292,370, and during the last fifty years it has fallen off three and one
half millions. During the last fifteen years the population of Scotland
has increased 689,825 and that of England and Wales has increased
5,461,197. The birth rate in Ireland is larger than it is in either
England or Scotland, and the death rate is about the same, so that the
decrease in population has been entirely due to emigration.
Since the distribution of the great estates in Ireland among the tenants
in small farms there is a growing complaint concerning the lack of
labor; and the emigration of young men to the United States and the
migration of farm laborers who spend from five to nine months in
Scotland every year where wages are higher than in Ireland are creating
a very serious problem.
There are in Ireland about 400,000 farms, of which 165,000, embracing
three-fourths of the total area, average more than thirty acres, and
that is all one man can cultivate. All farms more than thirty acres in
extent, and many of smaller area, require hired labor, which has usually
received about 12 shillings per week until the last two or three years,
when farm wages were advanced to 14 shillings and 16 shillings a
week--that is, $3.50 and $4. The recent census shows that 217,652 men
are employed as laborers upon these 165,000 farms and that an average of
76,870 extra hands are employed during the harvest. During the last
three years, although the area under cultivation has been growing
smaller annually, it has been difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of
labor to carry on the harvests, and wages, in many cases, have advanced
to 18 shillings a week.
Notwithstanding the demand for home labor, 24,312 persons, including 750
women, left Ireland in May, 1907, and went to England and Scotland,
where they remained to work on the farms until the following November.
Most of them went from the northwestern part of Ireland, from counties
Mayo, Roscommon, Donegal, Galway, and Sligo, which have the least land
under cultivation in the country.
An investigation made by the estates commissioners showed that 3,245 of
these persons had holdings of five acres, 987 had holdings of between
five and ten acres, 912 between ten and fifteen acres, 458 between
fifteen and twenty acres, 471 between twenty and twenty-five acres, 93
between twenty-five and thirty acres, 102 between thirty and forty
acres, and 75 had farms of more than forty acres. Most of them left
their little farms to be cultivated by their wives and sons and
daughters during their absence. Among the migrants were 9,308 sons of
farmers, who work on their father's farms when they are in Ireland, but
go to England and Scotland because they are able to make more money than
by staying at home.
The average wages of these migrants was 26 shillings a week, and they
varied from 20 to 30 shillings, according to intelligence, with food,
lodging, and in many cases their traveling expenses one way. It is
customary for the Scotch and English farmers to pay the railway fare
over and leave the migrant to buy his ticket home in the fall. Most of
the migrants save the larger part of their wages. It is estimated that
the average net savings was £12, or $60 per person, and that the total
amount taken back to Ireland at the end of the season was about
£275,000, or $1,375,000 in American money. These savings are sufficient
to keep their families through the rest of the year with the aid of
their small farms, fishing, weaving, lacemaking, and other home
industries.
According to the reports of the estates commission, the number of farm
hands employed in 1871, in addition to the owners of the land and their
families, was 446,782, or more than twice as many as are employed at
present. In 1881 the number was 300,091. The number of occasional
laborers or extra harvest hands employed in 1871 was 189,829, as against
76,870 employed in 1907, which indicates in a striking manner the decay
of agriculture in Ireland.
At the same time wages have increased 30 per cent and the cost of
boarding farm hands has increased 40 per cent. The hands now demand
better accommodations and better food, and everything they require is
much more expensive than it was thirty years ago. The average wages for
steady farm hands in Ireland with board, according to the official
statistics, is $12 a month, while ten years ago labor was plenty at $9 a
month. Wages of household servants are about the same and have advanced
as rapidly.
