Bog-ore, to be spoken of as bog ore, is abundant, and manganese is
known to exist in large quantities. Soapstone of excellent quality is
also plentiful, and the peasantry will tell you that on the passing of
the Home Rule Bill they will at once proceed to dig out the
inexhaustible stores of gold, silver, lead, iron, tin, and coal, with
which the district abounds. Ireland is a perfect El Dorado, and when
the brutal Saxon shall have taken his foot off her throat, when
Parlimint and the sojers allow the quarries to be worked, the mines to
be sunk, the diamonds under Belfast to be dug up, the country will
once more be prosperous, as in the owld ancient times, when the
O'Briens and O'Connells cut each other's throats in peace, and harried
their respective neighbourhoods without interference. Captain Ricky,
of Mount Hall, is exploiting the bog-ore, and sending it to England by
thousands of tons. The stuff is an oxide of iron and is used for
purifying gas. The queerest feature of the use of bog-ore is the fact
that when used up it is worth twenty-five per cent. more than before.
Delivered to the gas companies at thirty shillings a ton, it fetches
forty shillings when the gas-men have done with it. It seems to be
composed of peat which by a few millions of years of saturation in
water containing iron has become like iron-rust. The soapstone of
Killygordon is used instead of fire-clay, and is also made into French
chalk. Or rather it might be, but that the Captain declines to proceed
with its extraction pending the Home Rule scare. There is much alder
on the estate, which is watered by the river Finn. This is the right
wood for the manufacture of clogs for the people of Lancashire and
Yorkshire. Captain Ricky sends tons of these interesting articles to
the sister isle. Men are turning out these favourite instruments of
feminine correction, in a rough state, by boat loads. When the
coster's done a-jumping on his mother, he should thank Ireland for
his clogs. When the festive miner rejoices, his dancing would lack the
distinguishing clatter which is its richest charm, without alder grown
on the banks of the Donegal Finn. The countries were made to run in
harness. One is the complement of the other. The brainy dwellers of
Hibernia know this, and stick like limpets to England. Only the
visionary, the lazy, the ne'er-do weels, the incompetent, the
disorderly, the ignorant, the ambitious, want Home Rule. The
contemners of law and order want to flourish and grow fat. The Healys
and Sextons and all of that ilk know that while under an Irish
Parliament their country would be ruined, yet that they themselves
would pick up something in the general confusion, while Dillon, like
Mrs. Gargery, could be ever on the rampage, carrying out his promises
of dire revenge, and flourishing like a young bay tree. Nobody here
rejoiced when the bill was reported amended. They are losing faith in
its merits. Their simple faith received a severe shock after the
return to power of the Three-acres-and-a-Cow Government. Then the
Labourers' Dwellings Act proved a fraud. The peasantry asked the
neighbouring landowners for an acre of ground and a new cottage. A
neighbouring J.P. to-day told me that he had more than twenty
applications from people who are now awaiting the gold mines, the
great factories which the new Irish Government are about to open. If
you would remain poor, vote for the Unionist candidate. If you would
become rich beyond the dreams of avarice, if you would occupy the
place of the Protestant landlords, if you would preserve your immortal
soul from eternal flames, vote as instructed by Father Gilhooly. A
patriot priest yesterday said that the Day of Independence would be
the "Day of Ireland." He should have called it the _Dies Irae_.
A Scottish Covenanter, not of the straitest sect, has no faith in the
Home Rule Bill. He said:--"The people up in the mountains, those who
want Home Rule, or rather those who have voted for it and expect to
benefit by it, are all of the class no Act of Parliament would ever
help. They don't farm their land, and they don't want to farm it. Half
of it lies to waste every year, and they cut turf which they get for
nothing, and sell it in the small towns about for three or four
shillings a load, instead of making the land produce all it will. Go
to their houses at ten in the morning, and you will find them smoking
over the fire. My people are up and at work by six o'clock every
morning in the week. The Scots farmers round Strabane are that keen on
getting on that you can't get them away from their work, which is
their pleasure. They are so keen on making the most of the ground that
they are doing away with the hedges, and substituting barbed wire,
merely to gain the difference in area of ground to till. Look at yon
brae-face. Every yard tilled right up to the top. The Papist peasantry
would never do that. You want to know what's the reason? Goodness
knows. All the Protestants round here have got on till they have
farms. There are no Protestant labourers. If English working men,
agricultural fellows, would settle in Ireland, they would soon get
their Three acres and a cow. The people who can and will do the best
with the land ought to have it, that's my theory. Ireland everywhere
illustrates the principle of the survival of the fittest. The only way
to succeed is by work. The Catholic Irish are so accustomed to leave
everything to the priest that they have no self-reliance, and in
worldly matters they always ask, who will help us? They are all
beggars by nature. The Duchess of Marlborough and other kind but
mistaken ladies have pauperised some districts of Donegal. The people
have a natural indisposition to work, and a natural disposition to
beg. As for loyalty and tolerance, they have none of either. You never
saw industry without other virtues, you never saw laziness without
other vices. These everlasting grumblers are a generation of vipers.
