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text is shifted to all uppercase. The occasional 'oe' ligature is
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example, "2-1/4".
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ONE IRISH SUMMER
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT CELTIC CROSS AT GLENDALOUGH]
ONE IRISH SUMMER
BY
WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS
AUTHOR OF
"_The Yankees of the East_," "_Between the Andes and the Ocean_"
"_Modern India_," "_The Turk and his Lost Provinces_"
"_To-day in Syria and Palestine_," _etc._
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
_DUFFIELD & COMPANY_
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. A SUMMER IN IRELAND 1
II. THE CATHEDRALS AND DEAN SWIFT 15
III. HOW IRELAND IS GOVERNED 34
IV. DUBLIN CASTLE 53
V. THE REDEMPTION OF IRELAND 60
VI. SACRED SPOTS IN DUBLIN 77
VII. THE OLD AND NEW UNIVERSITIES 97
VIII. ROUND ABOUT DUBLIN 115
IX. THE LANDLORDS AND THE LANDLESS 130
X. MAYNOOTH COLLEGE AND CARTON HOUSE 143
XI. DROGHEDA, AND THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE 159
XII. TARA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF IRELAND 174
XIII. SAINT PATRICK AND HIS SUCCESSOR 188
XIV. THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT 202
XV. THE NORTH OF IRELAND 209
XVI. THE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST 222
XVII. THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF DERRY 237
XVIII. IRISH EMIGRATION AND COMMERCE 247
XIX. IRISH CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS 260
XX. WICKLOW AND WEXFORD 268
XXI. THE LAND OF RUINED CASTLES 283
XXII. THE IRISH HORSE AND HIS OWNER 300
XXIII. CORK AND BLARNEY CASTLE 312
XXIV. REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 330
XXV. GLENGARIFF, THE LOVELIEST SPOT IN IRELAND 343
XXVI. THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY 366
XXVII. INTEMPERANCE, INSANITY, AND CRIME 391
XXVIII. THE EDUCATION OF IRISH FARMERS 404
XXIX. LIMERICK, ASKEATON, AND ADARE 417
XXX. COUNTY GALWAY AND RECENT LAND TROUBLES 432
XXXI. CONNEMARA AND THE NORTHWEST COAST 443
XXXII. WORK OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD 459
INDEX 475
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
An Ancient Celtic Cross at Glendalough _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Queenstown 4
The Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary 8
Holycross Abbey, County Tipperary 10
St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin 16
The Tomb of Strongbow, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 32
The Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1906-9 34
The Countess of Aberdeen 36
The Four Courts, Dublin 48
The Castle, Dublin; Official Residence of the Lord Lieutenant
and Headquarters of the Government 54
The Customs House, Dublin 78
The Bank of Ireland, Old Parliament House, Dublin 80
St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 90
Quadrangle, Trinity College, Dublin 98
Main Entrance, Trinity College, Dublin 102
Sackville Street, Dublin, showing Nelson's Pillar 116
Lighthouse at Howth, Mouth of Dublin Bay 122
Portumna Castle, County Galway; the Seat of the Earl of
Clanricarde 138
Maynooth College, County Kildare 144
Carton House, Maynooth, County Kildare; the Residence of the
Duke of Leinster 152
A Celtic Cross at Monasterboice, County Louth 166
Ruins of Mellifont Abbey, near Drogheda, County Louth 168
Carrickfergus Castle 180
St. Patrick's Cathedral at Armagh, the Seat of Cardinal Logue,
the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland 194
Cathedral, Downpatrick, where St. Patrick lived, and in the
Churchyard of which he was buried 196
The Village of Downpatrick 200
Rosstrevor House, near Belfast, the Residence of Sir John Ross,
of Bladensburg 210
Shane's Castle, near Belfast, the Ancient Stronghold of the
O'Neills, Kings of Ulster 216
Queen's College, Belfast 226
Albert Memorial, Belfast 228
The Giant's Causeway, Portrush, near Belfast 244
Bishop's Gate, Derry 246
Irish Market Women 260
An Ancient Bridge in County Wicklow 268
The Vale of Avoca, County Wicklow 272
The River Front at Waterford 290
Lismore Castle, Waterford County; Irish Seat of the Duke of
Devonshire 292
An Irish Jaunting Car 308
Going to Market 310
Queen's College, Cork 314
Blarney Castle, County Cork 322
Kilkenny Castle; Residence of the Duke of Ormonde 326
The Ancient City of Youghal, County Cork; the Home of Sir
Walter Raleigh 330
Myrtle Lodge; the Home of Sir Walter Raleigh 338
Lake Gougane-Barra, County Cork 348
Chapel erected by Mr. John R. Walsh of Chicago on the Island
of Gougane-Barra 350
The Pass of Keimaneigh through the Mountains between Cork
and Glengariff 352
Glengariff Bridge 356
Kenmare House, Killarney 372
Upper Lake, Killarney 376
Ross Castle, Killarney 380
Muckross Abbey, Killarney 384
A Window of Muckross Abbey, Killarney 388
Treaty Stone, Limerick 422
Adare Abbey, in the Private Grounds of the Earl of Dunraven,
near Limerick 428
Fish Market, Galway 438
Salmon Weir, Galway 442
A Scene in Connemara 444
Clifden Castle, County Galway 448
A Scene in the West of Ireland; Lenane Harbor 450
Barnes Gap, County Donegal 460
An Irish Cabin in County Donegal 464
The Old: A Laborer's Sod Cabin; The New: Example of the