The census statistics of Ireland are quite interesting and show that for
the last ten years the population has remained fairly stationary, the
excess of births over deaths making up the loss by emigration. The
latest vital statistics available are for the year 1905, which show a
population of 4,391,565, an excess of births over deaths of 27,671; an
emigration of 30,676, and a net decrease in population of 2,915. The
following table shows the number of births, deaths, and emigrants for
ten years:
Years Births Deaths Emigrants
1895 106,113 84,395 48,703
1896 107,641 75,700 39,995
1897 106,664 83,839 32,535
1898 105,457 82,404 32,241
1899 103,900 79,699 41,232
1900 101,459 87,606 45,288
1901 100,976 79,119 39,613
1902 101,863 77,676 40,190
1903 101,831 77,358 39,789
1904 103,811 79,513 36,902
1905 102,832 75,071 30,676
------- ------ ------
Average 103,811 80,731 39,549
Through the efforts of Mr. Boland, M.P., the foreign commerce of Ireland
is now given independently in the statistical reports of the United
Kingdom, and the following table shows the imports and exports for
recent years:
Imports Exports
1904 £53,185,523 £49,398,536
1905 54,793,183 51,174,318
1906 56,365,299 55,598,597
1907 60,521,245 61,617,225
It will be noticed that there was a considerable increase every year in
both columns, but the increase in exports was considerably greater than
in imports. This increase was particularly noticeable in live stock
shipments to England. In 1905 there were 1,852,423 head of horses,
mules, cattle, sheep, and swine shipped from Ireland to England, and in
1907 the shipments had increased to 2,025,292 head.
The exports of butter also increased, and Ireland now has the lead among
the nations that contribute to the British poultry market. In 1907 the
value of the poultry exported from Ireland to Great Britain was
£725,441.
Ireland ought to furnish all the bacon that the British people eat.
Irish bacon is the best in the world, and brings the highest prices,
but, notwithstanding that fact, more bacon was imported into England
from the United States, from Denmark, and from Canada than from Ireland.
The exports of manufactured goods--linens, woolens, and other
textiles--from Ireland during the fiscal year 1907, exceeded
£20,000,000. The imports of similar articles amounted to £27,000,000.
The Irish import a vast amount of bacon from the United States when they
ought to supply their own market.
The following table will show the commerce between the United States and
Ireland during the last three years:
Imports from Exports to
Ireland Ireland
1906 $11,456,739 $10,824,350
1907 12,023,469 9,593,658
1908 8,899,799 10,101,065
The falling off of the exports from Ireland in 1908 was due entirely to
the panic of that year in the United States, which caused an almost
total stagnation of trade for several months.
There is no limit to the demand for Irish agricultural produce at good
prices, but the cultivated area of the island continues to diminish
annually, and the area given up to pasturage and the breeding of cattle
and sheep increases. The Irish farmer has an unlimited market for bacon,
hams, butter, eggs, poultry, potatoes, and other vegetables in London,
Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, and other great
manufacturing cities which are now very largely fed by Holland and
Denmark. More eggs and poultry, more butter and bacon, are imported into
England from Denmark than from Ireland, notwithstanding the difference
in distance and cost of transportation. The provision dealers of the
great manufacturing cities of England always have agents in Ireland, and
the Department of Agriculture and the Irish Agricultural Organization
Society are both active and efficient in securing and cultivating
markets for Irish products. They are advancing large sums of money to
establish co-operative dairies and to improve the dairy cattle, the
swine, and poultry of Ireland, but many of the farmers are indifferent
to their opportunities and with the happy-go-lucky characteristic of the
Irish race are happy and satisfied so long as they have enough to feed
their own mouths.
Sir Horace Plunkett, who has been especially active in trying to improve
the condition of the farmers of Ireland, says: "The settlement of the
land question and the new system of governmental aid to agriculture are
proceeding rapidly and doing great good, but along neither of those two
lines of national advancement, nor along both combined, is agricultural
prosperity to be attained. The result depends entirely upon voluntary
individual effort and co-operation. The British market will take all the
produce we can send, and the more we send of uniform quality--and this
can be done by co-operation--the more it will pay for our produce. It
follows that every dairy farmer in Ireland is not only interested in
seeing that every farmer in his district forwards the best butter he can
produce, but he is also concerned to see that farmers in other districts
do the same. The ownership of the land by the occupier, which has been
brought about by legislation, will not of itself give the Irish farmer
the prosperity he hopes for. It is not only the farms, but the habits of
the people upon the land which need improvement. Capable under certain
influences of surprising industry, they lack the qualities which secure
the fruits of industry, because their education and economic
circumstances have not developed the industrial habit. They are surely
clever in their resourcefulness and shrewd in their bargainings, but as
a rule in the management of their farms and commercial dealings they
display a total lack of the most elementary principles of either
technical or business knowledge. In spite of a passionate devotion to
their country, they emigrate to America whenever they can obtain the
money to pay their passage, and seem to have no fixed purpose or
ambition to develop the resources that lie around them."