They are a peevish and perverse set of lazy, skulking swindlers. They
can pay. Every man could pay his rent and be comfortably off if he
liked. The Protestant farmers pay and get along. And we agree that the
landlords favour the other sect. They know that we will do the right
thing, and they let us do it, but the Papists may do less--for less
than the right thing is what the landlord expects from them. He thinks
himself lucky if his Papist tenants come anyway near the mark.
Therefore I say, and any Protestant will say, the Papists are favoured
by the landlords."
A staunch Conservative, though not a land-owner, said:--"We want
amendment of the Parliamentary voting regulations. No clergyman should
be allowed to sit in the Revision Court. Scandals without end could be
cited to show the necessity of this. I would, of course, exclude all
sects, though no Protestant preacher ever takes part directly or
indirectly in any of our political meetings. When a man has to make
oath as to the validity of his claim to the suffrage he will often
look at the priest who sits watching him. He gets a nod, and he goes
on with his swearing. The perjury of the Irish Revision Courts is
something fearful, and no one pays any attention to it. The Papists
swear just anything. They get absolved, but a Protestant has not this
great advantage and that holds him back. That is the Papist
explanation. In my presence the Home Rule inspector of this
district--we call the people who watch and work the registers the
inspectors--swore that James Kelly, of Cross Roads, Killygordon, was
the present tenant, the holder of the license, and the freeholder of a
public-house at the spot mentioned. Besides this he swore that the
name James Kelly was on the signboard. He therefore proposed to poll a
James Kelly. Now the person in question went to America in 1888, and
never returned. His name was not on the signboard, and the license was
for another person. The Judge declined to hear any further evidence
from Inspector Francis McLaughlin. That was the only penalty enforced.
Such things happen every day in Irish Revision Courts.
"A man named James Burns put in a claim for a vote on behalf of land
held at Stroangebbah. He had none there. What he had was at
Aughkeely, and this was not sufficient to entitle him to vote. Yes,
his name should be spelt Byrnes, but the Irish often prefer the
Protestant form of the name. Well, nobody believed that he was the
tenant of Stroangebbah; he was said to be a lodger only. The Judge
asked him for proof. He presented a paper purporting to be a receipt
for rent for Stroangebbah, but in reality the receipt was for the
ground at Aughkeely, which did not qualify. He curled up the paper so
as to show that his name was on it, and the Judge instantly passed his
claim, and placed him on the roll. A young fellow named Robert Ewing
at once exposed the trick, but the Judge declared that having placed
Burns on the roll, he must remain there until next revision. Judge
Keogh was his name. Yes, you would think an Irishman and a good
Catholic would have seen through such a trumpery trick.
"When an illiterate declares for whom he will vote, we sometimes have
from twenty to thirty outsiders in the polling-booth. In England the
Court is cleared, and even the policeman has to go outside. But in
this favoured country any blackguard who likes to fill up a
declaration of secrecy, and go before a magistrate, can be present at
the whole of the proceedings. There is no secrecy for the illiterates.
Any corner-boy, any ruffian, any blackguard in the district can come
in and hear for whom men vote. These corner boys all get declarations
in their fists, and they march in gangs from one booth to another.
It's intimidation, no less. Get some M.P. to mention this as having
taken place at Stranorlar. The people of whom I complain were not even
voters. Anybody could be present. Ridiculous to talk of the ballot-box
in Ireland.
"The Morley magistrates are in many cases a disgrace to the country.
