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Title: One Irish Summer
Author: Curtis, William Eleroy, 1850-1911
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note
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text is shifted to all uppercase. The occasional 'oe' ligature is
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[Illustration: caption]
Please consult the more detailed notes at the end of this text for
the resolution of any other issues that were encountered.
ONE IRISH SUMMER
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT CELTIC CROSS AT GLENDALOUGH]
ONE IRISH SUMMER
BY
WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS
AUTHOR OF
"_The Yankees of the East_," "_Between the Andes and the Ocean_"
"_Modern India_," "_The Turk and his Lost Provinces_"
"_To-day in Syria and Palestine_," _etc._
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
_DUFFIELD & COMPANY_
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. A SUMMER IN IRELAND 1
II. THE CATHEDRALS AND DEAN SWIFT 15
III. HOW IRELAND IS GOVERNED 34
IV. DUBLIN CASTLE 53
V. THE REDEMPTION OF IRELAND 60
VI. SACRED SPOTS IN DUBLIN 77
VII. THE OLD AND NEW UNIVERSITIES 97
VIII. ROUND ABOUT DUBLIN 115
IX. THE LANDLORDS AND THE LANDLESS 130
X. MAYNOOTH COLLEGE AND CARTON HOUSE 143
XI. DROGHEDA, AND THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE 159
XII. TARA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF IRELAND 174
XIII. SAINT PATRICK AND HIS SUCCESSOR 188
XIV. THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT 202
XV. THE NORTH OF IRELAND 209
XVI. THE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST 222
XVII. THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF DERRY 237
XVIII. IRISH EMIGRATION AND COMMERCE 247
XIX. IRISH CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS 260
XX. WICKLOW AND WEXFORD 268
XXI. THE LAND OF RUINED CASTLES 283
XXII. THE IRISH HORSE AND HIS OWNER 300
XXIII. CORK AND BLARNEY CASTLE 312
XXIV. REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 330
XXV. GLENGARIFF, THE LOVELIEST SPOT IN IRELAND 343
XXVI. THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY 366
XXVII. INTEMPERANCE, INSANITY, AND CRIME 391
XXVIII. THE EDUCATION OF IRISH FARMERS 404
XXIX. LIMERICK, ASKEATON, AND ADARE 417
XXX. COUNTY GALWAY AND RECENT LAND TROUBLES 432
XXXI. CONNEMARA AND THE NORTHWEST COAST 443
XXXII. WORK OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD 459
INDEX 475
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
An Ancient Celtic Cross at Glendalough _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Queenstown 4
The Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary 8
Holycross Abbey, County Tipperary 10
St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin 16
The Tomb of Strongbow, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 32
The Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1906-9 34
The Countess of Aberdeen 36
The Four Courts, Dublin 48
The Castle, Dublin; Official Residence of the Lord Lieutenant
and Headquarters of the Government 54
The Customs House, Dublin 78
The Bank of Ireland, Old Parliament House, Dublin 80
St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 90
Quadrangle, Trinity College, Dublin 98
Main Entrance, Trinity College, Dublin 102
Sackville Street, Dublin, showing Nelson's Pillar 116
Lighthouse at Howth, Mouth of Dublin Bay 122
Portumna Castle, County Galway; the Seat of the Earl of
Clanricarde 138
Maynooth College, County Kildare 144
Carton House, Maynooth, County Kildare; the Residence of the
Duke of Leinster 152
A Celtic Cross at Monasterboice, County Louth 166
Ruins of Mellifont Abbey, near Drogheda, County Louth 168
Carrickfergus Castle 180
St. Patrick's Cathedral at Armagh, the Seat of Cardinal Logue,
the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland 194
Cathedral, Downpatrick, where St. Patrick lived, and in the
Churchyard of which he was buried 196
The Village of Downpatrick 200
Rosstrevor House, near Belfast, the Residence of Sir John Ross,
of Bladensburg 210
Shane's Castle, near Belfast, the Ancient Stronghold of the
O'Neills, Kings of Ulster 216
Queen's College, Belfast 226
Albert Memorial, Belfast 228
The Giant's Causeway, Portrush, near Belfast 244
Bishop's Gate, Derry 246
Irish Market Women 260
An Ancient Bridge in County Wicklow 268
The Vale of Avoca, County Wicklow 272
The River Front at Waterford 290
Lismore Castle, Waterford County; Irish Seat of the Duke of
Devonshire 292
An Irish Jaunting Car 308
Going to Market 310
Queen's College, Cork 314
Blarney Castle, County Cork 322
Kilkenny Castle; Residence of the Duke of Ormonde 326
The Ancient City of Youghal, County Cork; the Home of Sir
Walter Raleigh 330
Myrtle Lodge; the Home of Sir Walter Raleigh 338
Lake Gougane-Barra, County Cork 348
Chapel erected by Mr. John R. Walsh of Chicago on the Island
of Gougane-Barra 350
The Pass of Keimaneigh through the Mountains between Cork
and Glengariff 352
Glengariff Bridge 356
Kenmare House, Killarney 372
Upper Lake, Killarney 376
Ross Castle, Killarney 380
Muckross Abbey, Killarney 384
A Window of Muckross Abbey, Killarney 388
Treaty Stone, Limerick 422
Adare Abbey, in the Private Grounds of the Earl of Dunraven,
near Limerick 428
Fish Market, Galway 438
Salmon Weir, Galway 442
A Scene in Connemara 444
Clifden Castle, County Galway 448
A Scene in the West of Ireland; Lenane Harbor 450
Barnes Gap, County Donegal 460
An Irish Cabin in County Donegal 464
The Old: A Laborer's Sod Cabin; The New: Example of the
Cottages built in Connemara by the Congested Districts
Board 470
Interior and Exterior of One-Story Cottages erected by the
Congested Districts Board 472
ONE IRISH SUMMER
I
A SUMMER IN IRELAND
For those who have never spent a summer in Ireland there remains a
delightful experience, for no country is more attractive, unless it be
Japan, and no people are more genial or charming or courteous in their
reception of a stranger, or more cordial in their hospitality. The
American tourist usually lands at Queenstown, runs up to Cork, rides out
to Blarney Castle in a jaunting car, and across to Killarney with a
crowd of other tourists on the top of a big coach, then rushes up to
Dublin, spends a lot of money at the poplin and lace stores, takes a
train for Belfast, glances at the Giant's Causeway, and then hurries
across St. George's Channel for London and the Continent. Hundreds of
Americans do this each year, and write home rhapsodies about the beauty
of Ireland. But they have not seen Ireland. No one can see Ireland in
less than three months, for some of the counties are as different as
Massachusetts and Alabama. Six weeks is scarcely long enough to visit
the most interesting places.
The railway accommodations, the coaches, the steamers, and other
facilities for travel are as perfect as those of Switzerland. The hotels
are not so good, and there will be a few discomforts here and there to
those who are accustomed to the luxuries of London and Paris, but they
can be endured without ruffling the temper, simply by thinking of the
manifold enjoyments that no other country can produce.
And Ireland is particularly interesting just now because of the mighty
forces that are engaged in the redemption of the people from the poverty
and the wretchedness in which a large proportion of them have been
submerged for generations. No government ever did so much for the
material welfare of its subjects as Great Britain is now doing for
Ireland, and the improvement in the condition of affairs during the last
few years has been extraordinary.
In order to observe and describe this economic evolution, the author
spent the summer of 1908 visiting various parts of the island and has
endeavored to narrate truthfully what he saw and heard. This volume
contains the greater part of a series of letters written for _The
Chicago Record-Herald_ and also published in _The Evening Star_ of
Washington, _The Times_ of St. Louis, and other American papers. By
permission of Mr. Frank B. Noyes, editor and publisher of _The Chicago
Record-Herald_, and to gratify many readers who have asked for them,
they are herewith presented in permanent form.
About three hundred passengers landed with us at Queenstown. Most of
them were young men and young women of Irish birth, returning after a
few years' experience in the United States. Several had come home to be
married, but most of them were on a visit to their parents and other
relatives. Among those who disembarked were several older men and women
who were born in Ireland, but had been taken to America in infancy or in
childhood and were now looking upon the fair face of Erin for the first
time.
There is an astonishing difference in the appearance and behavior of the
steerage passengers who are sailing east from those who are sailing
west. A few years, or even a few months, in America causes an
extraordinary change in the dress and the manners of a European peasant.
You can see it in the passengers that land at Genoa and Naples, and
those that land at Hamburg and Trieste. But it is even more noticeable
in the Americanized Irish who land at Queenstown by the thousand every
summer from New York. The Italian, the Hungarian, or the Pole who goes
aboard a steamer to America with his humble belongings and his quaint
looking garments is a very different person from the man who sails from
New York back to the fatherland a few years later. And the Irish boys
and girls who went ashore with us just as the sun was waking up Ireland
were as hearty, well dressed, and prosperous looking as you would wish
to see. And every young woman had a big "Saratoga" in place of the
"cotton trunk with the pin lock" that she carried away with her when she
left the old country for America the first time. I don't know what was
in those big trunks, although one can get a glimpse of their contents if
he stands by while the customs officers are inspecting them, but you can
see the names "Delia O'Connell, New York," "Katherine Burke, Chicago,"
and "Mary Murphy, Baltimore," marked in big black letters at either end.
And what is most noticeable, the trunks are all new. They have never
crossed the ocean before, but will be going back again to America in a
few months. Their owners will not be contented with the discomforts they
will find at their old homes. Ireland is more prosperous today than for
generations, but conditions among the poorer classes are very different
from those that exist in the new world.
The purser told me that he changed nearly $4,000 of American into
English money the day before we landed, for third-class passengers
alone. One man had $400; that was the maximum, but the rest of those who
disembarked at Queenstown had from $50 up to $250 and thereabouts in
cash, with their return tickets.
Queenstown makes a brave appearance from the deck of a ship in the bay,
even before sunrise. It lies along a steep slope, with green fields and
forests on either side, and the most conspicuous building is a beautiful
gothic cathedral, with an unfinished tower, that was commenced in 1868
and has cost nearly a million dollars already. The hill is so steep that
a heavy retaining wall has been built as a buttress to make the
cathedral foundations secure, and the worshipers must climb a winding
road or a sharp stairway to reach it. A little farther along the
hillside is an imposing marine hospital and group of barracks, from
which we could hear the bugles sounding "reveille" as we landed. There
are compensations to those who are marooned at Queenstown before
daylight, and one of them is the picturesque surroundings of the
ancient homes of the O'Mahony's, who ruled this part of Ireland for many
generations long ago.
The harbor is like an amphitheatre, entirely inclosed by hills, three
hundred or four hundred feet high, that are covered with frowning
battlements. Every hilltop is strongly fortified. The bay, which is four
miles long and about two miles wide, contains several islands, upon
which the government has built warehouses, repair shops, shipyards, and
the other appurtenances of a naval station, guarded by Fort Carlisle,
Fort Camden, and other modern fortresses. Upon Haulbowline Island is a
depot for ammunition and other ordnance stores, and the pilot told me
that on Rocky Island near by were two magazines--great chambers chiseled
out of the living rock by Irish convicts who were formerly confined
there--and that each of them contained twenty-five thousand barrels of
powder belonging to the British navy.
Queenstown has many handsome estates overlooking the sea and the bay
from the hills that inclose the harbor. There is an old ruined castle at
Monkstown that was built in 1636 by Anastasia Gould, wife of John
Archdecken, while her husband was at sea. She determined that she would
surprise him when he returned home. So she hired a lot of men to build a
castle with only the material they found on the estate, and made an
agreement with them that they should buy the food and clothing necessary
for their families from herself alone. It is the first record of a
"company store" that I know of. When the castle was finished and the
accounts were balanced it was found that the cost of the labor had been
entirely paid for by the profits of this thrifty woman's mercantile
transactions, with the sum of four pence as a balance to her credit. Her
husband returned in due time and was so delighted with his new home that
he never went to sea again. His estimable wife died in 1689, and was
buried in the churchyard of Team-pulloen-Bryn, where this story is
inscribed with her epitaph.
On Wood's Hill, overlooking the bay, is a handsome estate that once
belonged to Curran, the famous lawyer and orator, whose daughter was
the sweetheart of Robert Emmet, the Irish martyr. Her melancholy romance
is related in Washington Irving's story called "The Broken Heart" and in
one of Tom Moore's ballads.
[Illustration: QUEENSTOWN]
It is 165 miles from Queenstown to Dublin, and the railroad passes
through several of the counties whose names are most familiar to
Americans, for they have furnished the greater portion of our Irish
immigrants--Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queens, and Kildare. Most of the
passengers who landed with us took the same train, and they were so many
that they crowded the little railway station to overflowing and created
a scene of lively confusion. Some of them had been met by brothers,
fathers, sweethearts, and friends, who were waiting two hours before
daylight, and the hearty greetings and enthusiasm they showed were
contagious. The sweethearts were easy to identify. The demonstrations of
affection left no doubt, but all the world loves a lover, and we
rejoiced with them. In the long line that stood before the ticket
seller's window at the railway station they chattered unconsciously like
so many sparrows, their arms around each other, with an occasional
embrace, a sly kiss and a slap to pay for it, tender caresses upon the
shoulder or the head, and other expressions of a happiness that could
not have been concealed. The home-bred young men gazed with wonder and
admiration at the finery worn by their sweethearts from America, who, by
the way, although they came third class, and were undoubtedly
chambermaids or shop girls in our cities, were the best-looking and the
best-dressed women we saw in Ireland. The pride of the parents at the
appearance and the manners of their sons or daughters showed that they
appreciated the accomplishments that American experience acquires.
One of the younger passengers, a boy of twenty years, perhaps, told me
that he had come from Ohio to persuade his father to send his two
younger brothers back with him. They live in Tipperary, where "there is
no show for a young man now." Another young man had a tiny American flag
pinned to the lapel of his coat, and when I said, "You show your
colors," the lassie who clung to his arm turned at me with a determined
expression on her face and remarked:
"I'll be takin' that off and pinnin' a piece of green in its place vera
soon."
"No, you don't, darlin'; none o' that," he replied. "I'm an American
citizen, and I don't care who knows it. If you don't want to be one
yourself, I know another girl who does."
The country through which the railway to Dublin runs affords a beautiful
example of Irish scenery. As far as Cork the track follows the bank of
the River Lee, which is inclosed on either side by a high ridge crowned
with stately mansions, glorious trees, and handsome gardens. Several of
the places are historic, and the scenery has been frequently described
in verse by the Irish poets.
Father Prout, a celebrated rhymemaker of Cork, has described one of the
villages as follows:
"The town of Passage is both large and spacious,
And situated upon the say;
'Tis nate and dacent and quite adjacent
To Cork on a summer's day.
There you may slip in and take a dippin'
Foreninst the shippin' that at anchor ride,
Or in a wherry you can cross the ferry
To Carrigaloe on the other side."
We could not see much from the car window, but we saw enough on the
journey to understand why it is called "The Emerald Isle" and why the
Irish people are so enthusiastic over its landscapes. The river is
walled in nearly all the distance to Cork, and there are many factories,
storehouses, and docks on both sides. Quite a fleet of steamers ply
between Queenstown and Cork, and trains on the railroad are running
every hour. Small seagoing vessels can go up as far as Cork, but the
larger ones discharge and receive their cargoes at Queenstown. We
couldn't see much of the towns because the railway tracks are either
elevated so that only the roofs and chimney pots are visible, or else
they are buried between impenetrable walls or pass through tunnels on
either side of the station. But when the train passed out into the open
a succession of most attractive landscapes was spread before us as far
as the horizon on either side, and the fields were alive with bushes of
brilliant orange-colored gorse, or furze, as it is sometimes called.
They lit up the atmosphere as the burning bush of Moses might have done.
Very little of the ground is cultivated. Only here and there is a field
of potatoes and cabbages, but the pastures are filled with fine looking
cattle and sheep, for this is the grazing district of Ireland, from
whence her famous dairy products and the best beef and mutton come.
Beyond Portarlington we got our first glimpses of the bogs, with which
we are told one-sixth of the surface of Ireland is covered, an area of
not less than 2,800,000 acres. Bogs were formerly supposed to be due to
the depravity of the natives, who are too lazy to drain them and have
allowed good land to run to waste and become covered with water and
rotten vegetation, but this theory has been effectively disposed of by
science. Everybody should know that the bogs of Ireland are not only due
to the natural growth of a spongy moss called sphagnum, but furnish an
inexhaustible fuel supply to the people and have a value much greater
than that of the drier and higher land. The report of a "bogs
commission" describes them as "the true gold mines of Ireland," and
estimates them as "infinitely more valuable than an inexhaustible supply
of the precious metal." The average Irish bog will produce 18,231 tons
of peat per acre, which is equivalent to 1,823 tons of coal, thus making
the total supply of peat equivalent to 5,104,000 tons of coal, capable
of producing 300,000 horse power of energy daily for manufacturing
purposes for a period of about four hundred and fifty years. With coal
selling at $2 a ton in Ireland to-day, this makes the bogs of Ireland
worth $10,000,000,000. The "bog trotter" is an individual to be
cultivated, for when our coal deposits in the United States are
exhausted we may have to send over and buy some of his peat for fuel. It
is proposed to utilize these deposits and save transportation charges by
erecting power-houses at the peat beds and furnish electricity over
wires to the neighboring towns and cities for lighting, power, and other
purposes, "for anybody having work to do from curling a lady's hair to
running tramways and driving machinery." The writer refers to recent
installations of electric works in Mysore, India, for working gold
fields ninety miles distant, and quotes the late Lord Kelvin's opinion
that the city of New York will soon be getting its power from Niagara,
four hundred miles away. We saw them digging peat in the fields and
piling it up like damp bricks to dry in the sun. Freshly dug peat
contains about seventy per cent of moisture, but when cured the ratio is
reduced to fifteen or twenty per cent.
A peat bog is not always in a hollow, but often on a hillside, and
sometimes at considerable height, which contradicts the theory that bogs
are due to defective drainage. Science long ago determined that Irish
peat was the accumulation of a peculiar kind of moss which grows like a
coral bank in the damp soil, and continues to pile up in layers year
after year, century after century, until it forms a solid mass, several
feet thick, seventy per cent moisture and thirty per cent fibre, which
burns slowly and furnishes a high degree of heat. We see bogs on all
sides of us where the peat is three and four feet thick, and with a long
straight spade that is as sharp as a knife, it is cut into blocks about
eight or ten inches long and about four inches square. A sharp spade
will slice it just as a knife would cut cheese or butter, and after the
blocks have lain on the ground a while they are stacked up on end in
little piles to dry. Then, when they have been exposed to the weather
for three or four weeks, they are stacked in larger piles, from which
they are carted away and sold or used as they are needed.
[Illustration: THE ROCK OF CASHEL, COUNTY TIPPERARY]
Four tons of peat are equal in caloric energy to one ton of coal. I
noticed in the papers that a bill is pending before the House of Commons
to grant a charter to a company to erect a station in a bog near
Robertson, Kings County, twenty-five miles from Dublin, for generating
electricity from peat, the power to be transmitted to Dublin and the
suburban towns for lighting, transportation, and manufacturing
purposes. Several other projects of a similar sort have been suggested
for utilizing the peat at the bog instead of carting it into town.
Beyond the peat beds rises a chain of low mountains with a curious
profile that runs west of the town of Templemore. Like every other freak
of nature in Ireland, they are the scenes of many interesting legends.
The highest peak is called "The Devil's Bit," and the queer shape is
accounted for by the fact that the Prince of Darkness in a fit of hunger
and fatigue once took a bite out of the mountain, and, not finding it to
his taste, spat it out again some miles to the eastward, where it is now
famous as the Rock of Cashel.
Cashel, at present a miserable, deserted village, was once the rich and
proud capital of Munster. Adjoining the ruins of the cathedral is the
ancient and weather-worn "Cross of Cashel," which was raised upon a rude
pedestal, where the kings of Munster were formerly crowned. The ruins
are more extensive than anywhere else in Ireland, for Cashel at one time
was the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland and its greatest educational
centre. Here the Pope's legates resided and here Henry II., in 1172,
received the homage of the Irish kings. But what gives the place its
greatest sanctity is the fact that St. Patrick spent much time there and
held there the first synod that ever assembled in Ireland, about the
middle of the fifth century. That is supposed to have been the reason
for the erection of so many sacred edifices and monasteries in early
days. St. Declan lived there, too, and commemorated his conversion to
Christianity by the erection of one of the churches. Donald O'Brien,
King of Limerick, erected another, and his son Donough founded an abbey
in 1182. Holy Cross, beautifully situated in a thick grove on the banks
of the River Suir, was built in 1182 for the Cistercian order of monks.
It derived its name because a piece of the true cross, set with precious
stones and presented to a grandson of Brian Boru by Pope Pascal II., was
kept there for centuries, and made the abbey the object of pilgrimages
of the faithful from all parts of Ireland. This precious relic is now
in the Ursuline convent at Cork.
Cashel was destroyed during the civil wars. The famous Gerald
Fitzgerald, the great Earl of Kildare, had a grudge against Archbishop
Cragh and burned the cathedral and the bishop's palace. He excused the
act before the king on the ground that he "believed the archbishop was
in it."
A little beyond Templemore, at Ballybrophy Junction, a branch of the
main line of the railway leads to the town of Birr, which is famous as
the seat of the late Earl of Rosse, whose father erected an observatory
there many years ago, with one of the largest and finest telescopes in
the world. It is twenty-seven feet long, with a lens three feet in
diameter. Some of the most important discoveries of modern astronomy
have been made there, and Birr has been the object of pilgrimages for
scientific men for more than half a century. The old Birr castle has
been much enlarged and modernized by the late earl, who died in
September, 1908, and is surrounded by an estate of thirty-six thousand
acres, upon which is one of the best built and well kept towns in
Ireland. He was a scholar and scientist of reputation, president of the
Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Dublin Society, and interested in
important manufactories and enterprises. He was especially active in
developing the steam turbine.
All of that section of Ireland covered by the journey between Dublin and
Cork is associated with heroic struggles. It has been fought over time
and again by the clans and the factions that have struggled to rule the
state. Every town and every castle has its tragic and romantic history.
Almost every valley is associated with a legend or an important event.
The woods and the hills are still peopled with fairies, and local
traditions among the humble folks are the themes of fascinating tales
and songs. But the natives one sees at the railway stations do not look
at all romantic. A sentimental person is compelled to endure many severe
shocks when he comes in contact with the present generation of Irish
peasants.