The factories of Ireland are confined almost entirely to the northern
province of Ulster, although a few mills and other textile
manufactories are scattered in other parts of the island. The textile
and other manufacturing industries have enjoyed unprecedented and
extraordinary prosperity for eight or ten years.
Household industries, particularly the manufacture of handwoven tweeds
and various kinds of lace, received a gratifying impetus from the
advertising obtained at the Irish village at the Columbian Exposition at
Chicago in 1893, under the patronage of Lady Aberdeen, who for twenty
years had interested herself in the practical and successful development
of lacemaking and hand weaving of woolen fabrics. Her energetic efforts
have been supplemented by the Royal Irish Industries Association and the
Royal Dublin Society, both of which hold annual exhibitions, offer
prizes for excellence of design and workmanship, and provide agencies
for the sale of homemade and convent-made products in London and other
cities.
The Congested Districts Board has given much practical aid and
encouragement by loaning money to people who cannot afford to buy looms,
by sending teachers in industries throughout the island into the
households, by establishing fixed schools at central points, and by
furnishing thread and other materials to lacemakers and weavers, for
which it collects payments after the product is sold. All through the
poor districts of Ireland, where for centuries there has been a
desperate struggle for existence, thousands of looms and spinning-wheels
may now be found in the cottages of the poor peasants, where both the
parents and the children have been instructed in spinning and in weaving
by government teachers. And in almost every village on the west coast
there is a lace school attended by from twelve to fifty young women
under the instruction of a patient and tactful teacher working with
thread advanced to them without payment by the Congested Districts
Board. The lace produced is sold for them at the agencies of the board,
and they are thus enabled to contribute several pounds a month to the
incomes of their families.
It is a familiar joke that our principal imports from Ireland are
priests, politicians, policemen, and baseball pitchers, but they are not
all by any means. I do not know what other country has furnished so many
famous Americans--generals, admirals, statesmen, politicians,
financiers, merchant princes, actors, writers, lawyers, and other
professional men too numerous to mention. If you will look through the
list of the generals during our Civil War, if some one will make up a
catalogue of millionaires and mining kings and empire-builders and
captains of industry they will realize that all the Irishmen who have
come to the United States have not gone into politics or pugilism or
baseball teams. I must say, however, that the Irish have almost the
monopoly of the prize ring and the baseball diamond.
Cardinal Logue made a speech upon his return from America in 1908, in
which he discussed this subject at length and related what he had
himself seen of Irish millionaires and other successful business men in
the United States. He spoke particularly of New York City, and alluded
with gratification to the fact that the subway of New York City and the
new tunnel under the Hudson River were both built by Irishmen.
"I was proud to know," he said, "of the vast number of our countrymen
who were honored citizens of the United States. They have asserted
themselves, especially in New York, and occupy the leading positions
there. You find Irishmen prominent in every walk of life, you find them
among the most distinguished of the judges on the bench, you find them
among the most successful barristers, you find them among the most
eminent in medicine and in the other learned professions, and then I
found that the largest contracts in New York [and he might have said in
the entire country] had been allotted to Irishmen, because of their
ability to organize and carry out great works. I visited the tunnel
under the Hudson and was proud to think that that great work had been
carried out by an Irishman who had carved out his own advancement and
had made his own way in life by his native talent and genius. Then,
again, when they were undertaking the stupendous work of building
subways under the city of New York they gave that contract to an
Irishman, who succeeded in completing it to the satisfaction of
everybody, and it was one of the greatest works ever undertaken by man.