We used to have an idea in these parts that a small publican could not
legally sit on the Bench. James McGlinchy, J.P., is a small publican
of Brockagh. Barring his trade, he's not so bad, as he can read and
write. But if you saw the lists, and if you knew the men
recommended----! Englishmen have no idea what low scoundrels have been
placed on the Bench in this country. Imperfect education we do not so
much mind when conjoined with character. O'Donnell is not a bad sort,
but he couldn't write 'adjourned.' Two magistrates were needed, and
nobody else arrived. Therefore the difficult word was necessary, and
O'Donnell felt it was beyond him. He called up a policeman, and
ordered him to do it. Whereat the county makes merry. There should be
an education test. Can all the English magistrates spell 'adjourned'?
You think so? That's very good. Not right that a man who can't spell
'adjourned' should give another man a spell of imprisonment."
A Roman Catholic gentleman thus summed up the character of his
particular neighbourhood:--"The upper classes of both sects are in
every way equal. Among the lower classes I observe that the
Protestants do as much work as they can, while the Papists do as
little as they can. This accounts for the difference in their
appearance and position. Then the Protestants are far better educated,
and have arrived at the knowledge that everything that is good must be
gained by exertion, and that there is for them at least no substitute.
The others talk as if after the establishment of an Irish Parliament
money would be found growing on the bushes. No one need try to change
their opinion. When the time comes to vote they will vote as their
priest tells them. Someone has said that the British Government might
subsidise the Church, and so buy her off. It could not be done. The
bishops want power. I do not agree with them, and I do not support or
admit their claim to direct their flocks in political matters."
The Marquess of Conyngham, whom I met at Strabane, said:--"The people
of Donegal are pleasant, kind, and civil. Taking them all round, they
are much more energetic than the Southerners, and we were making fair
progress until these Home Rule Bills were brought in. The country was
being opened up, and things were beginning to improve, when the bill
came and blighted everything. Now the people are growing idle and
discontented. They are all right when left alone. Everybody likes the
Donegal peasants, and they deserve to be liked. Only leave them alone;
that's what they want; and not Home Rule nor any other quackery."
Strange things continue to happen in Ireland. This does not refer to
the continuous cutting-off of cows' tails, the slitting of horses'
tongues, and other similar expressions of impatience for the good time
coming, but to some strange things that have happened in connection
with agricultural affairs. Sir Samuel Hayes decided to abandon a farm
which would not pay, although he had no rent to meet. He was his own
landlord, but he did not work the farm. That was done by a bailiff,
who, curiously enough, was the highest bidder for the land. He of all
men should have known that if the farm would not pay expenses when
there was no rent, it would not reward the man who had rent to pay.
This reasoning proved fallacious. The farm which without rent proved a
loss, in the same hands turned out when rent was charged a perfect
gold-mine. In another case, a bailiff on leaving his employ expended
on land the accumulated savings of his thrifty years, and--strange to
say--his savings amounted to about three times the sum of his wages
during his life's service. A man who, having a pound a week, can save
three pounds, would in England be regarded as a prodigy. In Ireland
such things happen every day. Particulars as to the cases
hereinbefore-mentioned can be obtained from anybody in Killygordon,
which is altogether a remarkable place--to say nothing of its name,
which for obvious reasons has the misfortune to be unpleasant to the
Grand Old Man. _Nomen, Omen?_
An octogenarian J.P. said:--"They talk of gold and silver mines, and
lead and copper mines, and iron and quicksilver mines, but mining in
Ireland cannot, as a rule, be made to pay. Everything exists in
Ireland, but in such small quantities. The seams and veins are so
small. Mr. Ritchie, of Belfast, spent several fortunes in mining for
coal, iron, and other things. There was iron at Ballyshannon, but what
was the good? It cost less to bring iron to England from Algiers. We
had no railway to Donegal, fifteen miles away, and cartage was too
expensive. So far from Home Rule doing us any good, it would be a
cruel blow to the country, and especially to the poor. Employment
would become very scarce, as everybody who had money invested in
Ireland would be in haste to realise and get it away. There would be
no new enterprises, although the poor folk say, "We'll get employment
in big factories and mines." Where's the money to come from? From the
Irish Parliament, they say. And where will they get it from? Oh, a
Parliament always has money. All the money comes from Parliament,
which, in fact, actually makes money. The English Parliament makes all
the goold sovereigns, and when the Irish Parliament commences to
manufacture goold sovereigns at Dublin, then Ireland must be rich. Did
not Mr. Gladstone say there would be too much money? Did not he say
that in Parliament? That's what the poorest and most ignorant people
of Donegal say. The English Home Rulers, by their support of the
movement are inflicting injury on the Irish poor. We want the country
opening up with railways. The tourist district is unequalled in
Europe. Good hotels now, but you reach them mostly by cars. Balfour
was giving us rails. That one man in five years did more good to
Ireland than all other agencies operating for the previous forty
years. I have thought the thing out, and I can speak for that period
with certainty. Why could not they let him alone? The blackguards of
these parts still shout 'Hell to Balfour.'