[Illustration: HOLYCROSS ABBEY, COUNTY TIPPERARY]
The people of Ireland are more prosperous to-day (July, 1908) than
they have been for generations. Their financial condition is better than
it ever has been, and is improving every year. The bank deposits, the
deposits in postal savings banks, the government returns of the taxable
property, have advanced steadily every year for the last ten years, and
in Ireland, during the last ten years, there has been a gradual and
healthful improvement in every branch of trade and industry. The people
are more prosperous than in England or Scotland, except in certain
sections where poverty is chronic because of climatic reasons and the
barrenness of the soil. Nevertheless, they are not so prosperous as they
ought to be under the circumstances, and it would require a book, and a
large book, to repeat the many theories that are offered to explain the
situation. It is a question upon which very few people agree, and they
probably never will agree. There are almost as many theories as there
are people. Therefore a discussion is not only disagreeable but it would
lead immediately into politics. It is safe to say, however, that every
Irishman who is willing to take a farm and cultivate it with
intelligence and industry will prosper if he will let politics and
whisky alone. Idleness, neglect, intemperance, and other vices produce
the same results in Ireland as elsewhere, and under present conditions
industry and thrift will make any honest farmer prosperous.
The moral and intellectual regeneration of the country is keeping step
with the material regeneration. All religious qualifications and
disqualifications have been removed; the church has been divorced from
the state, and each religious denomination stands upon an equality in
every respect.
The penal laws have been repealed and the tithe system has been
abolished.
Local representative government prevails everywhere.
Nearly every official in Ireland is a native except the lord-lieutenant,
the treasury remembrancer, and several agricultural experts who are
employed as instructors for the farmers and fishermen by the
Agricultural Department, and the Congested Districts Board.
The primary schools of Ireland are now free; free technical schools have
been established at convenient locations for the training of mechanics,
machinists, electricians, engineers, and members of the other trades.
Two new universities have been authorized,--one in the north and the
other in the south of Ireland,--for the higher education of young men
and women.
Temperance reforms are being gradually accomplished by the church and
secular temperance societies, which are working in harmony; the license
law has been amended so as to reduce the number of saloons, and
three-fourths of the saloons are closed on Sunday throughout the island.
The Father Mathew societies are gaining in numbers; the use of liquor at
wakes and on St. Patrick's Day has been prohibited by the Roman Catholic
bishops, and the number of persons arrested for drunkenness and
disorderly conduct is decreasing annually.
Every tenant that has been evicted in Ireland during the last thirty
years has been restored to his old home, and the arrears of rent charged
against him have been canceled.
The land courts have adjusted the rentals of 360,135 farms, and have
reduced them more than $7,500,000 a year.
More than one hundred and twenty-six thousand families have been enabled
to purchase farms with money advanced by the government to be repaid in
sixty-eight years at nominal interest.
Several thousand families have been removed at government expense from
unproductive farms to more fertile lands purchased for them with
government money to be repaid in sixty-eight years.
Thousands of cottages, stables, barns, and other farm buildings have
been built and repaired by the government for the farmers, and many
millions of dollars have been advanced them for the purchase of cattle,
implements, and other equipment through agents of the Agricultural
Department.
More than twenty-three thousand comfortable cottages have been erected
for the laborers of Ireland with money advanced by the government to be
repaid in small instalments at nominal interest.
The landlord system of Ireland is being rapidly abolished; the great
estates are being divided into small farms and sold to the men who till
them. The agricultural lands of Ireland will soon be occupied by a
population of independent farm owners instead of rent-paying tenants.
The Agricultural Department is furnishing practical instructors to teach
the farmers how to make the most profitable use of their land and labor,
how to improve their stock, and how to produce better butter, pork, and
poultry.
The Agricultural Department furnishes seeds and fertilizers to farmers
and instructs them how they should be used to the best advantage.
The Irish Agricultural Organization Society has instructed thousands of
farmers in the science of agriculture and has established thousands of
co-operative dairies and supply stores to assist the farmers in getting
higher prices for their products and lower prices for their supplies.
The Congested Districts Board has expended seventy million dollars to
improve the condition of the peasants in the west of Ireland; to provide
them better homes and to place them where they can get better returns
for their labor.
Thousands of fishermen have been furnished with boats, nets, and other
tackle; they have been supplied with salt for curing their fish; casks
and barrels for packing them; have been provided with wharves for
landing places and warehouses for the storage of their implements and
supplies; and government agents have secured a market for their fish and
have supervised the shipments and sales.
Thousands of weavers have been furnished with looms in their cottages at
government expense, so that they can increase their incomes by
manufacturing home-made stuffs.
Schools have been established at many convenient points in the west of
Ireland, where peasant women and girls may learn lace-making. The
government furnishes the instruction free, supplies the materials used,
and provides for the sale of the articles made.
Work has been furnished with good wages for thousands of unemployed men
in the construction of roads and other public improvements.
District nurses have been stationed at convenient points along the west
coast, where there are no physicians, to attend the sick and aged and
relieve the distress among the peasant families, and hospitals have been
established for the treatment of the ill and injured at government
expense.
II
THE CATHEDRALS AND DEAN SWIFT
St. Patrick's Cathedral is, perhaps, the most notable building in
Ireland, and one of the oldest. During the religious wars and the
clashes of the clans in the early history of Ireland it was the scene
and the cause of much contention and violence. Its sacred walls were
originally arranged as fortifications to defend it against the savage
tribes and to protect the dignitaries of the church, who resided behind
embattled gates for centuries. At one time St. Patrick's was used as a
barrack for soldiers, and the verger will show you an enormous baptismal
font, from which he says the dragoons used to water their horses, and
the interior was fitted up for courts of law. Henry VIII. confiscated
the property and revenues because the members of its chapter refused to
accept the new doctrines, and nearly all of them were banished from
Ireland. He abolished a small university that was attached to the
cathedral by the pope in 1320 for the education of priests. For five
hundred years there was a continuous quarrel between St. Patrick's and
Christ Church Cathedral, which stands only two blocks away, because of
rivalries over ecclesiastical privileges, powers, and revenues. Finally
a compromise was reached, under which there has since been peace between
the two great churches and relations similar to those of Westminster
Abbey and St. Paul's in London. Christ Church is the headquarters of the
episcopal see of Dublin, and St. Patrick's is regarded as a national
church. The chief reason why St. Patrick's has such a hold upon the
affections and reverence of the people is because it stands upon the
site of a small wooden church erected by St. Patrick himself in the year
450 and within a few feet of a sacred spring or well at which he
baptized thousands of pagans during his ministry. The exact site of the
well was identified in 1901 by the discovery of an ancient Celtic cross
buried in the earth a few feet from the tower of the cathedral. The
cross is now exhibited in the north aisle. The floor of the church is
only seven feet above the waters of a subterranean brook called the
Poddle, and during the spring floods is often inundated, but in the
minds of the founders the sanctity of the spot compensated for the
insecure foundations.
St. Patrick's little wooden building, which is supposed to be the first
Christian sanctuary erected in Ireland, was replaced in 1191 by the
present lofty cruciform edifice, three hundred feet long and one hundred
and fifty-seven feet across the transepts. It was designed and erected
by Comyn, the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, is supposed to have
been completed in 1198, and was raised to the rank of a cathedral in
1219. There were frequent alterations and repairs during the first seven
centuries of its existence, until 1864-68, when it was perfectly
restored by Sir Benjamin Guinness, the great brewer, who also purchased
several blocks of dilapidated slums that surrounded it, tore down the
buildings, and turned the land into a park which not only affords an
opportunity to see the beauties of the cathedral, but gives the poor
people who dwell in that locality a playground and fresh air. Sir
Benjamin purchased several of the adjoining blocks and erected upon them
a series of model tenement-houses, the best in Dublin, and rents them at
nominal rates to his employees and others. On the other side of the
cathedral are several blocks of the most miserable tenements in the
city, and sometime they also will be cleared away. A bronze statue has
been erected in the churchyard as a reminder of his generosity.
[Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN]
Benjamin Guinness was the great brewer of Dublin. In 1756 one of his
ancestors started a little brewing establishment down on the bank of the
Liffey River in the center of the city, which has been extended from
time to time until the buildings now cover an area of more than forty
acres. The property and good will were transferred by the Guinness
family to a stock company for $30,000,000 in 1886, and since then the
plant has been enlarged until it now exceeds in extent all other
breweries in the world, represents an investment of $50,000,000, and
turns out an average of two thousand one hundred barrels of beer a day.
Sir Benjamin's son, Edward Cecil Guinness, was elevated to the peerage
as Lord Iveagh and is the richest man in Ireland to-day. He is highly
respected, has married into the nobility, is a great favorite with the
king, is generous and philanthropic, encourages and patronizes both
science and athletic sports, and is said to be "altogether a very good
fellow." Another son is Lord Ardilaun, who is equally rich and popular,
and owns several of the finest estates in the kingdom.
Sir Benjamin expended $1,200,000 in restoring St. Patrick's Cathedral,
and Lord Iveagh, his son, added $350,000 more. The driver of the
jaunting car that carried us there told me how many billion of glasses
of beer those gifts represented, and made some funny remarks about all
the profit being in the froth. But if all men were to make such good use
of their money there would be no reason to complain.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is the official seat of the Knights of St.
Patrick, and their banners, helmets, and swords hang over the choir
stalls, while in one of the chapels is an ancient table and a set of
ancient chairs formerly used at their gatherings. Since 1869 they have
met at Dublin castle. Many tattered and bullet-riddled battle flags
carried by Irish regiments hang in other parts of the cathedral, and if
they could tell the stories of the many brave Irishmen who have fought
and perished under their silken folds, it would be more thrilling than
fiction. Ireland has furnished the best fighting men in the British
Army, both generals and privates, since the invasion of the Normans. The
king's bodyguard of Highlanders is now almost exclusively composed of
Irish lads. In the north transept is a flag that was carried by an Irish
regiment at the skirmish at Lexington at the beginning of our
Revolution and at the attack on Bunker Hill. They brought it away with
them to hang it here with the trophies of Irish valor of a thousand
years.
St. Patrick's is the Westminster Abbey of Ireland, and many of her most
famous men are either buried within its walls or have tablets erected to
their memory. John Philpott Curran, the great advocate and orator, and
Samuel Lover, the song writer and novelist, whose "Handy Andy" and
"Widow Machree," are perhaps the best examples of Irish humor in
literature, are honored with tablets; and Carolan, the last of the bards
for whom Ireland was once so celebrated. He died in 1788. M.W. Balfe,
author of that pretty little opera, "The Bohemian Girl," and many
beautiful ballads, including "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," has a
tablet inscribed with these words:
"The most celebrated, genial and beloved of Irish musicians,
commendatore of Carlos III. of Spain, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
Born in Dublin, 15 May, 1808, died 20th of Oct., 1870."
Balfe was born in a small house on Pitt Street, Dublin, which bears a
tablet announcing the fact.
The man who wrote that stirring poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore,"
which begins,
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried,"--
lies in St. Patrick's. His name was Charles Wolfe, and he was once the
dean of the cathedral.
In the right-hand corner of the east transept is a monument to the
memory of a certain dame of the time of Elizabeth, named Mrs. St. Leger.
She was thirty-seven years old at the time of her death, and, her
epitaph tells us, had "a strange, eventful history," with four husbands
and eight children, all of whom she made comfortable and happy.
On the other side is a tablet to commemorate the fact that Sir Edward
Fitten, who died in 1579, was married at the age of twelve years and
became the father of fifteen children,--nine sons and six daughters.
The famous Archbishop Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we
studied in college, and who once presided over this diocese, is buried
in a stately tomb, and his effigy, beautifully carved in marble, lies
upon it.
The most imposing monument of all, and one which is associated with much
history and tragedy, was erected in honor of his own family by Richard
Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, who was a great man in his day. So
pretentious was the monument that Archbishop Laud ordered it removed
from the cathedral. This was done by Thomas Wentworth, afterward Earl of
Strafford, who was sent over by King Charles with an armed force to
govern Ireland. Boyle, who had himself designed and expended a great
deal of money upon "the famous, sumptuous, and glorious tomb," which was
to immortalize him and sixteen members of his family, was so indignant
that he never forgave Strafford, and afterward caused the latter to be
betrayed to a shameful death at the hands of his enemies.
The most interesting historic relic in the cathedral is an ancient oaken
door with a large hole cut in the center of it. It bears an explanatory
inscription as follows:
"In the year 1492 an angry conference was held at St. Patrick, his
church, between the rival nobles, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, and
Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, the said deputies, and their armed
retainers. Ormonde, in fear of his life, fled for refuge to the Chapiter
House, and Kildare, pressing Ormonde to the Chapiter House door,
undertooke on his honor that he should receive no villanie. Whereupon
the recluse, craving his lordship's hand to assure him his life, there
was a clift in the Chapiter House door pearced at trice to the end that
both Earls should shake hands and be reconciled. But Ormonde surmising
that the clift was intended for further treacherie refused to stretch
out his hand--" and the inscription goes on to relate that Kildare,
having no such nervousness, thrust his hand through the hole and
without the slightest hesitation. Ormonde shook it heartily and peace
was made.
For centuries it was said that whoever might be Viceroy of Ireland it
was the Earl of Kildare who governed the country. A long line of
Kildares succeeded each other, and their living successor, better known
as the Duke of Leinster, is now the premier of the Irish nobility,
although he is still a boy, just twenty-one. Both the Kildares and the
Earls of Desmond were descended from Gerald Fitzgerald, who in the
thirteenth century founded that powerful clan known as the Geraldines.
In the fifteenth, and at the beginning of the sixteenth, century they
exercised absolute control in Ireland, and Garrett, or Gerald
Fitzgerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare, known as "The Great Earl," had
greater authority than any other Irishman has ever displayed in his
native island since the days of Brian Boru. At one time his daughter,
wife of the Earl of Clanricarde, appealed to her father from a quarrel
with her husband. The old gentleman took her part, ordered out his army,
and met his son-in-law in the battle of Knockdoe, where it is said eight
thousand men were slain.
Near the entrance to St. Patrick's Cathedral is a long, narrow, brass
tablet upon which are inscribed the names of the fifty-seven deans who
have had ecclesiastical jurisdiction there from 1219 to 1902. The most
famous in the list is that of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., author of
"Gulliver's Travels," "The Tale of a Tub," and other equally well-known
works. He presided here for more than thirty years, and was undoubtedly
the most brilliant as well as the most remarkable clergyman in the
history of the diocese of Dublin. He was the greatest of all satirists,
one of the most brilliant of all wits, and an all-around genius, but was
entirely without moral consciousness, altogether selfish, inordinately
vain, and one of the most eccentric characters in the history of
literature. He was born in Dublin Nov. 30, 1667; educated at Trinity
College, where he distinguished himself only by his eccentricities; was
curate of two churches, and dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral for more
than thirty years, although neither his manners nor his morals
conformed to the standards that are fixed for clergymen in these days.
He was more famous for his wit than his wisdom; for his piquancy than
for piety. He spent most of his life in Dublin, died there, was buried
in St. Patrick's Cathedral by the side of a woman whose life he wrecked,
and left his money to found an insane asylum which is still in
existence.
The house in which Jonathan Swift was born can still be seen in Hoey's
Court, which once was a popular place of residence for well-to-do
people, and has several mansions of architectural pretensions, but has
degenerated into a slum, one of the many that may be found in the very
center of the business section of the city. He came of a good Yorkshire
family; his mother had aristocratic connections and was one of those
women who seem to have been born to suffer from the failings of men. His
father was a shiftless adventurer, following several professions and
occupations in turn without even ordinary success in any. Jonathan went
to the parish schools in Kilkenny for a time when his father happened to
be living in that locality, and when he was seventeen years old passed
the entrance examinations to Trinity College, Dublin. He was a willful,
independent, eccentric person, of a lonely and sour disposition, and
refused to be bound by the rules of the university. He would not study
mathematics or physics, but delighted in classical literature, and
furnished many witty contributions to college literature which gave
promise of genius. He wrote a play that was performed by the college
students with great success. His degree was reluctantly conferred by the
faculty through the influence of Sir William Temple, a famous statesman
of those days, whose wife was a distant relative of Swift's mother.
Shortly after graduation he became private secretary to Sir William
Temple and attended him in London during several sessions of parliament.
While there, under some influence that has never been explained in a
satisfactory manner, Swift decided to enter the ministry, and took a
course of theology at Oxford. After his ordination in 1695 Sir William
Temple got him a living in a quiet, secluded village called Laracor, in
central Ireland, near Tara, the ancient capital, in a church that long
ago crumbled to ruins and has been replaced by a modern building. It was
a small parish consisting of not more than ten or twelve aristocratic
families, among them the ancestors of the great Duke of Wellington. The
young curate's congregation was not very regular in its attendance, and
you will remember, perhaps, an amusing story, how the Rev. Mr. Swift,
when he came from the vestry one Sabbath morning, found no one but the
sexton, Roger Morris, in the pews. He read the service, as usual,
however, and with that quaint sense of humor which cropped out in
everything he did, began solemnly:
"Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places," etc.
Coming to the conclusion that he was not fitted for parish work, Swift
obtained the position of private secretary to Earl Berkeley, one of the
lord justices of Ireland, but, after a while, got another church, and
tried preaching again. But he spent more of his time in writing
political satires than in prayer or sermonizing. He edited Sir William
Temple's speeches and wrote his biography, and went to London, where he
became a member of an interesting group of politicians and pamphleteers,
who supported Lord Bolingbroke. He contributed to _The Tattler_, _The
Spectator_, and other publications of the time, and soon became
recognized as one of the most brilliant and savage satirists and
influential political writers of the day. Through political influence,
and not because of his piety, he was appointed dean of St. Patrick's,
the most prominent and famous church in Dublin. He had not been in his
new position long before he created a tremendous sensation and set all
Ireland aflame by writing a political pamphlet signed "M.B. Drapier."
In 1723 Walpole's government gave to the Duchess of Kendall, the
mistress of George I., a concession to supply an unlimited amount of
copper coinage to Ireland, and she took William Wood, an iron
manufacturer of Birmingham, into partnership. There was no mint in
Dublin and no limitation in the contract, so the firm of Kendall & Wood
flooded the island with new copper pence and half-pence upon which they
made a profit of 40 per cent. The coins became so abundant that they
lost their value. Naturally the contract created not only scandal, but
an intense indignation. Many pamphlets were published and speeches were
made denouncing the transaction. The most telling attack came from what
purported to be an unpretentious Dublin dry goods merchant, who told in
simple language the story of the coinage contract and related anecdotes
of Dublin women going from shop to shop followed by carloads of copper
coins from the factory of the Duchess of Kendall. He mentioned a
workingman who gave a pound of depreciated pennies for a mug of ale, and
declared that they were so worthless that even the beggars would not
accept them.
The money was not really so much depreciated as Swift represented, but
the merchants of Dublin followed the advice of the simple draper and
refused to accept it any longer in trade. The government authorities
made a great fuss and arrested many of the repudiators, but the grand
juries refused to indict them, and on the contrary threatened to indict
merchants who accepted the shameful money. The printer of the pamphlet
was arrested, but never punished. The authorship became an open secret,
but the authorities dared not arrest the dean, whose popularity was so
great and who exercised such an extraordinary influence over the common
people that they accepted whatever he said as inspired and paid him the
greatest respect possible. His influence is illustrated by a story that
is related about a crowd which blocked the street around St. Patrick's
Cathedral one night to watch for an eclipse of the moon, and obstructed
traffic, but promptly dispersed when he sent one of his servants to tell
them that the eclipse had been postponed by his orders. He wrote
"Gulliver's Travels" about this period of his life in the deanery of St.
Patrick's, which was a part of what is now the barracks of the Dublin
police force. The present deanery, a modern building near by, contains
portraits of Swift and other of the fifty-seven clergymen who have
served as deans of St. Patrick's.
About the same time he wrote another masterpiece of satire upon the
useless and impractical measures of charity for the poor adopted by the
government. It was entitled:
A MODEST PROPOSAL
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF
POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND
FROM BEING A BURDEN TO
THEIR PARENTS BY
FATTENING AND EATING THEM.
He wrote several bitter satires on ecclesiastical matters, which would
have caused his separation from the deanery under ordinary
circumstances, but the archbishop as well as the civil authorities was
afraid of his caustic pen. In discussing the bishops of the Church of
Ireland at one time he declared that they were all impostors. He
asserted that the government always sent English clergymen of character
and piety to Ireland, but they were always murdered on their way by the
highwaymen of Hounslow Heath and other brigands, who put on their robes,
traveled to Dublin, presented their credentials, and were installed in
their places over the several dioceses of Ireland.
In 1729 the parliament of Ireland was installed in the imposing
structure that stands in the center of the city of Dublin opposite the
main buildings of Trinity College. Although the people had been
demanding home rule and a legislature of their own for years, the new
parliament soon lost its popularity. Its action provoked the hostility
of the fickle people and it was attacked on all sides for everything it
did. Swift took his customary part in the criticisms and christened the
parliament "The Goose Pie" because, as he said, the chamber had a crust
in the form of a dome-shaped roof and it was not remarkable for the
intellect or knowledge of its members.
One of his lampoons, directed at parliament under the name of "The
Legion Club," begins as follows:
"As I stroll the city, oft I
See a building large and lofty,
Not a bow-shot from the college,
Half the globe from sense and knowledge.
Tell us what the pile contains?
Many a head that holds no brains.
Such assemblies you might swear
Meet when butchers bait a bear.
Such a noise and such haranguing
When a brother thief is hanging."
This does not sound very dignified for the dean of a cathedral, but it
was characteristic of Swift.
He became a physical and mental wreck in 1742 and died an imbecile from
softening of the brain Oct. 9, 1745. His will, written before his mind
gave way, was itself a satire, and appropriately left his slender
fortune to found an insane asylum. The original copy may be seen in the
public records office in a beautiful great building known as the Four
Courts, the seat of the judiciary of Ireland, where the archives of the
government are kept. The insane asylum is still used for that purpose
and is known as St. Patrick's Hospital for Lunatics. It stands near the
enormous brewery of the Guinness company. It was the first of the kind
in Ireland, and was built when the insane were restrained by shackles,
handcuffs, and iron bars, but more humane modern methods of treatment
were introduced long ago and it is considered a model institution. The
corridors are three hundred and forty-five feet long by fourteen feet
wide, with little cells or bedrooms opening upon them. Swift's writing
desk is preserved in the institution.
His whimsicalities are illustrated in the cathedral more than anywhere
else and among them is the "Schomberg epitaph," found in the north aisle
to the left of the choir, chiseled in large letters upon a slab of
marble. Duke Schomberg, who commanded the Protestant army of King
William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne, and was killed toward the
end of that engagement, July, 1690, was buried in St. Patrick's at the
time of his death, but his grave remained unmarked. His bones were
discovered, however, in 1736, during some repairs, while Swift was dean
of the cathedral. In order that their ancestor's character and
achievements might be properly recognized and called to the attention of
posterity, Swift applied to the head of the Schomberg family for fifty
pounds to pay the expense of a memorial, which they declined to
contribute. Then Swift, whose indignation was excited, paid for the slab
himself and punished them by recording upon it in Latin that the
cathedral authorities, having entreated to no purpose the heirs of the
great marshal to set up an appropriate memorial, this tablet had been
erected that posterity might know where the great Schomberg lies.
"The fame of his valor," he adds, "is much more appreciated by strangers
than by his kinsmen."