"And they succeed in other branches of life also, equally well,"
continued the cardinal. "As I was sailing up the Hudson River one day we
passed a city called Hoboken, and I was told that it was inhabited
exclusively by Germans with the exception of two solitary Irishmen, and
one of them, Lord, is mayor of the city and the other is prefect of
police. That is an indication of how our people are going ahead in
America. And even in the humbler walks of life I found them hard
working, well educated, and giving every sign of having retained their
own faith and that love for Ireland which is the characteristic of our
race in every part of the world. Some of them of the third and fourth
generations were as warm and as strong in their love for Ireland as
those born in this dear old land of ours."
Cardinal Logue forgets that the ancestors of the men he speaks of in
America were once kings of Ireland, and they have the right to success;
but I often wonder what would have happened if all the great Irishmen we
read about--the Duke of Wellington, Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener,
General Sheridan, A.T. Stewart, John W. Mackey, John McDonald, Thomas F.
Ryan, and the thousands of other famous Irishmen--had remained here
instead of going out into a wider field of fame and usefulness. The
result would be incomprehensible.
And there is a good deal of truth in the joke about the kings of
Ireland. At the time of St. Patrick and up to the Norman invasion in the
twelfth century Ireland was divided into many little kingdoms in
addition to the four grand divisions which correspond to the provinces
to-day. The O'Connors were kings of Connaught, the O'Brians of Munster,
the O'Neills of Ulster, the McMurroughs of Leinster, the Kavanaughs of
Wexford, the O'Carrolls of Tipperary, the MacCarthys of Cork, the
O'Sullivans and the O'Donaghues ruled in the southwest, the O'Flahertys
in Galway--and so on through a long list. What is a county now was a
kingdom then, and the descendants of the rulers still bear their names.
XIX
IRISH CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS
If any one should write a book on Irish characteristics, I think he
should rank good humor as the most prominent, and that makes up for a
great many defects. We were on the island for nearly three months and
visited more than half the counties, seeing a good deal of both city and
country life, and coming in contact with all classes of people, and it
is safe to say that no one uttered a cross or an unkind word to us, but
everywhere and under all circumstances and from everybody we received a
most cordial welcome and the most courteous treatment. And when we asked
questions which many times must have seemed silly and unnecessary to the
people to whom they were addressed, the replies have always been polite
and considerate.
Irish retorts are proverbial. For "reppartay" the race is famous, and we
have had numerous illustrations. Wit is spontaneous. It doesn't take an
Irishman long to frame an answer, and it is generally to the point.
"Blarney" is abundant. Every old woman calls you her "darlin'," and
every man calls you "me lud" or "yer honor." The insidious flattery that
is used on all occasions does no harm to the giver or the receiver. It
makes the world brighter and happier, though it may be flippant and
insincere.
[Illustration: IRISH MARKET WOMEN]
The man who "always said the meanest things in such a charming way" must
have been an Irishman, although I do not remember to have heard a mean
thing said of anybody over there. The Irish race are not diplomatic in
their actions; history demonstrates that, but no race is so much so in
conversation, and the tact and taffy shown in the treatment of strangers
are admirable. Nor does the Irish peasant wear his heart upon his
sleeve. He may be frank and sincere in his expressions, but it is quite
as probable that he is otherwise. He has the faculty of concealing the
bitterest malice under the gentlest smiles and flattering compliments.
It is always difficult to get a serious answer from a native in Ireland.
The peasant is always suspicious, and, while he will make himself
agreeable and amuse a stranger with his wit and humor, it is difficult
to get deeper into his confidence and seldom safe to place any reliance
upon what he says. This, I am told, is the result of centuries of
persecution, treachery, and danger, so that the Irish race from
necessity learned to wear the mask, until it is now a habit.