"Home Rule means to England a weakening, a loss of prestige, a new and
a terrible danger. The _Independent_ says, 'When Ireland next fights
England she will not fight alone?' Very true. There is a strong
anti-English feeling among the lower American classes, who are largely
Irish, who have votes, and by their votes can influence American
policy. Let me point out the opinion of Lieutenant-Colonel Butler as
recorded in 'The Great Lone Land.' Here it is:--
"You will be told that the hostility of the inhabitants of the United
States is confined to one class, and that class, though numerically
large, is politically insignificant. Do not believe it for one
instant; the hostility to England is universal, it is more deep-rooted
than any other feeling, it is an instinct and not a reason, and
consequently possesses the dogged strength of unreasoning antipathy. I
tell you, Mr. Bull, that were you pitted to-morrow against a race that
had not one idea in kindred with your own, were you fighting a deadly
struggle against a despotism the most galling on earth, were you
engaged with an enemy whose grip was around your neck and whose foot
was on your chest, that English-speaking cousin of yours over the
Atlantic, whose language is your language, whose literature is your
literature, whose civil code is begotten from your digests of law,
would stir no hand, no foot, to save you, would gloat over your
agony, would keep the ring while you were being knocked out of all
semblance of motion and power, and would not be very far distant when
the moment came to hold a feast of eagles over your vast, disjointed
limbs. Make no mistake about it, and be not blinded by ties of kindred
or belief." And, further, "You will find them the firm friend of the
Russian, because that Russian is likely to become your enemy in Herat,
in Cabul, in Kashgar, in Constantinople. Nay, even should any
woman-killing Sepoy put you to sore strait by indiscriminate and
ruthless slaughter, he will be your cousin's friend for the simple
reason that he is your enemy." Without accepting the gallant Colonel's
dictum, it is as well to bear it in mind.
A pensive youth in Ballybofey was deeply engaged with a scrap of
ballad literature, not by any means without literary merit. For and in
consideration of a Saxon sixpence I became the proprietor of the lay,
which is being circulated by thousands throughout Ireland. Those who
uphold the reputation of their Irish allies for loyalty to the Queen,
and friendship to the English nation, will, doubtless, find their
convictions deepened and strengthened by the following sample verses
addressed to intending recruits:--
Ye whose spirits will not bow
In peace to parish tyrants longer,
Ye who wear the villain brow,
And ye who pine in hopeless hunger,
Fools, without the brave man's faith,
All slaves and starvelings who are willing
To sell yourselves to shame and death,
Accept the fatal Saxon shilling.
Ere you from your mountains go
To feel the scourge of foreign fever,
Swear to serve the faithless foe
Who lures you from your land for ever,
Swear henceforth its tools to be
To slaughter trained by ceaseless drilling,
Honour, home, and liberty
Abandoned for a Saxon shilling.
Go--to find 'mid crime and toil
The doom to which such guilt is hurried,
Go--to leave on Indian soil
Your bones to bleach, accursed, unburied,
Go--to crush the just and brave
Whose wrongs with wrath the world are filling,
Go--to slay each brother slave,
Or spurn the blood-stained Saxon Shilling.
Irish hearts! why should you bleed,
To swell the tide of English glory?
Aiding despots in their need,
Who've changed our green so oft to gory?
None save those who wish to see
The noblest killed, the meanest killing,
And true hearts severed from the free,
Will take again the Saxon Shilling.
The British soldier is the meanest killing the noblest. The poet's
name is Buggy. All this is very surprising. Painted by Paddy Mr. John
Bull, J.P., will hardly recognise himself. Throughout the Nationalist
literature he is represented as a liar, a coward, a bully, a
hypocrite, a tyrant, and a robber. If he now consented to be made the
instrument of persons whose ascertained opinions exactly harmonise
with those enunciated above, the epithets of Fool and Idiot will
doubtless be added to the list. And in this instance the evil speakers
would be quite right. _Quod demonstrandum est._
Killygordon, July 29th.
No. 55.--A TRULY PATRIOTIC PRIEST.
