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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A little man who had arrived with his load of besoms somewhat later sold
none. I saw him glance from his load to the stock of mother and
daughter, fast selling off, and become aware that his stock as compared
with theirs was rather heathery, and he began to trim off roughnesses
with his knife. I hope he succeeded in selling.

Drove out to Drumlane, where are the ruins of a large church and abbey
and round tower. The driver, a Catholic, talked a little, guardedly, of
the high rents. A broken-down looking man, who opened the iron gates for
us into the ruins, complained heavily of the rents. He was only a
laborer himself, the farmer he worked for was paying fifty-five
shillings an acre for part of his farm and L3 for the rest. The land on
which I looked was rented at L3. My only wonder is that the lands thus
rented pay the rent alone without supporting in any manner the tillers
of the soil. It was all pasture at this particular place. The ruins here
of the church are very extensive, of the abbey only the fragment of a
wall is standing. My guides informed me that there was an underground
passage in old days between the abbey and the church, so that the bishop
was not seen from the time he left the abbey until he appeared on the
high altar.

They remarked that a story handed down from father to son as a true
record of a place should be believed before a written account. They made
no allowance for the coloring given to a story as it passed through the
imaginations of successive generations. I assured them that I accepted
all legends as historical facts to a certain extent. They were made
happy, and were in a fit state of mind to _insinse_ me into the
facts of the case about the round tower. It is of great thickness, the
area enclosed would make a good sized room. The stone work is remarkably
solid and good, and every stone smoothly fitted into the next with no
appearance of mortar. It is wonderful to see how the projection of one
stone is neatly fitted into a cavity made to correspond in its fellow.
On one stone a bird is cut in relief, another nearly the same in the
attitude of following is cut on another stone. There is also a
representation of a coffin. The beautiful stone work goes up a great
way, and suddenly stops, the remainder of the building being done in a
much rougher manner.

Seeing that I was of a reasonable turn of mind, they informed me that
the lower portion of this round tower was built by a woman, but she
being jeered at and tormented by the men masons, jealous of her work,
disappeared in the night, leaving the masons to finish it, which they
did, but not nearly so well, as we could see.

On the way from Drumlane to Ballyconnell the driver began to talk of the
bitter feeling that was kept up in the country on party subjects. He
said that religion forbid it, for if we noticed in the Lord's prayer it
was a prayer to forgive us as we forgave others. He thought Ireland
could not prosper or have God's blessing until the bitterness of party
spirit went down.

Found Ballyconnell just such another sleepy little town as Clones and
Belturbet. Here I had the comfort of meeting a friend who had puzzled a
little over the land question in a misty sort of way, and was willing to
give the benefit of his observations and conclusions.

From Clones to Belturbet and on to Ballyconnell, as I have mentioned
before, I believe, is pretty much the same sort of country, good fields,
middling and good pastures alternating with stretches of bog and many
small lakes dotted about here and there. Every appearance of thrifty,
contented poverty among the people as far as met the eye. They were
better clad, the little asses shod, and sleek and fat, so different from
other places. Still, the best of the common people all along here is not
very good to trans-Atlantic eyes, and the houses one sees as they pass
along are dreadfully bad.

I spoke of this to my friend in Ballyconnell, who informed me that the
people were harassed with ever-increasing rent, that as soon as they
could not meet it they were dealt with without mercy. A man who had
toiled to create a clearing--put a life's labor into it--was often not
able to pay the increased rent and then he was put out, while another
man paid the increased rent on his neighbor's lost labor.

This friend of mine held the opinion that landlords of the old stock
never did wrong, never were rapacious or cruel; it was the new
landlords, traders who bought out in the Encumbered Estates Court, who
had no mercy, and the agents. Here again was brought up the story denied
before that the agents had a percentage on the rents collected.

One cannot agree with the fact of all landlords of the old stock being
considerate and kind and all new landlords rapacious; for Lord Leitrim
was of the old stock, and who would wish to succeed to the inheritance
of hatred he left behind him, and Lord Ardilaun, a new landlord, is well
spoken of by all his people. Every one with whom I spoke of him,
including the parish priest, acknowledged him to be a high-toned,
grandly benevolent man, who, if he differed from his tenants, differed
as one on a height of grandeur may misjudge the ability of the poor.

