me little duck, me daughter, me
beauty, me--bad luck to ye, _will_ ye go? What are ye standin' there
for? Will ye get out o' that, ye lazy brute? Take that, an' that, an'
_that_, ye idle, good-for-nothin', desavin', durty daughter of a pig.
_Now_ d'ye ondhershtand who's masther, ye idle, skulkin', schamin',
disrespictable baste?"
Misther Henay was favourably disposed towards the Protestant settlers
of Dugort, but another Sounder was very bitter indeed. "A set of
Soupers an' Jumpers an' Double-Jumpers. What's the manin' iv it ye
ask? Soupers is Catholics that's turned Protestants for the sake of
small pickin's sich as soup. That's what they are at Dugort. An'
Jumpers is worse than Soupers. For Soupers only changed once, but
Jumpers is thim that turned once an' then turned back again, jumpin'
about from one religion to another. Ye can have Jumpers in anythin'.
Ye can have thim in politics. Owld Gladstone is a Jumper and a
Double-Jumper an' a Double-Thribble Jumper. An' if we get a Parlimint
for ourselves, 'tis because he daren't for the life of him say No--an'
divil thank him. Yes, we'll take the bill; what else will we do? We
can amend it whin once we get it. But afther so much jumpin', owld
Gladstone's a man I wouldn't thrust. A man that would make so many
changes isn't to be thrusted. I wouldn't be surprised if he wouldn't
bring in a coercion bill at any minute. Ah, the thricks an' the dodges
iv him! An' the silver tongue he has in his head! Begorra, I wouldn't
lave him out o' me sight. 'Tis himself would stale the cross off a
donkey's back."
The Achil ditches are full of ferns, and a hundred yards from the sea
are clumps of _Osmunda regalis_--otherwise known as the Royal
fern--spreading out palm-like fronds four feet long. Other ferns,
usually regarded as rare, abound in every direction, and potatoes and
cabbages grow at the very water's edge. The vast plains are treeless
save for the plantations round the house of Major Pike, who has shown
what can be done to reclaim the land, but his excellent example has
attracted no imitators. Except in the Major's grounds there is not a
tree on the island, unless we count the hedges of fuchsias, twelve to
fifteen feet high, which fence in some of the gardens. The Post
Office, engineered by Mr. Robins, of Devonshire, an old
coastguardsman, is surrounded by fuchsia bloom, and every evidence of
careful culture. Here I met some Achil folks who did not understand
English, and a mainland man who does not believe in the future of the
race. He said:--
"I think their civilisation has stood still for at least five
centuries. They are so wedded to their ancient customs that nothing
can be done for them. They are not so poor as they look, and the
starvation of which you hear in England is totally unknown. As an
object of charity Achil is a gigantic swindle. When the seed potatoes
were brought here in Her Majesty's gunboats the people were too lazy
to fetch them ashore. I was there and heard an Irish bluejacket
cursing them as a disgrace to his country. They do just what the
priests tell them from week to week. Every Sunday they get their
instructions. They keep up the cry of distress when there is no
distress, for fear of breaking through the custom. They have been
helped on all sides, but they will not utilise their advantages. The
sea is before them, swarming with fish, which they will not catch.
They said, we have no pier, no quay. They were set up with these and
everything they needed. What did they do with them? Nothing at all.
The work is falling to pieces and they let it go. They sometimes go
out in coraghs, and catch enough fish for the day's food, but that is
all. They don't pay their rents, and their rents would amuse you.
Twenty-five shillings a year for a decent house and a good piece of
land is reckoned a heavy responsibility. One man I know named McGreal
has twenty acres of good land and a house for seventeen shillings and
sixpence a year. They will not sell you butter, they will not sell you
milk. They say they want it for themselves. None of them has ever paid
a cent for fuel. All have turf for the digging, and much of the Achil
turf is equal to coal. The sea is in front of them, and all round
them, and the lakes are full of fish. And yet the hat is sent round
every other year.
