Books: Irish Race in the Past and the Present

A >> Aug. J. Thebaud >> Irish Race in the Past and the Present

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From that time out a large number of the Irish nobility and
gentry continued to enlist under French, Spanish, or Austrian
colors; and the several Irish brigades became celebrated all
over Europe until the end of the eighteenth century. It is said
by l'abbe McGeohegan that six hundred thousand Irishmen perished
in the armies of France alone. The abbe is generally very
accurate, and from his long residence in France had every means
at his disposal of arriving at the truth. Some pretend that
double the number enlisted in foreign service. There is no doubt
that in all a million men left the island to take service under
the banners of Catholic sovereigns, and it is needless to dwell
on the bravery and devotion of those men whom the persecution of
an unwise and cruel Protestant government drove out of Ireland
during the eighteenth century-it is needless to dwell upon it,
for the record is known to the world.

Without following the fortunes of the Irish brigades, the
history of one of which, that in the service of France, has been
given us in the very interesting and valuable narrative of John
R. O'Callaghan-its various fortunes and final dissolution at the
breaking out of the French republic, when the English Government
was glad to receive back the scattered remnants of it-the
question which bears most on our present subject is: What was
the occupation of those Irishmen on the Continent when not
actually engaged in war? What service did their voluntary or
compulsory exile do their native country? Was that long
emigration of a century productive of something out of which
Providence may have drawn good?

The first departure of a few under Hugh O'Neill and Hugh
O'Donnell had already spread the name of Ireland through Spain,
Italy, and Belgium. The reports of the numerous English spies,
employed to dog their steps and watch their movements, reports
some of which have been finally brought to light, conclusively
prove that most of the exiles held honorable positions in Spain
and Portugal, at Valladolid and Lisbon, where the O'Sullivans
and O'Driscolls lived; at the very court of Spain, or in the
Spanish navy, like the Bourkes and the Cavanaghs.

In Flanders, under the Austrian archdukes, were stationed the
McShanes, on the Groyne; the Daniells at Antwerp; the posterity
of the earls themselves with that of their former retinue. All
held rank in the Austrian army, and even in times of peace were
occupied in thinking of possible entanglements whereby they
might serve their country, while they made the Irish name
honored and respected all over that rich land. In Italy, at
Naples, Leghorn, Florence, and Rome, in the great centres of the
peninsula, the same thing was taking place, and there, at least,
the calumnies, everywhere so industriously circulated about
Ireland, could not penetrate, or, if they did, only to be
received with scorn.

But, when the next emigration, at the end of the Cromwellian and
Williamite wars, landed forty thousand soldiers, and twelve
thousand more a few years afterward, on the European Continent,
these armed men proved to the nations, by their bravery, their
deep attachment to their religion, their perfect honor and
generosity, that the people from which a persecuting power had
driven them forth could not be composed of the outlaws and blood-
thirsty cutthroats which the reports of their enemies would make
them. How striking and permanent must have been the effect
produced on impartial minds by the contrast between the aspect
of the reality and the base fabrications of skilfully-scattered
rumor!

And be it borne in mind that those men founded families in the
countries where they settled; as well as those who continued to
flock thither during the whole of the eighteenth century. They
carried about with them, in their very persons even, the history
of Ireland's wrongs; and the mere sight of them was enough to
interest all with whom they came in contact in favor of their
country. Hence the esteem and sympathy which Ireland and her
people have always met with in France, where the calumnies and
ridicule lavished on them could never find an entrance.

It would be a great error to imagine that they were to be found
only in the camp or in the garrisons of cities. They made
themselves a home in their new country, and their children
entered upon all the walks of life opened up to the citizens of
the country in which they resided. Thus, at least, the name of
Ireland did not die out altogether during that age of gloom,
when their native isle was only the prison of the race, where it
was chained down in abject misery, out of the sight of the world,
the life of it stifled out in the deep dungeon of oblivion.

