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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I have heard a great deal of talk of emigration among the people with
whom I have travelled since I landed, but have not heard one mention of
Canada as a desirable place to emigrate to. The Western States, the
prairie lands, seem to be the promised land to everyone. One of these
would-be emigrants took a flute out of his pocket and played the Exile
of Erin. The talk of emigration stilled and a great silence fell on them
all. There were some soldiers on the car, young men, boys in fact, who
seemed by the heavy marching order of their get-up to be going to join
their regiment. Some of them struggled mannishly with the tears they
fain would hide. Truly the Irish are attached to the soil. I could not
help wondering if these lads were ordered to foreign service, and on
what soil they would lay down their heads to rest forever.

Two persons near by, conversing in low tones on the state of the
country, drew my attention to them. One was a sonsie good-wife with any
amount of bundles, the other a little old man with a face of almost
superhuman wisdom.

"The country will be saved mem, now; when the Coercion Bill has passed
the country will be saved," said the old man.

"There's a great deal too much fuss made about everything," remarked the
good-wife. "Look at that boy ten years old taken up, bless us all! for
whistling at a man."

"Did you take notice, mem, that the whistling was derisive, was
derisive, it was derisive. That is where it is, you see," said the old
man with a slow, sagacious roll of his head.

"I would not care what a wee boy could put into a whistle: it was
awfully childish for a man and a gentleman to take up just a wean for a
whistle."

"You see mem, they have to be strict and keep everything down. The
Government have ways of finding out things; they know all though, they
don't let on. There will be a bloody time, in my opinion."

Oh, the wisdom with which the old man shook his head as he said this,
adding in a penetrating whisper, "The times of '98 over again or worse."

IV.

LOYALTY IN THE "BLACK NORTH"--GENTLEMEN'S RESIDENCES--A MODEL IRISH
ESTATE--A GOOD MAN AND HIS WIFE--VISITING THE POOR.

Down in the North the loyalty is intense and loud. An opinion favorable
to the principles of the Land League it would be hardly prudent to
express. Any dissatisfaction with anything at all is seldom expressed
for fear of being classed with these troublers of Ireland.

The weather is very inclement, and has been ever since I landed. Snow,
rain, hail, sleet, hard frost, mud, have alternated. Some days have been
one continuous storm of either snow or sleet.

The roads through Antrim are beautifully clean and neat, not only on the
line of rail but along the country roads inland. The land is surely
beautiful, exceedingly, and kept like a garden. The number of houses of
some, nay of great, pretensions, is most astonishing. Houses set in
spacious and well-kept grounds, with porter lodges, terraced lawns,
conservatories, &c., abound. They succeed one another so constantly that
one wonders how the land is able to bear them all, or by what means such
universal grandeur is supported. There is an outcry of want, of very
terrible hard times, but certainly the country shows no signs thereof.
The great wonder to me is where the laborers who produce all this
neatness and beauty live? Where are the small farmers on whom the high
rent presses so heavily? Few houses, where such could by any possibility
be housed, are to be seen from the roadside. There are so very few
cottages and so very many gentlemen's houses that I am forced to believe
that the peasantry have almost entirely disappeared. Yet I know there
must be laborers somewhere to keep the place so beautiful,

Ballymena, always a bustling place, has spread itself from a thriving
little inland town into a large place of some 8,000 inhabitants.
Notwithstanding the depression in the linen trade, this town presents a
thriving, bustling appearance as it has always done. The number of
whiskey shops is something dreadful. The consumption of that article
must be steady and enormous to support them. There is squalor enough to
be seen in the small streets of this town, but that is in every town.

The public road from Ballymena to Grace Hill passes through the Galgorm
estate which passed from the hands of its last lord, through the
Encumbered Estates Court, into the hands of its present proprietor. On
this estate a most wonderful change has been effected, and in a short
space of time to effect so much. During the old _regime_, and the
good old times of absentee landlordism, squalor and misery crept up to
the castle gates. The wretchedness of the tenants could be seen by every
passer-by. The peasantry tell of unspeakable orgies held at the castle
even upon the Sabbath day. The change is something miraculous. The waste
pasture-like demesne is reclaimed and planted. The worst cabins have
entirely disappeared; the rest are improved till they hardly know
themselves.