Cottages built in Connemara by the Congested Districts
Board 470
Interior and Exterior of One-Story Cottages erected by the
Congested Districts Board 472
ONE IRISH SUMMER
I
A SUMMER IN IRELAND
For those who have never spent a summer in Ireland there remains a
delightful experience, for no country is more attractive, unless it be
Japan, and no people are more genial or charming or courteous in their
reception of a stranger, or more cordial in their hospitality. The
American tourist usually lands at Queenstown, runs up to Cork, rides out
to Blarney Castle in a jaunting car, and across to Killarney with a
crowd of other tourists on the top of a big coach, then rushes up to
Dublin, spends a lot of money at the poplin and lace stores, takes a
train for Belfast, glances at the Giant's Causeway, and then hurries
across St. George's Channel for London and the Continent. Hundreds of
Americans do this each year, and write home rhapsodies about the beauty
of Ireland. But they have not seen Ireland. No one can see Ireland in
less than three months, for some of the counties are as different as
Massachusetts and Alabama. Six weeks is scarcely long enough to visit
the most interesting places.
The railway accommodations, the coaches, the steamers, and other
facilities for travel are as perfect as those of Switzerland. The hotels
are not so good, and there will be a few discomforts here and there to
those who are accustomed to the luxuries of London and Paris, but they
can be endured without ruffling the temper, simply by thinking of the
manifold enjoyments that no other country can produce.
And Ireland is particularly interesting just now because of the mighty
forces that are engaged in the redemption of the people from the poverty
and the wretchedness in which a large proportion of them have been
submerged for generations. No government ever did so much for the
material welfare of its subjects as Great Britain is now doing for
Ireland, and the improvement in the condition of affairs during the last
few years has been extraordinary.
In order to observe and describe this economic evolution, the author
spent the summer of 1908 visiting various parts of the island and has
endeavored to narrate truthfully what he saw and heard. This volume
contains the greater part of a series of letters written for _The
Chicago Record-Herald_ and also published in _The Evening Star_ of
Washington, _The Times_ of St. Louis, and other American papers. By
permission of Mr. Frank B. Noyes, editor and publisher of _The Chicago
Record-Herald_, and to gratify many readers who have asked for them,
they are herewith presented in permanent form.
About three hundred passengers landed with us at Queenstown. Most of
them were young men and young women of Irish birth, returning after a
few years' experience in the United States. Several had come home to be
married, but most of them were on a visit to their parents and other
relatives. Among those who disembarked were several older men and women
who were born in Ireland, but had been taken to America in infancy or in
childhood and were now looking upon the fair face of Erin for the first
time.
There is an astonishing difference in the appearance and behavior of the
steerage passengers who are sailing east from those who are sailing
west. A few years, or even a few months, in America causes an
extraordinary change in the dress and the manners of a European peasant.
You can see it in the passengers that land at Genoa and Naples, and
those that land at Hamburg and Trieste. But it is even more noticeable
in the Americanized Irish who land at Queenstown by the thousand every
summer from New York. The Italian, the Hungarian, or the Pole who goes
aboard a steamer to America with his humble belongings and his quaint
looking garments is a very different person from the man who sails from
New York back to the fatherland a few years later. And the Irish boys
and girls who went ashore with us just as the sun was waking up Ireland
were as hearty, well dressed, and prosperous looking as you would wish
to see. And every young woman had a big "Saratoga" in place of the
"cotton trunk with the pin lock" that she carried away with her when she
left the old country for America the first time. I don't know what was
in those big trunks, although one can get a glimpse of their contents if
he stands by while the customs officers are inspecting them, but you can
see the names "Delia O'Connell, New York," "Katherine Burke, Chicago,"
and "Mary Murphy, Baltimore," marked in big black letters at either end.
And what is most noticeable, the trunks are all new. They have never
crossed the ocean before, but will be going back again to America in a
few months. Their owners will not be contented with the discomforts they
will find at their old homes. Ireland is more prosperous today than for
generations, but conditions among the poorer classes are very different
from those that exist in the new world.
The purser told me that he changed nearly $4,000 of American into
English money the day before we landed, for third-class passengers
alone. One man had $400; that was the maximum, but the rest of those who
disembarked at Queenstown had from $50 up to $250 and thereabouts in
cash, with their return tickets.