The rhythmical rocking of the little engine of the West Donegal line
running across from Killygordon seemed to say ceaselessly--
Here's a health to ye, Father O'Flynn,
Slainthe (health), and slainthe, and slainthe agin--
Powerfullest pracher, an' tinderest tacher,
An' kindliest crature in ould Donegal!
Father O'Flynn must have been like a priest I met on Sunday, a
Loyalist and a Conservative. Priests of the old school are becoming
scarcer and scarcer every year, but one or two still exist. They do
not "get on." It is understood that their political attitude forbids
promotion. A priest who confesses to a respect for the Queen is not
likely to be acceptable to the multitude. A priest who believes that
the British laws are just and equitable, and that things would be
better remaining as they are, is looked upon as a _lusus naturae_. He
said:--"I am a South of Ireland man, and was educated at Douai. I have
no sympathy with the great bulk of the Maynooth men, who are mostly
peasants and the sons of peasants. I do not think that the Maynooth
course is sufficient in one generation to lift the sons to any great
intellectual height above the besotted ignorance of the parents. I
believe in heredity, and I say that most of my colleagues are only
shaved labourers, stall-fed for three years. The low-bred men are now
the dominant power. Instead of tranquillising the people, which I hold
to be the duty of the clergy, they have done all they could to awaken
and keep alive their most dangerous passions. And to rouse the Irish,
especially the Southern Irish, is a matter of the greatest facility. I
hold that the clergy by degenerating into mere political agents are
strangely short-sighted. Their spiritual influence will in time be
dangerously undermined, and in the long run they will take nothing by
their motion. The Parnellite party will grow stronger and stronger,
and the extreme party, the party of Revolution, which now lacks a
leader, would on the passing of a Home Rule bill become the dominant
power. That is a great and salient factor of which up to the present
English politicians have taken no account. The party of Revolution is
the party which under an Irish Parliament would be master of the
situation. Leaders will not be lacking. But at present the party must
from the necessity of the case be amorphous, and therefore,
politically and as a power, practically non-existent. Pass the bill,
and then you will see something. A new party, the party of
Independence, or, as they will call it, of Freedom, will take shape
and formidably influence events. The temptation to take the lead will
be great. Independence and Separation will be a most popular cry. The
present men must either join the swim or be denounced as traitors, and
as Healy cannot now visit Dundalk without two hundred policemen to
protect him, while William O'Brien was nearly torn to pieces at
Cork--would, in fact, have been murdered but for the police--you may
conceive what would be the state of things when we have a
Revolutionary party and when the police were no longer under the fair
and judicial control of the British Government. Pass the bill and look
out for the Revolutionary party. They will have an immense backing in
point of numbers. And numbers rule in Ireland, not intelligence. The
bill will, of course, give nothing that the peasants expect. The fault
will assuredly lie with John Bull. The expectations of the ignorant,
that is, the great mass of the people, will be woefully disappointed.
Who is to blame? they will ask. Numbers of politicians are waiting to
tell them. Who but the brutal, greedy, selfish, perfidious Saxon? An
agitation will succeed, compared with which the worst times of the
Land League were preferable. I shudder to think of the chaos, the
seething and weltering confusion of the time to come. The Irish
people, the poor ignorants, will suffer most. And yet they are
innocent in this matter. They have, indeed, been blamed with the
excesses of a few of their number, but they are, if left to
themselves, a most kindly and law-abiding people. The Donegal peasants
are the best in the country. You will see poverty, but the degradation
of filthiness and laziness is not nearly so marked as in the South and
West, where the climate is warm, moist, enervating.
"What, then, are my opinions, expressed in a concise form? I will tell
you. They are what _you_ would call sound. They are the opinions of
Balfour, of Lord Salisbury. I hold Mr. Balfour in profound esteem as a
wise and sagacious administrator, a terror to evil-doers, and an
encourager of those who do well. I have a real affection for Mr.
Balfour, as for a great benefactor of my beloved country. For I love
my country so well that I feel the keenest personal interest in her
welfare. Perhaps I have a deeper affection for Ireland than even Tim
Healy or Sexton or Harcourt or O'Brien. What do I think of Gladstone?
I think him a scourge of Ireland, a curse, a destroyer far worse than
Oliver Cromwell. A heaven-born statesman? Do his followers call him
that? Well, I can only say that I hope and trust that heaven will not
be blessed with any further family."