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 drove round this fine property in Milford. It was pointed out to me
that almost all the houses in the town were acquired by Lord Leitrim, by
the strong hand, in the same way. Passed the house from which the
Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Mr. White, was evicted. It was his own
private property. It stands windowless and roofless, a monument to the
dead earl. The priest of the parish had no house of his own; he was a
boarder with one of his flock, who had built himself a house in the time
of the good earl. When Lord Leitrim fancied that he had cause of quarrel
with the priest he obliged his tenant to put him out, on pain of losing
the house which he had built. After he had got rid of priest and
minister, he built a little Episcopal Church, that the people might
worship at his shrine. The little church stands empty now. The graveyard
about this little church was a rocky corner with little soil. The
minister ventured to request that the people might have leave to draw a
little clay from a hill nearby, to cover the bodies interred there, as
there was not soil enough. "I'll not give a spoonful; let their bones
bleach there," said the earl.

During the life-time of the good earl, the people being encouraged to
improve their lands, crept up the mountain side, reclaiming whatever
land they could. I have seen some of these portions, and noticed how
they had got up close to the rocks, by using the spade where the plough
would not go. They cleared off the whins of the mountain; they drained
the bogs. They made kilns and burned lime for top-dressing. When the
wicked lord came into possession he not only raised the rent on the
tenants' improvements, but built a kiln of his own, and burned lime,
forbidding them to use theirs, compelling them to buy from him at his
price. He would not even allow them to make manure of the floating sea-
weed that drifted in from the sea.

Went to see the place where Lord Leitrim was done to death. Looked down
on Milford Bay, dotted with little treeless and shrubless islands. Round
it are round-shouldered hills, brown and bare now--purple with heather
bells in summer time, I dare say. On a point stretching out into this
bay stands his residence, Manor Vaughan. The road leading from Manor
Vaughan to Milford is screened by a plantation of trees. On the opposite
side of the bay the hills are really mountains. The murderers crossed
the bay, tied their boat to a stone, and waited in the plantation. Lord
Leitrim, with his clerk, was driven along on one car, followed by
another containing his servants. His car, somewhat in advance, went
slowly up a little hill. Those lying in wait fired; the driver fell
dead. Lord Leitrim was wounded; he jumped off on one side, the clerk on
the other. He had pistols but they were in the car; he retreated, trying
to defend himself as they poured on him shot after shot. Those in the
other car, instead of coming up, stopped in mortal terror. The clerk,
only slightly wounded in the ear, ran to them, exclaiming, "They are
killing Lord Leitrim, they have killed me," and dropped dead with
nervous terror. The assassins had poured in all their shot, still the
Earl was not dead. He might yet have been saved if there had been any
one to help him. What must his thoughts have been in that supreme
moment. They beat the life out of him, he defending himself to the last.
They cut loose their boat, rowed across the bay, cast it adrift, took
the mountains and escaped.

The Earl fell, his head in a little pool of water. The country people
coming in to Milford town passed by with white faces on the other side;
no one lifted his head, no one looked to see if life was extinct. At
length the constabulary came, and the remains of the dreaded lord were
carried in a cart into Milford. There was a _post mortem_
examination; part of his poor remains was buried in the graveyard of the
little church which he built, and a load of the clay he refused to his
tenants brought to cover it. His name will long linger in evil fame
among the mountains and deserts.

It is but just to the memory of this man to say, that some, who with
good reason abhor his memory, do not believe that charges of gross
immorality made against him were true. Others who think themselves
equally well informed hold a contrary opinion. To think of mentioning
all I have heard of his oppressive injustice would be impossible. I was
told that when news of his death came into certain places, men clasped
hands and drank one another's health as at a festival; that pious people
thanked God for the deliverence, who abhorred the means by which it came
about.

I saw among the hills three nice farms, which a well-to-do farmer bought
and improved, and finally bequeathed to his three sons. One died and the
Ahab-like Earl took possession. Wishing to evict another for the purpose
of throwing two farms into one, he offered the farm to the remaining
brother in addition to his own. The man refused to ruin his brother. The
Earl, to punish him, raised his rent from L35 to L70. Griffith's
valuation of this farm is L29 5s. Another eviction from Milford was so
pitiful in its cruelty that the compassion of the country was aroused,
and a home bought by subscription for the old people. I saw the property
from which these people were evicted in Milford, a valuable row of
houses.