In all honorable professions they became distinguished-in the
Church and in trade, as in the army. Thus, speaking only of
France, an Irishman-Edgeworth-was chosen by Louis XVI. to
prepare him for death and stand by him during his last ordeal of
ignominy; another-Lally Tollendal-would have wrested India from
England, if his ardent temperament had not brought him enemies
where he ought to have met with friends; another yet-Walsh-
during the American War, employed the wealth acquired by trade,
in sending cruisers against the English to American waters.

It would take long pages to record what those noble exiles
accomplished for the good of their country and religion, quite
apart from the heroism they displayed on battle-fields, and
their fidelity to principle during times of peace. Their very
presence in foreign countries was, perhaps, the best protest
against the enslavement of their own. They showed by their
bearing that they owed no allegiance to England, and that brute
force could never establish right. By identifying themselves
with the nations which offered them hospitality and a new right
of citizenship, they proved to the world that their native isle
could be governed by native citizens. Their honorable conduct
and successful activity in every pursuit of life showed that, as
they were capable of governing themselves, so likewise could
they claim self-government for their country.

The moral condition of France during the eighteenth century, and
the depths of corruption into which the higher class sank in so
short a time, are known to all. To the honor of the Irish
nobility and gentry then in France, not a single Irish name is
to be met with in that long list of noble names which have
disgraced that page of French history. Not in the luxurious
bowers and palaces of Louis XV. were they to be found, but on
the battle-fields of Dettingen and Fontenoy. It was a Scotchman-
Law-who infected the higher circles of the natives with the rage
for speculation, and the folly of gambling in paper. It was an
Italian- Cagliostro-who traded on the superstitious credulity of
men who had lost their faith. It was an Englishman-Lord
Derwentwater-and another Scotchman-Ramsay-who, by the
introduction of the first Masonic Lodge into France, opened the
floodgates of future revolutions.

Among those of foreign birth, no Irishman was found in France to
contribute to the corruption of the nation, and give his aid to
set agoing that long era of woe not yet ended.

And needless is it to add that never is one of them mentioned,
among those who were so active in propagating that broad
infidelity peculiar to that age. If a few of them shared to some
extent in the general delusion, and took part with the vast
multitude in the insane derision, then so fashionable, of every
thing holy, their number was small indeed, and none of them
acquired in that peculiar line, the celebrity which crowned so
many others. -the Grimms, the Gallianis, and later on the Paines,
the Cloots, and other foreigners.

As a body, the Irish remained faithful to the Church of their
fathers, honoring her by their conduct, and their respectful
demeanor toward holy names and holy things. Eventually they, in
common with all Frenchmen, had to share in the misfortunes,
brought on by the subversion of all the former guiding
principles; but, though sharing in the punishment, they took no
part in the great causes which called it down.

These few words will suffice for the emigration of the Irish
nobility, and its effects on foreign countries; as well as
Ireland itself.

But another class of noblemen had emigrated to the Continent
side by side with those of whom we have just spoken; namely,
bishops, priests, monks, and learned men. England would not
suffer the Catholic clergy in Ireland; she was particularly
careful not to allow Irish youth the benefit of any but a
Protestant education. Irish clergymen were compelled to fly and
open houses of study abroad. Their various colleges in Spain,
France, Belgium, and Italy, are well known; they have already
been referred to, and it is not necessary to enlarge on the
subject. But, though mention has been made of the renown thus
acquired by Irishmen then residing on the Continent, it is
fitting to speak of them again in their character of emigrants.

They took upon themselves the noble task of making the
literature and the history of their nation known to all people;
and in so doing they have preserved a rich literature which must
otherwise have perished.

What was their situation on the Continent? They had been driven
by persecution from their country, sometimes in troops of exiles
to be cast on some remote shore; sometimes escaping singly and
in disguise, they went out alone to end their lives under a
foreign sky. Behind them they left the desolate island; their
friends bowed down in misery, their enemies triumphant and in
full power. The convents, where they had spent their happiest
days, were either demolished or turned to vile uses; their
churches desecrated; heresy ruling the land, truth compelled to
be silent. All the harrowing details given by the "Prophet of
Lamentations" might be applied to their beloved country.

