Books: The Letters of Norah on her Tour Through Ireland

M >> Margaret Dixon McDougall >> The Letters of Norah on her Tour Through Ireland

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The distress of this last famine was so great in this corner of Mayo
that people on holdings of thirty acres were starving--would have died
but for the relief afforded. It takes some time--and more than one good
harvest--for people who have got to starvation to recover themselves
far enough to pay arrears of rent.

We visited the ruins of Moyne Abbey, which are in good preservation yet.
One of the present lords of the soil had a part of it made habitable and
lived there some time, but it is again unroofed and left to desolation.
It has been a very extensive building, stretching over a great extent of
land now cleared of ruins. What remains is still imposing.

We had a pleasant interview with the Rev. Mr. Nolan, the kind and
patriotic priest of this neighborhood, and we returned to Ballina as
gratified and as tired as children after a holiday excursion.

I was introduced at Ballina to a landlord, a fine, clever-looking man,
with that particularly well-kept and well-fed appearance which is as
characteristic of the upper classes in Ireland as a hunger-bitten,
hunted look is characteristic of the poor. I would not like to employ as
strong language in speaking of the wrongs of the tenantry as this
gentleman used to me. He is both landlord and agent. He condemned all
the policy of the Government toward Ireland in no measured terms. Spoke
of the emigration that is going on now, as well as the emigration that
had taken place after the last famine, as men going out to be educated
for and to watch for the time of retribution. Retribution for the
accumulated wrongs which mis-government had heaped upon Ireland he
looked upon as inevitable, as coming down the years slowly but surely to
the place of meeting and of paying to the uttermost farthing. Well, now,
these are queer sentiments for a landlord to hold and to utter publicly.
He acknowledged freely that a great part--a very great part--of the
excessive rents extorted on pain of eviction, the eviction taking place
when the unfortunate fell behind, were really premiums paid on their own
labor. Furthermore, he acknowledged that he himself had raised the
tenants' rents on the estates for which he was agent, compelling them to
pay smartly for the work of their own hands. He spoke highly of the
people as a whole, of their patience, their kindliness to one another,
and their piety. He spoke of the case of one man, a peasant, who could
only speak broken English, who came under his notice by coming to him to
sell rye-grass to make up his rent. This man with the imperfect English
was a tenant of the gentleman's brother. He held three acres, two roods
of land in one place at a rent of L7 5s, where his house stood; one
acre, at L1 4s. Of course he or his ancestors built the house. His poor
rate and county cess is 16s, or $46.25 yearly for four acres, two roods
of land. If they got it for nothing they could not live on it, say some.
The best manure that can be put upon land is to salt it well with rent,
say Mr. Tottenham and Mr. Corscadden. Well, this man since the famine,
has no stock but one ass and a few hens. He cut and saved his rye-grass
himself, sold it for L3 10s, sold his oats for L3 4s 6d; had nothing
more to sell; had remaining for his wife and two little ones a little
meal and potatoes. He is a year and a half behind in his rent, and
likely, after all his toil and struggle, to be set on the roadside with
the rest. He has no bog near, there is none nearer than over five miles,
except some belonging to Miss Gardiner. Of course that mild and sober
spinster that will not oblige her own tenants has nothing in the way of
favor for outsiders. It took him twelve days last year to make
sufficient turf to keep the hearth warm. He went to the bog in the
morning on his breakfast of dry stirabout, with a bit of cold stirabout
in his pocket to keep off the hungry grass, as the peasant calls
famished pains, and walked home to his dry stirabout at night, having
walked going and coming eleven Irish miles over and above his day's
work. He drew home seventy ass loads of turf at the rate of two loads
per day--twenty-two Irish miles of a walk. Let Christians imagine this
man at his toil in his thin clothing, poor diet and bed of straw with
scanty coverlet, toiling early and late to pay an unjust rent. Often
after his hard day's work he has gone out at night with the fishers and
toiled all night in hopes of adding something to his scanty stores. Said
the landlord, "The vilest criminal could not have a harder life than
this God-fearing uncomplaining peasant. What I tell you I drew from him,
for he made no complaint." "You have a hard life of it, my man," said
the landlord to him. He was not his tenant. "Well, sir, sure God is good
and knows best," was the man's answer.