Upon the other farther side of the church, between the tombs of the
Right Honorable Lady Elizabeth, Viscountess Donneraile, and Archbishop
Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we studied at college, is
buried the body of an humble Irishman, who was Dean Swift's body servant
for a generation. He was eccentric but loyal, and as witty as his
master. One morning the dean, getting ready for a horseback ride,
discovered that his boots had not been cleaned, and called to Sandy:
"Why didn't you clean these boots?"
"It hardly pays to do so, sir," responded Sandy, "they get muddy so soon
again."
"Put on your hat and coat and come with me to ride," said the dean.
"I haven't had my breakfast," said Sandy.
"There's no use in eating; you'll be hungry so soon again," retorted the
dean, and Sandy had to follow him in a mad gallop into the suburbs of
Dublin without a mouthful.
When they were three or four miles away they met an old friend who asked
them where they were going so early. Before the dean could answer, Sandy
replied:
"We're going to heaven, sir; the dean's praying and meself is fasting;
both of us for our sins."
The epitaph of Sandy in St. Patrick's Cathedral reads as follows:
HERE LIES THE BODY OF
ALEXANDER MAGEE,
SERVANT TO DR. SWIFT, DEAN
OF ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL,
DUBLIN.
His Grateful Master Caused This Monument to Be Erected in Memory
of His Discretion, Fidelity and Diligence in That Humble Station.
That long-suffering woman known as Stella, whose relations with Dean
Swift have been discussed for a century and a half, and are still more
or less of a mystery, was Mrs. Hester (sometimes spelled Esther)
Johnson, a relative of Sir William Temple, whose private secretary
Jonathan Swift, her inconstant and selfish lover, was for several years.
Swift called her "Stella" because her name, "Hester," is the Persian for
"star," and first met her while he was curate of a little village church
at Laracor, where she lived with a Mrs. Dingley, a companion or
chaperon, who seemed to be always by her side, whether she was in Dublin
or London. From the beginning of their acquaintance she shared the inner
life of Swift and exercised an extraordinary influence over him. When he
left Laracor for London to become the private secretary of Sir William
Temple their remarkable correspondence commenced, and he wrote her a
daily record of his life, his thoughts, his whims, and his fancies.
Those letters have been published under the title of "Swift's Journal to
Stella," and the book has been described as "a giant's playfulness,
written for one person's private pleasure, which has had indestructible
attractiveness for every one since."
She followed him to London and, when he became dean of St. Patrick's,
returned with him to Dublin and lived near the deanery with Mrs. Dingley
as her chaperon until her death. But Swift was not true to her. This
eminent author and satirist, this merciless critic of the shortcomings
of others, this doctor of divinity, this dean of the most prominent
cathedral in Ireland, had numerous flirtations with other women, and
Stella must have known of them, although there is no evidence that her
loyal heart ever wavered in its devotion.
In 1694 he fell desperately in love with a Miss Varing, but seems to
have escaped without any damage to himself or his reputation, although
we do not know what happened to her. A few years later he became
involved in an entanglement with a Miss Van Homrigh, which ruined her
life and effectually destroyed his peace of mind. The character of their
acquaintance is shown by a series of poems which passed between them as
her passion developed, and he allowed it to drift on uninterrupted from
day to day, evidently giving her encouragement by tongue as well as pen.
His poetical communications to her were signed "Cadenus," the Latin word
for dean, and hers were signed "Vanessa," a combination of her Christian
and surname.
It was not a very dignified situation for the dean of St. Patrick's, and
the flirtation caused a decided scandal in Dublin. It appears that
Vanessa expected Swift to marry her and he undoubtedly gave her good
reasons, while Mrs. Johnson was regarded as his mistress to the day of
her death and bore the odium with uncomplaining resignation. Long after
both of them were buried under the tiles of St. Patrick's Cathedral it
was discovered that they had been secretly married in 1716, but why she
consented to keep that fact a secret has never been explained except
upon the theory that she was afraid of what Vanessa Van Homrigh might
do. The latter, however, having lost her patience and becoming
hysterical with jealousy, wrote to Stella, inquiring as to the real
nature of her relations with Swift and demanding that she should
relinquish her claims upon him. Stella replied promptly by sending
Vanessa indisputable evidence that they had been married seven years
before. Vanessa, who lived at Marley Abbey, Celbridge (now Hazelhatch
Station), ten miles from Dublin, on the railway to Cork, sent Stella's
letter to Swift and retired to the house of a friend in the country,
where she died a few months later of a broken heart. Swift never
replied; he never saw her or communicated with her after that day, and
seems to have dismissed the affair with the same indifference that he
always showed concerning the interests of other people.
Five years later Stella died and was buried in the cathedral at midnight
by Swift's orders, but he did not attend the funeral. She lived in the
neighborhood of the deanery, and from one of its windows he witnessed
the passage of the casket to the tomb. "This is the night of the
funeral," he writes in his diary, "and I moved into another apartment
that I may not see the light in the church, which is just over against
the window of my bed chamber." He then sat down at his desk and
described her devotion and her love for himself and her virtues in
language of incomparable beauty. His tribute, written at that moment, is
one of the most beautiful passages in English literature. He preserved a
lock of her hair upon which he inscribed the words:
"Only a woman's hair!"
"Only a woman's hair!" comments Thackeray. "Only love, fidelity, purity,
innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world, stricken and
wounded, and pushed away out of the reach of joy with the pangs of hope
deferred. Love insulted and pitiless desertion. Only that lock of hair
left, and memory, and remorse for the guilty, lonely, selfish wretch,
shuddering over the grave of his victim."
Swift's extraordinary vanity is illustrated in the inscription he placed
over Hester Johnson's grave and his selfishness by his neglect to
vindicate her reputation by announcing their marriage. The mistress of a
dean is not usually buried in a cathedral over which he presides, but no
one has ever questioned the right of Stella's dust to be there. Her
epitaph, which was written by his own pen, runs:
"Underneath is interred the mortal remains of Mrs. Hester Johnson,
better known to the world by the name of Stella, under which she was
celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, dean of this
cathedral.
"She was a person of extraordinary endowments and accomplishments in
body, mind, and behavior; justly admired and respected by all who knew
her on account of her many eminent virtues, as well as for her great
natural and acquired perfections.
"She died Jan. 27, 1727, in the forty-sixth year of her age, and by her
will bequeathed £1,000 toward the support of the hospital founded in
this city by Dr. Steevens."
Although Swift did his best work after Stella's death, he was never
himself again. He became sour, morose, and misanthropic. His soul burned
itself out with remorse. The last four years of his life were
inexpressibly sad, and the retribution he deserved came from inward
rather than outward causes. He was harassed by periodical attacks of
acute dementia, to which his wonderful brain gradually yielded, and
before his death he became an utter imbecile. He seemed to anticipate
and prepare himself for such a fate, because among his papers was found
his will, in which he bequeathed his entire estate to found an asylum
for just such creatures as he himself became. He prepared his own
epitaph, which reads as follows:
"Hic Depositum est Corpus.
Jonathan Swift, S.T.P.
Hujus, ecclesiae cathedrae decani ubi saeva
Indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit.
Abi viator, et imitare, si poteris,
Strenuum pro virili libertatis vindiceim."
A liberal translation reads: "Here is deposited the body of Jonathan
Swift, dean of this cathedral, where cruel indignation can no longer
lacerate the heart. Go, stranger, and imitate, if you can, his strenuous
endeavors in defense of liberty."
The vault in which the two bodies rest has been twice disturbed during
repairs of the cathedral, in 1835, when casts of their skulls were
taken, and in 1882, when a new floor was laid. It is now marked by a
modest tablet of tiles near the south entrance to the cathedral. Upon a
bracket near by is a bust of Swift contributed by Mr. Faulkner, the
nephew and successor of his original publisher.
Many anecdotes are told of Swift's peculiarities. He must have filled a
large place in the life of Dublin during the thirty years that he was
the dean of the cathedral. He was prominent in political, social, and
ecclesiastical affairs during all that period and always welcome as a
guest at the houses of the aristocracy in this neighborhood. In the
suburb of Glasnevin was an estate called Hildeville, belonging to a
generous but pretentious patron of the arts and sciences, named Dr.
Delany, where the brilliant minds of that day used to gather for a good
time. Swift is closely associated with the place and was one of Dr.
Delany's most frequent and regular visitors. He called it "Hell-Devil,"
and chose for its motto "Fastigia Despicet Urbis," in which the verb is
used in a double sense.
Many of his most stinging satires were written there, including his
ferocious libel on the Irish parliament. A reward was offered for the
discovery of the author, and although a hundred members of the commons
knew that it was from Swift's pen, no attempt was ever made to punish
him and he was never even denounced publicly. And he wasn't above
ridiculing his host, for here is an extract from an ode addressed to Dr.
Delany of "Hell-Devil," when he was the latter's guest:
"A razor, though to say 't I'm loath,
Might shave you and your meadow both,
A little rivulet seems to steal
Along a thing you call a vale,
Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek,
Like rain along a blade of leek--
And this you call your sweet meander,
Which might be sucked up by a gander,
Could he but force his rustling bill
To scoop the channel of the rill.
In short, in all your boasted seat,
There's nothing but yourself is--great."
"Is it singin' yees want?" said the verger of Christ Church Cathedral,
Dublin, when we entered that ancient sanctuary shortly before the hour
for worship on a gloomy, drizzly Sabbath morning. "Then yees have come
to the roight place. The choir of Christ Church is the finest in all
Ireland, and mebbe in the whole wurrld, I dunno. Thay's twinty-four
b'ys and min, and every mother's son iv thim is from the first families
of Dooblin. The lads has been singin' frum their cradles, and they make
the swatest music that ears ever heard; blessed be the Lord! Not as if
they had no mischief in thim, for b'ys will be b'ys, singin' or no
singin'; and thim that has the medals hangin' on their chists is the
best behaved and the least mischaveous."
We remained after the service to look about, and when the verger asked
what I thought of the sermon I told him.
"It's not of much consequence!" observed the cynic. And when I told him
that the singing wasn't much better than the preaching, and that the
boys sang out of tune, he replied apologetically:
"I hope your honor won't think the liss of thim for that; they're all
honest, well-meaning lads, an' what harm is it at all, at all, if they
do sing out of chune betimes?"
Christ Church is one of the oldest structures in Ireland, was originally
erected in 1038 by the Danish king Sigtryg, "Of the Silken Beard," and
in 1152 was made the seat of the archbishop of Dublin. In 1172
Strongbow, the Welch Earl of Pembroke, leader of the Norman invasion,
swept away the original building to make room for the present edifice,
which was fifty years in building. The present nave, transepts, and
crypt are those that Strongbow erected, having been thoroughly repaired
and restored by Henry Roe, a wealthy distiller, at a cost of £220,000,
between 1870 and 1878. In 1178 Strongbow died of a malignant ulcer of
the foot, which his enemies attributed to the vengeance of the early
Irish saints whose shrines he had violated, and he is buried within the
church he built. His black marble tomb is on the south side, with a
recumbent effigy in chain armor lying upon the sarcophagus. A smaller
effigy in black marble, representing the upper half of a human form,
lies beside him and is said to mark the tomb of Strongbow's son, whom
his father literally cut in half with his mighty sword for showing
cowardice in battle. Sir Henry Sidney, who discussed the question at
length in 1571, declares that there is no doubt that the remains of
Strongbow were deposited here, but there is another tomb, with a similar
effigy of one-half of his son lying beside it, in an ancient church at
Waterford, where Strongbow dwelt in a castle and made his headquarters.
The claims of the Waterford tomb are considered much stronger than those
of Christ Church in Dublin, because that was where he died and where his
wife and family lived after him.
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF STRONGBOW, CHRIST CHURCH, DUBLIN]
The interior of the church has many points of beauty, especially the
splendid stone work of the nave and aisles and the graceful arches
which, although very massive, are chiseled with such delicacy that their
heaviness does not appear. The floor is covered with modern tiles which
are exact copies of the originals, and in the restoration of the
building the architect has shown similar conscientiousness in all his
work. The great age of the stone gives it a rich and mellow tone, and
although here and there one may come across evidences of decay or
damage, it is in better condition than most of the modern churches of
Ireland.
Across the street and connected by a bridge with the cathedral is the
Synod Hall, the headquarters of the general synod, which has control of
the affairs of the Episcopal Church of Ireland since it was separated
from the Church of England and made independent of the state by an act
of parliament July 26, 1869. This was called "The Disestablishment"--a
long and awkward word--but such words are common in English and Irish
official literature. It is often difficult for an American to understand
the meaning of the terms used in acts of parliament and reports of the
officials of the government.
III
HOW IRELAND IS GOVERNED
Ireland is nominally governed by a lord lieutenant or viceroy of the
king, who, since December, 1905, and at present, is John Campbell
Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen. He occupied the same position in the '90's,
and has since been governor-general of Canada. Both Lord and Lady
Aberdeen are well known in the United States, where Lady Aberdeen has
taken an active interest in the work of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union and many benevolent enterprises and social reforms. She will be
particularly remembered as the promoter of the Irish village at the
Chicago Exposition in 1893, and for her successful endeavors to
introduce Irish homespun, lace, linen, and other products, and to make
them fashionable among the American people. She is a woman of great
energy, executive ability, and determination, and has been applying
those qualities very effectively in Ireland in local reforms. She has
organized societies of women throughout the island to encourage the
virtues and restrain the vices of the people, to relieve their distress
and advance their welfare, physically, mentally, and morally, by a dozen
different movements of which she is the leader and director. She started
a crusade against the great white plague, brought Dr. Arthur Green from
New York as an organizer, while Nathan Straus of New York has been
co-operating with her in setting up establishments for the sterilization
of the milk sold in Irish cities. She is president of almost everything,
has a dozen secretaries and agents carrying out her orders, and is
altogether the busiest woman in the United Kingdom.
[Illustration: THE EARL OF ABERDEEN, LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND IN
1906-8]
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has very little to do except to open
fairs, lay corner stones, preside at public meetings, give dinners,
and look pleasant. He is nominally the head of everything as the
representative of his sovereign, the king, and is supposed to rule
Ireland in his majesty's name, but, like the Governor-General of Canada,
the office is a sinecure. Its incumbent is allowed a salary of $100,000,
a castle in the city, and a country lodge in Ph[oe]nix Park, a liberal
allowance to maintain them and to expend in hospitality, a staff of
secretaries and aids-de-camp, a full outfit of servants, and various
other perquisites which would be appreciated by our President and all
others in authority. And all this without any responsibilities, except
to be tactful, amiable, and diplomatic, and to make friends with the
people.
The actual ruler of Ireland is the Chief Secretary to the lord
lieutenant, who is a member of the cabinet of the king, and spends most
of his time in London, where he devises and directs the political policy
of the government toward that distracted but improving portion of his
majesty's empire, looks after legislation in parliament, and attends to
whatever is necessary for the good of the island. He is the Right Hon.
Augustine Birrell, who is carrying out the lines of policy inaugurated
by Mr. Bryce at the incoming of the present liberal government. The
chief secretary is expected to spend a portion of each year in Ireland,
so that he can keep in touch with affairs and get his cues from public
opinion. He has a salary of $35,000 and a residence, fully equipped and
appointed, near that of the lord lieutenant in Phoenix Park.
The man on the ground, the general manager of the government, and the
_de facto_ head of the executive administration, is known as the Under
Secretary, who also has a handsome residence in Phoenix Park and all
worldly comforts provided for him. He presides at the ancient castle in
the center of the city of Dublin, surrounded by a staff of subordinates
and clerks, and supervises the work of the several executive
departments, most of them being scattered in rented quarters in
different parts of the city. The government has long ago outgrown the
castle and has appointed many officials and boards of commissioners and
organized new executive departments without erecting buildings to
accommodate them. Sir Antony Patrick MacDonnell, who resigned the office
of under secretary, and was elevated to the peerage as Lord MacDonnell
upon his retirement, is an Irishman who has spent his entire life in the
service of his king, the greater part of it in India, where he was
governor of four different provinces in succession and showed remarkable
administrative ability. Retiring voluntarily, he came home to Ireland
and was soon appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of under
secretary, where he was very active, very positive in his convictions,
and very determined in his methods. He made numerous recommendations
that have not been adopted, and attempted to carry out a policy that was
not acceptable to the politicians of Ireland, who rejected his plans for
self-government and refused his overtures.
[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF ABERDEEN]
Sir Antony MacDonnell was the author of what is called the "devolution
policy." That's a big word and has little meaning in America, but in
Ireland it is in common use and full of significance; first being
applied to a certain political project in Ireland by Lord Dunraven in
1904. If you will look in the dictionary you will see that "devolution"
means "the act of devolving, transferring, or handing over; transmission
from one person to another; a passing or falling to a successor, as of
office, authority, or real estate." In its application to the Irish
situation devolution means the devolving upon the Irish people of purely
local affairs, to transfer their management from the British government
with a string tied to them, and that is what the Irish political leaders
will not consent to. Their motto is _aut_ home rule, _aut nullus_. With
the co-operation of the Earl of Dunraven and others, Sir Antony
MacDonnell prepared a plan of limited home rule in 1907. It gave the
government of Ireland entirely into the hands of the people with the
exception of the police, the courts, and the lawmaking power, which were
retained under British control. The proposition was discussed by the
largest convention ever held in the country and was unanimously rejected
on the theory that it did not go far enough. The Irish people will
never be satisfied until they are permitted to make their own laws.
There were many grounds of objection from the Roman Catholic
ecclesiastical authorities and others, who declare that Sir Antony's
plan of government, which was based upon his experience in India, could
not be applied successfully to conditions in Ireland. Sir Antony is a
very positive man, and when his solution of the Irish problem, to which
he had given years of thought and study, was rejected, he concluded that
he was not the man to rule that country and sent in his resignation,
which was accepted with great reluctance by the government and with
sincere regret by a majority of the people, who admire his ability and
have confidence in his integrity and intentions.
His successor is Sir John Dougherty, his chief assistant, who has been
in the office of the under secretary in Dublin Castle all his life, and
has been promoted grade after grade from an ordinary clerkship to his
present position because of his ability and his sterling qualities.
Although he is not a man of marked individuality and initiative, like
Sir Antony MacDonnell, he is considered a safe, conservative, and
judicious administrator.
The next in importance, who, perhaps, should be ranked first of all, is
a mysterious and autocratic official, known as the Treasury
Remembrancer. He was described to me as "a lord over all, and the best
hated man in Ireland. Nobody knows him or cares to know him. His fellow
officials seldom hear or speak his name. He is a spy and a spotter and
has arbitrary authority to disallow accounts, withhold allowances, and
lock up the money chest whenever he likes. There is no statute
authorizing his appointment, and there is no law or regulation defining
his duties or limiting his authority, which he receives from the
chancellor of the exchequer in London and to whom alone he reports." The
office pays $7,500 a year without any known perquisites, although the
remembrancer is supposed to have mysterious sources of revenue that have
never been found out. He cannot, however, spend the money of the crown.
His authority is limited to preventing expenditures. He is "the
watchdog of the treasury" in Ireland, and combines in one the duties and
powers which are intrusted to the comptroller and auditors of the
treasury in the United States. He interprets appropriation bills,
customs laws, and decides how much money can be expended for this
purpose and that. He audits all accounts, rejects many, disallows
overcharges, and makes everybody who has to do with government finances
a great deal of trouble. Hence his unpopularity and his habitual
reserve.
In addition to these chief officials there are numerous secretaries and
assistant secretaries, commissioners and boards of various
jurisdictions, and executive departments, with corps of clerks similar
to those in Washington. Each has its functions over some branch of the
administration and all are subject to the supervision of the under
secretary and the chief secretary in London. Their commissions are
signed by the lord lieutenant, who knows nothing about them, has no
authority over them, and acts only in a formal capacity, as the
representative of the king. There is a great deal of complaint as to the
excessive number of "civil servants," as they call them over there,
although such a term would be resented by the employees of the civil
service in the United States. All railway officials are called
"servants" in Great Britain. Every salaried person comes within that
designation. Any one who will look over the printed register of
government employees in Ireland will conclude that home rule has already
been adopted, because the treasury remembrancer is said to be the only
Englishman on the pay roll, except the lord lieutenant, several of his
secretaries, and the military officers at the garrison, and several
Scotch experts in the employ of the Agricultural Department and
Congested Districts Board. But what spoils it all to the people of
Ireland is that these officials receive their appointments from what
they consider an alien authority. The touch of the English giver poisons
the gift. They will never be satisfied until their commissions are
signed by an Irish name. Nobody in the employ of the government is
loyal. Every man hates and loathes England, and doesn't hesitate to say
so in public and in private, on all occasions, although he draws his
rations from the British government. And when you remind him of that he
answers promptly that the money comes from the pockets of the Irish
rate-payers and England grabs £3,000,000 of it for herself.
Ireland contributes an annual average of £10,500,000 in taxes to the
imperial treasury and £7,500,000 of it is expended in maintaining her
government and constructing her public works. The remaining three
millions is her contribution toward the support of the British empire,
the wages of the king, the expenses of parliament, the support of the
army and navy, and the interest upon the public debt, which is not kept
separately for Ireland, and for various other purposes.
Ireland has twenty-three peers in the House of Lords and one hundred and
two representatives in the House of Commons, of whom eighty-two are
nationalists or home rulers. The remaining twenty are conservatives,
unionists, and anti-home rulers, who believe in maintaining the present
system of government and the existing relations between Great Britain
and Ireland. The Irish members of parliament have been a thorn in the
flesh of John Bull for many years, ever since Daniel O'Connell was
admitted to the imperial legislature in 1829. They have fought fiercely
for concessions term after term, have built fires in the rear of the
government and have attacked it upon all sides until they have
accomplished a great many reforms and are near to the point of achieving
final success. If the liberal party wins at the next election every
patriotic Irishman expects political emancipation, because its leaders
are pledged to complete home rule on the same basis that Mr. Gladstone
proposed several years ago, when he was prime minister.
The Irish peerage, like that of Scotland, are not entitled to all the
rights and prerogatives enjoyed by the British peerage, and have only
twenty-eight seats in the House of Lords. The total peerage of Ireland
consists of two dukes, ten marquises, sixty-three earls, thirty-six
viscounts, and sixty-four barons, a total of one hundred and
seventy-five nobles, of whom seventeen also have titles in the English
peerage, nearly all by inheritance.
The Irish peerage are represented in the House of Lords by twenty-eight
of their members who are elected for life. As soon as one of these
representative peers dies two or more of his colleagues notify the lord
high chancellor of England of the vacancy. The latter thereupon issues a
writ in the name of the king under the great seal proclaiming an
election. Copies of this writ are served upon every Irish peer through
the clerk of the crown at Dublin naming a date for an election. Each of
the one hundred and seventy-five Irish peers has a vote, but they never
assemble. They merely write to the clerk of the crown at Dublin, naming
their choice, and forward a duplicate of the letter to the clerk of the
House of Lords at London.
Scotland has only sixteen representative peers, who are elected by an
assemblage at Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh when notified of a vacancy.