True, they could find peace and rest among those who offered
them their hospitality; at least, the worship of God would be
free and untrammelled there. But it was not the place of their
birth, where they had received their first education; it was not
the mission intrusted to them when they consecrated their lives
to God. They would bear another language, see around them
different manners, begin life anew, perhaps, in their old age.
What a contrast to their former hopes! What a sad ending to the
closing days of their life!

Nevertheless, they might be of use to their countrymen. It was
not for them now to convert Europe, and preach Christianity to
barbarous tribes, as did their ancestors of old. The world which
received them was languishing with excess of refined
civilization; corruption had entered in, and was fast destroying
it; and they could scarcely hope to hold it back from its
downward career. But, at least, they might open houses for the
reception of the youth of their own country, where they should
receive an education according to the teachings of the true
Church, which was denied them at home. So they went to Salamanca,
to Valladolid, to Paris, Louvain, Douai, Rheims, Rome, wherever
there was hope or possibility of directing Irish youth in the
ways of true piety and learning.

The labors to which they devoted themselves, though unknown to
posterity, were of great utility at the time. They saw the youth
they educated grow up under their care; when their studies were
concluded, they sent them to labor in the ministry among their
countrymen; they heard of them from time to time of their
arduous life, the dangers they braved, the many persecutions
they underwent, their imprisonment when captured, their
conviction, torture often, and death by martyrdom. And thus,
through the exertions of those emigrant monks and priests, the
true Gospel was preached in Ireland, and the faith of the people
kept alive and strong.

A few of them chose another path, and consecrated the remainder
of their days to literary labors, which have shed down on their
persecuted country a halo of immortal glory.

Some Franciscan friars (two of them the brothers O'Cleary) had
already begun this work in the island itself, when driven from
their quiet homes to take refuge in the obscure "convents," that
is, out-of-the-way farm-houses mentioned before, where they were
received and hidden away from the world. The literature of
Ireland was fast perishing; the rage of their enemies being as
violently directed against their books as against their houses
and churches. Precious manuscripts were every day given to the
flames and wantonly destroyed, seemingly for the mere pleasure
of destruction. A very few years would have sufficed to render
the former history of the country a perfect blank. In no spot of
the same size on earth had so many interesting books ever been
written and treasured up; but before long there would remain no
friars on the island to preserve them, no library to contain
them, no one to care for them in the least. The brothers
O'Cleary saw this with dismay; and they, with two companions,
became known as the "Four Masters." They interested in their
work the faithful Irish who still retained possession of a farm,
or a cabin with a few acres of ground attached; the men, and
women even, were to search the country round for every volume
concealed or preserved, for every parchment and relic, for
vellum manuscripts, even a stray solitary page, did one remain
alone. The annals of Ireland were thus saved by the literary
patriotism of poor and unknown peasants. All that remains of
Irish lore was collected together in the rural convent of the
O'Clearys, and an ardent flame was enkindled which lasted the
whole of the seventeenth century.

To this initiative must be referred the subsequent labors of
Ward, Colgan, Lynch, and others; herculean labors truly, which
have enabled antiquarians of our days to resume the thread, so
near being snapped, of that long and tangled web of history
wherein is woven all that can interest the patriot and the
Christian of the island.

Knowing the position in which the writers found themselves, it
is astonishing to see what they wrote. It was not a work of
fancy to which their pens were devoted: A strong, feeling heart
and an active imagination were certainly theirs; but of little
service could either prove to them in the ungrateful task of
collecting manuscripts, classifying, reading them through,
ascertaining their age and authenticity, and finally using them
for the purpose of preserving the annals and hagiography of the
nation.

The large libraries they found in the various cities which
received them could be of little use to them. They had first to
collect their own libraries, to summon their authorities from
distant lands; many books were to be procured from Ireland
itself. With what precautions! It was real, (though lawful)
smuggling; for the export of Irish books was not only under
tariff, but strictly prohibited; the mere sight of them was more
hateful to a British custom-house officer of those days than the
sight of a crucifix to a Japanese official of Nagasaki. It would
be interesting to know the various stratagems devised to conceal
them, tarry them away, and convey them triumphantly to Louvain,
Paris, or Rome.