The present Earl acknowledged the justice of the claim of John
Buchanan's children, and spoke of restitution, but his agent, on whom
the mantle of the late Earl had fallen, persuaded him against it, as
nearly all the property in Milford town had been acquired in the same
way. "Making restitution to one would open up the question of the
others, and could not be afforded."

VII.

IRISH COLD AND CANADIAN COLD--EVIDENCES OF THE FAMINE--PREPARING FOR
THE IRISH LAND BILL--THE BAD PEOPLE OF DONEGAL--INFLUENCE OF THE BALLOT
ON LANDLORDS--A MOUNTAIN STORM--A "BETTER CLASS" FARMER'S HOME.

To make excursions to a short distance from this pretty town of
Ramelton and to return again has been my occupation for the last week.
It was arranged that on Monday, March 21st, I was to go with some kind
friends to see life up among the mountains of Donegal, but down came
another storm. Snow, hail, sleet, rain, hail, sleet and rain again.
Storms rule and reign among these hills this March, destroying all
prospect of March dust I am afraid. Nothing could be done but wait till
the storm was over, going to the windows once in a while to watch the
snow driving past, or to notice that it had changed to sleet or rain.

The mountain tops are white again, and look wild and wintry. To-day it
rains with a will. The cold here at present is more chill and
penetrating than Canadian cold. I have put on more, and yet more
clothing, and I am cold. Many, very many, people during the past dreary
winter have had no bed-clothes at all.

I am afraid from what I see and hear that the famine was more dreadful
here in Donegal than we in Canada imagined. Plenty of people even now
are living on Indian meal stirabout, without milk or anything else to
take with it. This, three times a day, and thankful to have enough of it
to satisfy hunger. It was pitiful to see little children and aged women,
with but thin clothes on, walking barefoot through the snowy slush of
yesterday.

My attention was drawn to a ballad singer, almost blind, "whose looped
and windowed raggedness" was picturesque. His dreary attempts at singing
with his teeth chattering, the rain and sleet searching out every corner
of his rags, was pitiful. He was hardly able to stand against the
cutting wind. I sent out and bought his ballad as an excuse to give him
the Queen's picture. The songs were clever for local poetry. They were
treasonous too, but then loyalty is the song of the well fed, well clad,
well-to-do citizen. Treason and wretchedness fit well together, in a
helpless, harmless way.

Your London correspondent of February 11th remarks, "Even Ireland has
nothing left but to settle down and attend to putting in the crops."
This is an English and comfortable view--the remark of a man who was not
there to see. It is far otherwise here in County Donegal. Evictions are
flying about as thick as "the leaves of the forest when autumn hath
flown." This wild second winter is the time selected for these
evictions. Every local paper has notices of evictions here and there.

They tell me that the reason of the great number of evictions at present
is to prevent the wretched tenants from having any benefit under the
promised Land Bill. If they are evicted now and readmitted as
caretakers, they can be sent off again at a week's notice and have no
claim under the Ulster custom for past improvements. I think any candid
person can see that these people are not in a position to pay back rent,
or even present rent at the high rate to which it is raised. In some
instances they are not able to pay any rent at all. There had been some
years of bad seasons ending in one of absolute famine.

The report of the Relief Committee for northern Donegal was published on
28th of October, 1880. I met with a member of that Committee, which was
composed of sixteen Protestants and eleven Catholics, including the
Catholic Bishop of Raphoe and the Presbyterian member of Parliament.
This gentleman informed me that food was given in such quantities as to
preserve life only. Seed was also given. Many people of respectable
standing, whose need was urgent, applied for relief secretly, not
wishing their want to be known. Helped in this careful way the amount
given, exclusive of expenses, in North Donegal was L33,660.17.1, of
which amount the New York _Herald_ gave L2,000, besides L203 to an
emigration fund enabling 115 persons to leave the country. Surely we
must think that before these people applied for public charity--and
every case was examined into by some of the Committee or their agents--
they had exhausted all their means, and sold all they had to sell. How,
then, could they possibly be able to pay back rent in March, 1881?

In the middle of my letter I got the long-waited-for opportunity to
leave Ramelton behind and go up into the Donegal Hills.