I was very much astonished at this gentleman's narrative and his other
admissions, and I ventured to enquire for my own satisfaction had he
made restitution to the tenants. "Have you, sir, restored what you have
robbed?" I did not suggest the four-fold which is the rule of that Book
which we acknowledge as a guide and law-giver. "I am doing so," he
replied, and he handed me a printed address to the tenants, offering
twenty-five percent reduction on arrears, if paid within a certain time.
Now, I was very much interested in this gentleman and in his opinions,
but I could not bring myself to agree with him that this was
restitution. However, I state the matter and leave it to that
enlightened jury, the readers of the _Witness_, "too large to pack
at any rate," and let them give their decision. I think myself that a
little of the Sermon on the Mount, applied conscientiously, would be
good for those who hold the happiness of Ireland in their hands. When
justice becomes loud-voiced and likely to pass into vengeance, they talk
of giving a little as charity.

XXXII.

THE STORY OF AN EVICTION.

On the 20th of May I received a whisper of an eviction that was to
occur up in the neighborhood of the Ox Mountains. Great opposition was
expected, and therefore a large force of police was to be there. I
procured a car, and in company with the local editor went to see. The
landlord of this property is an absentee; the agent--a Mr. Irwin--lived
in a pleasant residence which we passed on our way. We noticed that it
was sheepshearing time at his place, and many sheep were in the act of
losing their winter covering.

After we left Ballina behind, and followed in the wake of the police for
some time, we seemed to have got into the "stony streak." Such land!
Small fields--pocket handkerchiefs of fields--the stones gathered off
them built into perfect ramparts around them! I enquired of one
gentleman what was the rent exacted for this land so weighted down with
stones--for in addition to the high, broad fences surrounding the little
fields some of them had cairns of stones built up in the middle of them.
He said thirty shillings an acre ($7.50); asked another who said fifteen
($3.75). I fancy one would need to see the office receipts to know
correctly.

There is little cultivation in this part of the country. Hopeless-
looking ragged men, and barefoot ragged women, were at work in the
fields; little ragged children peeped from the wretched houses at the
police as they passed. And indeed they were a fine squad of broad-
shouldered, good-looking men, heavily-armed, marching along, square and
soldier-like, with a long, swinging step that goes over the ground
quickly.

We followed them up a stone-fenced lane just wide enough for the car to
pass. As we went along, men working at building a stone wall, looked at
the procession with a cowed frightened look. Our carman gave them the
"God save you" in Irish, and in answering they turned on us surely the
weariest faces that ever sat on mortal man. The lane becoming narrower,
we soon had to leave the car and follow the police on foot through a
pasture sprinkled with daisies.

Suddenly we saw the police scatter, sit down on the ditch and light
their pipes, throw themselves on the grass, group themselves in two's
and three's here and there. The end of the journey was reached.

We looked round for the wild men of Mayo from whom the bailiff, sub-
sheriff, and agent were to be protected, who were, I was told, to shed
rivers of blood that day. They were conspicuous by their absence. There
were three or four dejected-looking men standing humbly a bit off, three
women sitting among the bushes up the slope, that was all. The house
where the eviction was to be held was a miserable hovel, whose roof did
not amount to much, sitting among untilled fields, with a small dung
heap before the door. It was shut up, silent and deserted.

The bailiff, a gentleman who, if ever he is accused of crime, will not
find his face plead for him much, broke open the door and began to throw
out the furniture on the heap before the door. Here are the items: One
iron pot, one rusty tin pail, two delf bowls,--I noticed them
particularly, for they rolled down the dungheap on the side where I
stood,--one rheumatic chest, one rickety table, one armful of
disreputable straw, and one ragged coverlet. This was supposed to be the
bed, for I saw no bedstead; there was no chair, no stool, or seat of any
kind. The sub-sheriff with the bailiff's assistance fastened the door
with a padlock. He handed the agent a tuft of grass as giving him
possession, and the eviction was over.