But Ireland was not the only repository of Irish books. Many
letters, official documents, copies of old MSS., interesting
relics of antiquity, had been gathered ages before and during
all the intervening time, in convents, churches, houses of
education, on the Continent, along the Rhine chiefly. It is said
that even to-day the richest mines of yet unexplored lore of
this character are scattered along both sides of the great
German river. The frequent movements of various armies, the
sieges of cities, the horrors of war which have raged there
constantly from the days of Arminius and Varro down, have not
destroyed every thing, could not exhaust the rich deposit of
Irish manuscripts there concealed. But the labor of striking the
mine!-of' opening those musty pages falling to pieces between
the fingers and leaving in the hand nothing but illegible
fragments of half-blackened parchment; and the further labor of
deciphering them, of discovering what they speak about, and if
they are likely to prove useful to the purposes.

It is needless to descant on such a theme. It is impossible to
give any true idea of the literary labors of those men, without
having seen and perused their huge folios, many of which have
not yet been published to the world. Poor Colgan could give us
little more than his "Trial Thaumaturga and that was only
destined to form the portal of the edifice he purposed erecting
as a shrine to the memory of the whole host of saints nurtured
in the island-the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae

The grand idea, which first germinated in the minds of those men,
expanded afterward in others under circumstances more favorable.
Did they not suggest to Bollandus and his fellows the thought
whose realization has immortalized them?

In tasks such as these were the Irish emigrant monks of the time
employed.

There was yet another class of involuntary Irish exiles those
shipped to the " plantations" of America, to the 11 tobacco" and
11 sugar" islands, to Virginia and Jamaica, but principally to
the Barbadoes. The origin of this new kind of emigration,
already touched upon, is worthy of the times and of the men who
called it forth.

After forty thousand soldiers had been allowed, or rather
compelled, by Cromwell to enlist in foreign armies, it was found
that many had left behind them their wives and children. What
was to be done with these " widows" whose husbands and numerous
offspring were still living ? They could not be sent to Coff as
women, with children only, could not be expected to "plant" that
desolate province; they could not be expected to "plant" that
desolate province; they could not be allowed to remain in their
native place, as the decree had gone forth that all the Irish
were to "transplant" or be transported: it would have been
inconvenient and inexcusable to do what had been so often done
in the war-massacre them in cold blood-as the war was over.

To relieve the government of this difficulty, Bristol merchants,
and merchants probably from other English cities, trading with
the new British colonies of North America, thought it a
providential opening for a great profit to accrue to the soils
of the benighted Irish women and children, and likely at the
same time to add something to their own purses and those of
their friends, the West India planters.

It was only under Elizabeth that permanent colonies were sent
out from England to the continent and islands of the New World.
The Cavaliers of Virginia are as well known in the South as the
Puritans of New England in the North. This last colony dated
only from the time of the Stuart dynasty. The great question for
all those transatlantic establishments was that of labor; but in
the South it was more difficult of solution than in the North,
where Europeans could work in the fields, a thing scarcely
possible in the tropics. The natives as we know, were first
employed in the South by the Spaniards, and soon succumbed to
the demands of European rapacity.

In the West Indies, natives of two different races existed: the
soft and delicate Indian of Hayti and Cuba, and the ferocious
Caribs of many other islands. The first race soon disappeared;
the other continued refractory, indomitable, choosing to perish
rather than labor; and some remnants of it still remain, saved
by the Catholic Church. As yet, African negroes had not been
conveyed there in sufficient numbers.

A brilliant thought struck the minds, at once pious, active, and
business-like, of those above-mentioned Bristol merchants-a
thought which was the doom of thousands of Irish women and
children.

The names of a few of those Bristol firms deserve to be handed
down. Those of Messrs. James Sellick and Leader, Mr. Robert
Yeomans, Mr. Joseph Lawrence, Dudley North, and John Johnson,
are furnished by Mr. Prendergast, who tells us that-

"The Commissioners of Ireland under Cromwell gave them orders
upon the governors of garrisons to deliver them prisoners of war
. . . . upon masters of work-houses, to hand over to them the
destitute under their care, `who were of an age to labor,' or,
if women, those 'who were marriageable, and not past breeding;'
and gave directions to all in authority, to seize those who had
no visible means of livelihood, and deliver them to these agents
of the Bristol merchants; in execution of which latter
directions, Ireland must have exhibited scenes in every part
like the slave-hunts in Africa."