"They used to pay their debts. Now they will pay nothing, and their
audacity is something wonderful. A gentleman over there has bought
some land, and the people turn their cattle on it to graze. He
remonstrates, and they say, 'What business have you here? Keep in your
own country.' He sued them for damages. They had nothing but the
cattle aforesaid, and, as he could not find heart to seize, he had no
remedy. They keep their cattle on his land, although he has, since
then, processed them for trespass. They have already divided the
spoils of the Protestants; that is, in theory. They are anticipating
the Home Rule Bill in their disposal of the land. They have marked out
the patches they will severally claim, and are already disputing the
future possession of certain desirable fields.
"English Gladstonians ridicule the fears of Irish Protestants, who
declare unanimously their conviction that Home Rule means oppression.
This ridicule is absurd in face of the fact that every Protestant
sect, without exception, has publicly and formally announced its
adherence to this opinion. The Church of Ireland believes in Catholic
intolerance; the Methodists believe it; the Baptists believe it; the
Plymouth Brethren believe it; the Presbyterians believe it; the
Unitarians, the most radical of all the sects, believe it; the
Quakers, who never before made a public deliverance of opinion in any
political matter, believe it; and all these have issued printed
declarations of their belief. The Roman Catholic laity, the best of
them, believe it; but the Catholic Bishops say No, they will not admit
the soft impeachment. And Englishmen who are Gladstonians believe
these Bishops in preference to all the sects I have enumerated. Could
anything be more unreasonable? But it is of a piece with the whole
conception of the bill, which seems to contain every possible
absurdity, and is based on extravagant assumptions of amity on the
part of Irish Catholics, of which there is not one particle of
evidence in existence. All the evidence points the other way, and
Irish Protestants know that under Home Rule their fate is sealed.
There would be no open persecution, but we should be gently elbowed
out of the country. All who could leave Ireland would do so at once,
and England would lose her most powerful allies in the enemy's camp.
For it is the enemy's camp, and this fact should be borne in mind. Mr.
Gladstone and his followers would be horrified to hear such a
statement, which they would regard as rank blasphemy. But every
Irishman knows it, and every Englishman knows it who lives here long
enough to know anything. Irish Nationalists have two leading ideas--to
get as much out of England as possible, and to damage her as much as
possible by way of repayment. Mr. Gladstone wants to put England's
head on the block, to hand an axe to her sworn enemy, and to say, 'I'm
sure you won't chop.' People who have common sense stand amazed,
dumbfounded at so much stupidity."
A pious Catholic bore out the statements of my first Achil friend with
reference to the comparative comfort of the Islanders. He said:--"We
live mostly on bread and tea. Of course we have plenty of butter and
eggs, and now and then we go out and get some fish. I had a go at a
five-pound white trout to-day, with plenty of butter and potatoes. At
Dugort people who live in cabins have money in the bank, aye, some of
them have several hundred pounds. And yet they took the seed potatoes
sent by England. Well, they wanted a change of seed, and they must do
the same as their neighbours. It would not do to pretend to be any
better off than the rest. They are compelled to do as the majority do
in everything, or they would be boycotted at once. They cease work
when a death occurs in the parish. If an infant three days old should
give up the ghost, every man shoulders his spade and leaves the field.
And he does not return till after the funeral. If another death
occurred on the funeral day, he would leave off again, and so on. No
matter how urgent the state of the crop, he must leave it to its fate,
or leave the country, for no one would know a person who would work
while a corpse lay in the parish. They would look upon him as an
infidel, and, if possible, worse than a Protestant. Luckily we don't
often die hereabouts, or we'd never get the praties set or the turf
cut. Sometimes they won't go to work because someone is expected to
die, and they say it isn't worth while to begin. I have known a
lingering case to throw the crops back a fortnight or more. Oh, they
don't grumble; any excuse for laziness is warmly welcomed. They
complain when people die at inconvenient times, and will say the act
might have been delayed till a more convenient season, or might have
been done a little earlier. The whole population turn out for the
funeral, but they don't dig the grave until the procession reaches the
graveyard. Then the mourners sit around smoking, both men and women,
while a couple of young chaps make a shallow hole, and cover the
coffin with four to six inches of earth. No, it is not severely
sanitary, but we are not too particular in Achil."