The environs of Ramelton are wonderfully beautiful, sudden hills, green
vales, lovely nooks in unexpected places, waters that sparkle and dash,
or that flow softly like the waters of Shiloh, great aristocratic trees
in clumps, standing singly, grouped by the water's edge, as if they had
sauntered down to look about them, or drawn up on the hill-side many
deep, stretching far away like the ranks of a grand army. All that these
can do to make Ramelton a place of beauty has been done. It is hemmed in
by hills that lie up against the sky, marked off into fields by whin
hedges, till they look like sloping chequer-boards. Beyond them, in
places, tower up the mountain-tops of dark Donegal, crusted over with
black heather, seamed by rift and ravine, bare in places where these
rocks, those bones of the mountains, have pushed themselves through the
heather, till it looks like a ragged cloak. The sun shines, the rooks
flap busily about, as noisy as a parliament, the air is keen, and so we
drive out of Ramelton.

The sky was blue, although the wind was cold, and it was blowing quite a
gale. We had not left the town far behind when the storm recommenced in
all its fury. The hail beat in our faces until we were obliged to cover
up our heads. Finally the pony refused to go a step farther, but turned
his obstinate shoulder to the storm and stood there, where there was no
shelter of any kind, and there he stood till the storm moderated a
little, only to recommence again. Up one hill, down another, along a
bleak road through a bog, past the waters of Lough Fern, up more hills,
round other hills, across other bleak bogs, the little town of
Kilmacrennan, up other hills, the storm meanwhile raging in all its fury
until we drew up on the lee side of a little mountain chapel.

The clergyman, who happened to be there, received us most courteously,
and conducted us to his house. We were offered refreshments, and treated
with the greatest kindness. Owing to this priest's courtesy and kindness
I was provided with a room in the house of one of his parishioners, a
mountain side farmer.

I parted with my friends with great regret. They returned to Ramelton
through the storm, which increased in fury every moment. I, in the safe
shelter of the farmhouse, looked out of the window, hoping the storm
would moderate, but it increased until every thing a few yards from the
house, every mountain top and hill side were blotted out, and nothing
could be seen but the flurrying snow driven past by the winds.

I have now left the Presbyterians of the rich, low-lying lands behind,
and am up among the Catholic people of the hills. I have felt quite at
home with these kindly folk. They remind me of the kindliness of the
Celtic population of another and far-off land. I like the sound of the
Irish tongue, which is spoken all around me. I feel quite at home by the
peat fire piled up on the hearth. The house where I am staying is that
of a farmer of the better class. A low thatched house divided into a but
and a ben. The kitchen end has the bare rafters, black and shining with
concentrated smoke. The parlor end is floored above and has a board
floor. Among the colored prints of the Saviour which adorn the wall are
two engravings, in gilt frames, of Bright and Gladstone, bought when the
Land Bill of 1870 was passed.

This Bill, by the way, has been evaded with great ease, for the law
breakers were the great who knew the law, and the wronged were the poor
who were ignorant of it. The farmer's wife could not do enough to make
me welcome. She had the kind and comely face and pleasant tongue that
reminded me of Highland friends in the long ago. Their name of Murray,
which is a prevalent name on these hills, had a Highland sound. Feeling
welcome, and safe under the care that has led me thus far, I fell asleep
in the best bed, with its ancient blue and white hangings, and slept
soundly.

These people are very thrifty. The blankets of the bed were homespun;
the fine linen towel was the same. The mistress's dress was home-made,
and so was the cloth of her husband's clothes. In noticing this I was
told that where they could keep a few sheep the people were better off,
but it was harder now to keep sheep than formerly.

VIII.

THE HILL COUNTRY OF DONEGAL--ON THE SQUARE--OFFICE RULES

Left up among my country people in this hill country of Donegal, I set
myself to see and to hear what they had to say for themselves or against
their landlords. In the pauses of storm I walked up the mountains to see
the people in their homes. I seem to have lost the power of description.
I will never think of scenes I saw there without tears. I never, in
Canada, saw pigs housed as I saw human beings here. Sickness, old age,
childhood penned up in such places that one shuddered to go into them.
Now, mark me! every hovel paid rent, or was under eviction for failing
to pay.