Queenstown makes a brave appearance from the deck of a ship in the bay,
even before sunrise. It lies along a steep slope, with green fields and
forests on either side, and the most conspicuous building is a beautiful
gothic cathedral, with an unfinished tower, that was commenced in 1868
and has cost nearly a million dollars already. The hill is so steep that
a heavy retaining wall has been built as a buttress to make the
cathedral foundations secure, and the worshipers must climb a winding
road or a sharp stairway to reach it. A little farther along the
hillside is an imposing marine hospital and group of barracks, from
which we could hear the bugles sounding "reveille" as we landed. There
are compensations to those who are marooned at Queenstown before
daylight, and one of them is the picturesque surroundings of the
ancient homes of the O'Mahony's, who ruled this part of Ireland for many
generations long ago.
The harbor is like an amphitheatre, entirely inclosed by hills, three
hundred or four hundred feet high, that are covered with frowning
battlements. Every hilltop is strongly fortified. The bay, which is four
miles long and about two miles wide, contains several islands, upon
which the government has built warehouses, repair shops, shipyards, and
the other appurtenances of a naval station, guarded by Fort Carlisle,
Fort Camden, and other modern fortresses. Upon Haulbowline Island is a
depot for ammunition and other ordnance stores, and the pilot told me
that on Rocky Island near by were two magazines--great chambers chiseled
out of the living rock by Irish convicts who were formerly confined
there--and that each of them contained twenty-five thousand barrels of
powder belonging to the British navy.
Queenstown has many handsome estates overlooking the sea and the bay
from the hills that inclose the harbor. There is an old ruined castle at
Monkstown that was built in 1636 by Anastasia Gould, wife of John
Archdecken, while her husband was at sea. She determined that she would
surprise him when he returned home. So she hired a lot of men to build a
castle with only the material they found on the estate, and made an
agreement with them that they should buy the food and clothing necessary
for their families from herself alone. It is the first record of a
"company store" that I know of. When the castle was finished and the
accounts were balanced it was found that the cost of the labor had been
entirely paid for by the profits of this thrifty woman's mercantile
transactions, with the sum of four pence as a balance to her credit. Her
husband returned in due time and was so delighted with his new home that
he never went to sea again. His estimable wife died in 1689, and was
buried in the churchyard of Team-pulloen-Bryn, where this story is
inscribed with her epitaph.
On Wood's Hill, overlooking the bay, is a handsome estate that once
belonged to Curran, the famous lawyer and orator, whose daughter was
the sweetheart of Robert Emmet, the Irish martyr. Her melancholy romance
is related in Washington Irving's story called "The Broken Heart" and in
one of Tom Moore's ballads.
[Illustration: QUEENSTOWN]
It is 165 miles from Queenstown to Dublin, and the railroad passes
through several of the counties whose names are most familiar to
Americans, for they have furnished the greater portion of our Irish
immigrants--Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queens, and Kildare. Most of the
passengers who landed with us took the same train, and they were so many
that they crowded the little railway station to overflowing and created
a scene of lively confusion. Some of them had been met by brothers,
fathers, sweethearts, and friends, who were waiting two hours before
daylight, and the hearty greetings and enthusiasm they showed were
contagious. The sweethearts were easy to identify. The demonstrations of
affection left no doubt, but all the world loves a lover, and we
rejoiced with them. In the long line that stood before the ticket
seller's window at the railway station they chattered unconsciously like
so many sparrows, their arms around each other, with an occasional
embrace, a sly kiss and a slap to pay for it, tender caresses upon the
shoulder or the head, and other expressions of a happiness that could
not have been concealed. The home-bred young men gazed with wonder and
admiration at the finery worn by their sweethearts from America, who, by
the way, although they came third class, and were undoubtedly
chambermaids or shop girls in our cities, were the best-looking and the
best-dressed women we saw in Ireland. The pride of the parents at the
appearance and the manners of their sons or daughters showed that they
appreciated the accomplishments that American experience acquires.
One of the younger passengers, a boy of twenty years, perhaps, told me
that he had come from Ohio to persuade his father to send his two
younger brothers back with him. They live in Tipperary, where "there is
no show for a young man now." Another young man had a tiny American flag
pinned to the lapel of his coat, and when I said, "You show your
colors," the lassie who clung to his arm turned at me with a determined
expression on her face and remarked:
"I'll be takin' that off and pinnin' a piece of green in its place vera
soon."
"No, you don't, darlin'; none o' that," he replied. "I'm an American
citizen, and I don't care who knows it. If you don't want to be one
yourself, I know another girl who does."
The country through which the railway to Dublin runs affords a beautiful
example of Irish scenery. As far as Cork the track follows the bank of
the River Lee, which is inclosed on either side by a high ridge crowned
with stately mansions, glorious trees, and handsome gardens. Several of
the places are historic, and the scenery has been frequently described
in verse by the Irish poets.
Father Prout, a celebrated rhymemaker of Cork, has described one of the
villages as follows:
"The town of Passage is both large and spacious,
And situated upon the say;
'Tis nate and dacent and quite adjacent
To Cork on a summer's day.
There you may slip in and take a dippin'
Foreninst the shippin' that at anchor ride,
Or in a wherry you can cross the ferry
To Carrigaloe on the other side."