There is considerable formality in the proceedings, and every peer is
required to present himself to answer the roll call before he is allowed
to vote. There is a good deal of preliminary canvassing in both Scotland
and Ireland, and that was particularly the case of Lord Curzon of
Kedleston, who was elected to the House of Lords as an Irish peer after
his return from India. The candidates for the vacancy usually visit
their fellow peers personally and solicit their support. Social
influences go a great way. Lord Curzon was handicapped in many respects,
but was elected by a large majority because of the high esteem in which
he is held.
When the ballots are all in the clerk of the crown at Dublin makes up a
tabulated statement which he sends with his report to the clerk of the
House of Lords. The latter checks it off from his own records and
announces the result to the lord high chancellor and to each of the
Irish peers in person.
The representative peers at present are the Earls of Annesley, Bandon,
Belmore, Darnley, Drogheda, Kilmory, Lucan, Mayo, Rosse, and Westmeath,
Viscounts Bangor and Templeton, and Barons Bellew, Castlemaine,
Clonbrock, Crofton, Curzon, Dunalley, Dunboine, Headley, Inchiquin,
Kilmaine, Langford, Massey, Musckerry, Oranmore, Rathdonnell, and
Ventry.
The premier of the Irish peerage is Maurice Fitzgerald, who is the Duke
of Leinster and also is Marquis of Kildare, and represents the most
distinguished and celebrated family in Ireland. His dukedom dates back
to 1766. The second in rank is the Duke of Abercorn, James Hamilton, who
is also Marquis of Hamilton. The third is James Edward William Theobold,
twenty-seventh Marquis of Ormonde, and the fourth is Rudolph Robert
Basil Aloysius Augustine Fielding, Earl of Desmond, who is also Earl of
Denbigh.
The oldest titles in the Irish peerage are the following:
Baron Kinsale, created 1223.
Lord Dunsany, created 1439.
Lord Timlestown, created 1461.
Viscount Gormanston, created 1478.
Baron Louth, created 1541.
Lord Dumboine, created 1541.
Baron Inchiquin, created 1543.
Viscount Montgarrett, created 1550.
The Earl of Fingal, created 1620.
Viscount Grandison, created 1620.
Earl of Cork, created 1620.
Baron Digby, created 1620.
Earl of Westmeath, created 1621.
Earl of Desmond, created 1622.
Lord Dillon, created 1622.
Viscount Valentia, created 1622.
Earl of Meath, created 1627.
Baron Sherard, created 1627.
Viscount Lumley, created 1628.
Viscount Taffe, created 1628.
All the remaining peerages of Ireland were created later than the year
1700.
The people as a rule are respectful towards the nobility, and treat them
with a consideration which is not always deserved. The bitterness of
politics is more intense in Ireland than in any other country, and, as
Sydney Brooks in his recent book on "Ireland in the Twentieth Century"
says, "Class distinctions are not mitigated by political agreement.
Differences of creed are not assuaged by harmony of economic interests.
The cleavages of racial temperament are not, as in other countries,
bridged over by a sense of national unity. On the contrary, all the
bitterness of caste and creed, of political and material antipathies and
contrast, instead of losing half their viciousness in a multiplicity of
cross-currents, are gathered and rigidly compressed in Ireland into two
incongruous channels. Throughout the country you can infer a man's
religion from his social position; his social position from his
religion, and his views on all Irish questions from both; and nine times
out of ten you infer rightly."
That is strictly true. Nowhere in the world is a man's politics so
influenced by his religion and his social position as in Ireland.
Although you will find home rulers in all classes of the English
population, you will never find them outside one class in Ireland. If
you are told what business he is engaged in or what church he belongs to
in Ireland, it is not necessary for you to ask his politics.
While the ancient nobility of Ireland is gradually becoming extinct and
their estates are being divided up among the farmers who till them, a
new aristocracy is developing. The sons of what is called the middle
class are invading the sacred haunts of the ancient aristocracy and are
taking the places of the dukes and earls as the latter retire. Every
peer that has been created in Ireland of late years has been a son of a
manufacturer, a tradesman, or a country gentleman of the middle class,
and at the present rate the descendants of earls and marquises will be
compelled to stand back and give the sons of brewers, distillers, and
other manufacturers their places at the front of the stage.
A century or even half a century ago no Irish trader or contractor,
lawyer or doctor, unless he could produce the proper sort of pedigree,
could enter the social world or the best clubs of Dublin and other
Irish cities or participate in the sports of the gentry and aristocracy.
But to-day their grandsons have the entrée to that gilded gate which
hangs upon broken hinges and will soon be entirely removed. This is the
result of the decadence of one class and the advance of another. A
brewer or a distiller who can obtain a seat in the House of Lords must
necessarily be eligible to the clubs where his colleagues meet. Nearly
all of the twenty-three peers created by the present government in
England have sprung from families of humble origin and are sons of men
who made their money in manufacturing and trade. And there is room for
more of them in the peerage. You hear irreverent people talking about
"breeding up the peerage of Great Britain," just as they talk about
improving their cattle, horses, and swine, and in the clubs of London
this subject is revived every time the son of a decaying family of the
nobility marries the daughter of a wealthy tradesman, or the daughter of
an earl weds the son of a wealthy commoner.
In Ireland the shopkeeper now educates his son for a profession. The
sons of contractors become architects and civil engineers. The sons of
lawyers and doctors enter the army and navy and diplomatic service.
Among the large families of the middle class you will find one son a
lawyer, another a doctor, and the other two in the army and navy. In
order to keep pace with them and be able to appear properly in the
society which their brothers enter, and in order that they may be
considered suitable wives for the sons of similar families who are on
the upward grade, the daughters of the middle classes of Ireland are
sent to the best schools and colleges and spend their winters in Paris.
For these reasons very little is said about pedigree in Ireland these
days. The army that is advancing does not look back. The decaying
nobility dare not question nor criticise lest they may be trampled upon.
The only people who talk about their ancestors are the peasants, who
trace their descent from the Irish kings.
Mrs. O'Leary met Mrs. O'Donahue one day and in the course of
conversation asked if she had ever looked up her pedigree.
"Phwat's that?" inquired Mrs. O'Donahue.
"The people you sprang from," was the reply.
"I'd have you know that the O'Donahues never sprang from anybody," was
the indignant retort. "They sprang at 'em."
Every influential leader of the liberal party is a home ruler. The Earl
of Aberdeen, the present lieutenant governor, Earl Dudley, his
predecessor, who is now governor-general of Australia, James Bryce,
recently chief secretary for Ireland and now British ambassador at
Washington, and many other influential men in high places, are earnest
in supporting the Irish claims for self-government, and the national
party, which, after the death of Charles S. Parnell, became demoralized
and split into factions under the leadership of John Redmond, John
Dillon, and others, has been a unit since 1900 and is working
harmoniously. The liberal leaders have promised to make home rule the
leading issue at the next parliamentary election, which will probably
occur in two years or so. In the meantime the Irish party in parliament
will continue to pursue the policy that has already been so successful
in securing concessions for the relief of the people and the promotion
of the welfare and prosperity of Ireland.
The city government of Dublin is very much like that of London. The lord
mayor is second in official rank to the lord lieutenant, and within the
precincts of the city takes precedence of everybody except that official
(who is the personal representative of the king), the royal family, and
foreign ambassadors. He precedes the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is
the primate of England, the two archbishops of Armagh, the primates of
all Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the chief secretary for Ireland,
and even the prime minister of England, while the lady mayoress has the
right to walk before every duchess, marchioness, and woman of title in
the kingdom except the royal family. The salary of the lord mayor is
$15,000 a year, and he has a beautiful old house to live in--one of the
most attractive in Dublin. It is situated on Dawson Street near
Stephen's Green and is surrounded by a picturesque garden. Here in olden
times the lord mayor used to entertain like a prince. It was a matter of
pride that the Mansion House should never be outdone by the castle in
the magnificence of its hospitality. But of late years the civic
entertainments, as they were called, have been abandoned and the lady
mayoress has not attempted to shine in society.
The Right Honorable Gerald O'Reilly was Lord Mayor of Dublin when I was
there in 1908, and he managed to look after his private business as
grocer and liquor dealer at Towns End in connection with his official
duties. He was elected to office by the nationalists and the labor
element, who control the politics not only of Dublin but of all Ireland,
and have elected his predecessors for many years. And they have been men
of the people without exception. No aristocrat, no landlord, no member
of the nobility could ever hope to become Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Mr. O'Reilly was born, reared, and educated in County Carlow, where his
father was a groceryman and liquor dealer like himself. When he became
of age he came up to Dublin, went into business on his own account and
prospered. He is not a rich man, but well to do, with a good patronage,
a good reputation, and a large influence in politics. For twenty years
he has served as a member of the common council and the board of
aldermen, where he has proved his usefulness and his right to promotion.
Mr. O'Reilly's predecessor was an actual workingman, G.P. Nanetti, a son
of an Italian artist who came to Ireland fifty years ago to engage in
his profession as a decorator. Mr. Nanetti was born in Dublin, educated
in the national schools, learned his trade as printer in the office of
that ancient and well-known paper, the _Freeman's Journal_, and was
advanced from grade to grade until he became the foreman of the
composing-room. In the meantime he went into politics, became a leader
among the workingmen, was elected to the common council and then to the
board of aldermen, and, after serving two terms as lord mayor, was
elected to parliament as the representative of the business district of
Dublin, which surrounds the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College. Before
him Timothy Harrington was lord mayor for three terms, a longer period
than any of his predecessors since the creation of the title by King
Charles I. on the twenty-ninth day of July, 1641. He, too, was a great
success in the office and was sent to parliament for the district which
includes the docks.
The Mansion House is well adapted for entertainment. The main room is a
large circular chamber, adorned with statuary, which was built
especially for the reception of George IV. when he visited Ireland. The
Oak Room is entirely sheathed, floor, ceiling, and walls, with a rich
reddish brown oak, delicately carved. Over the fireplace is a rack for
the reception of the mace and sword which are the symbols of office, and
formerly, when the lord mayor went about on official occasions, they
were carried before him, but Mr. O'Reilly and his recent predecessors
have abolished many of those interesting old ceremonies.
There are some fine pictures in the Mansion House, portraits of Charles
II. by Sir Peter Lely, George IV. by Sir Thomas Lawrence, the Earl of
Northumberland by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the Earl of Westmorland by
Romney. In the entrance hall are preserved the mace and sword carried by
the lord mayor who fought for James II. at the battle of the Boyne. When
he fled with the rest of James's forces he dropped the heavy insignia,
which fell into the hands of the Williamites and were retained by them
until a duplicate set had been furnished, many years after.
Many famous men have been entertained at the Mansion House, including
General Grant, who visited Dublin during the holidays of 1878; Capt.
Edward E. Potter, commander of the United States man-of-war
_Constellation_, which brought a cargo of food to the starving people of
Ireland in 1880; the Hon. Patrick A. Collins, while he was Mayor of
Boston, who, by the way, is recorded as a senator from Massachusetts, a
distinction he never attained. The Hon. Richard Croker, formerly of New
York, received the freedom of the city of Dublin several years ago, and
has been a frequent guest at the Mansion House, although he moves about
very modestly and puts on no airs.
The Lord Mayor of Dublin is elected annually on the 23d of December by
the aldermen and councilmen and must be one of their number. He has a
deputy who exercises authority during his illness or absence. There are
fifteen aldermen and forty-five members of the council, whose authority
and powers are very much the same as in our cities at home.
The headquarters of the mayor are in the City Hall, which was formerly
the Royal Exchange, where merchants met daily to make bargains and sign
contracts. It was used as a prison during the rebellion of '98, and has
had other experiences. As you enter the building through the vestibule
you pass into a large circular room, with a dome sustained by many
columns, which was formerly the trading place, but is now the anteroom
to the mayor's office and is usually filled with politicians and place
hunters, which are quite as numerous in Ireland as they are anywhere
else.
The name of the capital of Ireland is a compound of two Gaelic words,
Dubh-Linn, which signify "the black pool," and was bestowed upon it more
than two thousand years ago. There is a complete history of the city
since the year 150 A.D., when a warlike king called "Conn of a Hundred
Battles," who had long been the overlord of all Ireland, was defeated by
his rival, "Mogh of Munster," and compelled to consent to a division of
territory, the line being drawn from High Street, Dublin, across to the
Atlantic Ocean near Galway. Three centuries later St. Patrick stopped on
his way from Wicklow to his home at Armagh. The people complained to him
of the bad quality of the water they were obliged to drink and he
relieved them by causing a miraculous fountain to spring up near the
site of the present cathedral that bears his name. In 1152 Dublin became
the seat of an archbishopric by a decree of the pope and, shortly after
the landing of Henry II., became the seat of the English government. In
1210 King John visited Ireland again and conferred many privileges upon
the city. In 1394 King Richard came over with an army of thirty-four
thousand and lived in great splendor in Dublin. All of the Irish
chieftains submitted to his conciliatory policy. The great O'Neill, King
of Ulster; MacMurrough, King of Leinster; O'Brien of Munster, and
O'Connor of Connaught, the four kings of Ireland, were knighted and
promised allegiance, but no sooner had Richard returned to England than
the country was again in confusion.
In 1409 the "pale" (or inclosure) of Ireland was established, with the
city of Dublin as its capital, a narrow strip of land thirty miles long
by twenty wide, which alone was under English control and whose
inhabitants alone in all Ireland could be relied upon to respect the
royal commands. Dublin has been besieged, invaded by pirates, has been
swept with plague and pestilence, and has been fought over by rival
princes, but has kept growing, and in Queen Elizabeth's time reached
such commercial importance that it was necessary to erect a custom-house
and a lighthouse to show the channel to those who went down to the sea
in ships. The people were famous for their wealth and fashion. An
official band of musicians played three times a week through the chief
streets, there was a city physician, a fire department, an attempt at
sanitation and waterworks were introduced, each citizen being allowed as
much water daily as would flow through a quill.
In 1661 the people of Dublin spent $150,000, which was an enormous sum
in those days, to celebrate the restoration, with banquets, fireworks, a
pageant, and various other evidences of rejoicing. And the king, as an
acknowledgment, sent the mayor a gold chain and conferred upon him the
title of "The Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of Dublin." Under the
administration of Ormonde, Dublin expanded on all sides, and has since
been growing, although from time to time there have been periods of
distress and disorder.
[Illustration: THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN]
Gradually, however, matters settled down into civilization and order.
Courts were established, and an imposing building called "The Four
Courts" was erected to accommodate the four divisions of the
judiciary,--chancery, king's bench, exchequer, and common pleas. In
early times each term of court was opened by a religious service, when
the choir of Christ Church would sing an anthem and the dean would offer
prayer. One of the boundaries of the Four Courts was a dark, narrow
passage, which a wit, struck with its gloom, nicknamed "Hell," and
carried out his idea by erecting at the entrance a fantastic figure
supposed to represent the evil one. A Dublin newspaper of that date
contains an advertisement reading as follows:
"Lodgings to let in Hell, suitable for a lawyer."
You will remember Burns's line: "As sure 's the deil 's in hell, or
Dublin city."
Dublin now has 300,000 population, and, although it is not so
enterprising as Belfast, is one of the few cities in Ireland that shows
growth. The population is divided as follows: Roman Catholic, 237,645;
Church of Ireland, Episcopal, 41,663; Presbyterian, 4,074; Methodist,
2,342.
The means of grace are greater than the hope of glory. Promises of
salvation are offered from fully eighty churches, as follows:
Church of Ireland 20
Church of Ireland (chapels) 20
Roman Catholic 9
Roman Catholic (chapels) 6
Presbyterian 8
Wesleyan 8
Primitive Methodists 2
Independent 3
Friends' meeting-houses 2
Unitarian 1
Baptist 1
The "disestablishment" of the Church of Ireland, by which is meant the
separation of the Protestant Episcopal denomination from the government,
occurred in 1869 under the leadership of Mr. Gladstone as the price of
peace and the termination of the rebellion in Ireland. It was demanded
by the Roman Catholic bishops, who saw the injustice of compelling
people of all denominations, without discrimination, to pay taxes to
support an official church and the propaganda of a faith which they did
not profess. So that branch of the Established Church of England which
was found across St. George's Channel was forcibly divorced and given
alimony amounting to £8,080,000, or about $39,000,000 in American money.
This represented a commutation in advance of the stipends to which the
clergy of that church were entitled under the ecclesiastical laws for a
term of fourteen years, as well as a vast amount of real estate and
other property which belonged to the Established Church and was
transferred to the new organization represented by a commission
appointed for that purpose. At the same time the Presbyterian church of
Ireland received £750,000, the Roman Catholic College of St. Patrick at
Maynooth, £3,372,331, the board of intermediate education for school
purposes, £1,000,000, the pension fund for teachers in Ireland,
£1,127,150 and the Congested Districts Board, £1,500,000. Since that
time these funds have increased in value considerably, and the incomes
from them are devoted to the purposes named. They were paid in lieu of
the annual contributions from the Established Church which had been
enjoyed for many years and were capitalized on the basis of fourteen
years' income; that is, the government in order to satisfy everybody
advanced in lump sums what it would have given in annual installments
for the next fourteen years if the "disestablishment act" had not been
passed.
The general synod which controls the affairs of the Episcopal Church of
Ireland is composed of the two archbishops, the bishops, the deans, and
canons of cathedrals, and archdeacons of diocese. The property of the
church has advanced in value until it is now estimated at more than
£12,000,000, or $60,000,000, and the income is now more than $2,000,000
a year, which is very large in proportion to its numbers.
Total population of Ireland (1901) 4,386,035
Roman Catholic 3,308,661
Church of Ireland 581,080
Presbyterian 443,494
Methodist 61,255
These are the figures furnished by the different church organizations,
but you will notice they exceed the total population by the latest
census and therefore are only approximately correct.
At the time of the disestablishment in 1889 the adherents of the Church
of Ireland numbered 693,347, which is a decrease of 112,258 since that
time. This corresponds very accurately with the general decrease of the
population of the island.
There are now 1,628 churches and chapels belonging to the Church of
Ireland, which is an average of one for every 350 people, and from my
short experience I should say that the members of the church were very
negligent in attending worship.
The Roman Catholic church is the largest, the most prosperous, the most
energetic, and has greater vitality than any other denomination, and is
involved in all the politics and secular affairs as well as the
ecclesiastical administration of the country, which is perfectly
natural, because 74 per cent of the entire population belong to that
denomination, and the number as reported--3,308,661--are divided among
1,084 parishes with 2,350 houses of worship, churches, and chapels.
The constant stream of emigration which flows from Ireland to the United
States, Canada, Australia, and other more progressive and prosperous
countries comes chiefly from the Roman Catholic church, which lost
238,646 members, or 6.7 per cent of its numbers, between the last two
official censuses of the country. The Church of Ireland lost 3.2 per
cent from a total of 13 per cent, the Presbyterians 0.4, while the
Methodists increased 11.7 per cent, the Jews increased 119 per cent, and
other religious persuasions 9.1 per cent.
But it is strange to say that the numbers of priests and monks and nuns
are increasing every year, while the number of parishioners is falling
off. In 1851, when the island had twice its present population, there
were 2,291 priests in Ireland; in 1901 there were 3,157, of whom 4 were
archbishops, 27 bishops, 392 monks, and the remainder parish priests,
including chaplains and professors in educational institutions. The
total of priests increased 307 during the last ten years. There are many
monasteries, nunneries, and other monastic and educational houses in
Ireland--93 for men and 242 for women.
The Presbyterians are third in numerical strength, wealth, and
influence, and are found mostly in the northern part of the country. The
membership represents the manufacturing, mercantile, and commercial
classes, while the Church of Ireland represents the landowners, the
government officials, the aristocracy, nobility, and the gentry. The
Presbyterians have a higher average of wealth than any other
denomination. Their contributions to benevolent purposes in 1907 were
$1,040,000, which is very large for a population of 443,494 and 106,000
communicants. There were 96,000 children on the roll of the Presbyterian
Sunday schools in 567 churches, which are distributed among 36
presbyteries and 5 synods. The minutes of the recent general assembly
show 650 clergymen of that faith.
The Methodists are active and energetic, and ever since John Wesley
appeared in Ireland in August, 1747, they have been strong in the faith.
They are mostly in the cities among the middle classes, and the latest
returns show 250 churches, 248 ministers and evangelists, 358 Sunday
schools, and 26,000 scholars, for a total population of 61,255.
There are several other denominational organizations. Friends'
meeting-houses are found in several of the cities of Ireland, and the
members of that faith have been here for centuries. Macroom Castle, in
which William Penn was born, is still standing, and the Castle of
Blackrock, the place where he embarked for America, is now a popular
Sunday resort for the working people of that city.
IV
DUBLIN CASTLE
Dublin Castle does not correspond with the conventional idea of what a
castle should be. It looks more like the dormitory of an ancient
university or a hospital or military barracks, although there are two
ancient towers in which many men have been imprisoned and in which
several patriots have died, and the south side of the pile, which
overlooks a beautiful lawn in the very center of Dublin, has quite the
appearance of a fortress. It has been the scene of much bloody history,
much treachery and cruelty, and many deeds of valor have been done in
the two courtyards. One of the viceroys of the sixteenth century, in a
letter to the King of England describing its partial destruction by
fire, wrote that he had "lost nothing but a few barrels of powder and
the worst castle in the worst situation in Christendom".
A certain portion of the building is reserved for the official residence
of the lord lieutenant, and there are long suites of quaint old rooms
with antique furniture, usually disguised with its summer wrapping of
pink-flowered chintz, in which kings and queens and dukes and earls have
been entertained for centuries. In olden times it was the habit of the
lord lieutenant to permit his guests to go to the wine cellar with
glasses in their hands and drink from whatever hogshead they pleased,
and it is recorded that some gentlemen who were imbibing longer than
usual sent the cellarer to the Duke of Ormonde, who then occupied the
office, to provide them with chairs. With that true wit that
distinguishes the Irish race, high and low, the duke replied that he did
not encourage his guests to drink any longer than they could stand. This
custom was abandoned by the Earl of Halifax, owing to the carelessness
of certain bewildered gentlemen who left the wine running out of the
spigot and lost him many gallons of precious Madeira.
The present lord lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, spends as little time in the
castle as possible, because the viceregal lodge, his country residence,
which is only half an hour's drive distant in Phoenix Park, is so much
more comfortable and homelike, but all state ceremonies must take place
at the castle, and their excellencies and the household usually bring in
their court costumes early in February, for the season commences on the
second Tuesday with a levee, a drawing-room on Wednesday, a reception on
Thursday, and on Friday a banquet. During the ensuing week a state ball
is given, and twice a week thereafter entertainments until the 17th of
March, when the season is finished with St. Patrick's ball. The
presentation of guests may be arranged for at the levees or the
drawing-room, and everybody who has been presented can go to the ball.
The inauguration of a new viceroy takes place in the throne-room, where
also a farewell reception is held when he retires.
The castle dates back to the days when it was necessary to have some
stronghold, as the king said, "to curb the city as well as to defend
it," and to provide a safe place for the custody of the royal treasure.