XLVIII.

IN THE COUNTY CAVAN--THE ANNALS OF THE POOR--BURYING THE PAST.

As an instance of hardships of which the poor had to complain, my
informant mentioned the case of one very old man, whose children had
scattered away over the world, which meant that they had emigrated. He
held a small place on a property close beside another property managed
by my informant's brother. This old man had paid his rent for sixty-nine
years; he and his people before him had lived, toiled and paid rent on
this little place. He was behind in his rent, for the first time, and
had not within a certain amount the sum required. He besought the
intercession of my friend's brother, who, having Scotch caution in his
veins, did not, though pitying, feel called upon to interfere. The old
man tendered what money he had at the office and humbly asked that he
might have time given him to make up the rest. It was refused with
contempt.

"Sir," faltered the old man, "I have paid my rent every year for sixty-
nine years. I have lived here under three landlords without reproach. I
am a very old man. I might get a little indulgence of time."

"All that is nothing to me," said the agent.

"Sir," said the old man, "if my landlord himself were here, or the
General his father, or my Lord Belmore who sold the land to him, I would
not be treated in this way after all."

"Get out of this instantly," said the agent, stamping his foot, "How
dare you give such insolence to me."

"You see," explained my friend, "he was very old, it was not likely that
any more could be got out of him even if he got time, for he was past
his labor. Besides there was a man beside him who held a large farm, and
he wanted this old man's little holding to square off his farm, so the
old man had to go to the wall, but I was sorry for him."

There is a good deal of this unproductive sorrow scattered over Ireland
among the comfortable classes. There are a good many also who feel like
that motherly Christian lady in Clones who said to me, "When they have
to go into the poor-house at the last, and they know it will come to
that, why not go in at once?"

I am convinced more and more every day of the widespread need there is
that some evangelistic effort should be made to bring a practical Gospel
to bear on the dominant classes in Ireland.

My friend and I walked up to the church to search for some graves in the
churchyard that lies around it. He drew my attention to the socket where
a monument had been erected but which was gone, and mentioned the
circumstances under which it had disappeared. A gentleman of the
country, an Episcopalian, had fallen in love with and married a Catholic
lady. The usual bargain had been made, the daughters to follow the
mother's faith, the sons to go with the father. There was one son who
was a member of the Episcopalian church. It seemed that the son loved
and reverenced his Catholic mother, and that she was also loved and
reverenced by her Catholic coreligionists. When she died she was buried
in the family burying plot of ground in the Episcopalian churchyard. Her
son erected there a white marble cross to his mother's memory. At this
cross, on their way home from mass, sundry old women used to turn in,
and, kneeling down there, say a prayer. This proceeding, visible from
the church windows, used to annoy and exasperate the officiating
clergyman very much. At the time of the disestablishment of the Church a
committee was being formed to make some arrangements consequent upon
this event. The Episcopal son of this Catholic mother was named on the
Committee, and a great opposition was got up to his nomination on
account of his being only Protestant by half blood. There was no
objection to him personally, his faith or belief was thought sound,
except that part of it which was hereditary. My friend considered this
very wrong, and ranged himself on the side of the gentleman who was the
cause of the dispute. The dispute waxed so hot that the parties almost
came to blows in the vestry room.

During the time this war raged some bright genius, on one of the days of
Orange procession, had a happy thought of putting an orange arch over
the churchyard gate, in such a manner that the praying women should have
to pass under it if they entered. I am not quite sure whether the arch
was destroyed or not; as far as my memory serves I think it was.
Something happened to it anyway. Something also happened to the
monumental cross, which was torn down, broken up and strewed round in
marble fragments. The gentleman prosecuted several Orangemen whom he
suspected of this outrage. There was not evidence to convict them. An
increased ill-feeling got up against the gentleman for a prosecution
that threw a slur on the Orange organization. The Orange society offered
a reward of L60 for the discovery and conviction of the offenders, but
nothing came of it. My friend thought it was done by parties unknown to
bring reproach on the Orange cause. The gentleman of the half-blood had
not been so much thought of by his fellow church members since this
transaction.