They match the new cottages for which the proprietor took a prize. These
little homes with their climbing plants, their trim little gardens, look
as if any one might snuggle down in any of them and be content. The
castle itself looks altered; it has lost its grim Norman look, and
stands patriarchal and fatherly among the beautiful homes it has
created.

Not far from the castle gate is a pretty church and its companion, an
equally pretty building for the National School. I enquired of several
how this great improvement came about; the answer was always the same,
"The estate passed into the hands of a good man who lived on it, and he
had a godly wife." Passing the pretty little church I heard the sound of
children's voices singing psalms, and was told that the daughter of the
castle was teaching the children to sing; I noticed _In Memoriam_
on a stone in the building, and found that this church was built in
memory of the good lady of the castle, who has departed to a grander
inheritance, leaving a name that lingers like a blessing in the country
side. So the old landlord's loss of an estate has been great gain to
this people.

It is in the country parts, more remote from the public eye, that one
sees the destitution wrought by the depression in the linen trade.
People there are struggling with all their might to live and keep out of
the workhouses. Hand-loom weaving seems doomed to follow hand-spinning
and become a thing of the past. Weavers some time ago had a plot of
ground which brought potatoes and kale to supplement the loom, and on it
could earn twelve shillings a week. But alas! while the webs grew longer
the price grew less and they are in a sad case.

I called, with a friend, on some of these weavers: one, an intelligent
man, with the prevailing Scotch type of face. We found him, accompanied
by a sickly wife, sitting by a scanty fire, ragged enough. This man for
his last web was paid at the rate of twopence a yard for weaving linen
with twenty hundred threads to the inch, but out of this money he had to
buy dressing and light, and have some one, the sickly wife I suppose, to
wind the bobbins for him. He must then pay rent for the poor cabin he
lived in, none too good for a stable, and supply all his wants on the
remainder.

Another weaver told me that all this dreary winter they had no bed-
clothes. They think by combining together they will be able to obtain
better prices; but they are so poor, the depression in the trade is such
a fearful reality that I am afraid they cannot combine or co-operate to
any purpose. However, people in such desperate circumstances grasp at
any hope.

It is wonderful with what disfavor some of these people receive a hint
of emigration. It seems like transportation to them. Truly these Irish
do cling to the soil.

The weavers seem to blame the manufacturers for the reduction of wages.
They complain that the trade is concentrated into a few hands; that
therefore they cannot sell where they can sell dearest, but are obliged
to take yarn from a manufacturer and return it to him in cloth. They
complain that he still further reduces the poor wage by fines. As many
of these have only a hut but no garden ground, they have nothing to fall
back on. There are many suffering great want, and with inherited Scotch
reticence suffering in silence. There may be some injustice and some
oppression, for that is human nature, but the hand-loom weaving is
doomed to disappear, I am afraid.

There are some complaints of the high price of land here, and of the
hard times for farmers, but there is no appearance of hard times.
Laborers are cheap enough. One shilling a day and food, or ten shillings
a week without food, seems to be the common wage. The people of Down and
Antrim, as far as I have gone, are rampantly loyal to Queen and
Government and to all in authority. If a few blame the manufacturers, or
think the land is too dear, the large majority blame the improvidence of
the poor. "They eat bacon and drink tea where potatoes and milk or
porridge and milk used to be good enough for them." It is difficult to
imagine the extravagance.

I went through part of the poor-house in Ballymena. It is beautifully
clean and sweet, and in such perfect order out and in that one is glad
to think of the sick or suffering poor having such a refuge. What fine,
patient, intelligent faces were among the sufferers in the infirmary.
The children in the school-room looked rosy and well-fed, and the babies
were nursed by the old women. So many of them--it was a sad sight
indeed.

V.

ONE RESULT OF THE COERCION ACT--THE AGRICULTURAL LABORERS IN DOWN AND
ANTRIM--WHISKEY--RAIN IN IRELAND--A DISCUSSION ON ORANGEISM.

It is the eighth of March. The weather remains frightfully inclement;
the snow and sleet is succeeded by incessant rain storms. The Coercion
bill has become law and even in the north there seems a difference in
the people. There is a carefulness of expressing an opinion on any
subject as if a reign of governmental terror had begun. The loyalty
always so fervent is now intense and loud. The people here think that
there is an epidemic of unreasonableness and causeless murmuring raging
at the south and west.