It was located in the center of the present city of Dublin, but at the
time was outside the original walls of the town, upon what is called
Cork Hill, because Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, had his castle upon
the slight elevation it now occupies. Meiller Fitzhenry, an illegitimate
son of Henry II., designed and began the building. It was finished in
1213, and from that period has been the center of Irish history. Very
little of the original structure remains--only a portion of the walls.
The towers have been cut down and modernized. One of them is now used
for a supper-room for social occasions, and a kitchen is on the lower
floor. The other, which was originally a prison, and is the most
complete surviving fragment of the ancient fortress, is a repository for
historical documents and the records of the government for the last
four or five centuries. There are three circular rooms, one above the
other; the walls are nineteen feet thick in places, and four or five
long, narrow cells are built into them like recesses and lighted only by
a narrow strip at the far end. One of these cells has a secret chamber
hidden in the wall, and accessible only by a revolving door, which is
difficult to distinguish from the rest of the stone.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE, DUBLIN; OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE LORD
LIEUTENANT AND HEADQUARTERS OF THE GOVERNMENT]
The tower has not been used as a prison since 1798 and 1803, the
rebellions of Emmet and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the documents
relating to their conspiracy are preserved there in the very cells where
the men who were convicted by them lay awaiting trial and execution. The
late Mr. Lecky, the historian, searched them thoroughly, and gave a
surprising account of the character of the private papers that were
seized with the effects of the patriots in those days. Love letters,
poems, reflections on various subjects, rules of conduct, maxims of the
sages, drafts of speeches, and proclamations in soaring language, and
many attempts at literary work are mixed up with the reports of spies,
informers, detectives, and officials,--some of them from comrades whose
treachery was never suspected and which Mr. Lecky was not permitted to
publish even at this late day. Some people think these malicious and
incriminating documents should be destroyed lest they may sometime come
to light and ruin the reputation of men who are highly esteemed by their
fellow countrymen. But no one seems willing to give the instructions.
In 1583 a "trial by combat" took place in the courtyard of the castle
between Connor MacCormack O'Connor and Teague Kilpatrick O'Connor to
settle the responsibility for the murder of a clansman. The weapons were
sword and shield. The lord justices and the councillors, the
governor-general, the sheriffs, and other officials were present to
witness the trial. As was the custom and usage in trials by combat, each
man was made to take an oath that he believed his quarrel just, and was
ready to maintain it to the death. After a fierce struggle Teague cut
off the head of his cousin and presented it on the point of his sword to
the lord justices. For many generations the Irish parliament used to
assemble at the castle. The first was called in 1328, another in 1585,
another in 1639, and the accounts of the expenses of the lord lieutenant
show that during the two weeks that parliament was in session the
viceregal household consumed ten bullocks, forty sheep, sixteen
hogsheads of beer, and various other refreshments to a similar extent.
Oliver Cromwell, when in Dublin, resided at the castle, and in 1654 his
youngest son was born there. While Henry Cromwell was viceroy he was
driven from the castle and went to live at the viceregal lodge. In 1689,
after the battle of the Boyne, in which William of Orange defeated James
Stuart, the latter took possession of the castle, but slept there only
one night.
The court of Dublin has been insignificant but lively, and has reflected
the characteristics of the Irish nobility, who were as fond of a frolic
as they were of a fight, and never allowed their sense of decorum or the
laws of etiquette to interfere with their pleasure. A hundred years ago
ladies, upon being presented for the first time, were solemnly kissed by
the viceroy, which was more or less agreeable to him, according to the
age and attractions of his guests. One of them who was noted for his wit
remarked that he got his kisses as a spendthrift borrows from a usurer,
"part in old wine, part in dubious paintings, and part in bright gold
and silver." With all its wit and brilliancy the court has at times been
noted for a low state of morality, and at one period that portion of the
castle which contains the state apartments was nicknamed "hell's
half-acre" by a satirist.
A figure of Justice which adorns the pediment of the main gate has been
the object of much wit and satire for two centuries. Dean Swift once
declared that she sat with her face to the viceroy and her back to the
people. There are a few good portraits and other pictures in the
residence portion of the building, including some pretty medallions in
the wall of the throne-room, which are credited to Angelica Kauffman,
but nobody knows when or how she happened to paint them.
The mantel of one of the rooms is of black Spanish oak taken from the
cabin of the flagship of the Spanish Armada which was wrecked on the
Irish coast after the great sea battle of 1588.
The finest of all the rooms is St. Patrick's Hall, which was designed by
the great Lord Chesterfield when he was lord lieutenant of Ireland, and
has always been much admired by architects because of its proportions
and its lofty painted ceilings representing events in Irish history. The
banners of the twenty-four knights of St. Patrick are suspended from
either side, and the crimson draperies and upholstering of Irish poplin
give the apartment an attractive color. Duplicates of these banners hang
in the choir of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where the knights used to meet
before 1869, but they have always had their headquarters in the castle,
and the Ulster king of arms, the executive officer of the order, is the
master of ceremonies at the castle, senior officer in the household of
the lord lieutenant, the highest authority on rank and precedent in
Ireland, and his seal is necessary to give legal value to patents of
Irish peerages. He decides all questions of etiquette, nominates the
persons who are presented at the viceregal drawing-room, arranges for
all ceremonies, and in processions of state he rides or walks
immediately in front of the lord lieutenant, carrying the sword of state
as the emblem of the authority of the king.
The office has been in existence since the Middle Ages. Its incumbent
was formerly the custodian of the arms, the chief of the heralds, and
the keeper of the royal jewels. He has an office in what is known as
Bedford Tower, immediately facing the principal entrance to the
viceroy's residence, with a large suite of rooms for his own use, and
two or three clerks to look after his business. Otherwise the office
carries no compensation except £20 a year and such few fees as are paid
for searching the records of the Irish peerage and furnishing
certificates of pedigree and title similar to those that are sought at
the College of Heralds in London.
The office was held for many years by Sir Bernard Burke, the most
eminent of modern genealogists, the originator and author of "Burke's
Peerage," which is authority on all questions affecting the nobility.
His successor was Sir Arthur Vicar, son of the late Colonel Vicar, who
commanded the Sixty-first Irish Fusiliers, and is a cousin of half the
nobility of Ireland. Sir Arthur is a bachelor, a member of the principal
clubs of London and Dublin, president of the Kildare Archæological
Society and of the "Ex-Libris Society," whose members follow the fad of
collecting book plates. He is the highest authority on questions
affecting the Irish nobility since the death of Sir Bernard Burke, and
is the editor of "Lodge's Peerage," a volume which relates exclusively
to them. Sir Arthur has been a great favorite with everybody. He is an
amiable, gentle, witty man, with winning manner, a charming
conversationalist, has a keen sense of humor, and has been the confidant
of half the peers of Ireland in their sorrows and their difficulties.
In October, 1907, when preparations were being made to invest Lord
Castledown as a knight of St. Patrick, it was discovered that the
regalia of that order was missing, and no trace has ever been found of
it, nor have the detectives obtained a single clew to the mystery. The
jewels have an intrinsic value of quarter of a million dollars, but the
historical and sentimental value of the articles stolen cannot be
estimated. They were kept in a safe in the office of Sir Arthur Vicar as
master at arms at the right of the entrance to his private quarters, and
the room was usually occupied in the daytime by two clerks and carefully
locked at night. This valuable property had been kept in that place for
more than two hundred years, and nobody ever dreamed that it might be
stolen. The discovery, which was kept secret for several months at the
request of the police, caused a postponement of the ceremony, and the
chief secretary for Ireland called for the resignation of Sir Arthur as
master at arms on the ground that he failed to take proper precautions
for the safety of the valuables in question. He was not accused or even
suspected of having participated in the robbery, or having any
knowledge of it, but there cannot be the slightest doubt that the theft
was committed by some person familiar with affairs in the castle, and
hence all the employees, everybody, from Lord Aberdeen down, has shared
in the humiliation. Sir Arthur Vicar refused to resign, demanded a court
of inquiry, and selected Timothy Healy, a member of parliament of the
nationalist party from Dublin, as his counsel, and has ever since been
appealing for vindication.
V.
THE REDEMPTION OF IRELAND
While the circumstances of the agricultural class in Ireland are by no
means ideal, a great deal has been done to improve them. At the present
rate of progress, however, it will take from twenty to twenty-five
years, if not much longer, to accomplish the results intended by the
Wyndham Land Act of 1903, which was expected to bring about the Irish
millennium. That act provides that an owner of a large estate may sell
to his tenants the holdings they occupy, and his untenanted land to any
one who desires to buy it, in such tracts and at such prices as may be
agreed upon, corresponding to the income now derived from that
particular property. No landlord can sell a few acres here and there of
good land under this act, although, of course, he is at liberty to
dispose of any part of his estate at any time at any price that he may
consider proper. But the terms and privileges of the Wyndham Act can
only be enjoyed by a community of tenants in the purchase of the whole
or a considerable portion of an estate. A board of commissioners which
sits in the old-fashioned mansion in which the Duke of Wellington was
born, on Merrion Street, Dublin, is authorized to use its discretion in
the application of the law and in granting its privileges to those for
whose benefit it is intended. Nothing can be done without their
approval. The landlord and the tenants may arrange their own bargains to
their own satisfaction, but they must be submitted to the board before
they are carried out.
When such agreements are reached and approved by the commission,
--including the area sold, the price, and other terms,--the government
is expected to furnish the purchase money from the public treasury. The
landlord is entitled to receive the cash in full, and the tenant, who
pays nothing, gives a mortgage, as we would call it, upon the property
to the government for sixty-eight years or less, and agrees to pay an
annual installment of 3-1/4; per cent of the purchase price, of which
2-3/4; per cent is interest and 1/2; per cent goes into a sinking fund
to cover the purchase money at the end of sixty-eight years. A purchaser
may pay off the mortgage at any time he pleases, and receive a clear
title to the land; or he may sell it whenever he chooses, subject to the
mortgage, which follows the land and not the person. If he is unable to
pay his annuities, the government can turn him out and dispose of the
land, subject to the same terms and conditions, to another person. It
can make no allowance for crop failures or cattle diseases. It cannot
extend or modify its credits.
Nearly all of the landlords are willing to sell their estates; many are
glad to get rid of them, because the average tenantry in Ireland are a
very determined class, and are always making trouble. There have been
almost continuous disturbances over land questions of one form or
another in Ireland since the beginning of time. The rents are low
compared with the American standard, but have been difficult to collect,
and when there is a failure of crops they cannot be collected at all.
The landlords complain that all the laws that have been enacted of late
years are entirely in the interest of the tenants; that the landlord has
no show at all. And perhaps that is true, because public sympathy is
invariably with the tenants, and they cast many votes, while the
landlord has only one, even if he tries to vote at all.
Since 1881 the land courts have adjusted the rents of 360,135 farmer
tenants, involving 10,731,804 acres of land. The total rents paid for
these lands annually before adjustment was £7,206,079. They were reduced
by judicial order to a total of £5,715,158, a difference of about
$7,500,000 a year in American money, in favor of the tenants.
Therefore it is perfectly natural that landowners--and especially those
who have had a good deal of trouble with their tenants--are anxious to
dispose of their estates for cash, which they can invest to much better
advantage. The Duke of Leinster, for example, who is a minor, has
realized more than £800,000 in cash, which his trustees have invested in
brewery stocks, railway bonds, and other securities which pay regular
dividends and give him no anxiety.
Mr. Bailey, one of the commissioners, told me that the good estates have
been disposed of without difficulty. The disposition of the poor land
has been more difficult, because the tenants are not as eager to get it,
the owner is not always satisfied with the price, and the commission is
not willing to make advances upon small bits of land among the bogs and
rocks and other tracts of unfertile soil that would not be considered
good security by anybody. The commissioners have treated these
transactions very much as they would have done if they were mortgage
bankers. They have refused to make advances on land that a banker would
not have considered good security. They have not been willing to make
advances on farms that cannot be made to pay. There have been
complications in certain cases that have perplexed them, but, as a rule,
the law has been working out in a most satisfactory and gratifying
manner. The chief object of the commission and the purpose of the law
has been to break up the great estates of Ireland so far as possible in
farms of not more than one hundred acres, and sell them to the
occupants, so as to create a nation of peasant proprietors, and that, he
says, is being accomplished more rapidly than any one had reason to
expect. Of course Mr. Bailey does not pretend that everybody is
satisfied. That would be impossible. The millennium has not yet come,
and the Wyndham Act has not brought it, although it has undoubtedly done
more than any previous legislation to promote peace in this distracted
country, and offers promises of future prosperity and contentment.
Naturally some of the landowners have not been willing to sell their
property, and their tenants have been trying to force them to do so.
That accounts for the "cattle driving" and similar disturbances that you
read about in the newspaper cablegrams from Ireland. It is to be
regretted that the tendency of the newspapers is to publish sensational
occurrences and unfortunate events. If a man commits a great crime it is
advertised from one end of the world to the other. If he does a good
deed very little is said about it, and a false impression concerning
conditions in Ireland has been created by the widespread publication of
every little outrage or disturbance that occurs over there, while the
enormous usefulness and the satisfactory application of the Wyndham Land
Act has been almost entirely neglected by newspaper writers.
There have, however, been a good many little disturbances occasioned by
the efforts of the tenants of certain estates, particularly those that
are now devoted to cattle-breeding, to force their landlords to divide
up the pastures and sell them. At present there is more money in the
cattle and sheep business than in any other kind of farming in Ireland,
and, as you drive out into the interior, you can see the loveliest
pastures in the world filled with fat, sleek animals feeding upon the
luscious grass. I do not believe there are richer or more beautiful
pastures in any land, and Irish beef and mutton command a premium
because of their flavor and tenderness. Hence prosperous cattle-breeders
cannot be blamed for refusing to sell their pastures and go out of
business, and there is no law to compel them to do so. But the rough and
reckless elements in the villages, and in many cases among their own
tenantry, often try to persecute them by cattle and sheep "driving," as
it is called, until they are willing to cry quits. The popular method is
to break down the gates or the hedges,--they do not have fences in
Ireland,--turn the cattle and sheep into the road, and run them as far
as possible away from their proper pastures, scattering them over the
country. This is done in the night, and the next morning the owner is
compelled to take such measures to recover as many of the strays as he
can. Various means are adopted to prevent such outrages. Armed guards
are employed who defend their cattle, sometimes at the cost of life and
bloodshed, which, of course, provokes bad feeling and greater trouble.
Hundreds of men have been arrested and punished by long terms of
imprisonment, but "cattle-driving" still goes on in various parts of
the country with some serious results. But it is comparatively
insignificant when compared with the great good that is being
accomplished by the breaking up of the big estates whose owners are
willing to dispose of them.
Thus far the Wyndham Act has been carried out without much friction; the
chief difficulty having arisen from the eagerness of the landlords to
dispose of their estates, which is so much greater than anticipated,
that the funds provided have not been sufficient, and the landlords who
have sold their property have been compelled to wait for their pay. In
November, 1908, Mr. Augustine Birrell, chief secretary for Ireland in
the British cabinet, introduced into the House of Commons a bill for the
appropriation of more than $760,000,000, to be raised by an issue of
bonds to pay for the estates that have already been sold and for those
that may be sold in the future. That amount of money he asserted would
be necessary to carry out the plans of the government under the Land Act
of 1903.
This proposition of Mr. Birrell is without doubt the most stupendous
munificence ever offered by any government to its subjects. The money
thus appropriated does not pay for any service performed. It is a direct
appropriation from the public treasury to the people of Ireland for the
simple purpose of relieving their poverty and placing them in
circumstances which will permit them to enjoy life without the hardships
and sufferings and fruitless labor which they and their forefathers have
for generations endured.
The advances of the British government to the Irish peasants, if this
bill becomes a law, will reach nearly $1,000,000,000, but it is to be
repaid by them in small installments. Mr. Birrell, in his explanation of
the purpose of the bill to the House of Commons, stated that up to the
31st of October £25,000,000 in round numbers (which amounts to about
$125,000,000 in our money) had already been expended by the estates
commissioners in purchasing farms from the large landholders in Ireland
for the benefit of the tenants who occupy them, and that £52,000,000
(which is the equivalent of about $260,000,000) is due to other
landowners who have sold their estates under the Act of 1903. These
transactions have been completed with the exception of payment of the
price.
The transactions concluded under the Land Act of 1903 up to Oct. 31,
1908, provide farms for about 126,000 Irish families, at a cost of
$385,000,000 to the British treasury, which is to be refunded by the
owners of the farms in sixty-eight years, with interest at 3-1/4; per
cent. Three-fourths of 1 per cent of this annual interest, to be paid by
the man who owns the farm, goes into a sinking fund to meet the
principal of bonds which have been issued to provide the purchase money.
The remaining 2-1/2; per cent is paid by the farmer in lieu of rent, and
is used to meet the annual interest upon the bonds. Thus the farmer gets
his land in perpetuity by the payment of sixty-eight annual installments
of an amount equal to 3-1/4; per cent of its present value. The average
cost of the 126,000 farms thus far purchased is $1,790.
The British government advances the money and becomes responsible for
the payment of the interest and principal. The annual interest is only a
trifle. In some cases it is only a shilling a week, and it runs up to as
high as a pound or two a week in special cases, the average being
estimated at $59 a year for the 126,000 farms, or $5 a month for the
purchase of a farm, and whatever improvements may happen to be upon the
land. If these improvements are not adequate, if the house is not
comfortable, and if barns, stables, fences, and other permanent
improvements are needed, the government advances the money to provide
for them upon the same terms,--sixty-eight annual payments of 3-1/4; per
cent of the cost.
Mr. Birrell in his explanation estimated on Oct. 31, 1908, that the
additional sum of $760,000,000 will be necessary to complete the work,
to provide every family in the rural districts of Ireland with a farm of
their own, and with the intention of doing that he asks an appropriation
of that amount, which will bring the cost of the Irish land policy of
the British government up to nearly $900,000,000.
This does not include the expenditures of the Congested Districts Board,
which have been $440,000 annually for several years, and in the future
are to be $1,250,000 a year.
Nor does it include several millions of dollars which have been expended
under previous land acts, to purchase farms for the tenant occupiers.
Nor does it include the $25,000,000 appropriated several years ago upon
the motion of James Bryce, now British ambassador at Washington, to
build cottages for the agricultural laborers,--the farm hands of
Ireland.
Mr. Wyndham, the author of the Land Act of 1903, stated in the House of
Commons that 159,000 farmers had applied for the assistance of the
government to purchase their holdings, and that 176,000 more would
probably apply, out of a total of 490,000 farmers in Ireland. His
estimates are not so high as those of Mr. Birrell; he believed that
$600,000,000, or $800,000,000 at the outside, would be sufficient,
instead of $900,000,000, as estimated by Mr. Birrell. He is convinced
that 20 per cent of the 490,000 farmers in Ireland would not apply for
farms, and that the average price of the farms purchased would not
exceed $1,500.
Of the farms already purchased, the average price in Leinster province
was £528 ($2,640); in Munster, £452 ($2,260); in Ulster, £242 ($1,210);
and in Connaught, £211 ($1,055).
Connaught is the poorest of the poor provinces, and in 1908, out of a
total of 29,000 farmers who applied, only 2,000 came from Connaught.
Taking the most liberal estimate that he could imagine, Mr. Wyndham
stated that $800,000,000 would be the maximum required.
The Wyndham Land Act is not the first experiment of the kind. It is not
the first attempt of the government to break up the big estates of
Ireland into small farms and homes for the people who are now working
them under the present system. W.F. Bailey, one of the commissioners who
are carrying out the provisions of that act, gave me an interesting
sketch of the history of the movement from the date of the passage of
what is known as "the Irish Church Act" in 1869, which was the original
endeavor to create a peasant-proprietor system by the aid of state
loans.
"Under the Irish Church Act," said Mr. Bailey, "commissioners were
appointed to sell to the tenants of lands belonging to the church their
holdings at prices fixed by the commissioners themselves. If the tenant
refused to buy on the terms offered, the commissioners were authorized
to sell to the public for at least one-fourth and as much more as they
could get in cash, and the balance secured by a mortgage to be paid off
in thirty-two years in half-yearly installments. They sold farms to
6,057 tenants, and the government loaned the purchasers a total of
£1,674,841 which was issued by the commissioners of public works.
"In 1870, the following year, what is known as the Landlord and Tenant
Act was passed by Parliament, under which the commissioners were
authorized to advance two-thirds of the purchase money agreed upon
instead of one-fourth, to be repaid in thirty-five years with 5 per cent
interest, and all agricultural and pastural lands in Ireland were
included in its provisions. Under this act 877 tenants purchased their
holdings for a total of £859,000, of which the government advanced
£514,526.
"This act was amended in 1881 to provide that three-quarters instead of
two-thirds of the purchase money might be advanced by the government on
the same terms, and 731 tenants took advantage of it. The advances
amounted to £240,801.
"What was known as the Ashbourne Act was passed in 1885, appropriating
the sum of £5,000,000 to enable the commissioners to purchase estates
for the purpose of reselling them to the tenants and others, and they
were authorized to furnish the entire purchase money, to be repaid in
annual installments extending over a period of forty-nine years, with
interest at 5 per cent. In 1888 an additional sum of £5,000,000 was
advanced for the same purpose, and 25,368 tenants on 1,355 estates
purchased their holdings with £9,992,640 advanced by the government.
"These funds having been exhausted, Mr. Balfour in 1891 introduced a new
system under which the landlord, instead of cash, was paid in guaranteed
stock exchangeable for consols equal in amount to the purchase money,
and running for thirty years with interest at 2-3/4; per cent. This stock
was guaranteed by the Irish probate duty, the customs, and excise taxes,
and certain local grants. The amount of stock that could be issued for
any county was limited, however, and when that limit was reached the
sales had to stop. The advances under this act were £39,145,348.
"The Act of 1891 was amended in 1896 in various respects. The annual
installments were fixed at 4 per cent, 2-3/4; per cent being for interest
and 1-1/4; per cent to create a sinking fund for the repayment of the
capital. The number of purchases arranged under this act was 36,994, and
the total amount advanced was £10,809,190.
"The following table will give the number of tenants who have purchased
their holdings from their landlords with the assistance of the
government under these various acts and under the Wyndham Act of 1903
from 1869 to the 31st of May, 1908:
No. Amt.
purchasers. advanced.
Irish Church Act of 1869 6,057 £1,674,841
Act of 1870 877 514,536
Act of 1881 731 240,801
Act of 1885 26,367 9,992,536
Act of 1891 46,806 13,633,190
Act of 1903 46,576 17,657,279
------- -----------
Total to date named 127,414 £43,713,183"
The following table shows the number of tenant purchasers under the
three land purchase acts of 1885-88, 1891-96, and 1903; the amount due
from them annually, the number who were in arrears, and the amount of
money unpaid on July 1, 1908:
Number Install- Number Amount
purchasers. ments. unpaid. unpaid.