We could not see much from the car window, but we saw enough on the
journey to understand why it is called "The Emerald Isle" and why the
Irish people are so enthusiastic over its landscapes. The river is
walled in nearly all the distance to Cork, and there are many factories,
storehouses, and docks on both sides. Quite a fleet of steamers ply
between Queenstown and Cork, and trains on the railroad are running
every hour. Small seagoing vessels can go up as far as Cork, but the
larger ones discharge and receive their cargoes at Queenstown. We
couldn't see much of the towns because the railway tracks are either
elevated so that only the roofs and chimney pots are visible, or else
they are buried between impenetrable walls or pass through tunnels on
either side of the station. But when the train passed out into the open
a succession of most attractive landscapes was spread before us as far
as the horizon on either side, and the fields were alive with bushes of
brilliant orange-colored gorse, or furze, as it is sometimes called.
They lit up the atmosphere as the burning bush of Moses might have done.
Very little of the ground is cultivated. Only here and there is a field
of potatoes and cabbages, but the pastures are filled with fine looking
cattle and sheep, for this is the grazing district of Ireland, from
whence her famous dairy products and the best beef and mutton come.
Beyond Portarlington we got our first glimpses of the bogs, with which
we are told one-sixth of the surface of Ireland is covered, an area of
not less than 2,800,000 acres. Bogs were formerly supposed to be due to
the depravity of the natives, who are too lazy to drain them and have
allowed good land to run to waste and become covered with water and
rotten vegetation, but this theory has been effectively disposed of by
science. Everybody should know that the bogs of Ireland are not only due
to the natural growth of a spongy moss called sphagnum, but furnish an
inexhaustible fuel supply to the people and have a value much greater
than that of the drier and higher land. The report of a "bogs
commission" describes them as "the true gold mines of Ireland," and
estimates them as "infinitely more valuable than an inexhaustible supply
of the precious metal." The average Irish bog will produce 18,231 tons
of peat per acre, which is equivalent to 1,823 tons of coal, thus making
the total supply of peat equivalent to 5,104,000 tons of coal, capable
of producing 300,000 horse power of energy daily for manufacturing
purposes for a period of about four hundred and fifty years. With coal
selling at $2 a ton in Ireland to-day, this makes the bogs of Ireland
worth $10,000,000,000. The "bog trotter" is an individual to be
cultivated, for when our coal deposits in the United States are
exhausted we may have to send over and buy some of his peat for fuel. It
is proposed to utilize these deposits and save transportation charges by
erecting power-houses at the peat beds and furnish electricity over
wires to the neighboring towns and cities for lighting, power, and other
purposes, "for anybody having work to do from curling a lady's hair to
running tramways and driving machinery." The writer refers to recent
installations of electric works in Mysore, India, for working gold
fields ninety miles distant, and quotes the late Lord Kelvin's opinion
that the city of New York will soon be getting its power from Niagara,
four hundred miles away. We saw them digging peat in the fields and
piling it up like damp bricks to dry in the sun. Freshly dug peat
contains about seventy per cent of moisture, but when cured the ratio is
reduced to fifteen or twenty per cent.
A peat bog is not always in a hollow, but often on a hillside, and
sometimes at considerable height, which contradicts the theory that bogs
are due to defective drainage. Science long ago determined that Irish
peat was the accumulation of a peculiar kind of moss which grows like a
coral bank in the damp soil, and continues to pile up in layers year
after year, century after century, until it forms a solid mass, several
feet thick, seventy per cent moisture and thirty per cent fibre, which
burns slowly and furnishes a high degree of heat. We see bogs on all
sides of us where the peat is three and four feet thick, and with a long
straight spade that is as sharp as a knife, it is cut into blocks about
eight or ten inches long and about four inches square. A sharp spade
will slice it just as a knife would cut cheese or butter, and after the
blocks have lain on the ground a while they are stacked up on end in
little piles to dry. Then, when they have been exposed to the weather
for three or four weeks, they are stacked in larger piles, from which
they are carted away and sold or used as they are needed.
[Illustration: THE ROCK OF CASHEL, COUNTY TIPPERARY]
Four tons of peat are equal in caloric energy to one ton of coal. I
noticed in the papers that a bill is pending before the House of Commons
to grant a charter to a company to erect a station in a bog near
Robertson, Kings County, twenty-five miles from Dublin, for generating
electricity from peat, the power to be transmitted to Dublin and the
suburban towns for lighting, transportation, and manufacturing
purposes. Several other projects of a similar sort have been suggested
for utilizing the peat at the bog instead of carting it into town.
Beyond the peat beds rises a chain of low mountains with a curious
profile that runs west of the town of Templemore. Like every other freak
of nature in Ireland, they are the scenes of many interesting legends.
The highest peak is called "The Devil's Bit," and the queer shape is
accounted for by the fact that the Prince of Darkness in a fit of hunger
and fatigue once took a bite out of the mountain, and, not finding it to
his taste, spat it out again some miles to the eastward, where it is now
famous as the Rock of Cashel.