In all that I have seen in Down and Antrim, the agricultural laborers
seem to be never at any time much above starvation; any exceptionally
hard times bring it home to them. In cases of accident, disease, or old
age, they have no refuge but the workhouse. There is a constant
struggle, as heroic in God's sight as any struggle of their Scottish
ancestors, to escape this dreaded fate. When it does overtake them,
however, the beggar nurses wait upon the sick beggars with a tenderness
that is inexpressibly touching.

Emigration is impossible to the laborer or the hand-loom weaver. They
have no money, they have nothing to sell to make money, and they are
utterly unwilling to be torn from the places where they were born to be
expatriated as beggars, and as beggars set down upon a foreign shore. I
am literally giving utterance to the opinions expressed to me.

I have heard these people loudly accused of extravagance; on enquiry was
told that they bought American bacon and drank tea, whereas, if thrifty,
they would be content with potatoes and buttermilk, or ditto and stir-
about. As the cow has disappeared, and potatoes have been known to fail,
I did not see the extravagance so clearly as I saw the parsimony that
would grudge the hard-worked laborer or the pale over-worked weaver any
nourishment at all.

The charge of spending on whiskey seems more likely by the frightful
amount of whiskey shops. Ireland's whiskey bill is going up into
somewhere among the millions. It is a fearful pity that this tax on the
industry and energy of the people could not be abolished. Truth compels
me to add that faces liquor-painted abound most among the well-dressed
and apparently well-to-do class whom one meets on the way.

The tenant-farmers, in some cases, complain of their rents, and would
complain more loudly but for fear of being classed with the Land League,
for they in the north are intensely loyal. As for the mere laborer, no
one seems to consider him or think of him at all.

The weather has been so inclement, the days all so much alike, rain,
hail, snow, sleet, high winds, and we were so busy coughing that the
days slipped by almost unnoticed. Refusing the tempting offer of a free
trip to see the beauties of Glengarriff, through the medium of a heavy
rain we started for Derry by train. Ah! it does know how to rain in
Ireland. Such a downpour, driven aslant by a fierce wind, so that,
disregarding the thought of an umbrella, we held on to the rail of the
jaunting car and were driven in the teeth of the tempest, smiling as if
we enjoyed it, up to the station.

Both sides of the road at the station were crowded with men in all sorts
of picturesque habiliments. If it had been near the poor-house we would
have thought that the population was applying for admittance _en
masse_. As it was, seeing the station likewise crowded, the platform
beyond crammed, all eager, expectant, waiting on something, we thought
it was some renowned field preacher going to give a sermon, or a
millionaire going to give largess. Not a bit of it. It was some person,
idle and cruel, who was bringing a couple of poor captive deer to be
hunted, and the hounds to hunt them, and the immense crowd represented
the idle and cruel who had assembled to get a glimpse of this noble and
elevating diversion. If it were possible for the deer and the man to
change places the crowd would be still more delighted.

Leaving Ballymena behind we panted through a completely sodden country.
Everything was dripping. In many places the waters were out, and the
low-lying lands were in a flood. Potatoes in pits linger in the fields,
turnips and cabbages in the rows where they grew, bearing witness that
even the last hard winter was many degrees behind the winters of Canada.
The land on this road is not so good as what I left behind; therefore
there were few gentlemen's houses, and the small farmhouses wore the
usual poverty-stricken and neglected appearance. There were more waste
hillsides devoted to whins, and flat fields tussocked with rushes as we
swept on through the dripping country, under the sides of almost
perpendicular rocks, down which little waterfalls, like spun silver,
fell and broadened into bridal veils ere they reached the bottom. Then
along the historical Foyle, "whose swelling waters," rather muddy at
this season of the year, "roll northward to the main," and so following
its windings and curvings we flashed into Derry.

VI.

THE HILLS OF LOUGH SWILLY--TENANTS' IMPROVEMENTS--A MAN-OF-WAR AND MEN
OF LOVE--THE PIG--RAMELTON--INTELLIGENT ROOKS--FROM POTATOES AND MILK
TO CORNMEAL STIRABOUT AND NOTHING--MILFORD--THE LATE LORD LEITRIM'S
INJUSTICE AND INHUMANITY--ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH.