Act of
1885-88 25,382 £369,130 354 £2,900
1891-96 46,837 517,943 374 3,920
1903 44,773 561,858 305 3,312
------ ---------- ----- -------
Total 116,992 £1,448,931 1,033 £10,132
This is an extraordinary statement. It shows that 116,992 Irish farmers
have had farms purchased for them by the government, which they are
under obligations to pay for by installments amounting annually to
$7,240,000. Only 1,033, or less than 1 per cent, of them are in arrears
in their payments, and the amount unpaid is only about $50,000. The
statement shows that only 120 are in arrears for more than one
installment. This is conclusive evidence that the peasant farmers of
Ireland are carrying out in good faith the generous arrangement that has
been made for them by the British Parliament.
In addition to the actual tenants, the estates commissioners have
provided farms for 2,647 persons who are not tenants, but are the sons
of farmers or laborers upon the farms. These are called "landless"
persons, and they are the ones who are making the trouble for the
government in several of the counties by driving off the cattle and
otherwise annoying the landlords and lessees of ranches that are being
used for pasturage while they are without farms. To such persons 70,326
acres, an average of 35 acres each, have been allotted and paid for by
the government.
"The fortunes of the Irish peasantry will soon be in their own hands,"
said Mr. Bailey. "Ireland is soon to be like Denmark, a peasant state;
and the wealth-producing capacity of the country will be in the hands of
small farmers who own their homes and will have the entire benefit of
the results of their labor.
"It is often complained," continued Mr. Bailey, "that the farmers of
Ireland are not good cultivators, and perhaps that is true in a measure,
except down in Wexford and other parts of the east coast south of Dublin
and in the north of Ireland. But there are very good reasons for it.
The Irish farmers never had any instruction until lately. Before the
famine they merely raised enough to supply their own wants and, having
no interest in the land, did nothing to improve it. Since the famine,
however, and within the last few years there has been a very great
advance in agricultural conditions, and as the older generation dies off
and the younger generation comes on there will be better farming,
because they will know how to apply their labor. One reason for the lack
of good farming and the carelessness and neglect was that there was no
fixed tenure for the tenants, and as they naturally hated their
landlords, they were not willing to do anything to improve the value of
the property. Another reason is that they have been raising cattle so
long that they have forgotten how to cultivate the land. The area of
pasturage in Ireland has been gradually increasing and the acreage
plowed has been gradually decreasing, until now, of the 20,000,000 acres
of land of Irish territory only 2,357,530 are devoted to crops, and no
less than 14,712,849 are devoted to meadows and pastures. The area under
cultivation has been growing smaller every year. In 1875 it was
5,332,813 acres, in 1895 it was 4,931,000, in 1905 it was 2,999,082,
while in 1907 it was 2,357,530 acres.
"Another reason for poor farming is that the best element, the most
active and enterprising of our people, have gone to America, which has
increased the ratio of those who are physically and intellectually
inferior. Then, again, it has become a matter of fashion to neglect the
soil. Our people prefer to live in the towns rather than on the farms.
The Irish are a social race, and, as has been demonstrated by the
emigrants to America, they prefer a crowded tenement house to plenty of
room on a farm."
"That the farms of the tenant purchasers have largely improved in all
parts of Ireland, as regards cultivation and general conditions, is
unquestionable," said Mr. Bailey. "The exceptions to this rule are so
few and of such a nature as to emphasize rather than detract from the
good effect of the land reforms, as shown by the general condition of
the farms we have been able to visit. In the great majority of cases we
found that the purchasers have devoted their energies and their savings
to the improvement of the land and of the buildings. In many districts,
especially those in the provinces of Leinster and Munster, the tenants
have hitherto been more anxious to increase the productive power of the
soil than to add to their comforts or the appearances of their homes, or
to make permanent improvements. But we found improvements in fencing,
draining, in the cleaning of fields, in the re-making of farm roads, and
in other respects, as well as by increasing the fertility of the soil by
manuring and top-dressing. We found also that the actual productiveness
of the land in many cases had been increased since its purchase, by
improved management.
"On some estates conditions have not improved, because of various
reasons. Some lazy people, unfortunately, have no desire to change. They
live a dull, commonplace life, without enterprise, energy, or ambition.
Some of them are affected by their environment, as in the case of small
farmers who are in the midst of a community of large cattle-growers.
Again, the cost of labor is so great that many cannot afford to hire
help to do what they cannot do themselves, and have postponed
improvements until a more favorable opportunity.
"However, that the dwellings, outhouses, stables, and barns of tenant
purchasers have materially improved throughout Ireland is certain. The
testimony on this point from every part of the four provinces is uniform
and conclusive. A considerable number of new buildings have been erected
either by home labor or capital already in hand, and many farmers are
taking advantage of the loans offered by the board of works. This is
particularly true in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary,
Waterford, and Wexford. On some estates there is a great deal of rivalry
among the new purchasers as to which shall have the best showing in the
way of buildings. In other cases, I regret to say, the houses and barns
continue in a very neglected state.
"It is also gratifying to be able to say that in the large majority of
cases throughout Ireland the credit of the tenant purchasers has
improved very considerably since they bought their holdings. Such is the
universal testimony of local bank managers, shopkeepers, ministers of
religion, and other representative persons whom we have consulted. And
this improvement in credit is perhaps most marked in localities where
farmers were worse off in former times. The explanation is that the
farmers have now been started on new careers free from obligations, and
are able to devote all of their attention and energies to improving
their condition without being worried by financial and other troubles.
"The 'Gombeen man,' the money-lender, the Shylock, who has been the
curse of Ireland, has actually disappeared from many districts, and in
others he is rapidly losing his business. The men who have bought their
farms under the Wyndham Act do not ask for credit. They pay in cash very
generally, and wherever they do borrow, they are able to get better
terms, because they have something substantial behind them and are not
likely to be thrown out into the street at any time as formerly. Those
who are borrowing money now want it for improvements, and not to pay off
old mortgages or meet previous obligations.
"The first, and in many respects the most important, consequence of
owning farms is the contentment that it has given to the people. Their
minds are at ease. Their anxiety as to their future treatment from their
landlord or his agent has vanished, and the misfortunes which often
distressed them have disappeared. In their investigations the
commissioners and the inspectors employed by them have met very few
tenant purchasers who have any fault to find with the conditions under
which they are now living. We have met several men who had lost their
cattle by disease, and others whose crops had failed; but they seemed to
be cheerful, and were confident that with care and industry they would
soon be on their legs again.
"In the poorer districts on the west coast of Ireland little improvement
has been made, and little more can be expected for a generation; yet
there has been progress, and the Congested Districts Board is doing a
great deal by its liberal policy. The people are very poor, but they do
not complain of their poverty. They freely admit that their standard of
living has improved of recent years, and more especially since they
became owners. 'Purchase has brought peace,' said a parish priest.
'People are more industrious, more temperate, more saving, and more
cheerful.' In many places which had formerly been troublesome, the
constabulary report that quietness and order and a supreme feeling of
contentment and satisfaction with present conditions prevailed. At
Fermanagh the parish priest said that the consumption of liquor had
fallen one-half since the farmers had purchased their own farms, and
that the money which had been spent for drink was now being saved for
improvements on the farms, and for better clothes, for implements, and
for other purposes, which show an increased pride in appearances and a
sense of responsibility.
"There is no question but that the standard of living in every respect
has been raised since the people of Ireland have been allowed to own the
farms they till," continued Mr. Bailey. "This appears in their personal
appearance as well as in the food provided for their tables. It is due
to the greater self-respect that has been inspired by a sense of
proprietorship. The most important and fundamental benefit that the
Irish people are enjoying from the ownership of their farms is the
elevation of their own opinion of themselves--the self-respect and
ambition that a proprietor always feels. They wear better clothes, they
take better care of their persons, and they require better food. On many
farms in the west of Ireland, where the people lived almost exclusively
on porridge and potatoes, they now use bread, eggs, American bacon, and
tea. American bacon is used in preference to Irish bacon because it
contains more fat and makes a better dish for a large family when boiled
with cabbage. The improvement in clothing occurs simultaneously with the
improvement in food and farming tools, and both follow immediately after
the title to the land is secured. People often explain that formerly
they 'had to scrape together every penny to pay the rent, but now we can
live decently.'
"But the sanitary arrangements throughout western Ireland still need a
great deal of attention. The manure heap is still in unpleasant
proximity to the dwelling place, and the practice of keeping cattle,
pigs, and chickens under the same roof and often in the same room with
the family has not disappeared as rapidly as one might hope. We
inspected a farm in Mayo where the family and the cow lived in the same
room, but it was kept remarkably clean and tidy. Every part of the
earthen floor outside the corner that was alloted to the cow was
carefully swept, and the 'dresser,' the chief article of furniture in an
Irish cabin, showed taste and neatness, and was well stocked with very
good china in which the owner seemed to take great pride. When we
remarked on the presence of the cow in the cabin he replied, 'Sure, I
could not leave the poor animal out in the cold.' The tenant purchaser
of a farm in Galway said she had to keep the cow in the house because
she could not afford to erect a barn, and if the animal died she would
be ruined. But the practice is being slowly abandoned, and since the
land act was enforced many people who formerly sheltered their cattle,
pigs, and poultry in the same dwelling-place as themselves in their long
and severe winters have been building separate houses for them. We were
told that this was the exception before purchase, and that it is now the
rule. The tendency is undeniably toward neatness, good repairs, and
sanitary improvements, and although it is slow it is certain.
"The scarcity of farm labor and the high rates of wages that are now
demanded are keeping back improvements that farmers cannot make without
assistance, but the people are beginning to realize the advantages of
co-operation, and are helping each other in such a way that it seldom
becomes necessary to call outside labor. A holding that can only be
worked by the aid of paid labor under present circumstances is not
profitable, and a large farm cannot be worked to an advantage unless
the owner has a son to assist him. Not only have the wages of farm labor
increased, but its efficiency has decreased. Hired workmen now insist
upon better food and better accommodations.
"There was undoubtedly ample room for improvement in the wages, the
food, and the treatment of farm laborers throughout Ireland. The
laborers cannot be blamed for demanding it; but a higher standard in
each of these respects meant an increase in the cost of cultivating the
soil and a decrease in the profits of the farmer. The labor situation is
due first to the emigration of the young men to America, and second to
the migration from the farms to the cities.
"The estates commission has received very little complaint of the
regulations which require the punctual payment of installments and
interest money to the government. Here and there a purchaser objects
because he has to sell cattle or make some other sacrifice at an
inconvenient time to raise the money, and asserts that under the
landlord system he would have been allowed time; but such instances are
extremely rare, and very few persons admitted that they prefer a private
individual to the government as a landlord. The purchasers of farms
almost unanimously agree that their annual installments due the
government are very considerably less than the rents they were paying,
and they now have to sell a much smaller portion of their produce than
formerly to meet the rent.
"It is right and proper that I should speak of the almost invariable
courtesy that has been shown to the commissioners and our inspectors
when we have visited the farmers," said Mr. Bailey in conclusion. "Very
rarely has any suspicion been exhibited, and the fullest information has
been given to us. This courtesy and good feeling was especially
manifested by the smaller and poorer farmers in the west and south of
Ireland. There was no spirit of cringing or cowardice. Both men and
women spoke with dignity and independence, and almost invariably
expressed themselves as gratified that a great department of the
government should wish to learn how they were getting along. They were
pleased that a government official should show sufficient interest in
their welfare to come and talk with them sympathetically. Many of them
inquired as to the workings of the new act in other parts of Ireland,
and asked advice on various small matters, which to them were of
importance."
VI
SACRED SPOTS IN DUBLIN
There are many imposing public monuments in Dublin, the most conspicuous
of which is a massive pillar, one hundred and thirty-four feet high,
erected in 1808 in honor of Lord Nelson, hero of the battle of
Trafalgar. In Phoenix Park another native of Dublin, equally famous as
a fighter, is honored by a stubby sort of square shaft after the pattern
of the Washington monument in Washington, and a little more than
one-third of the height. On the four sides of the pedestal the Duke of
Wellington's greatest victories are illustrated by battle scenes in
bronze panels. Near this monument is the magazine in which the British
soldiers keep their ammunition. It was the subject of Dean Swift's last
epigram:
"Behold! a proof of Irish sense;
Here Irish wit is seen.
When nothing's left that's worth defense,
We build a magazine."
There is a fine equestrian statue of Lord Gough in Phoenix Park, cast
from the cannon taken by his command, and a bronze phoenix erected by
Lord Chesterfield when he was lieutenant-governor.
Daniel O'Connell's great services to Ireland are commemorated by the
finest bridge over the Liffey River, and an imposing and elaborate
monument facing it upon the principal street of the town. It is a little
confusing because of the many figures that surround it. The statue of
O'Connell is twelve feet high, and is surrounded by fifty small statues,
all allegorical, the chief being that of "Erin" casting off her fetters
and pointing to the liberator as if to say, "He told me to do it."
Father Mathew is represented by a marble figure with a noble pose and
an unusually expressive face. It was made by a woman, a Miss Redmond.
There are also statues of Grattan, Curran, Edmund Burke, Thomas Moore,
Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Robert Stewart the musician, Smith O'Brien, Sir
John Grey, William of Orange, George I., George II., George III.; and
Queen Victoria sits in bronze upon a massive pedestal, surrounded by
famous figures representing the various colonies of the British Empire
upon which it has been frequently stated that the sun never sets. Of
modern men, Sir Benjamin Guinness, the brewer, his son, Lord Ardilaun,
and the late Archbishop Plunkett are honored, and some of the figures,
particularly the latter, are very good.
At the "top" of O'Connell Street, as they say here, corresponding to the
O'Connell monument, will soon stand a tall shaft surmounted by a statue
of the late Charles Stewart Parnell. The money was raised in America by
John E. Redmond and Daniel Tallon, recently Lord Mayor of Dublin, and
the monument was designed and the figure cast by the late Augustus Saint
Gaudens. It was his latest and one of his most effective works. It was
quite appropriate that Saint Gaudens, who was an Irish boy, should have
been commissioned for this statue, which many consider the most
beautiful of all the many monuments in Dublin.
Parnell's grave in Prospect Cemetery is not neglected, although I have
seen it stated repeatedly that such was the case. It occupies the most
prominent place in the cemetery, on the western side of the memorial
chapel, on a spot corresponding with that occupied by the towering
monument of Daniel O'Connell on the eastern side. The grave is in the
center of a large circle, surrounded by an iron fence, shaded by
beautiful trees, and large foliage plants which were in full bloom. The
turf is well kept, and here and there are memorial wreaths preserved
under glass globes. In the center of the circle is a high mound,
protected by a hedge of arbor vitæ, and ornamented by several rose
bushes. The grave is in the center of the mound. At the head is an iron
cross six feet high, and at the foot the name "Parnell" is worked out in
large letters of box.
[Illustration: THE CUSTOMS HOUSE, DUBLIN]
One of the employees of the cemetery, who showed us around, said that it
was the intention of Parnell's friends to erect a monument to correspond
with that of Daniel O'Connell on the other side of the chapel, but after
a discussion of several years they had decided to place the memorial
downtown at the site I have already mentioned, where it would always be
before the eyes of the public. O'Connell's body is buried in a crypt
underneath the monument. His heart is in a casket in the chapel of the
Irish College at Rome.
Several other famous Irish patriots are buried in Prospect Cemetery, and
I asked the guide where the body of Robert Emmet was laid.
"That's a great sacret," he answered mysteriously, "an' I wouldn't tell
it to yer honor avin if I knew; with all respict to yer honor. It woul'
be the same as me life is worth. The soul of Robert Emmet has gone to
God. His bones is in the hands of the friends of Ireland, but will
remain in their prisint sacred hiding place until Ireland is free."
Michael Davitt is buried in the town of Straid, County Mayo, where he
was born and where his parents were evicted from their home during his
childhood. The grave is marked with an ordinary stone. There has been no
movement thus far for a monument in his honor. His widow lives at
Dalkey, the lovely suburb of Dublin by the sea, which I describe
elsewhere. She is in excellent circumstances financially, has a
comfortable home,--much more comfortable than any she had during her
husband's lifetime,--and is educating her four children, two boys and
two girls, at the best schools. The oldest son, now a young man of
twenty-two, is studying law, and promises to show much of the ability of
his father.
One bright day I made a pilgrimage to the birthplaces and homes of
famous Irishmen in Dublin. It is to be regretted that the people of that
city feel so little respect for the memory of their heroes as to permit
the scenes that were associated so closely with their careers to become
filthy whisky dives. Several of these sacred places are among the most
disreputable saloons in Dublin.
Henry Grattan was born in 1746 in a house on Fishamble Street, near the
old church where Handel first produced his famous oratorio "The
Messiah," and was baptized in the Church of St. John near by. He was
educated in Trinity College, Dublin, and the trustees of that
institution have erected a statue in his honor outside the old house of
parliament, now the Bank of Ireland, which was the scene of his most
eminent services. He is represented in the attitude of pleading with
uplifted hands for the liberty of Ireland. The figure is the
personification of eloquence.
Grattan spent his early life in Dublin, was admitted to the bar in 1773,
and entered parliament at the age of twenty-nine in 1775. He immediately
assumed the leadership of the opposition to the government, and it was
through his ability and able management that the king and the British
Parliament were compelled to give Ireland free trade and the
constitution in 1782. What was called "Grattan's parliament" lasted
nineteen years, and its activity was tremendous and comprehensive, and
the results may now be seen in every direction. It conferred innumerable
benefits upon the city of Dublin and upon the country at large. During
the nineteen years it was in session it made greater public improvement
than occurred in any single century before. It built the two greatest
edifices in Ireland,--the Four Courts and the customs house,--which are
beautiful examples of the classic school of architecture, and each cost
several millions of dollars. The Bank of Ireland was founded as the
financial agent of the government, but Grattan, when he moved its
establishment, little dreamed that it would store its gold and transact
its business in the very chamber where the act was passed. The Royal
Irish Academy was founded to promote "the study of science and polite
learning and antiquities." Three great hospitals were built; the College
of Physicians and Surgeons was incorporated and erected, a dignified and
stately building upon Stephen's Green. The commerce of the country was
developed and large warehouses and mercantile establishments were
erected to accommodate it. Many new manufactories were established.
Highroads were built in every direction, coach lines were inaugurated
to accommodate travel, and sailing packets to carry passengers and mails
across the sea. The canal was built, one hundred miles long, to bring
freight to the city. Penny post was introduced. The Guinness brewery was
developed, with a great profit to the proprietors, and began to send to
England the beer it had been selling for local customers for half a
century.
[Illustration: THE BANK OF IRELAND, DUBLIN]
Grattan was the leader of all this prosperity, and introduced many and
advocated all of the laws to encourage it. As an acknowledgment of his
services, Parliament voted him a gift of $250,000, which enabled him to
settle down as a country gentleman at a seat called "Tinnehinch," near
the town of Enniskerry, a few miles south of Dublin, near the
watering-place called Bray. The British government offered him the
viceregal lodge, now occupied by the lord lieutenant, in Phoenix Park;
but Grattan declined it, for fear the gift might be misinterpreted.
This period of self-government, which might be called "the golden age"
of Ireland, lasted nineteen years, when "Grattan's parliament" fell, as
so many other good things have fallen, because it became "vain of its
own conceit." It is not expedient, it is not wholesome, for the same
party to remain in control of affairs too long. Its members become
corrupt, extravagant, selfish, intolerant, and indifferent to the public
welfare, and Grattan's parliament acquired all of these faults. The
great leader--and he was one of the ablest political leaders that ever
came upon the theater of public affairs--was unable to control his
followers. They became restless, they favored measures that he could not
approve, and advocated a radical policy toward the British government
that he opposed with all his energy and eloquence.
He was soon displaced from leadership by the extremists, who demanded
absolute separation from England and encouraged the revolutions of 1798
and 1803. These movements were undoubtedly encouraged by the example of
the French Revolution, when the hot heads came into control. Ireland
burst into rebellion, which was put down with the utmost severity, and
William Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, introduced the act of
union which was adopted by the Irish house through bribery, bulldozing,
and other disreputable measures.
Grattan was very ill, but, leaning on the shoulders of two friends, and
dressed in his old volunteer uniform, he entered the Irish house of
parliament, now the cash-room of the Bank of Ireland, and made the
greatest speech of his life. But he failed to change the destiny of his
country. He did not change a vote, and the bond which now binds Ireland
to Great Britain, and which the Irish people have been trying to
dissolve ever since, was passed against his vehement protests. If his
advice had been followed by the Irish parliament, if its members had
listened to his pleadings, the disturbances, the distress, the bloodshed
of a century would have been spared. William Pitt bought a majority of
the votes and paid for them with pensions, official positions, titles of
nobility, and other forms of reward.
The debate provoked a duel between Grattan and Correy, chancellor of the
exchequer. Shots were exchanged and Correy was wounded in the hand.
Grattan pronounced the funeral oration of the Irish parliament in the
words that are immortal:
"I do not give up my country," he said. "I see her in a swoon, but she
is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless there
is upon her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty--
"'Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.'"
It is true, as the man of the cemetery told us, that the burial place of
Robert Emmet is unknown. Many people believe that his body was given to
the surgeons of Trinity College after his execution, because if it had
been given to his friends they would have erected a monument to mark his
grave. No one of all the many people who admired and loved him has ever
been able to obtain a clew to its disappearance. It is a popular
belief, which the leaders of patriotic movements encourage, that the
burial place is known and will be disclosed, as the man at the cemetery
said, when the flag of freedom floats over "The Ould Sod," but there is
no good reason for such a romantic hope. Several of those who would be
informed if there were any foundation for such an expectation have told
me that it is all romance; that Emmet's grave has never been discovered
and probably never will be, because it doesn't exist.
I went to the home of Robert Emmet in Marchalsea Lane, near the debtor's
prison, where he used to meet his fellow conspirators while organizing
the insurrection of the United Irishmen in 1803. Emmet was a brilliant,
eager boy, only twenty-four, and had been expelled from the University
of Dublin for sympathy with the revolution of 1798. He went to Paris,
remained there for a while until things had quieted down, and then
returned to Dublin, where he conceived a rash project to seize the
castle and the fort. The authorities were taken entirely by surprise,
but the country contingent which had been promised to support him failed
to arrive, and Emmet, with less than a hundred men, armed with
pikes--simply spearheads mounted on the ends of poles--marched against
the castle and, of course, were immediately overcome. Many of his
followers, who fled to their homes, were killed at their own doors, and
Emmet became a fugitive.
Robert Emmet was born in Dublin in 1778 and was a playmate and
schoolfellow of Thomas Moore, the poet. His brother, Thomas Addis Emmet,
born in 1764, was involved in the revolution of 1798 and fled to
America, where he became eminent at the bar of New York, serving at one
time as attorney-general of that State. He left several sons and
grandsons.
When Robert Emmet escaped, after the failure of his foolish attack upon
the castle, he took refuge among friends in the Wicklow Hills, south of
Dublin, to await an opportunity to cross over to France. Against their
protests he went at night to say good-by to his sweetheart, Sarah
Curran, daughter of the famous advocate, was arrested and tried for high
treason. He conducted his own defense with extraordinary ability. His
closing speech stands as one of the greatest examples of eloquence in
the English language. He was condemned to death and hanged outside of
St. Catherine's Church, upon the spot where Lord Kilwarden, an eminent
judge of the highest integrity, was killed by some of Emmet's men while
returning with his nephew and daughter from a visit to the country.