I spoke to my friend upon the unchristian nature of this party spirit,
which he agreed with me in lamenting, but excused by telling me outrages
by the Catholic party which made me shudder. All these outrages were
confirmed by the ancient woman who kept the key of the church, and who
stood listening and helping with the story, emphasizing with the key. I
asked when these outrages had taken place, and was relieved considerably
to hear that they happened about 1798 and 1641. Asked my friend if the
other side had not any tales of suffered atrocities to tell? He supposed
they had, thought it altogether likely. Why then, I asked him, do you
not bury this past and live like Christians for the future.

I am often asked this question about burying the past, said my friend.
My answer is, let them bury first and afterwards we will. Let them bury
their Ribbonism, their Land Leagueism, their Communism and their
Nihilism (making the motion of digging with his hands as he spoke) and
after that ask us to bury our Orangeism, our Black Chapter, our Free
Masonry, and we will do it then.

As we came down the hill from the church, I said to my friend, "You
acknowledge that there are wrongs connected with land tenure that should
be set right. You say that you see things of doubtful justice and scant
mercy take place here, that you see oppression toward the poor of your
country; why, then, not join with them to have what is wrong redressed,
fight side by side on the Land Question and leave religious differences
aside for the time being?" "I would be willing to do this," said my
friend, "I do not believe in secret societies, although I belong to
three of them, but a man must go with his party if he means to live
here. There are many Orangemen who have become what we call 'rotten,'
about Fermanagh, over one hundred have been expelled for joining the
Land League."

Party spirit is nourished, and called patriotism; it is fostered and
called religion, but it is slowly dying out, Ireland is being
regenerated and taught by suffering. In all suffering there is hope.
This thought comforted me when I shook hands with my friend and turned
my back to Ballyconnell and to Belturbet and took the car for Cavan,
passing through the same scenery of field and bog and miserable houses
that prevail all over.

The only manufacture of any kind which I noticed from Clones to Cavan, a
large thriving town bustling with trade, was the making of brick, which
I saw in several places. These inland towns seem to depend almost
entirely on the agricultural population around them.

From Cavan down through the County Cavan, is swarming with Land Leaguers
they say, although I met with none to know them as such. Poor land is in
many places, a great deal of bog, many small lakes and miserable mud
wall cabins abounding. In every part of Ireland, and almost at every
house, you see flocks of ducks and geese; raising them is profitable,
because they do not require to be fed, but forage for themselves, the
ducks in the water courses and ponds, while the geese graze, and they
only get a little extra feed when being prepared for market. Ducks can
be seen gravely following the spade of a laborer, with heads to one side
watching for worms. Neither ducks nor geese, nor both together, are as
numerous as the crows; they seem to be under protection, and they
increase while population decreases.

As one journeys south the change in the countenance of the people is
quite remarkable. In Down, Antrim, Donegal, the faces are almost all
different varieties of the Scottish face--Lowland, Highland, Border or
Isle--but as you come southward an entirely different type prevails. I
noticed it first at Omagh. It is the prevailing face in Cavan; large,
loose features, strong jaws, heavy cheeks and florid complexion,
combined mostly with a bulky frame. You hear these people tracing back
their ancestors to English troopers that came over with Cromwell or
William the Third. They have a decided look of Hengist and Horsa about
them.

The feeling against the Land League among the Conservative classes in
the north is comparatively languid to the deeper and more intense
feeling that prevails southward. The gulf between the two peoples that
inhabit the country widens. After leaving Cavan we crossed a small point
of Longford and thence into Westmeath, passing quite close to
Derryvaragh Lake, and then to Lake Owel after passing Mulingar, getting
a glimpse of yet another, Westmeath Lake.

After passing Athlone and getting into Roscommon we got a view of that
widening of the Shannon called Lough Ree, sixteen miles long and in some
parts three miles wide. A woman on the train told me of that island on
this lough, Hare island, with Lord Castlemaine's beautiful plantation,
of the castle he has built there, decorated with all that taste can
devise, heart can desire or riches buy. A happy man must be my Lord
Castlemaine. Lough Ree is another silent water, like the waters of the
west unbroken by the keel of any boat, undarkened by the smoke of any
steamer, the breeze flying over it fills no sail.