On the 14th March we left Derry by train, crossing from the banks of the
Foyle to Lough Swilly. Got on board a little steamer, marvellously like
an American puffer, and panted and throbbed across the waters of the
Lough. The sun shone pleasantly, the sky was blue, which deserves to be
recorded, as this is the very first day since I arrived in Ireland on
which the sun shone out in a vigorous and decided manner, determined to
have his own way. We have had a few--a very few--watery blinks of sun
before, but the rain and sleet always conquered. Sailed up among whin-
covered mountains, with reclaimed patches creeping up their sides, and
pretty spots here and there, with handsome houses, new and fresh
looking, built upon them. It is an inducement to merchants and others to
build their brand new houses here, that the air is fresh and pure, the
scenery grand and beautiful and the salt water rolls up to the foot of
the rocks.

It was pointed out to me by a friend, that these mountain-side farms
were reclaimed, by great labor I'm sure, by the tenants, trusting to the
Ulster custom, but the landlords, knowing that custom was not law, then
raised the rents upon them. If they could not, or were not willing to
pay the increased rent, increased because of their own labor, they could
leave; others would rent the places at the increased figure. "As for
you, ye shiftless, miserable tillers of the soil, ye can go where you
like; emigrate if you can; get you to the workhouse or the grave if you
cannot." It is hard to believe that this could be done, or has been done
lawfully again and again. If it is true it spoils the comfort of looking
at the pleasant homes built upon reclaimed spots. We look more kindly on
the cottage homes nestled among nooks of the hills.

The sky did not cloud over again, it remained blue and bright and coaxed
the waters of Lough Swilly to look blue and bright also. Flocks of white
sea gulls dipped, darted and sailed about in an abandonment of
enjoyment. Flights of ducks rose on the wing and whirled past.

We sailed between two forts that frown at one another in a grim and
desolate manner at Rathmullen. Was informed that a man-of-war ordinarily
lay at anchor in this Lough to keep half an eye on things in general,
and poteen, I suppose, in particular. It was complained that the blue
jackets, finding these mountain girls sweet and pretty, and easy to
keep--for since cows are become such a price, a good one, not one of the
bovine aristocracy, but a commonly good one, being value for L20, the
damsels of the hills are accustomed to "small rations of tea and
potatoes"--the sailors marry them, "and that," said my informant, "makes
servant girls scarce about here."

I did not sympathize properly with this complaint. I was glad to hear
that any form of humanity in this island is scarce. I hoped the blue
jackets were happy with their Irish wives, for a Liverpool sailor
lamented in my hearing that the girls of seaport towns did not often
make good sailors' wives. Let us hope that they did better who chose
among the wild hills of Lough Swilly.

I am told that another cherished institution of Ireland is passing away--

"The pig that we meant
To drynurse in the parlor to pay off the rent."

The pig is becoming an institution of the past. I was told by a
gentleman of the first respectability in Derry, that sucking pigs are
sold in that market for thirty shillings. These would be precious to the
peasant if he had them, but he has not, nor means to get them. This
great resource for paying the rent is gone.

Up the Lough we sailed into beautiful Ramelton, an exceptionally pretty,
clean little place, boasting of a very nicely kept hotel. The scenery
all around is delightful. Across the Lannon River, on the banks of which
is one of the principal streets, is a lofty ridge crowned with grand
trees. The Lannon runs into Lough Swilly, and is affected by the ebb and
flow of the tide. The trees on the ridge are tenanted by a thriving
colony of rooks, very busy just now with their spring work. Two
delightful roads, one above another, run along the brow of the hill
under the shade of the trees.

I discovered that rooks know a great deal; that there is infinite
variety of meaning in their caw. The young couples who are starting
housekeeping have not only to provide materials and build their homes,
but to defend their property at every stage from the rapacity of their
neighbors. They have also to build in such a manner as to satisfy the
artistic taste of the community. I saw an instance of this during a
morning walk. Five rooks were sitting in judgment on the work of a young
and thoughtless pair of rooks, I suppose. The work was condemned, the
young couple were evicted without mercy and the nest pulled to pieces by
the five censors with grave caws of disapprobation, while the evicted
ones flew round and showed fight and used bad language. The Coercion Act
was not in favor among the black coated gentry of the air.