The landlord has no duties in the way of repairing a roof or making a
house comfortable. Such a thing is utterly unknown here. To fix the
rent, to collect the rent, to make office rules as whim or cupidity
dictates, to enforce them, in many instances with great brutality, is
the sole business of the landlord; and the whole power of the Executive
of England is at his back. This is not a good school in which to learn
loyalty. Submission to absolute decrees or eviction are the only
alternative.

The tenant has no voice in the bargain. He has no power to be one party
to a contract. This irresponsible power of an autocrat over serfs of the
soil is bad for both parties. I will try to tell these people's side of
the question as nearly in their own words as I can.

When the native population was driven off the good valley lands to the
hills of Donegal during the confiscation times, they built their cabins
in groups, like the Scotch _clachans_, for company, perhaps even
for protection. Each man broke up, clearing off stones and rooting up
whins, the best patch within his reach. He ditched and drained pieces of
low-lying bog, and paid for what he cultivated, all the rest being
common.

By what title the Clemens of Leitrim got lordship over the wild hills as
well as the fat lowlands I cannot tell; but all the country here, for
miles and miles, up hill and down vale, is his. The people have
absolutely no rights, far as the land is concerned.

The first move towards this dreadful state of things was called
"Squaring the farms." This was done to compel the people to pay for the
wild as well as the cultivated lands. Under the old system a man might
have a few goats or sheep, or a heifer, on the hills, and, if his crop
was not good, or a hail storm threshed out his oats, he could sacrifice
these to pay the rent. When the farms were squared each man drew lots
for his new holding. I am speaking of Lord Leitrim's estate. This was a
hard decree, but the tenant had no alternative but to submit. A man
often found himself squared out of the best of his clearing, squared out
of his cabin and all accommodation for his cow or horse, and squared on
to a new place without any house on it at all.

I made particular enquiry if Lord Leitrim had ever made any allowance or
compensation to a man deprived of the house, which he or his fathers had
built, after this summary fashion. No compensation. Every fixture put
upon the land belonged to the landlord absolutely.

"Was there ever any help allowed to a man in building a new house?"

"In a very few instances a man got a door and a couple of window-sashes
as a charitable assistance, not by any means as a compensation."

After some time the wild mountains, where there was nothing but rocks
and heather, were fenced off. Before this the goats and sheep grazed up
there. A new office rule made the price for a sheep or goat picking a
living among the heather. It was one shilling and sixpence for a sheep
with a lamb at her foot, and other animals in proportion. Still the
wretched men of the hills struggled to live on in the only homes they
had, or had ever known. Then the rents were raised. In one instance from
L3 11s 4d to L6 5s for 6 Irish acres, the increased value being the
result of the man's own hard labor. In another instance from L1 9s 4d to
L13. Another office rule charges five shillings for the privilege of
cutting turf for fuel even if cut on the little holding for which he is
paying rent.

Now, when every nerve was strained to pay this rack rent, and cattle
were high in price, if the unfortunate tenant failed, why, he was
evicted. He might go where he liked, to the workhouse or the asylum, or
the roadside, his little clearing would make pasture, and this, at the
price of beef cattle, would be still more profitable. For any landlord
in this part of Donegal to speak of freedom of contract is a fallacy. It
does not exist.

The oppression at present exercised by Captain Dopping on the Leitrim
estate, which he can carry out safely under the protection of bayonets,
would raise up Judge Lynch in America before three months. Lately, the
people told me, he visited the farm-houses in person, pulled open the
doors of the little room that the better class strive to have, without
permission asked, and walked in to inspect if there were any signs of
prosperity hidden from the eye that might warrant further extortion.
This act was resented with a feeling that found no relief in words. I
noticed that there was no word of complaint or denunciation anywhere.
Facts were stated, and you understood by glance and tone that the time
for mere complaint was past.