I have mentioned before how completely the County Mayo has gone to
grass. The same thing is apparent in a lesser degree elsewhere. There is
not a breadth of tillage sufficient to raise food for the people. Cattle
have been so high that hay and pasturage were more remunerative, and the
laborers depend for food on the imported Indian meal. The grassy
condition of every place strikes one while passing along; but Roscommon
seems to be given up to meadow and pasture land almost altogether. The
hay crop seems light in some places. The rain has been so constant that
saving it has been difficult in some places. I saw some hay looking
rather black, which is an unbecoming color for hay. Roscommon is a very
level country as far as I saw of it, and very thinly populated.

The town of Roscommon has a quiet inland look, with a good deal of
trading done in a subdued manner. There is the extensive ruin of an old
castle in it; the old gaol is very castle-like also. I drove over to
Athleague as soon as I arrived, a small squalid village some four Irish
miles away. The land is so level that one can see far on every side as
we drive along, and the country is really empty. The people left in the
little hamlets have one universal complaint, the rent is too high to be
paid and leave the people anything to live on. It was raised to the
highest during prosperous years; when the bad years came it became
impossible.

I enquired at this village of Athleague what had become of all the
people that used to live here in Roscommon. They were evicted for they
could not pay their rents. Where are they? Friends in America sent
passage tickets for many, some, out of the sale of all, made out what
took them away; some were in the poor house; some dead and gone. The
land is very empty of inhabitants.

CHAPTER XLIX

AN EMPTY COUNTRY--RAPACIOUS LANDLORDS.

From Roscommon I drove to Lanesborough where Longford and Roscommon
meet at a bridge across the Shannon, and where a large Catholic church
stands on each side of the river. The bridge at Lanesborough, a swing
bridge, substantial and elegant, the solid stone piers--all the stone
work on bridge and wharves is of hewn stone--speak of preparations for a
great traffic which is not there, like the warehouses of Westport.
Seeing all facilities for trade and all conveniences for trade prepared,
and the utter silence over all, makes one think of enchanted places
where there must come a touch of some kind to break the charm before the
bustle of life awakes and "leaps forward like a cataract."

One man stood idle and solitary on the wharf at Lanesborough as if he
were waiting for the sudden termination of this spell-bound still life.

My glimpse of Longford from the neighborhood of Lanesborough showed a
place of wooded hills and valleys covered with crops, and with this
glimpse we turned back over the plain of Roscommon. The road lay through
peat bog for a good part of the way, and the mud-wall cabins were a sad
sight indeed.

Empty as the country is, eviction is still going on. Many have occurred
lately, and more are hanging over the people. From Roscommon to Boyle,
across more than one-half the length of this long county, from Roscommon
to French Park, the country is so completely emptied of inhabitants that
one can drive a distance of five miles at once without seeing a human
habitation except a herd's hut. The country is as empty as if William
the Conqueror had marched through it.

Several persons called upon me to give me some information on the state
of things in general. I also received some casual information. One
gentleman of large experience from his position, a person of great
intelligence and cultivation, while utterly condemning the Land League,
admitted that some change in the Land Law was absolutely necessary. He
instanced one case where a gentleman acquired a property by marriage and
immediately set about raising the rent. Rent on one little holding was
raised from L2 to L10 at one jump. In no case was it less than doubled.
This landlord complains bitterly that the people under the influence of
the Land League have turned against him. They used to bow and smile, and
it was, "What you will, sir," and, "As you please." Now they are surly
and sullen and will not salute him.

The farmer who holds a good-sized farm always wishes to extend its
borders and is ready and eager to add the poor man's fields to his own.
Concentration of lands into few hands, reducing small farmers into
laborers, is the idea that prevails largely.