Notwithstanding their ready replies and their apparent frankness, you
are never satisfied with the information they give you when you question
them upon serious topics. You are convinced that they are not expressing
their real opinions. I make it a rule to discuss the land laws and
political policies with car drivers and other people I meet of the
working class, but have never been able to get an opinion from them. I
have never yet heard an Irish peasant express an unkind opinion of
anybody. After talking with them about politicians, landlords, and
others, I feel like the child in the cemetery who asked where bad people
were buried.
But what you most admire is the witty and ingenious way in which they
turn a mistake. A young Irishman stepped up to a gentleman the other
day, and with a musical brogue inquired:
"I'm thinkin', sir, that you are Mr. Blake."
"You're thinkin' wrong," was the surly reply.
"I beg yer honor's pardon; I sez to mysilf, when I seen you, sez I, that
must be Mr. John Blake for whom I have a missage; but if it's not, sez I
to mysilf, it's a moighty fine upsthanding young gintleman, whoiver he
may be."
Sometimes there is a tinge of sarcasm, as when an old hag asked: "Won't
yer lordship buy an old woman's prayers for a penny; that's chape."
"The hivins be your bed, me darlin'," was the way an old beggar woman
expressed her thanks.
Sir Walter Scott says: "I gave a fellow a shilling on one occasion when
a sixpence was the proper fee.
"'Remember you owe me a sixpence, Pat,' I said.
"'May yer honor live till I pay ye!'"
When he was leaving the ruins of the Seven Churches at Glendalough, Lord
Plunkett, his escort, whispered to the custodian:
"That's Sir Walter Scott; he's a great poet."
"Divil a bit," was the reply, "he's an honorable gintleman, an' he gave
me half a crown"--when the fee was a shilling.
Very often we hear poetic expressions from the most unexpected sources.
As we were driving down to Ballyhack from Waterford, the jaunting car
driver pointed at a mile stone with his whip and remarked:
"The most lonesome thing in Ireland; without another of its kind within
a mile of it."
The common use of the name of the Creator is often shocking to strangers
and seems blasphemous, but it is an unconscious habit. The word is
constantly on the tongue of the poor and not always in a profane sense.
You hear, "God bless you," "God prosper you," "Praise God," and similar
expressions continually. One neighbor seldom greets another good morning
or good night, without an appeal to the Almighty or the Redeemer or the
Holy Virgin. "Howly Mother" is the commonest of ejaculations, but Irish
profanity is always associated with blessings and not with curses. You
never hear the anathemas that are so common in the United States. Nobody
ever damns you; if the name of the Almighty is appealed to it is always
for his blessing and not for condemnation.
Everybody in Ireland does not speak with a brogue. It has often been
said that the purest English is spoken in Dublin and Aberdeen, but that
is true to a very limited extent among the highly educated and the
cultured classes with whom strangers do not often come in contact. In
some places the brogue is so dense that a stranger requires an
interpreter. It is difficult to understand an ordinary remark. And you
hear the brogue in the pulpit as well as in the slums. There is no form
of speech richer or more musical than the brogue of an eloquent
Irishman, and his natural gifts of oratory enable him to convey the
meaning of his words to the fullest degree by his accent. I never heard
the service of the Episcopal church read in a more eloquent and
impressive manner than by a young curate with a brogue "that you could
cut with a knife," as the saying is. There is nothing to compare with it
except the "sweet, soft, southern accent in the United States." When you
inquire where the Irish got their brogue, the answer will be, "At the
same shop that the Yankee got his twang."
We know that one of the most conspicuous and charming traits of the
Irish race is to have a pleasant word for everybody, no matter what is
in their hearts, on the theory attributed to St. Augustine that a drop
of honey will attract more flies than a barrel of vinegar. The Irish
call it "deludering" and "soothering," both very expressive words.
The pleasant way in which questions are answered is very gratifying,
especially to a stranger. You never hear a gruff word in Ireland. An
Englishman is brutally abrupt, but the Irish are always agreeable. The
other day when I asked the guard of a railway train how soon it would
start he replied promptly:
"Not till yer honor is aboard, sir."
When I complained to the hotel porter that it was raining all the time
in Ireland he replied apologetically:
"But it's such a gintle rain, sir."