Cashel, at present a miserable, deserted village, was once the rich and
proud capital of Munster. Adjoining the ruins of the cathedral is the
ancient and weather-worn "Cross of Cashel," which was raised upon a rude
pedestal, where the kings of Munster were formerly crowned. The ruins
are more extensive than anywhere else in Ireland, for Cashel at one time
was the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland and its greatest educational
centre. Here the Pope's legates resided and here Henry II., in 1172,
received the homage of the Irish kings. But what gives the place its
greatest sanctity is the fact that St. Patrick spent much time there and
held there the first synod that ever assembled in Ireland, about the
middle of the fifth century. That is supposed to have been the reason
for the erection of so many sacred edifices and monasteries in early
days. St. Declan lived there, too, and commemorated his conversion to
Christianity by the erection of one of the churches. Donald O'Brien,
King of Limerick, erected another, and his son Donough founded an abbey
in 1182. Holy Cross, beautifully situated in a thick grove on the banks
of the River Suir, was built in 1182 for the Cistercian order of monks.
It derived its name because a piece of the true cross, set with precious
stones and presented to a grandson of Brian Boru by Pope Pascal II., was
kept there for centuries, and made the abbey the object of pilgrimages
of the faithful from all parts of Ireland. This precious relic is now
in the Ursuline convent at Cork.
Cashel was destroyed during the civil wars. The famous Gerald
Fitzgerald, the great Earl of Kildare, had a grudge against Archbishop
Cragh and burned the cathedral and the bishop's palace. He excused the
act before the king on the ground that he "believed the archbishop was
in it."
A little beyond Templemore, at Ballybrophy Junction, a branch of the
main line of the railway leads to the town of Birr, which is famous as
the seat of the late Earl of Rosse, whose father erected an observatory
there many years ago, with one of the largest and finest telescopes in
the world. It is twenty-seven feet long, with a lens three feet in
diameter. Some of the most important discoveries of modern astronomy
have been made there, and Birr has been the object of pilgrimages for
scientific men for more than half a century. The old Birr castle has
been much enlarged and modernized by the late earl, who died in
September, 1908, and is surrounded by an estate of thirty-six thousand
acres, upon which is one of the best built and well kept towns in
Ireland. He was a scholar and scientist of reputation, president of the
Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Dublin Society, and interested in
important manufactories and enterprises. He was especially active in
developing the steam turbine.
All of that section of Ireland covered by the journey between Dublin and
Cork is associated with heroic struggles. It has been fought over time
and again by the clans and the factions that have struggled to rule the
state. Every town and every castle has its tragic and romantic history.
Almost every valley is associated with a legend or an important event.
The woods and the hills are still peopled with fairies, and local
traditions among the humble folks are the themes of fascinating tales
and songs. But the natives one sees at the railway stations do not look
at all romantic. A sentimental person is compelled to endure many severe
shocks when he comes in contact with the present generation of Irish
peasants.
[Illustration: HOLYCROSS ABBEY, COUNTY TIPPERARY]
The people of Ireland are more prosperous to-day (July, 1908) than
they have been for generations. Their financial condition is better than
it ever has been, and is improving every year. The bank deposits, the
deposits in postal savings banks, the government returns of the taxable
property, have advanced steadily every year for the last ten years, and
in Ireland, during the last ten years, there has been a gradual and
healthful improvement in every branch of trade and industry. The people
are more prosperous than in England or Scotland, except in certain
sections where poverty is chronic because of climatic reasons and the
barrenness of the soil. Nevertheless, they are not so prosperous as they
ought to be under the circumstances, and it would require a book, and a
large book, to repeat the many theories that are offered to explain the
situation. It is a question upon which very few people agree, and they
probably never will agree. There are almost as many theories as there
are people. Therefore a discussion is not only disagreeable but it would
lead immediately into politics. It is safe to say, however, that every
Irishman who is willing to take a farm and cultivate it with
intelligence and industry will prosper if he will let politics and
whisky alone. Idleness, neglect, intemperance, and other vices produce
the same results in Ireland as elsewhere, and under present conditions
industry and thrift will make any honest farmer prosperous.
The moral and intellectual regeneration of the country is keeping step
with the material regeneration. All religious qualifications and
disqualifications have been removed; the church has been divorced from
the state, and each religious denomination stands upon an equality in
every respect.
The penal laws have been repealed and the tithe system has been
abolished.
Local representative government prevails everywhere.
Nearly every official in Ireland is a native except the lord-lieutenant,
the treasury remembrancer, and several agricultural experts who are
employed as instructors for the farmers and fishermen by the
Agricultural Department, and the Congested Districts Board.
The primary schools of Ireland are now free; free technical schools have
been established at convenient locations for the training of mechanics,
machinists, electricians, engineers, and members of the other trades.
Two new universities have been authorized,--one in the north and the
other in the south of Ireland,--for the higher education of young men
and women.
Temperance reforms are being gradually accomplished by the church and
secular temperance societies, which are working in harmony; the license
law has been amended so as to reduce the number of saloons, and
three-fourths of the saloons are closed on Sunday throughout the island.
The Father Mathew societies are gaining in numbers; the use of liquor at
wakes and on St. Patrick's Day has been prohibited by the Roman Catholic
bishops, and the number of persons arrested for drunkenness and
disorderly conduct is decreasing annually.