These unsophisticated islanders are decidedly interesting. Their
customs, politics, manners, morals, odours seem to be strongly
marked--to have character, originality, individuality. I fear they are
mostly Home Rulers, for in Ireland Home Rule and strong smells nearly
always go together.
Achil Sound, June 20th.
No. 38.--THE ACHIL ISLANDERS.
Dugort, the capital city of Achil, is twelve miles from the Sound, a
terrible drive in winter, when the Atlantic storms blow with such
violence as to stop a horse and cart, and to render pedestrianism
well-nigh impossible; but pleasant enough in fine weather,
notwithstanding the seemingly interminable wastes of bog and rocky
mountain, dotted at infrequent intervals with white cottages, single
or in small clusters of three or four. After Major Pike's plantations,
near the Sound, not a tree is visible all the way to Dugort, although
at some points you can see for ten miles or more. Here and there where
the turf has been cut away for fuel, great gnarled roots of oak and
fir trees are visible, bleached by exposure to a ghastly white,
showing against the jetty soil like the bones of extinct giants, which
indeed they are. The inhabitants say that the island was once covered
by a great forest, which perished by fire, and Misther Patrick Toolis,
with that love of fine words which marks the Irish peasant, said that
the charred interior of the scattered remains proves that the trees
were "desthroyed intirely by a grate confiscation." The heather, of
two kinds, is brilliantly purple, and the Royal fern grows everywhere
in profusion, its terra-cotta bloom often towering six feet high. The
mountains are effectively arranged, and imposing by their massiveness,
height, and rugged grandeur. Some of the roads are tolerable, those
made by Mr. Balfour being by far the best. Others are execrable and
dangerous in the extreme, and in winter must be almost impassable.
Sometimes they run along a narrow ridge which in its normal condition
was of barely sufficient width to carry the car, and it often happens
that part of this has fallen away, so that the gap must be passed by
leading the horse while the car scrapes along with one wheel on the
top and one clinging to the side of the abyss. The natives make light
of such small inconveniences, and for the most part ride on horseback
with saddles and crupper-bands of plaited rye-straw. Every householder
has a horse or an ass, mostly a horse, and young girls career adown
the mountain sides in what seems the maddest, most reckless way,
guiding their half-broken, mustard-coloured steeds with a single rein
of plaited straw, adjusted in an artful way which is beyond me to
describe. Very quaint they look, on their yellow horses, which remind
you of D'Artagnan's orange-coloured charger, immortalised by Dumas in
the "Three Musketeers;" their red robes floating in the breeze, their
bare feet hanging over the horse's right flank. When they fall off
they simply get on again. They seldom or never are hurt. They are hard
as nails and lissom as cats. Dr. Croly, of Dugort, saw a girl thrown
heels over head, turning a complete somersault from the horse's back.
She alighted on her feet, grabbed the rein, bounded up again, and
gaily galloped away. During my hundred miles riding and walking over
the island I saw many riderless horses, fully accoutred in the Achil
style, plodding patiently along the moorland roads, climbing the steep
mountain paths. At first I thought an accident had occurred, and spent
some time in looking for the corpse. There was no occasion for fear.
The Achil harvesters going to England and Scotland ride over to the
Sound, where lie the fishing smacks which bear them to Westport, and
then turn their horses loose. The faithful beasts go home, however
long or devious the road, sometimes alone, sometimes in company, only
staying a moment at the parting of the ways to bid each other
good-bye, then going forward at a brisker pace to make up for lost
time.