I was taken to see a paralytic schoolmaster who had dared to build a
room next to the school-house out of which he was helped into school
every morning, for he could teach, though he had lost the use of his
limbs. No sooner did Lord Leitrim know this than he had the paralytic
carried out and laid on the road, and the room which he had built with
his earnings and the help of his neighbors, was pulled down--not one
stone was left upon another. He then lost his situation which was his
living. I can hardly bear to describe this man's dwelling in which I
found himself, his wife, four children and the cow. The winds of the
mountain and the rains of heaven equally found their way in. His wife
teaches sewing in the school at a salary of L8 per annum. This, with
other help from the Rev. Mr. Martin, formerly Episcopal Rector of
Kilmacrennan, who got the wife the post of schoolmistress, has kept
these people alive. The father has not seen the sky since he was evicted
in 1870. At present there is a writ of ejectment on the house for L9 of
back rent, and he is sued for seed, got in the time of scarcity.

The house is horrible--there are boards with some straw on them over the
beds. The children are very pretty, and as hardy as mountain goats. The
father was quite an educated man, to judge from his speech. I, who was
well clothed, shivered at the hearth, but want and nakedness stayed
there constantly. If this poor man were put in the poor-house, he would
have to part from the faithful wife and sweet children; but that is the
doom that stares him in the face.

The longer I stayed among the hills the more I became convinced that the
people had strained every nerve to pay what they considered unjust and
extortionate rents. They worked hard; they farmed hard; they wore poor
clothing; they left their hill and went over to Scotland or England, at
harvest time, to earn money to pay the rent. "And we were not considered
as kindly, or as much respected, as their hogs or dogs," said a farmer
to me. There was nothing left after the rent for comfort, or to use in
case of sickness; they always lived on the brink of starvation.

"Why did you not refuse to pay these increased rents when they were put
upon you first? You should have refused in a body, and stood out," I
said to one man. "Some could do that, my lady, but most could not. At
first I had the old people depending on me, and I could not see them on
the hillside; now I have little children, and the wife is weakly. And
there were many like me, or even worse."

Now consider some of the office rules. My lord had a pound of his own:
for a stray beast, so much; for a beast caught up the mountain without
leave, eviction; for burning the limestone on your own place instead of
buying it at the lord's kiln, eviction; for burning some parings of the
peat land, the ashes of which made the potatoes grow bigger and drier,
eviction. Not only did the man who did not doff his hat to the landlord
stand in danger, but the man who did not uncover to his lowest under-
bailiff. One exaction after another, one tyranny after another has dug a
gulf between landlord and tenant that will be hard to bridge. I saw a
stone house used as a barn. Lord Leitrim made the man who built it, who
had got permission to build from the good Earl, tear down the chimney
and make an office-house of it, on pain of eviction. He must continue to
live himself in the hovel. Another widow woman, evicted for not being
able to pay her rent, had the roof torn off her house, but has a place
like a goose pen among the ruins, and here she stays. Every day rides
out Capt. Dopping with his escort of police, paid for by the county, and
evicts without mercy. Since the eyes of the world have been drawn to
Ireland by the proceedings of the Land League none have been left to die
outside. The tenants are admitted as caretakers by the week, but the
eviction, I am told, extinguishes any claim the poor people might have
under the Ulster Custom.

I have seen nothing yet to make me think I was in a disturbed country
except meeting Captain Dopping and his escort, and seeing white police
barracks and dandy policemen, who literally overrun the country. It
carries one's mind back to the days of bloody Claverhouse or wicked
Judge Jeffries to hear and see the feelings which the country people--
Catholic as well as Protestant--have towards the memory of the late
Earl. "Dear, the cup of his iniquity was full, the day of vengeance was
come, and the earth could hold him no longer," said a Protestant to me.

"It was bad for the people, whoever they were, that took vengeance out
of the hands of the Almighty, but many a poor creature he had sent out
of the world before he lay helpless at the mercy of his enemies," said
many an orthodox person to me. One poor girl on that dreadful day
thanked God that the oppressor was laid low. Her mother evicted, had
died on the roadside exposed to the weather of the hills, her brother
went mad at the sight of misery he would almost have died to relieve but
could not, and is now in the asylum at Letterkenny. One can imagine with
what feeling this desolate girl lifted her hands when she heard of the
murder, and said, "I thank Thee, O Lord."

What kind of a system is it that produces such scenes, and such
feelings? It is a noticeable fact how many there are in the asylum in
Letterkenny whose madness they blame on the horrors of these evictions.
Wise legislation may find a remedy for these evils, but the memory of
them will never die out. It is graven on the mountains, it is stamped on
the valleys, it is recorded on the rocks forever.

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