The agent--a large-featured man--seemed undecided as to whether he would
view the transaction in a humorous light or as a scene where he was
chief sufferer. He came forward and offered some rambling remarks
addressed to nobody in particular. He drew our attention to the
condition of the roof which needed renewing, to the fields that were
uncropped. This was certainly shiftless, but when he mentioned that the
man had gone to England "in the scarcity" to look for work, and was
lying sick in an English hospital, we did not see how he could help it.
He told us how bad the man was; how he pitied his wife, who was, he
said, worse than himself. She was not present, being from home when her
poor furniture was pitched out. He lamented over the fact that this man
had sent him nothing of his wages, while another man had sent him as
much as thirty pounds. He then went into details of these evicted
tenant's married life; how his wife and he lived, and how they agreed;
and rambled off into general philosophic remarks rather disagreeable and
nasty.

No one seemed to pay any attention, although he looked from one to
another for an answering smile of appreciation to his funny attempts to
justify himself and amuse his hearers. Some one asked him how much rent
was due; he said ten or eleven years. Two years were due, as we found by
the law papers on returning to Ballina. He then made an attack on the
poor men standing there, asking why they were not at home working, and
telling them what they should be doing. While he lectured these men in a
joking voice, he turned his eye from one to another of those present as
if he were seeking for applause.

These men, not heeding the agent, were presenting a petition to the sub-
sheriff. I drew near to learn what it was. They were thin, listless
looking witted men. One could not help wondering when they had last
eaten a square meal. Half-starved in look, wretched in clothing, stood
like criminals awaiting sentence, with dreadfully eager eyes and parched
lips that would not draw together over their teeth, before the plump
rosy sub-sheriff. They asked for some meal on credit which the sub-
sheriff refused. I asked them if they owed any rent. No, they did not
owe a penny of rent, they said. Remember there was only one harvest
between them and the famine year. They had also put in the crops in
their little holdings, they said, "but as God lives we have neither bite
nor sup to keep us till harvest time." The sub-sheriff asked why they
did not go to a certain dealer. They said the terms were so hard that
they could never pay him. "How much would keep you till the crops come
in," he asked. Two hundred of Indian meal for each they said. Finally he
promised them one hundred each on credit, even if he had to pay it out
of his own pocket. "That is what you will have to do," said the agent.

We left and drove home. We saw the police, hot and tired, march past to
their barracks after our return. These men had a long march, loaded down
with arms to protect the bailiff, the stalwart agent, the rosy sub-
sheriff from a crowd of five hunger-bitten peaceable men and three
ragged women. The whole crowd might have been put to flight by any one
of the three with one hand tied behind him.

I forgot to mention that the agent offered to one of the women there all
the tenant's poor things that were thrown out, which was an honest and
honorable proceeding on his part, and very generous.

XXXIII.

A SEVERE CRITICISM JUSTIFIED--PROCESS SERVING BY THE AID OF THE POLICE--
THE WHITE HORSE OF MAYO--PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP.

I am glad to see by the papers that the state of the workhouse at Manor
Hamilton has been censured by the doctors, and deliberated about at a
meeting of guardians. It is certainly the worst conducted workhouse I
have seen as yet in Ireland, and it says with a loud voice, woe to the
poor who enter here. It was told me on this twenty-seventh day of May
that if I really wanted to see a disturbance a serious collision was
apprehended between the constabulary and the people, at some distance
from Ballina. I have been led to distrust the accounts of disturbances
that appear in the papers, or at least to admit them with caution. I was
assured that now at least I should see the wild men of Mayo, for they
had assaulted the process server and stripped him of his clothing,
taking his processes from him, some days before, and they would be out
in thousands this day to oppose the serving of the processes.

Got a car, as travelling companion the local editor, and driven by a
knowledgable man, followed in the wake of the police, seventy of them,
toward the scene of the disturbance to be. The police had one hour the
start of us. It was a dim day of clouds and watery blinks of sunshine.
As we drove along all historical spots were pointed out to me, being a
stranger, with great politeness. A place on the road where the French
had surged up from Killala and met and fought with the English, was
pointed out to me. "Here they were defeated, thim French."

We passed the place where lived from colthood to glory the celebrated
white horse of Mayo, the "Girraun Bawn." This horse, a racer, "bate" all
Ireland in his day, and was ridden without a saddle or bridle. Mayo was
very proud of this racing steed, so much so that when horses were seized
and impounded for the county cess, a farmer who had received his mare
back again, considering that it would be a disgrace if the king of
horses were left in the pound, returned to Castle Connor to the pound,
left his own horse there and released "Rie Girraun."