Every tenant that has been evicted in Ireland during the last thirty
years has been restored to his old home, and the arrears of rent charged
against him have been canceled.
The land courts have adjusted the rentals of 360,135 farms, and have
reduced them more than $7,500,000 a year.
More than one hundred and twenty-six thousand families have been enabled
to purchase farms with money advanced by the government to be repaid in
sixty-eight years at nominal interest.
Several thousand families have been removed at government expense from
unproductive farms to more fertile lands purchased for them with
government money to be repaid in sixty-eight years.
Thousands of cottages, stables, barns, and other farm buildings have
been built and repaired by the government for the farmers, and many
millions of dollars have been advanced them for the purchase of cattle,
implements, and other equipment through agents of the Agricultural
Department.
More than twenty-three thousand comfortable cottages have been erected
for the laborers of Ireland with money advanced by the government to be
repaid in small instalments at nominal interest.
The landlord system of Ireland is being rapidly abolished; the great
estates are being divided into small farms and sold to the men who till
them. The agricultural lands of Ireland will soon be occupied by a
population of independent farm owners instead of rent-paying tenants.
The Agricultural Department is furnishing practical instructors to teach
the farmers how to make the most profitable use of their land and labor,
how to improve their stock, and how to produce better butter, pork, and
poultry.
The Agricultural Department furnishes seeds and fertilizers to farmers
and instructs them how they should be used to the best advantage.
The Irish Agricultural Organization Society has instructed thousands of
farmers in the science of agriculture and has established thousands of
co-operative dairies and supply stores to assist the farmers in getting
higher prices for their products and lower prices for their supplies.
The Congested Districts Board has expended seventy million dollars to
improve the condition of the peasants in the west of Ireland; to provide
them better homes and to place them where they can get better returns
for their labor.
Thousands of fishermen have been furnished with boats, nets, and other
tackle; they have been supplied with salt for curing their fish; casks
and barrels for packing them; have been provided with wharves for
landing places and warehouses for the storage of their implements and
supplies; and government agents have secured a market for their fish and
have supervised the shipments and sales.
Thousands of weavers have been furnished with looms in their cottages at
government expense, so that they can increase their incomes by
manufacturing home-made stuffs.
Schools have been established at many convenient points in the west of
Ireland, where peasant women and girls may learn lace-making. The
government furnishes the instruction free, supplies the materials used,
and provides for the sale of the articles made.
Work has been furnished with good wages for thousands of unemployed men
in the construction of roads and other public improvements.
District nurses have been stationed at convenient points along the west
coast, where there are no physicians, to attend the sick and aged and
relieve the distress among the peasant families, and hospitals have been
established for the treatment of the ill and injured at government
expense.
II
THE CATHEDRALS AND DEAN SWIFT
St. Patrick's Cathedral is, perhaps, the most notable building in
Ireland, and one of the oldest. During the religious wars and the
clashes of the clans in the early history of Ireland it was the scene
and the cause of much contention and violence. Its sacred walls were
originally arranged as fortifications to defend it against the savage
tribes and to protect the dignitaries of the church, who resided behind
embattled gates for centuries. At one time St. Patrick's was used as a
barrack for soldiers, and the verger will show you an enormous baptismal
font, from which he says the dragoons used to water their horses, and
the interior was fitted up for courts of law. Henry VIII. confiscated
the property and revenues because the members of its chapter refused to
accept the new doctrines, and nearly all of them were banished from
Ireland. He abolished a small university that was attached to the
cathedral by the pope in 1320 for the education of priests. For five
hundred years there was a continuous quarrel between St. Patrick's and
Christ Church Cathedral, which stands only two blocks away, because of
rivalries over ecclesiastical privileges, powers, and revenues. Finally
a compromise was reached, under which there has since been peace between
the two great churches and relations similar to those of Westminster
Abbey and St. Paul's in London. Christ Church is the headquarters of the
episcopal see of Dublin, and St. Patrick's is regarded as a national
church. The chief reason why St. Patrick's has such a hold upon the
affections and reverence of the people is because it stands upon the
site of a small wooden church erected by St. Patrick himself in the year
450 and within a few feet of a sacred spring or well at which he
baptized thousands of pagans during his ministry. The exact site of the
well was identified in 1901 by the discovery of an ancient Celtic cross
buried in the earth a few feet from the tower of the cathedral. The
cross is now exhibited in the north aisle. The floor of the church is
only seven feet above the waters of a subterranean brook called the
Poddle, and during the spring floods is often inundated, but in the
minds of the founders the sanctity of the spot compensated for the
insecure foundations.