It has fallen like a spell over Ireland though, and evictions are
hurried through as if they thought their time was short. People are
afraid to speak to a stranger.

I have succeeded in obtaining introductions, which I hope will give me
an entrance into society in Donegal.

Was driven by my new friends over a part of Lord Leitrim's estate, and
through his town of Milford. The murdered Earl has left a woeful memory
of himself all over the country side. He must have had as many curses
breathed against him as there are leaves on the trees, if what
respectable people who dare speak of his doings say of him be true,
which it undoubtedly is. Godly people of Scottish descent, Covenanters
and Presbyterians, who would not have harmed a hair of his head for
worlds, have again and again lifted their hands to heaven and cried.
"How long, Lord, are we to endure the cruelty of this man?"

One case (which is a sample case) I will notice. In the plantation of
Scottish settlers in the North it seems that either for company or
mutual protection against the dispossessed children of the soil, the
farmhouses are built together in clachans or little groups. After a
lapse of years these clachans in some cases expanded into small towns.
The people built houses and made improvements on their holdings, paying
their rent punctually, but holding the right to their own money's worth,
the result of years of toil and stern economy under the Ulster custom.
In this way the greater part of the town of Milford sprung into
existence.

One John Buchanan, a Presbyterian of Scottish descent, son of
respectable people who had lived on this estate for generations, was
employed in the land office of the Earl of Leitrim over twenty years.
This man trusting to the Ulster custom, and the honest goodness of the
old Earl, grandfather of the present Earl, a good landlord and a just
man, by all accounts, invested his savings in building on the site of
the old farmhouse in Milford a block of buildings--quarrying the stone
for them--consisting of two large houses on Main street, and the rest
tenement houses on Buchanan street. He improved his farm by reclaiming
land, making nice fields out of bog.

When the good Earl died and the late Earl came into possession, he
immediately raised the rent to nearly double what was paid before,
making John Buchanan pay dearly for his improvements. John Buchanan died
rather suddenly, leaving a widow and five children. The widow in her
overwhelming grief was visited by Lord Leitrim personally. He told her
with great abuse and outrageous language, that she had no claim whatever
to a particle of the property, "she did not own a stone of it." The
widow, worn and nervous with the great trouble she had passed through,
was unable to bear this new trouble; his Lordship's violence gave her a
shock from which she never recovered. He then sent his bailiffs and put
her and her children out; put out the fires, as taking possession, and
re-let the place to her, again doubling the rent. Her eldest son, a
young lad, boiling with wrath over the wrong done and the language used
to his mother, went to his aunt, living at some distance, and besought
her to send him out of the country, lest he should be tempted to take
vengeance in his own hand. His aunt seeing this danger, fitted him out
from her own pocket, and the poor lad, his mother consenting, was
expatriated out of harm's way to far Australia.

The widow never recovered the shock which Lord Leitrim had given her. It
was aggravated by despair at seeing all the savings of her husband's
lifetime appropriated by the strong hand, and her children left
destitute. She was also in debt to the value of L600 for building
material for an addition built to the house and some office houses,
built later on, some time after the rest of the property. This debt of
L600 wore on her. She had no means of payment; all her means were
swallowed up in this property. The creditors could not collect it off
the property, it was not held liable for the debt, neither was Lord
Leitrim, who had seized the property. Her sense of honesty and the honor
of her husband's name made her fret over this debt. The doctor had
declared her illness heart disease brought on by a shock, and her death
imminent. To soothe her mind her sister again came forward and out of
her own pocket paid the money. The widow died and was buried. Their only
relative tried what the law would do to redress the grievances of the
orphans. The presiding judge, the chairman of the quarter sessions,
lifted up his hands saying, "Must I issue a decree that will rob these
helpless orphans." The decree was issued, and the children ejected
without a farthing of compensation. To leave no stone unturned, the
children went in a body to Lord Leitrim to ask, as justice had been
powerless, for mercy from him. He ordered his servant to put them out.
At the time these orphans were turned out of the house their father
built, there was not a farthing of rent due, all had been paid up at the
unjust Earl's own estimate.

This case had been heard by the Royal Commissioners sent to enquire into
these things, but it appears that there is no law to redress a tenant's
wrong. This occurred under the tenant custom of Ulster.

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