This celebrated horse was stolen it appears. After some time a troop of
dragoons were quartered in Mayo, whose commanding officer rode a horse
suspiciously like "Rie Girraun." The servant man who had ridden and
cared for the white horse of Mayo recognized the horse and drew
inconveniently near to the soldiers on parade to make sure whether it
was "Rie Girraun" or not. The officer, annoyed at the man intruding
where he was not wanted, asked him what business he had there. He said,
"The horse your honor rides was stolen from this place, and I was
looking at him to be sure. He is the famous white horse of Mayo." He was
asked to prove it, which he undertook to do if the officer would alight,
which he did. The peasant, then, hidden behind a stone ditch, called to
the horse in Irish, asking him if he would have a glass of whiskey. The
horse had been accustomed to get this when he had won a race, and knew
the taste of poteen. He pricked up his ears and galloped round, looking
for the voice. On the words being repeated two or three times, he
vaulted over the stone wall and came to his old friend hidden behind.
The officer would not part with the horse, but he paid liberally for
him--so it seems the white horse of Mayo ended his days in the service
of royalty.

The grandson of the possessor of the white horse was the other day fined
L6 for possessing poteen, and was unable to pay it.

Listening to these stories we came up with the police, who had alighted
from their cars and were going through their exercise preliminary to a
march. We made our way through the cars, our driver chaffing a little
with the drivers of the other cars. Just opposite where the police left
the cars was the most utterly wretched house that I had yet seen. A
large family of ragged people gathered at the door, looking to be in
anything but fighting trim. We drove slowly, the police marched quickly,
until we saw them take to the fields, when we alighted per force and
followed them.

A slim, fair-haired woman, with her arms bare and her feet and legs in
the same classic condition under her short dilapidated skirts, began to
make some eloquent remarks. If there had been a thousand or two like her
I do think the seventy police would have had hard work to protect the
bailiff. One of our company, a gentleman, remarked to her that she had a
fine arm of her own. "Troth, sir," said she, "If I was as well fed as
yourself it's finer it would be." We agreed with this gentleman that if
this woman was fed and clothed like other people she would certainly be
a fine-looking person. She drew near to enquire if we were in any way
connected with the police. Her enquiries were especially directed to
myself. She was told that I was an American lady, and a few faces that
scowled were smoothed into smiles immediately.

There were by this time four women and half a dozen boys present. No one
spoke above their breath but our woman of bare arms. In answer to
something addressed to her by our party, she said, "Sure they could not
take a better time than seed time to droive us out of our senses. Sure
God above has an eye and an ear for it. Look here," she said, throwing
out her handsome bare arm, "look at the bare fields lying waste because
the seed cannot be got to put in the ground; they're cryin' up to God
against it. The cratures here have not enough yellow male to keep the
hunger off. If they had waited till harvest there would be a color of
justice to it." This woman had all the talking to herself, no one else
had anything to say. She herself was not among those against whom the
processes were served.

We saw the process server leave the ranks of the police and walk down to
a wretched little cabin and return in a few moments. The order to march
was given, and the police tramped along to the next house, a bit off the
road. Two or three little children were in the field, apparently herding
cattle. The least one said to his brother in an accent of terror,
"Jimsey, Jimsey, the war is come at last."

Along the road, tramp, tramp, off the road through the bogs, every house
called at seeming worse than the last. A rumor had been running along
before us--ever before us--of an Amazonian army with pitchforks, tongs
and the hooks used for drawing the sea weed ashore, armed and ready,
some three hundred strong, waiting for the police. We never came up to
this army or caught a sight of their rags. Crossing a field we were told
of a merciful lady, a Mrs. Major Jones, who gave them seed potatoes and
trusted them with meal when they had nothing to eat. As the police
halted before some houses we heard the muttered exclamations of the few
women near, "Eagh! eagh! oh, Lord, and them in need of charity!"

Well, we never came up with the army of women. The processes were not
all served, for some of the houses were empty, and there was no one on
whom to serve them; we turned our steps, or our horses rather, homeward
to Ballina, the boys calling out in compliment to America, "Three cheers
for the noble lady," as we drove off.