St. Patrick's little wooden building, which is supposed to be the first
Christian sanctuary erected in Ireland, was replaced in 1191 by the
present lofty cruciform edifice, three hundred feet long and one hundred
and fifty-seven feet across the transepts. It was designed and erected
by Comyn, the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, is supposed to have
been completed in 1198, and was raised to the rank of a cathedral in
1219. There were frequent alterations and repairs during the first seven
centuries of its existence, until 1864-68, when it was perfectly
restored by Sir Benjamin Guinness, the great brewer, who also purchased
several blocks of dilapidated slums that surrounded it, tore down the
buildings, and turned the land into a park which not only affords an
opportunity to see the beauties of the cathedral, but gives the poor
people who dwell in that locality a playground and fresh air. Sir
Benjamin purchased several of the adjoining blocks and erected upon them
a series of model tenement-houses, the best in Dublin, and rents them at
nominal rates to his employees and others. On the other side of the
cathedral are several blocks of the most miserable tenements in the
city, and sometime they also will be cleared away. A bronze statue has
been erected in the churchyard as a reminder of his generosity.
[Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN]
Benjamin Guinness was the great brewer of Dublin. In 1756 one of his
ancestors started a little brewing establishment down on the bank of the
Liffey River in the center of the city, which has been extended from
time to time until the buildings now cover an area of more than forty
acres. The property and good will were transferred by the Guinness
family to a stock company for $30,000,000 in 1886, and since then the
plant has been enlarged until it now exceeds in extent all other
breweries in the world, represents an investment of $50,000,000, and
turns out an average of two thousand one hundred barrels of beer a day.
Sir Benjamin's son, Edward Cecil Guinness, was elevated to the peerage
as Lord Iveagh and is the richest man in Ireland to-day. He is highly
respected, has married into the nobility, is a great favorite with the
king, is generous and philanthropic, encourages and patronizes both
science and athletic sports, and is said to be "altogether a very good
fellow." Another son is Lord Ardilaun, who is equally rich and popular,
and owns several of the finest estates in the kingdom.
Sir Benjamin expended $1,200,000 in restoring St. Patrick's Cathedral,
and Lord Iveagh, his son, added $350,000 more. The driver of the
jaunting car that carried us there told me how many billion of glasses
of beer those gifts represented, and made some funny remarks about all
the profit being in the froth. But if all men were to make such good use
of their money there would be no reason to complain.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is the official seat of the Knights of St.
Patrick, and their banners, helmets, and swords hang over the choir
stalls, while in one of the chapels is an ancient table and a set of
ancient chairs formerly used at their gatherings. Since 1869 they have
met at Dublin castle. Many tattered and bullet-riddled battle flags
carried by Irish regiments hang in other parts of the cathedral, and if
they could tell the stories of the many brave Irishmen who have fought
and perished under their silken folds, it would be more thrilling than
fiction. Ireland has furnished the best fighting men in the British
Army, both generals and privates, since the invasion of the Normans. The
king's bodyguard of Highlanders is now almost exclusively composed of
Irish lads. In the north transept is a flag that was carried by an Irish
regiment at the skirmish at Lexington at the beginning of our
Revolution and at the attack on Bunker Hill. They brought it away with
them to hang it here with the trophies of Irish valor of a thousand
years.
St. Patrick's is the Westminster Abbey of Ireland, and many of her most
famous men are either buried within its walls or have tablets erected to
their memory. John Philpott Curran, the great advocate and orator, and
Samuel Lover, the song writer and novelist, whose "Handy Andy" and
"Widow Machree," are perhaps the best examples of Irish humor in
literature, are honored with tablets; and Carolan, the last of the bards
for whom Ireland was once so celebrated. He died in 1788. M.W. Balfe,
author of that pretty little opera, "The Bohemian Girl," and many
beautiful ballads, including "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," has a
tablet inscribed with these words:
"The most celebrated, genial and beloved of Irish musicians,
commendatore of Carlos III. of Spain, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
Born in Dublin, 15 May, 1808, died 20th of Oct., 1870."
Balfe was born in a small house on Pitt Street, Dublin, which bears a
tablet announcing the fact.
The man who wrote that stirring poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore,"
which begins,
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried,"--
lies in St. Patrick's. His name was Charles Wolfe, and he was once the
dean of the cathedral.
In the right-hand corner of the east transept is a monument to the
memory of a certain dame of the time of Elizabeth, named Mrs. St. Leger.
She was thirty-seven years old at the time of her death, and, her
epitaph tells us, had "a strange, eventful history," with four husbands
and eight children, all of whom she made comfortable and happy.
On the other side is a tablet to commemorate the fact that Sir Edward
Fitten, who died in 1579, was married at the age of twelve years and
became the father of fifteen children,--nine sons and six daughters.
The famous Archbishop Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we
studied in college, and who once presided over this diocese, is buried
in a stately tomb, and his effigy, beautifully carved in marble, lies
upon it.
The most imposing monument of all, and one which is associated with much
history and tragedy, was erected in honor of his own family by Richard
Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, who was a great man in his day. So
pretentious was the monument that Archbishop Laud ordered it removed
from the cathedral. This was done by Thomas Wentworth, afterward Earl of
Strafford, who was sent over by King Charles with an armed force to
govern Ireland. Boyle, who had himself designed and expended a great
deal of money upon "the famous, sumptuous, and glorious tomb," which was
to immortalize him and sixteen members of his family, was so indignant
that he never forgave Strafford, and afterward caused the latter to be
betrayed to a shameful death at the hands of his enemies.