Emmet, in his farewell speech, asked that his epitaph should not be
written until Ireland was free, and that undoubtedly suggested the
popular belief that his burial place is known and will be disclosed in
due time.
Sarah Curran died soon after in Sicily of a broken heart, and Tom Moore,
one of Emmet's most beloved friends and also devoted to Miss Curran,
enshrined the pathetic story in a touching ballad:
"She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps,
For her heart on his grave is lying.
"She sings the wild songs of her native plains,
Every note which he loved awaking;
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
How the heart of the minstrel is breaking."
Near by the place where Emmet and his fellow conspirators planned the
revolution of 1803, is No. 151 Thomas Street, the house in which Lord
Edward Fitzgerald, leader of the insurrection of 1798, was captured
after desperate struggle, and it is a curious coincidence that he and
Emmet should both have been arrested by the same man, a certain Major
Sirr, in command of a regiment at the castle. Lord Edward's refuge was
the house of a tailor who sympathized with the insurrection, as almost
every other artisan in Ireland did, and sheltered him for several days
before the arrest. The house is marked with a tablet and an appropriate
inscription. Lord Edward was wounded in the shoulder by Major Sirr and
carried away to prison, where he died before he could be brought into
court.
The Corn Market of Dublin is just beyond the house, and the name of the
thoroughfare is there changed to Thomas Street, which is customary in
Dublin. Sometimes there is a different name for every block, and it is
very puzzling to a stranger. You walk from Clare Street into Merrion
Street and from Merrion Street into some other; from Dame Street into
the Corn Market, and from the Corn Market into Thomas Street, all
unconscious, but the names are plainly posted on the walls of the corner
houses both in English and Gaelic, so that he who runs may read.
Thomas Street is very wide, and that is understood when you know it was
formerly an open market-place outside the city walls for the sale of
country produce. The octroi tax levied by the corporation on the farmers
who brought in vegetables, butter, chickens, and eggs was paid in kind,
a measure of corn from each sack, a pound of butter from each firkin,
and one egg from every twelve, which was the origin of a proverb that
eleven eggs make a dozen in Ireland. The taxes were farmed out to the
highest bidder, who exacted every penny possible from the farmers and
used every means of extortion that could be devised to increase his
profit. The most odious of all the Dublin tax contractors in history was
a woman named Kate Strong, and they hated her so that after her death
the farmers erected a gross caricature of her person holding a large
toll dish in her hand. It stood for several years.
James Street succeeds Thomas Street on the same thoroughfare and runs
down upon the river quay, where the enormous brewery establishment of
the Guinness Company begins.
Across the river from the big brewery is No. 12 Arran Quay, named for
the son of the Duke of Ormonde, where Edmund Burke was born in 1729 of a
Protestant barrister and a Catholic mother. He was educated at a Quaker
school at Ballitore, County Kildare, and at Trinity College, where in
1747 he organized a debating club, which still exists.
After finishing his course in 1750 he went to London "to keep terms at
the Temple," that is, to finish his law studies and prepare for his
examinations; but suddenly, owing to some disappointment, he conceived
a strong distaste for his profession, and plunged into a wild career of
dissipation. He was introduced by Goldsmith to that circle of Bohemians
which gathered nightly at the Cheshire Cheese Inn and similar resorts.
He was a close companion of Garrick, Johnson, and others, and became one
of the many devoted attendants of his beautiful countrywoman, Peg
Woffington, the famous actress.
His dissipation gave his family great distress and caused his father to
cut off his allowance. This compelled him to do something for himself.
He went into politics, and soon made a reputation as a speaker and
writer and political manager. He wrote a great deal that was serious and
even sublime, and, mending his ways, secured the patronage of the
Marquis of Buckingham, the prime minister, who opened the doors of the
House of Commons for him. In a very short time he became the most
effective debater and the most influential leader of his party. Then his
abilities were fully recognized and his fame encircled the world.
He was the ablest friend of the American colonies in England during the
Revolution, and harassed Lord North more than any other man. He reached
the summit of his influence at the impeachment of Warren Hastings for
misgovernment and treason while viceroy in India; and then Burke's sun
began to set. He retired upon a pension, and passed from history with
the eighteenth century. One of his eulogists has said that
"notwithstanding some eccentricities and some aberrations, he made the
tide of human destiny luminous."
Near Burke's birthplace is the oldest and the quaintest church in
Dublin, built by the Danes before the English came to Ireland and
consecrated to St. Michan, a Danish saint. Within its walls is the
penitential stool, where "open and notorious naughty livers" were
compelled to stand and confess their sins in public and make pledges of
repentance and reform. The officiating minister, reciting the
fifty-first Psalm, led the offending sinner from the altar to the foot
of the pulpit,--barefooted, bareheaded, and draped in a long white
sheet,--and placed him upon the stool of repentance to hear a sermon
directed at his particular sins.
The tower of St. Michan's dates from the twelfth century, and is one of
the most beautiful things in Dublin. The view from the top of it
includes all the city, which is divided into two almost equal parts by
the River Liffey and spreads over an uneven surface from the dark green
woods of Phoenix Park to the dark blue waters of the Irish Sea.
Handel used to play the organ in St. Michan's Church, and it was there
the public first heard the score of "The Messiah."
The most remarkable feature of St. Michan's, however, is a peculiar
preservative effect from the soil in the crypt upon the bodies that are
buried there. They mummify before decay sets in and turn into a leathery
brown, similar to the mummies of Egypt. The vaults are filled with
remains that have lain there for centuries. Among them is the body of
one of the kings of Leinster, and beside him is the corpse of a baby,
from whose tiny wrists white ribbon has been hanging since its funeral
in 1679. Every corpse in the crypt is mummified in the same way, and it
is the only place in Dublin where this phenomenon occurs. Nor is there
any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. The vaults are
absolutely dry. The popular theory is that a subtle gas arising from the
peaty soil suspends nature's law of decay.
There will always be a controversy among Irishmen as to whether Edmund
Burke or Daniel O'Connell was the greater man. They were so different in
their characteristics that it is difficult to draw a comparison.
O'Connell was not a native of Dublin. He was born at the humble village
of Cahirciveen, in County Kerry, one of the most forlorn, impoverished,
and hopeless sections of the west coast. He was the son of an exile who
fled to escape arrest and entered the service of France, and from him
O'Connell inherited an intense prejudice and hatred of everything
English and Protestant. He was educated in Cork for the priesthood, but
changed his mind and was called to the bar when he was twenty-three
years old. He immediately made a reputation, and by the time he was
thirty was regarded as the ablest advocate in Ireland, without an equal
in oratory. Probably no man ever surpassed him before a jury.
O'Connell is regarded by many as the ablest of all Irishmen, but, as I
have said, this claim is disputed in favor of Edmund Burke. He was
equally strong as a politician and undertook the cause of Catholic
emancipation in his very youth. In those days all Catholics were
disenfranchised; they could not hold office or even vote; the schools
were closed to them, and a Catholic child could only be taught by a
private tutor or governess. Daniel O'Connell organized the parish
priests for the movement and was the first to bring the clergy into
politics. Through them he organized the people, and regular
contributions were collected in the churches to pay the expenses of the
campaign.
O'Connell was the first Catholic to enter parliament, and the Duke of
Wellington confessed that this was permitted only to avert a civil war.
In 1828 he was elected to the British House of Commons, but was not
admitted because he refused to take the anti-Catholic oath. He came back
to his constituents and was elected again, and they continued to elect
him, just as the merchants and bankers in the city of London continued
to elect Baron Rothschild, who was refused admission for the same
reason,--because he would not take the oath. He was the first Jew, as
Daniel O'Connell was the first Roman Catholic, to obtain a seat upon the
floor.
O'Connell was elected lord mayor of Dublin in 1841 and was the first
Catholic to hold that office. At the height of his fame and power he
might have been a lord protector or the king of Ireland, but he
advocated peaceful revolutions, and, like Grattan, lost his influence
because he would not consent to the policy and the methods of the
radical and revolutionary element. In 1847 he went to address a meeting
of his sympathizers at Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin, where Brian Boru
won his great victory over the Danes in the last battle between
Christianity and heathenism upon the soil of Ireland. The meeting had
been forbidden by the authorities, and O'Connell was arrested,
convicted, and sentenced to prison for two months. This broke him down.
When he was released he left Dublin, started for Rome, and died at Genoa
on his way. He is buried in Prospect Cemetery under a lofty tower. His
will may be seen in the public records office in the Four Courts. He
married his cousin, Mary O'Connell, and had four sons, all of whom were
men of character and ability and have served in the British parliament.
The anniversary of the birth of Thomas Moore is celebrated in Dublin
every summer, and a programme of his "Irish Melodies" is sung by local
musicians--sweet old-fashioned ballads like "The Harp That Once through
Tara's Halls," "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms," and
others like them. The proceeds of the concert are devoted to a fund
which is to be raised to erect a monument in memory of this most popular
of Irish poets, whose songs are heard in every cottage in Ireland. His
most pretentious poem, a Persian epic called "Lalla Rookh," brought
$15,000,--the highest price ever paid for a poem. Scott's "Lady of the
Lake" and some of Tennyson's and perhaps Kipling's poems and other
poets', have received larger sums in royalties, but no other man was
paid so much for his verses in advance of their publication.
Moore was born in a little house on Aungier Street, Dublin, which is
unfortunately now a filthy saloon. He was educated in a little grammar
school in Johnston's Court, off Grafton Street, near the Shelbourne
Hotel, where Richard Brinsley Sheridan was also a pupil. Petty, the
first great Irish scientist, who was also a physician and surveyor, was
educated there. His book of surveys made for Oliver Cromwell is still
used by the authorities.
Tom Moore was a chum of Robert Emmet at Trinity College. After
graduation he entered journalism and was connected with the _London
Times_ and the _London Chronicle_. He went to Bermuda as British consul
in 1803, and visited the United States before he returned. He was
lionized everywhere because his plaintive Irish ballads, which he set to
the music of the oldest peasant airs, were in the portfolio of every
musician in the civilized world, and his social attractions made him a
welcome guest. When he returned to England he was given a pension of
$1,000 a year until his death.
Volumes might be written concerning the literary reminiscences of
Dublin. Addison was private secretary to the notorious viceroy Wharton,
and the evidence indicates that his behavior was not so blameless as the
readers of Macaulay's sketch of his life would infer. His official
correspondence shows that he was not exempt from the usual weaknesses of
humanity and not above making an honest penny out of his office. He
seemed to be avaricious, and, although holding a position of the closest
confidence to the lord lieutenant, took an interest in several
commercial ventures that were not entirely beyond criticism.
Samuel Lover and Charles Lever, those two greatest of all delineators of
Irish character, were both born and educated in Dublin and did most of
their work there. Their graphic sketches of Irish life may have been
accurate in their day, and now and then, I am told, appears one of the
rollicking types of the Irishman they describe; but, while the character
of the race may not be changed, its habits and customs are quite
different from those of the period they describe. There's a grammar
school at which Tom Moore and Richard Brinsley Sheridan both received
their education. Sheridan was born on the same block, and the house is
marked by a tablet. Another tablet near the entrance of a house only a
few steps distant shows where Sir William Hamilton, the great Irish
mathematician, lived. Mrs. Hemans, that gentle hymn writer, whose lines
were much more familiar to the reading public half a century ago than
they are to-day, lived and died in the same neighborhood, and was buried
in St. Anne's Church, near by. Her epitaph, taken from one of her own
serene poems, reads:
"Calm on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now!
Even while with us thy footsteps trod,
His seal was on thy brow."
[Illustration: ST. STEPHEN'S GREEN. DUBLIN]
Near by the home of Mrs. Hemans is the Royal Irish Academy, occupying a
fine old mansion, once the residence of Lord Northland. It is the oldest
and most influential of the learned societies of Ireland, and possesses
a large number of ancient manuscripts in the Gaelic tongue, most of
them, despite their great age, beautifully clear and legible. The
academy, according to its charter, was founded "for the encouragement of
science, polite literature, and antiquities." There is a good deal of
interest in the attempt to revive the Gaelic tongue, but the bitter
partisanship of politics renders polite literature quite useless.
There is a great deal that is green about Dublin, and the remark is not
intended as a joke. There are several fine parks and breathing-places
scattered about the city. Many of the residences have large back yards
filled with trees and flowers that are hidden from the public by the
high walls that guard them from the street, but one can see them from
the tops of the tram cars as he rides about. The suburbs of the city are
very attractive, with plenty of large trees and vine-clad walls and
pretty gardens, and here and there a tennis court. As you look down upon
the city from a tall tower there is almost as much foliage as in
Washington. Phoenix Park is famous, and one of the largest public
playgrounds in the world.
St. Stephen's Green is a rectangular inclosure, twenty-two acres in
extent and corresponding to four city blocks, in the fashionable
quarter, and is surrounded by the mansions of the nobility and the homes
of the rich. Lord Iveagh, the representative of the Guinness Brewery
family, has a residence on one of the sides, and the archbishop's palace
is on the other side, near the Shelbourne Hotel, which is the best in
the city, and several clubs. St. Stephen's is handsomely laid out, and
has what I have never seen before in a city square,--a bridle-path
nearly a mile long around the interior of the fence, where several
gentlemen take their exercise on horseback in the morning.
Sir Walter Scott was entertained in what he writes was "a very large and
stately house in Stephen's Green, which I am told is the most extensive
square in Europe," and, writing to his wife, he said, "The streets
contain a number of public buildings of the finest architecture I have
seen anywhere in Britain."
A few blocks away from St. Stephen's Green is another large park known
as Merrion Square, which is a private inclosure like many of the small
parks in the city of London, and is accessible only to the residents of
the neighborhood, who, I understand, purchased the land and made it into
a park two or three hundred years ago, so that the public has no rights
there. Each of the leaseholders who are entitled to its privileges is
required to pay $5 a year for maintaining it and "half a crown for a key
to the gates," as I was informed by a policeman on that beat. It is a
pretty place, with deep, lustrous turf such as you seldom see outside of
the British Isles, and find in Ireland smoother and richer and greener
than anywhere else. There are a pond and several tennis courts, cricket
and croquet grounds, which are occupied every afternoon by the rich
families in the neighborhood; and it makes you feel a little resentful
to see the children of the poor, who need that breathing space more than
the owners, peeking through between the iron pickets. It is said that
this square plot of ground, which is equal to four ordinary squares in
area, was formerly a pond, and that the Duke of Leinster in early days
used to sail a boat upon it. But it was drained two hundred years ago or
more, and the splendid great trees that are growing there now were then
planted. Leinster House is in the neighborhood.
The residences around St. Stephen's Green and Merrion Square are built
of ugly brown bricks, but are spacious in their proportions, and were
intended for large families of ample means, and the aristocracy have
always occupied them. The Duke of Rutland has one of the largest, and in
Merrion Street, just around the corner, at No. 24, in a large house now
occupied by the land commission, the great Duke of Wellington was born.
It was the town residence of the Earl of Mornington, his father, and her
ladyship came in from Dangan Castle, twenty-four miles outside the city,
and the country residence of the family, a few days before the event,
which occurred on April 29, 1769. There is nothing either in the castle
or in the town house to interest people to-day, except that they were
the birthplace and the home of one of the greatest of Irishmen, and his
fellow countrymen have raised a shaft, similar to that at Washington, in
Phoenix Park in his honor.
Across from Merrion Square is the National Gallery of Ireland, which was
built in 1864, and contains a fine collection of paintings, numbering
about five hundred, which have been presented and purchased from time to
time. All of the old masters are well represented, and the Dutch school
is especially strong. Attached to the gallery is the Metropolitan School
of Art, which is liberally supported by the British government, and has
a large number of students. Corresponding to the Art Gallery, on the
opposite side of a quadrangle known as Leinster Lawn, formerly the
garden of the Earl of Kildare, is the Science and Art Museum and the
Museum of Natural History. Both are well arranged and full of
interesting things, particularly Irish antiquities, historical relics,
and examples of Irish industries. The most precious object is an iron
bell shaped like an ordinary cow-bell and riveted on each side, which,
it is said, St. Patrick used to carry about with him and ring to call
the people together to hear mass. It is accompanied by a silver "shrine"
or case for its protection, made in the year 1100 at the expense of
Donald O'Laughlan, king of Ireland from 1091 to 1105. The "Annals of
Ulster," written in the year 552, refer to this precious object as "The
Bell of the Will," and its history is known from that date. It came into
possession of the Archbishop of Armagh in 1044, and was among the relics
in the cathedral there until it was brought to the museum in 1869. No
one here seems to doubt that it is genuine.
In the adjoining case is another "shrine," as the case or covering for
sacred relics is called, that contains a tooth of St. Patrick, which,
according to the tradition, was loosened and fell from his mouth on the
door-sill of St. Brone's Church at Killaspugbrone in County Sligo, and
can be accounted for all these years.
A brooch formerly worn by the King of Tara is also shown as an example
of the prehistoric work of the silversmiths of Ireland, with many other
beautiful pieces of silver and gold which were dug up in the bogs.
Between the museum and the library is a fine old mansion known as
Leinster House, or Kildare House, erected by the great earls of Kildare,
the leaders of the Geraldines, who chose this spot four hundred years
ago for the location of the largest and at that time the most
magnificent city residence in Ireland. It once stood in the center of
large grounds, but they have been sold off from time to time, and nearly
a hundred years ago the residence passed into the possession of the
Royal Dublin Society, which has made it the center of activity during
its long and honored career in encouraging and developing the arts,
science, and industries of Ireland. The membership of the Royal Dublin
Society for two centuries has included all of the famous men of this
nation, and they have rendered a very important service. The Royal
Library, the National Gallery, the Museum of Natural History, and the
Museum of Antiquities owe their existence to this venerable institution,
and its influence has gathered the greater part of the pictures in the
gallery and the articles of interest in the museums.
Kildare House is a severe pile of black stone, and the guide-book says
that "the White House at Washington is largely a reproduction of its
main features, though the American building has a semicircular
colonnaded porch, which rather conceals the likeness." But a resident of
Washington would find little resemblance between the two buildings,
except that they are about the same size and both have windows and a
roof.
The corner stone bears a curious inscription in stilted Latin, which
illustrates the lofty pride of the earls of Kildare. It is addressed to
"The Casual Explorer, who may find it among the stately ruins of a
fallen house, and bids him mark the greatness of the noble builders and
the uncertainty of all things terrestrial, when the men who raise such
splendid monuments can rise superior to misfortune."
There are several other fine old edifices in the neighborhood, but
unfortunately many of the historic houses are passing away from the
families who built and lived in them, and are now being used for public
offices or business purposes.
About half a mile from Trinity College, on the road to Phoenix Park,
is the ancient prison of Dublin, called Newgate, after a similar
institution in London, and it has had a similar history. It has been the
scene of horrible incidents; it has detained many of the purest and
ablest martyrs for Irish liberty within its walls, and a hundred years
ago it was frequently described in sketches of Irish life, in terms
similar to those that were written of the Fleet Prison and Newgate in
London. It was customary to have executions outside the walls in public,
and the night before they were hung favored criminals were allowed to
entertain their friends in a reckless, disgraceful carousal. Such a
scene is described in a ribald song entitled "The Night before Larry was
Stretched."
"Then in came the priest with his book,
And spoke to him smooth and so civil.
Larry tipped him a Kilmainham look,
Then pitched his big wig to the devil;
Then raising a little his head,
To get a swate drop of the bottle,
And painfully sighing he said,
O, the hemp will be soon round my throttle."
Phoenix Park has about eighteen hundred acres of lawn, flower beds,
forest, meadow, and pasture, and nineteen miles of perfect roadway. It
is open to the public at all times and there are no restrictions. A
horseback rider can gallop over the grass anywhere, cricket matches can
be played wherever is most convenient to the players. Racing meetings
are held on the turf several days in each month, the course being laid
out by movable fences. Polo, hockey, football, and all other kinds of
outdoor games are going on all the time, and almost the entire working
population of Dublin may be seen scattered over the park during these
long summer evenings, when one can read outdoors until after nine
o'clock. There is no more beautiful park, and no greater enjoyment is
found in any similar place in the world.
The viceregal lodge, in which the lord lieutenant of Ireland resides
nine months in the year, is in the center of the park, surrounded by an
inclosure of fifteen acres with a garden, stables, and cottages for the
servants. The chief secretary of Ireland and the under secretary have
official residences in the same neighborhood, provided by the state.
Immediately before the windows of the viceregal lodge Lord Frederick
Cavendish, chief secretary for Ireland, and Thomas H. Burke, the under
secretary, were assassinated in 1882. The assassination was witnessed by
the occupants of the lodge, but before they could reach the place the
assassins had escaped. The spot is now marked in an unobtrusive manner.
Phoenix Park was formerly owned by the Knights of St. John. When their
lands were confiscated by Henry VIII. at the time of the Reformation,
the monastery was selected as the official residence of the viceroy.
Additional grounds were purchased later by the Duke of Ormonde, when he
was viceroy, and the great Chesterfield, when he held the office, did
the landscape gardening, which illustrates his exquisite taste. The park
is beautiful always, they say, but it could not be more beautiful than
it is in May, when the hawthorn trees are white with blossom, the furze
bushes are blazing with orange, and the rhododendrons, which grow to
enormous size, are great banks of purple against the rich, deep foliage.
Every flower that grows in that climate seems to be in bloom, and
Phoenix Park looks as if it had just left the hands of the Creator.
VII
THE OLD AND NEW UNIVERSITIES
Imagine a university and a campus of forty-seven acres of lawn and grove
where Trinity Church stands in New York or where the post office stands
in Chicago or St. Louis. In Washington we have something like it in the
mall where the National Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the
Agricultural Department are. Trinity College, Dublin, has an equally
expansive setting of green grass and grove and flowering shrubs, cricket
grounds, and tennis courts, surrounded on all sides by business houses,
clubs, and hotels. It is like an island of verdure in the midst of an
ocean of trade and commerce. On one side of the campus the outside world
is kept at bay by a continuous line of dormitories and lecture-rooms
which overlook a busy street from the windows of one wall and a peaceful
lawn from the windows of the other. On the south side the barrier is a
high iron picket fence hidden in a wonderful hedge of hawthorn and
laburnum bushes. On the other side of that hedge are shops, and a
street-car line that leads to the more attractive part of the city.
There are only two entrances to the college green, one at the east end
and the other at the west, and it is nearly a half mile walk from one to
the other across the green and among the buildings. The main entrance
and the main buildings face the Bank of Ireland and look upon Dame
Street, which is the Wall Street of Dublin. There is a little green
crescent to divide the entrance from the street, with bronze figures of
Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith, two of the most distinguished of the
alumni.
The main building is a fine example of architecture, and the house of
the provost, which adjoins it, is a gem of the Elizabethan type. The
other buildings are unpretentious. They are rather low and long and
plain, in excellent proportions, but without particular individuality,
although the engineering building, which stands out on the campus, is an
exquisite example of modern architecture, and Ruskin pronounced it the
most beautiful modern structure in the United Kingdom.