The hamlet of Cashel, not to be confused with Cashel of the Rock, is
the first sign of life after leaving the Sound. A ravine, with white
cabins, green crops, and huge boulders, on one of which seven small
children were sitting in a row, unwashed, unkempt, with little calico
and no leather. Bunnacurragh has a post-office run by a pensioner who
grows roses, and keeps his place like a picture, the straw ropes which
secure the thatch against the western gales taut and trig, each loose
end terminated by a loop holding a large stone. The stones are used in
place of pegs, and very queer they look dangling all round over the
eaves. Not far from here is an immense basin-like depression of dry
bog. Then a monastery, in the precincts of which the ground is
reclaimed and admirably tilled, the drainage being carried over
ingenious turf conduits, the soil lacking firmness to hold stone or
brick. The vast bulk of Slievemore soon looms full in front, and after
a long stretch of smooth Balfour road and a sharp turn on the edge of
a deep ravine on the right with a high ridge beyond it, the Great
mountain on the left, Dugort, with Blacksod Bay, heaves in sight. A
final spurt up the hilly road and the weary, jolted traveller, or what
is left of him, may (metaphorically) fall into the arms of Mr. Robert
Sheridan, of the Sea View Hotel, or of Mrs. Sheridan, if he likes it
better.
There are two Dugorts, or one Dugort divided against itself. The line
of demarcation is sharp and decided. The two sections stand but a
short distance apart, each on an opposite horn of the little bay, but
the moral distance is great enough for forty thousand leagues. The
Dugort under Slievemore is Protestant, the Dugort of the opposite
cliff is intensely Roman Catholic. The one is the perfection of
neatness, sweetness, cleanliness, prettiness, and order. The other is
dirty, frowsy, disorderly, and of evil odour. The Papists deny the
right of the Protestants to be in the island at all, speak of them
with acerbity, call them the Colonists, the perverts, the Soupers, the
Jumpers, the heretics; and look forward to the time when a Dublin
Parliament will banish law and order, so that these interlopers may be
for ever swept away, and their fields and houses become the property
of the Faithful. They complain that the Protestants have all the best
land, and that the Papist population were wrongfully driven from the
ground now occupied by the colony. Like other Catholic poor all over
Ireland they will tell you that they have been ground down, harried,
oppressed, grievously ill-used, habitually ill-treated by the English
Government, which has never given them a chance. They explain the
prosperity of their Protestant neighbours by knowing winks and nods,
and by plain intimations that all Irish Protestants are secretly
subsidised by England, that they have privileges, that they are
favoured, petted, kept in pocket money. To affect to doubt this is to
prove yourself a dissembler, an impostor, a black-hearted enemy of the
people. Your Achil friend will drop the conversation in disgust, and
by round-about ways will call you a liar. He is sure of his facts, as
sure as he is that a sprinkling of holy water will cure rheumatism,
will keep away the fairies from the cow, will put a fine edge on his
razor, will keep the donkey from being bewitched. He knows who has had
money and how much, having reasoned out the matter by inference. He
could sell himself to-morrow, but is incorruptible, and will remain a
strong rock to the faith, will still buttress up the true hierarchy of
heaven. He cannot be bought, and this is strange, for he never looks
worth twopence.
It was during a famine that one Mr. Nangle, a Protestant parson from
the North, went to Achil and found the people in deepest distress.
They were dying of starvation, and their priests had all fled. Mr.
Nangle had no money, but he was prompt in action. He sent a thousand
pounds' worth of meal to the island on his own responsibility, and
weighed down by a sense of the debt he had incurred, went to London to
beg the money. He was successful, and afterwards founded the Achil
mission at Dugort, now called the Colony. Needless to say that all the
land belonging to the mission was duly bought and paid for, and that
the Protestants have been the benefactors of Achil. The stories of
wrong-doing, robbery, and spoliation, which the peasantry repeat, are
of course totally untrue. The example of a decently-housed community
has produced no perceptible effect on the habits of the Achilese. The
villages of Cabawn, Avon (also known by its Anglicised name of River),
Ballyknock, Slievemore, and Ducanella are dirty beyond description.
Some of the houses I saw in a drive which included the coastguard
station of Bull's Mouth were mere heaps of stones, with turf sods for
tiles, whereon was growing long grass which looked like a small
instalment of the three acres and a cow. Some had no windows and no
chimney, the turf reek filling the hovel, but partly escaping by a
hole in the roof. The people who live in this look as it painted in
umber by old Dutch masters. These huts are small, but there is always
room for a pig or two, which stalk about or stretch themselves before
the fire like privileged members of the family. This was very well for
the Gintleman that paid the Rint. But he merits the title no longer.
His occupation's gone.