The most interesting historic relic in the cathedral is an ancient oaken
door with a large hole cut in the center of it. It bears an explanatory
inscription as follows:
"In the year 1492 an angry conference was held at St. Patrick, his
church, between the rival nobles, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, and
Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, the said deputies, and their armed
retainers. Ormonde, in fear of his life, fled for refuge to the Chapiter
House, and Kildare, pressing Ormonde to the Chapiter House door,
undertooke on his honor that he should receive no villanie. Whereupon
the recluse, craving his lordship's hand to assure him his life, there
was a clift in the Chapiter House door pearced at trice to the end that
both Earls should shake hands and be reconciled. But Ormonde surmising
that the clift was intended for further treacherie refused to stretch
out his hand--" and the inscription goes on to relate that Kildare,
having no such nervousness, thrust his hand through the hole and
without the slightest hesitation. Ormonde shook it heartily and peace
was made.
For centuries it was said that whoever might be Viceroy of Ireland it
was the Earl of Kildare who governed the country. A long line of
Kildares succeeded each other, and their living successor, better known
as the Duke of Leinster, is now the premier of the Irish nobility,
although he is still a boy, just twenty-one. Both the Kildares and the
Earls of Desmond were descended from Gerald Fitzgerald, who in the
thirteenth century founded that powerful clan known as the Geraldines.
In the fifteenth, and at the beginning of the sixteenth, century they
exercised absolute control in Ireland, and Garrett, or Gerald
Fitzgerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare, known as "The Great Earl," had
greater authority than any other Irishman has ever displayed in his
native island since the days of Brian Boru. At one time his daughter,
wife of the Earl of Clanricarde, appealed to her father from a quarrel
with her husband. The old gentleman took her part, ordered out his army,
and met his son-in-law in the battle of Knockdoe, where it is said eight
thousand men were slain.
Near the entrance to St. Patrick's Cathedral is a long, narrow, brass
tablet upon which are inscribed the names of the fifty-seven deans who
have had ecclesiastical jurisdiction there from 1219 to 1902. The most
famous in the list is that of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., author of
"Gulliver's Travels," "The Tale of a Tub," and other equally well-known
works. He presided here for more than thirty years, and was undoubtedly
the most brilliant as well as the most remarkable clergyman in the
history of the diocese of Dublin. He was the greatest of all satirists,
one of the most brilliant of all wits, and an all-around genius, but was
entirely without moral consciousness, altogether selfish, inordinately
vain, and one of the most eccentric characters in the history of
literature. He was born in Dublin Nov. 30, 1667; educated at Trinity
College, where he distinguished himself only by his eccentricities; was
curate of two churches, and dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral for more
than thirty years, although neither his manners nor his morals
conformed to the standards that are fixed for clergymen in these days.
He was more famous for his wit than his wisdom; for his piquancy than
for piety. He spent most of his life in Dublin, died there, was buried
in St. Patrick's Cathedral by the side of a woman whose life he wrecked,
and left his money to found an insane asylum which is still in
existence.
The house in which Jonathan Swift was born can still be seen in Hoey's
Court, which once was a popular place of residence for well-to-do
people, and has several mansions of architectural pretensions, but has
degenerated into a slum, one of the many that may be found in the very
center of the business section of the city. He came of a good Yorkshire
family; his mother had aristocratic connections and was one of those
women who seem to have been born to suffer from the failings of men. His
father was a shiftless adventurer, following several professions and
occupations in turn without even ordinary success in any. Jonathan went
to the parish schools in Kilkenny for a time when his father happened to
be living in that locality, and when he was seventeen years old passed
the entrance examinations to Trinity College, Dublin. He was a willful,
independent, eccentric person, of a lonely and sour disposition, and
refused to be bound by the rules of the university. He would not study
mathematics or physics, but delighted in classical literature, and
furnished many witty contributions to college literature which gave
promise of genius. He wrote a play that was performed by the college
students with great success. His degree was reluctantly conferred by the
faculty through the influence of Sir William Temple, a famous statesman
of those days, whose wife was a distant relative of Swift's mother.
Shortly after graduation he became private secretary to Sir William
Temple and attended him in London during several sessions of parliament.
While there, under some influence that has never been explained in a
satisfactory manner, Swift decided to enter the ministry, and took a
course of theology at Oxford. After his ordination in 1695 Sir William
Temple got him a living in a quiet, secluded village called Laracor, in
central Ireland, near Tara, the ancient capital, in a church that long
ago crumbled to ruins and has been replaced by a modern building. It was
a small parish consisting of not more than ten or twelve aristocratic
families, among them the ancestors of the great Duke of Wellington. The
young curate's congregation was not very regular in its attendance, and
you will remember, perhaps, an amusing story, how the Rev. Mr. Swift,
when he came from the vestry one Sabbath morning, found no one but the
sexton, Roger Morris, in the pews. He read the service, as usual,
however, and with that quaint sense of humor which cropped out in
everything he did, began solemnly:
"Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places," etc.