My Athleague friend, a very interesting old gentleman, after mentioning
the great depopulation of Roscommon, spoke of good landlords, such as
Lord Dufresne, Mr. Charles French, the O'Connor Don, Mr. Mapother; but
he paused before mentioning any oppressive ones. "Would his name
appear?" No. His name should not appear. "Well, for fear of getting into
any trouble I will mention no names, but we find that they who purchased
in the Encumbered Estates Court are the most rapacious landlords."

One gentleman, who was representing to me the discouragement given to
improvement, mentioned a case where a person of means who held a little
place for comfort and beauty, but lived by another pursuit than farming,
sought the agent to know if he could obtain any compensation for
improvements which he had made, and which had made his place one of the
most beautiful in Roscommon. He wanted to be sure that he was not
throwing his money away. When he sought the agent on this subject he
found him on his car preparing to drive away somewhere. He listened to
his tenant's question as to compensation for outlay, and then whipped up
the horse and drove away without answering.

I had a call from an elderly gentleman, before I left Roscommon, who
gave me his views on the question very clearly. He thought as God had
ordained some to be rich and others to be poor, any agitation to better
the condition of the poor was sheer flying in the face of the Almighty.
Under cover of helping the poor the Land League were plotting to
dismember the British Empire. There never had been peace in the country
since the confiscation, and there never would be until the Roman
Catholic population were removed by emigration and replaced by
Protestants. The blame of the present disturbed condition of the country
he laid upon four parties: First, the Government, who administered the
country in a fitful manner, now petting, now coercing, while they should
keep the country steadily under coercion, for alternately petting and
coercing sets parties against one another more than ever. Second,
landlords and agents, who rented land too high and raised the rent on
the tenant's own invested improvements. Third, the priests, who could
repress outrage and reveal crime if they chose to do so. Fourth,
Catholic tenants who took the law into their own hands instead of
patiently waiting for redress by law.

According to this gentleman, the only innocent persons in Ireland were
the Protestant tenantry; so to root out the Catholics and replace them
by Protestants was the only possible way to have peace in the country.
Boycotting he referred to especially as a dangerous thing, which
paralyzed all industry and turned the country into a place governed by
the worst kind of mob law.

Another gentleman of position and experience said that a strike against
paying rent led easily into a strike against paying anything at all;
that society had really become disorganized. Many held back their rents,
which they were well able to pay--had the money by them. The Land League
had done a great deal of harm. At the same time this gentleman confirmed
the Athleague gentleman's statement that rents were raised past the
possibility of the tenant's paying, that eviction was cruel and
persistent, the belief being that large grass farms were the only paying
form of letting land. In fact, he said, he himself had evicted the
tenants on his property on pain of being evicted himself. He held land,
but at such a rent that if living by farming alone he would not be able
to pay it.

He gave some instances of boycotting. One was that travelling in the
neighboring county of Longford he had occasion to get a smith to look at
his horse's shoes, and was asked for his Land League ticket. On saying
he had none, the smith refused to attend to the horse's shoes. Roscommon
had boycotted a Longford man who had taken willow rods to sell because
he had not a Land League ticket, and a Longford smith in reprisal would
not set the shoe on the horse of a Roscommon man unless he had a Land
League ticket. When the gentleman explained that he had bought five
hundred of those same rods from that same man the smith attended to the
horse, and the boycotting was over.

I heard of other cases of boycotting. It is not by any means a new
device, although it has come so prominently before the public lately.

From Roscommon I crossed country past Clara and Tullamore, across King's
county into Portarlington on the borders of Queen's county.
Portarlington is the centre of a beautiful country full of cultivated
farms as well as shut-up and walled-in gentlemen's seats.

Walking down the principal street, I noticed a large placard fastened to
a board hanging on a wall; thought it was a proclamation and stopped to
read it. It was an exposition of the errors of the Catholic Church in
such large type that he that runs may read it. I have some doubts
whether this is the best way of convincing people of an opposite belief
of their errors. I went into the shop thinking I might perhaps buy a
newspaper. I fear me the mistress of the establishment, a timid, elderly
woman, imagined me to be a belligerent member of the attacked church
come to call her to account, for she retreated at a fast run to the
kitchen from which she called an answer in the negative to my enquiry.

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