The threatened rain came on and came down heavily and we got our share
of it before we got under shelter. An elderly gentleman was introduced
to me at Ballina who had had a very great opportunity of noticing the
working of the law and the struggles of the people. He admitted to me
that some might possibly have paid some rent before the agitation began,
but kept it back hoping for a permanent reduction, and then when they
had it by them had used it for living, and now had nothing to meet the
rent with. He said, however, that the most part had not recovered from
the effects of the scarcity sufficiently to be able to pay up arrears--
or, indeed, to pay anything on arrears.

We conversed a little about peasant proprietorship. He instanced the
case of two persons who had become owners of church land, one of eight
acres, another of sixteen. He spoke of the prosperity that had crowned
their labors ever since hope came to them and they had something to
struggle for. He said they came now decently clad to church and market.
He had been in their houses and noticed as much as two flitches of bacon
hanging in the chimney. One of them owned a team of horses. A man with a
team of horses on his farm is in a different position from a man with
only an ass and creels. Absolutely, said he, the man has devoted a
portion of his land to apple trees.

It was a touching thing to see the earnestness with which this man spoke
of these great evidences of prosperity--horses to work the farm, two
flitches of bacon and planting apple trees. In Mayo, in two instances, I
have seen a corner left untilled in a field. As there was an ass in one,
and a goat browsing in the other, I do not know but what it was the best
thing they could do to leave them untilled.

I may as well mention that the wretched people on whom the processes
were served lived in Sligo, and the landlords who were pursuing them, as
it were between the hay and the grass, were Sligo landlords, of those
whom I heard praised so highly in Sligo town. Round Ballina, as round
Sligo, there are few tenants on the land near the town; it has gone to
grass and has cows instead of tenants. Sir Charles Gore's demesne and
residence is very fine, and, as he seems to have a blessing with it,
long may he enjoy his good things.

XXXIV.

THE LAND OF FLAMES--A RELIC WITH A HISTORY--CATTLE VS. MEN--THE MEETING
OF EXTREMES--"PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE."

Was invited by a friend to visit Rappa Castle to see a celebrated
vessel which once belonged to Saint Tighernain, the saint who belongs
more especially to the west and the clock which was removed from Moyne
Abbey when it was dismantled. This vessel, belonging to the saint called
Mias Tighernain--which I would freely translate as meaning Tighernain's
own--has been used until of late years, when the clergy interposed and
forbid it, for the discovery of stolen goods. Any one swearing falsely
on the Mias Tighernain was sure to come to grief. People swearing
falsely on the Bible have been known to escape visible consequences. Our
car driver, a not very old man at all, told us he was present himself
when a numerous household were brought together to be sworn on the Mias
Tighernain for the discovery of a large sum of money which had been
stolen. The thief was discovered but money was not.

It is very pleasant to drive along through the fair but tenantless lands
that surround Ballina. The county of Mayo is beautifully diversified by
mountain and valley, wood and water, glen and stream. The tall hedges of
white thorn in their bridal white perfume the air. Myriads of primroses
smile at the passer-by from sunny banks. Small golden blossoms, like
whin blossoms, cluster thickly here and there, and the starry-eyed
daisies, white and sweet with blushes edged, lift their modest faces to
the sky. Even the bog waste is nodding all over with a cotton flower,
white as a snowflake; they call it _ceanabhan_ in Irish, and the
peasantry use it as a comparison when praising the white arms and bosoms
of the Mayo maidens. Surely one might say this bright May morning with
Tim, "Glory be to God, but it is a purty world!"

When we crossed the boundaries, passed the lodge gates into the demesne
lying around Rappa Castle, the residence of Captain Knox, there was a
change to still greater beauty. Money will build a grand and stately
home in the fair proportions of a castle, but money has to run in the
blood for centuries to produce a scene like this. Broad lands swelling
and sinking like an emerald sea, trees that stand out singly wrap
themselves in aristocratic leafiness, spreading their magnificent arms
toward you, saying, "Look at me! I am not of yesterday; the dews of
heaven, the fatness of the earth, the leisure of centuries, fanned by
breezes, tended by culture, have made me what I am, a 'thing of beauty'
to gladden your eyes." They stand in groups upon the slopes and whisper
this to one another; they open their ranks to give you delicious
glimpses into further away "spots of delight:" they are drawn up in
ranks shading mysterious walks that lead away into the grand dim woods.
They distract you and bother you with their loveliness till you wish
that the English language had a bushel more adjectives.

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