A contract was signed on September 14, 1653, by the Com
missioners of Ireland and Messrs. Sellick and Leader, "to supply
them (the merchants) with two hundred and fifty women of the
Irish nation, above twelve years and under the age, of forty-
five."

The fate reserved for the human cattle, as they must have been
looked upon by the godly gentlemen who bartered over them, may
be well imagined. It is calculated that, in four years, those
English firms of slave-dealers had shipped six thousand and four
hundred Irish men and women, boys and maidens, to the British
colonies of North America.

The age requisite for the females who were thus shipped off may
be noted; the boys and men were not to be under twelve or over
fifty. These latter were condemned to the task of tilling the
soil in a climate where the negro only can work and live. As all
the cost to their masters was summed up in the expense of
transportation, they were not induced to spare them, even by the
consideration of the high price which, it is said, caused the
modern slave-owners of America to treat their slaves with what
might be called a commercial humanity. It is easy to imagine,
then, the life led by so many young men forced to work in the
open fields, under a tropical sun. How long that life lasted, we
do not know; as their masters, on whom they entirely depended,
were interested in keeping the knowledge of their fate a secret.
It is well understood that, when the unfortunate victims, had
once left the Irish harbor from which they set sail, no one ever
heard of them again; and, if the parents still lived in the old
country, they were left to their conjectures as to the probable
situation of their children in the new.

Sir William Petty says that "of boys and girls alone "-exclusive,
consequently, of men and women-" six thousand were thus
transplanted; but the total number of Irish sent to perish in
the tobacco-islands, as they were called, was estimated in some
Irish accounts at one hundred thousand."

The "Irish accounts" may have been exaggerated, but the English
atoned for this by certainly falling below the mark, as is clear
from the fact that, according to them, the Commissioners of
Ireland required the "supply" for New England alone to come from
"the country within twenty miles of Cork, Youghall, Kinsale,
Waterford, and Wexford;" that "the hunt lasted four years," and
was carried on with such ardor by the agents of many English
firms that those men-catchers employed persons "to delude poor
people by false pretenses into by-places, and thence they forced
them on board their ships; that for money sake they were found
to have enticed and forced women from their husbands, and
children from their parents, who maintained them at school; and
they had not only dealt so with the Irish, but also with the
English." For this reason, the order was revoked, and the "hunt"
forbidden.

When agents were reduced to such straits after the government
had used force, as Henry Cromwell acknowledged, the large extent
of country mentioned above must have been well scoured and
depopulated; and certainly a far greater number of victims must
have been secured by all those means combined than is given in
the English accounts. We believe the Irish.

One other source of supply deserves mention. Not only women and
children, but priests also, were hunted down and shipped off to
the same American plantations; so that persons of every class
which is held sacred in the eyes of God and man for its
character and helplessness, were compelled to emigrate, or
rather to undergo the worst possible fate that the imagination
of man can conceive.

In 1656 a general battue for priests took place all over Ireland.
The prisons seem to have been filled to overflowing. "On the 3d
of May, the governors of the respective precincts were ordered
to send them with sufficient guards, from garrison to garrison,
to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board of such ships as
should sail with the first opportunity to the Barbadoes. One may
imagine the sufferings of this toilsome journey by the petition
of one of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at
Maryborough, and sent to Philipstown, on the way to
Carrickfergus, there fell desperately sick; and, being also
extremely aged, was in danger of perishing in restraint from
want of friends and means of relief. On the 27th of August, the
commissioners having ascertained the truth of his petition, they
ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness, and (in answer,
probably, to this poor prisoner's prayer to be saved from
transplantation) their order directed that the sixpence should
be continued to him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to
Carrickfergus, in order to his transplantation to the Barbadoes.
"-- (Cromwellian Settlement.)