As you enter through a low archway under the main building you come into
a quadrangle formed by a dormitory and an examination hall at the right.
Beyond that is a library. Another dormitory stands on the left, and the
chapel and the dining-hall (the last two have Grecian porticos), and
directly before you a bell tower of beautiful and original design
erected about one hundred years ago. Beyond the first quadrangle is
another, which is gloomy and uninviting. The buildings are plain, and
the dark stone of which they are made is not cheerful. The students call
it "Botany Bay," because of the prison-like style of the architecture
and its uninviting appearance. The buildings surrounding it are
dormitories, and in one of them, No. 11, Oliver Goldsmith roomed. He
wrote his autograph with a diamond upon one of the panes of glass, which
has since been removed and preserved in the library, where it lies in a
case beside the original manuscript of Handel's oratorio, "The Messiah,"
which was given there for the first time in 1745. A portion of it was
written in England, but it was completed in Dublin and sung by a Dublin
choral society immediately after.
In "Botany Bay" is a pump of great age and much history. In early days
it was the focus of academic disorder, and any policeman, sheriff, or
bailiff who dared violate the sacred precincts of Trinity was purged of
his guilt by a thorough ducking. The origin of this form of punishment
is attributed to a famous Dr. Wilder, who for many years was provost of
the college. He happened to be crossing the campus one day, when a
bailiff, who had a writ to serve, was being baited by a group of
students, and called out to them something like this: "Young gentlemen,
be careful that you do not put him under the pump," and they took the
hint.
[Illustration: QUADRANGLE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN]
Another version of the story is that Dr. Wilder cried out, "Young
gentlemen, for the love of God don't be so cruel as to nail his ears to
the pump;" and certain authors have claimed that they interpreted him to
mean the reverse, and did what he had forbidden them. But I am assured
by competent authority that the former and more humane version is the
true one, and all agree that ever since those boisterous days every
officer of the law who has been caught within the college grounds has
been given an involuntary bath from "Old Mary."
The war between the students and the police has continued ever since the
foundation of the college, and as the buildings are situated in the very
center of the city these conflicts have been unexpected and more
frequent than they might have been otherwise. In former days "Trinity
boys" never went out of the grounds without their peculiar weapons,
which were the massive keys of their rooms, about six inches long and
weighing a half a pound or more, which they would sling in handkerchiefs
or in the skirts of their gowns and use very effectively for offense or
defense, as the case might be. On one occasion several students were
captured and hustled off from their fellows to a butcher-shop, where
they were hung from the meat hooks. The rumor ran like a prairie fire
that the captives had been impaled, but when the rescuing party arrived
it was discovered that they were hanging only by the waistbands of their
breeches.
The walls of Examination Hall are hung with portraits of eminent men,
and in one corner is a full-length painting of Queen Elizabeth, the
founder. There is a superstition among the students that the picture has
an evil eye, and that whoever sits within her sphere of influence at
examinations is bound to fail. Hence the benches in that neighborhood
are empty. But a certain alcove in the library is quite crowded. Several
full sets of examination papers are preserved from year to year in that
particular alcove, and every day during examination weeks it is filled
with students cramming from them.
Across the quadrangle is the chapel. It is not specially interesting,
although there is some fine wood-carving in the stalls. The students are
required to wear surplices, and look very awkward in them, although the
white gowns light up the room and make it much more cheerful than if
they wore black. When I attended service Sunday morning two-thirds of
the stalls were vacant, although attendance is supposed to be
compulsory. I counted exactly one hundred and four persons present,
including the preacher, the professors, and ten boys in the choir. These
boys belong to the choir of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and are loaned to
the college authorities in order to increase the interest of the Sunday
services. It is considered the finest choir in Ireland, but that isn't
saying much.
The organ in the gallery has a curious history. It was made in the
Netherlands for some church in Spain, and was on its way when the ship
was captured in 1702. The Duke of Ormonde, serving in the fleet, claimed
the organ as his part of the prize money, and presented it to the
college. Many of the old pipes have been replaced, but the case remains
the same. Another interesting relic is a great chandelier which formerly
hung in the House of Commons when the Irish parliament occupied the
building now used for the Bank of Ireland.
Beyond the chapel is a curious-looking recumbent statue made of onyx,
which has been crumbling so rapidly for years that it now bears very
little resemblance to a human form, and the features are entirely
effaced. The students claim that it was intended for Queen Elizabeth,
the founder, but it was really a figure of Luke Chaloner, one of the
first promoters of the institution.
The grounds occupied by the college once belonged to All Hallows
monastery, which was suppressed by Henry VIII. and the property
confiscated. It stood well outside of the city walls and was unoccupied
when, toward the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a number of Dublin
scholars raised a fund of £2,000 to establish an institution for higher
education. Queen Elizabeth gave the confiscated estates of several rebel
chiefs and James I. increased the endowment, but it was not until the
reign of William and Anne that the college was really prosperous. They
were very generous toward it, and the Irish parliament made liberal
grants. But many a time the fellows have been compelled to melt up the
college plate and resort to other desperate means to find money to pay
for food and fuel.
During the entire history of the institution its faculty and students
have been loyal to the British government and to the Protestant church.
It has refused to receive Roman Catholics into the faculty, and for
centuries Roman Catholics were prohibited from enjoying its advantages
in education. Therefore it is not strange that it is under the ban of
that church, and there has not been a Catholic student upon the rolls
for many years. An Irish Roman Catholic gentleman remarked one day to a
member of the faculty: "If I had wanted to send my son to Trinity I
would have to fight first my priest, second my bishop, and third my
wife. Therefore I sent him to Oxford."
There are now five departments in the university,--the regular academic
department, and schools of law, medicine, theology, and engineering.
There are in attendance to-day twelve hundred and forty-one students.
Although the institution is familiarly known as Trinity College, that is
the title of the academic department, and with its affiliated schools it
constitutes the University of Dublin. The charter bears date of March
24, 1591, under the title of "The College of the Holy and Undivided
Trinity, near Dublin." Previous to 1873 the faculty, the fellows, and
those who held scholarships must be members of the Church of Ireland.
Since then all restrictions or disabilities have been removed, although
the history and traditions of the institution will not permit any
self-respecting Roman Catholic to send his son there.
Rank is strictly recognized among the students. Noblemen, sons of
noblemen, and baronets are matriculated as such under the titles of
nobilis, filius nobilis, and equas; ordinary students are called
pensioners. Sizars are students of limited means, who must make oath
that their fathers' incomes are less than $500 a year, which exempts
them from all fees and gives them their commons or meals free of
expense. Pensioners pay $60 a year, fellow commoners $150, and noblemen
$300. When a young man enters in either of these classes he selects his
tutor and makes application for a room, which is assigned him as
vacancies occur, and he is recorded. A deposit of from $40 to $150 is
required as security against any injury to the property. The room rent
varies from $20 to $100 a year. All students are compelled to attend
chapel, both in the morning at half-past eight and in the evening at
nine o'clock, and wear surplices, but upon certificates may be allowed
to attend one of the Presbyterian churches.
At half-past ten every Saturday morning the junior dean appears at the
hall and reads out the names of all students who have violated the rules
or neglected their duties during the week, and those who are present may
offer excuses, which may or may not be accepted by the dean. If they are
not accepted the student is fined a sum of money in lieu of other
punishment, and these fines are added to the commons fund, which goes to
pay for the meals of the students and is controlled by the "clerk of the
buttery books."
Fellow commoners pay seven shillings and sixpence a week for board,
pensioners five shillings, and members of the nobility ten shillings. A
fine of five shillings a week is imposed upon all students actually
resident in college who do not take their meals at the commons.
Ten students holding scholarships, called "waiters," are annually
appointed to say grace before and after meat in the commons hall, which
must be repeated in Latin in a form prescribed by the statutes of the
college. All students are required to be in the college grounds before
nine o'clock for roll-call. After roll-call no one is permitted to pass
the gates without a written order from the dean. Those who do so are
severely fined.
[Illustration: MAIN ENTRANCE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN]
Trinity College is one of the few great institutions of Europe which
give full degrees to women on the same terms as to men. There is no
distinction in rules or conditions or in any other respect. Women are
admitted to all of the several schools--arts, science, engineering, law,
and medicine--on an equal footing. There are now about one hundred in
attendance. At first the university gave degrees to all women who could
pass the regular examinations, and they came here in droves from Oxford,
Cambridge, and other institutions where they had been hearing lectures
but are not given degrees. All they had to do was to enter the
examinations and fulfill the requirements. But two years ago this
practice was stopped, and now no degrees are conferred upon young women
who do not take the full course at Trinity. The fees are the same as for
men--$50. The women students are mostly Irish, although a few English
girls, who are not satisfied with the certificates given them at
Cambridge and Oxford, come over here from Girton and other institutions
and work for the full degrees of B.A., B.S., Ph.D., and even for
diplomas in law and medicine. To accommodate them the university has
recently purchased a fine old mansion in Palmerston Park, where fifty or
sixty girls are now lodged under the care of a matron, subject to rules
similar to those which govern the men students in the dormitories on
University Green. Twenty-two degrees were granted to women in 1908, and
about the same number in 1907, chiefly in the department of arts, which
is the same as our academic courses, and most of the recipients are
intending to be teachers in women's schools and colleges.
The story of the invasion of Trinity College by women is quite
interesting. The charter, which was granted by Queen Elizabeth,
recognizes no distinction of sex, race, or religion, and when Professor
Sylvester, now in the chair of mathematics in one of our American
colleges, was refused a degree at Cambridge because he was a Jew, he
came here, passed his examinations, and was given one. This opened the
gates, and several young women who had been denied degrees at Oxford and
Cambridge came to test their rights. On June 9, 1903, the senate of the
university passed a resolution "that it is desirable that the degrees of
Trinity College, Dublin, shall be open to women, and that his majesty's
government be requested to obtain a king's letter empowering the
university to grant degrees to women on such terms and conditions as may
seem to the board and council, within their respective provinces, on
full consideration, to be most expedient."
On January 16, 1904, "Edward VII., by the Grace of God of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond
the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, sends greetings to all to whom
these presents shall come, with information that by the advice of our
Right Trusty and Right Well Beloved Cousin and Councillor, William
Humble, Earl of Dudley, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order;
Lord Lieutenant General and Governor-General of that part of our said
United Kingdom called Ireland, do by these presents authorize and
empower the said Provosts and Senior Fellows and their successors in
office, and the said Senate of the University of Dublin, and the Caput
of the said Senate and all members thereof and all other persons or
bodies whose concurrence is necessary for the granting of degrees, to
interpret the charter and the statutes of said college in such a manner
that women may obtain degrees in the said University, all previous laws,
ordinances, and interpretations notwithstanding."
Under this authority on May 5, 1904, the board adopted rules admitting
women to all lectures, examinations, degrees, and prizes except
fellowships and scholarships, their fees being the same as those for
men, and all the rules applying to them equally, except that in the
medical department "women shall practice dissection separately from men
and medical lectures shall be given them either separately or in
conjunction with men, as the professors may think best."
In June, 1904, the senate also passed "a grace" for giving degrees to
women who had attained a certain prescribed status in the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge, and had passed all the examinations and
fulfilled all the other requirements for the granting of degrees for men
at Trinity.
The regulations require that women shall pay the same fees except those
for the commons (meals); that "except when entering or leaving college
they shall wear caps and gowns upon the college grounds unless
accompanied by a chaperon." They are not expected "to remove their caps
in the presence of the provost and fellows, and may wear them during
lectures and examinations." They are not permitted to visit the rooms of
men students in college unless accompanied by a chaperon. They are
examined separately; they are not required to attend chapel, and Miss
Lucy Gwynn was appointed lady registrar to act generally as adviser to
the women students and to report upon their conduct.
Later it was decreed by the provost and senior fellows that scholarships
should be established for women upon the same terms as men to the value
of $150 a year and exemption from ordinary college dues, and several
women have already obtained them.
The library of Trinity College is one of the most interesting places in
all Ireland and it has two relics which are incomparable in historic and
artistic value. One is the harp of Brian Boru, the greatest king in
Irish history. He ruled all Ireland for forty years, in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and it is said that he was the only native that ever
was successful in keeping Ireland in peace. This is "The Harp that Once
through Tara's Halls," inspiring that beautiful ballad of Tom Moore. Its
authenticity has been questioned, and some people assert that it once
belonged to Henry VIII. of England, but no loyal Irishman will admit the
possibility of such a thing.
The other relic, which cannot be questioned, is a copy of the four
gospels, known as "The Book of Kells," because it was made by the monks
of a monastery founded in 546 by St. Columkills, or St. Columba,--the
name is spelled both ways,--and the antiquarians think that it dates
back very nearly to that year. It is often described as "the most
beautiful book in the world," and one may easily believe such a claim to
be true. About three hundred pages, eight by fifteen inches in size, are
covered with the most exquisite pen-work that you can imagine, embossed
with gold leaf and illuminated in brilliant water-colors with perfect
harmony and marvelous skill. I have seen all of the great collections of
missals in the world, but have never found so fine and perfect an
example as this. There are many equally fine, but of smaller size, in
the museums in London and the continental cities. Pierpont Morgan has
several specimens of that sort of work, but the "Book of Kells" is
unsurpassed both for its artistic perfection and the size of its pages,
which are two, three, and four times larger than the best of the other
works of the sort. Each page must have required months to execute; each
is different in design and coloring, but is harmonious with the rest,
and it is difficult to say which is the most wonderful and the most
beautiful.
The book was in the monastery at Kells in 1601 when that institution was
raided by the Spaniards, and having valuable covers of gold, was stolen
by some ignorant soldier who stripped it and threw the text into a bog
where it was found coverless by a peasant a few days later and taken to
Archbishop Ussher. He recognized it and kept it in his library until his
large and unique collection of books and manuscripts was purchased by
Cromwell and presented to Trinity College. There are other remarkable
books in the collection, including several chronicles of the early
history of Ireland, which are priceless, and one marvels at the artistic
skill and labor that they represent. They are also important as
illustrating the culture and learning of the people of Ireland at a
period when England and the continental countries of Europe were still
submerged in the barbarism of the Middle Ages.
The library of Dublin University is one of several government
depositories, under the Stationer's Act, and receives a copy of every
book printed in the United Kingdom. By this method its shelves have been
rapidly filled and the catalogues contain more than a million entries.
There is another, known as the National Library, only a few squares
away. It occupies a beautiful building erected at a cost of $750,000 to
correspond with the National Museum, which occupies the other side of a
quadrangle. It was opened in 1890 and has about three hundred thousand
volumes. There is a reading-room seventy-two feet square, with a glass
dome, where many people come daily to consult works of reference, and
certain persons have the privilege of taking books away.
A bill that had been pending in the British parliament for several years
was passed in the summer of 1908 authorizing the establishment of two
new universities, one at Belfast, under the auspices of the Presbyterian
church, and the other at Dublin, under the control of the Roman
Catholics, although both theoretically will be non-sectarian, and no
religious tests will be required or allowed at either.
The enactment of this law is a part of the contract agreed upon between
the liberal government and the leaders of the Irish party in parliament,
which is being carried out in good faith, and will be concluded at the
next general election, when it is hoped that the question of home rule
in Ireland will be submitted to the people of the United Kingdom.
The Irish Catholics have been demanding a university of their own
supported by the state for many years. There has been no institution for
higher education at which a self-respecting Catholic could seek an
education, because the University of Dublin represents the Church of
Ireland, just as Oxford and Cambridge represent the Church of England,
and until a few years ago placed a ban upon Catholics and would not
permit them to have anything to do or say about the management. It was
perfectly natural, therefore, that when the trustees of Trinity took off
the ban, the synod of Maynooth should put it back, and Catholic students
were forbidden to attend lectures there by what is known as Decree
XXXVII. of the synod of Maynooth, declared in 1875 and confirmed by Pope
Pius IX.
Religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge were abolished in 1871, at the
same time as at Trinity. In 1874 an attempt was made by the famous
Monseigneur Capel, who is now living in California, to found a Roman
Catholic university in England, but it failed, and since then the young
men of that church have attended Cambridge and Oxford, by permission of
the hierarchy, but the ban has never been removed from Trinity College,
Dublin. And one cannot blame them for not removing it. They cannot
forget the past. The Roman Catholics of Ireland were deprived of
educational privileges for centuries, and under the penal statutes of
Queen Anne were debarred from the learned professions. There are no
religious tests in Trinity College to-day, it is true, and students who
do not belong to the Church of Ireland are not required to attend
chapel. But the atmosphere and the influences and every tendency at
Trinity are naturally toward the Church of Ireland, which has a
theological school as a department of the university.
Three independent non-sectarian institutions, known as Queen's colleges,
were founded by Queen Victoria about forty years ago, at Belfast,
Galway, and Cork. These are known as "godless colleges" because they
have no chapels, no religious exercises, and no religious instruction.
Queen's College at Belfast, however, is distinctively a Presbyterian
institution. Nearly all the faculty are prominent and active members of
that denomination, and students who are intending to enter the ministry
go from Queen's to Magee College, Londonderry, which is under the care
of the Presbyterian general assembly. Therefore Queen's College,
Belfast, occupies a relation to the Presbyterian denomination quite as
intimate as that of Trinity with the Episcopalians.
The same conditions apply to both the Roman Catholic theological
seminary at Maynooth and the Presbyterian theological seminary at Magee.
The students at both of these institutions will be excused from residing
in the new universities, and may continue their studies exactly as at
present, going up to Dublin and to Belfast only to receive their
degrees. Several of the Roman Catholic colleges and the two "godless
colleges" now supported by the state at Cork and Galway are to be made a
part of the Roman Catholic university at Dublin, but Section 3 of the
bill provides that "no test whatever of religious belief shall be
imposed upon any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to
be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar, exhibitioner, graduate, or
student of, or of his holding any office or emolument, or exercising any
privilege in, either of the two new universities or any constituent
college. Nor in connection with either of the new universities or any
such constituent college shall any preference be given or advantage
withheld from any person on account of his religious belief." It will be
permitted, however, for religious denominations to erect chapels or
other houses of worship in connection with either of the new
universities with their own funds for the accommodation of students
professing their faith, but no students shall be required to attend
religious exercises or religious instruction, and they shall be entirely
voluntary. It is well understood, however, and the bill is intended
precisely for that purpose, that one of the universities shall be Roman
Catholic and that the other shall be Presbyterian, just as the present
University of Dublin represents the Protestant Episcopal Church of
Ireland.
Education and religion have always gone hand in hand both in ancient and
modern Ireland. The history of one is the history of the other.
Instruction has always been given either by or under the supervision of
priests and monks, and there have been regular teaching orders, like the
Christian Brothers, which combine religious with secular instruction,
with the catechism as their chief text-book. As early as the middle of
the sixth century the monastery schools of Ireland were famous all over
the world, and even at that date there were three thousand students at
Clonarde College, and an equal number at Bangor, at Monasterboice, and
several other centers of learning. The sons of kings, chiefs, nobles,
and other favored classes lived in the monasteries with their
instructors, but usually each ordinary student had a little hut of sod
built by himself, and often those from the same locality or the same
clan built houses for their common use.
All of the more important schools had students from foreign lands. An
English bishop, writing in the year 705, says that they came in "fleet
loads" from Great Britain and the Continent. Many of them were princes
of royal houses. Several of the early kings of France and other
countries were educated in Ireland, which was for three or four
centuries the most learned country in the world. Great numbers of
Irishmen were employed as professors and teachers in the schools and
colleges of England and the Continent. Charlemagne, Charles the Bold,
and other monarchs of the Middle Ages called learned men from Ireland as
guests and as tutors in their courts, and the influence of Irish
scholars was greater than that of those from any other country. For four
or five hundred years after the time of St. Patrick the monasteries of
Ireland were the center and source of science, and art and learning of
every kind and the literature of the Gaelic reached its highest glory.
The Danish invasion destroyed these conditions and threw everything into
disorder. The monasteries were sacked, the monks were scattered, the
students fled to their homes, and the development of learning and art
suddenly was arrested. There was another revival during the reign of
Brian Boru, but that was interrupted by the Anglo-Norman invasion, and
Irish learning never again reached its previous fame.
During the Reformation all the monasteries throughout Ireland except in
a few remote districts were suppressed. More than four hundred were
entirely destroyed and their inmates were turned out upon the world by
the agents of Henry VIII. Cromwell's governors were even more severe and
cruel, and the parliaments of 1692 and 1695 passed penal laws forbidding
the Catholic children of the country to be educated, either in schools
or in private houses. Education practically came to a standstill,
although many Irish Protestants all through the country did a great deal
in a quiet way to provide instruction for the children of Catholic
friends and neighbors.
The Relief Act of 1782 allowed Roman Catholics to open schools of their
own, and the present national system, inaugurated in 1831, afforded
means of education for children of all denominations under the
supervision of their own priests, although members of different
denominations are required to receive religious instruction separately
and interference with the religious principles of any child is
forbidden. From that time to the present the number of schools has been
gradually extended, their efficiency has been improved, and the
government appropriations for education have been slowly increased from
year to year.
The schools of Ireland are now governed by an act of parliament passed
in 1892, and Dr. W.M.J. Starkie, national commissioner of education,
explained the system to me as follows:
"We have eight grades of primary schools," he said, "from kindergartens,
which receive pupils three years of age, up to the eighth grade, which
corresponds very nearly to that of the public schools in America, with
pupils fourteen or fifteen years of age. We have a compulsory education
law, but it is enforced according to the local conditions of different
districts,--a sort of local option which is applied where the people of
the counties of the districts desire it. The schools are practically
free. By the reorganization of 1892 certain schools were permitted to
charge fees, but no more than 1 per cent of them do so, and they are all
Protestant. No Catholic school collects tuition.
"The schools of Ireland are controlled by a national board of twenty
members, appointed nominally by the lord lieutenant, one-half Protestant
and one-half Catholic, and an executive council in charge of
administration, also appointed by the lord lieutenant, one of whom, that
is myself, is always on duty at the headquarters of the board in Dublin.
"Funds for the support of the schools are voted by parliament every year
with the usual budget, which are absolutely controlled by the board, who
make an annual report of their disposition. This year we have
£1,600,000, which is equivalent to about eight million dollars in your
money. The larger amount, which is about £1,250,000, goes to the payment
of the salaries of teachers; the next for the construction of new
buildings and repairs; the next item is for the maintenance of central
model schools, which are object lessons. The rate of expenditure per
pupil is about £3, or $15, a year, and has been gradually increasing
from time to time with the allowances that have been given us by the
government. Ten years ago the allowance for primary education was about
£1,250,000 or $6,250,000 in American money, and the _per capita_ was
about $12.50.
"There are now about 8,600 primary schools in Ireland, with 16,000
teachers and an average daily attendance of 490,000 out of a school
population enrolled of 730,000.
"The following table will show the number and the average daily
attendance at the different schools:
No. Schools. Av. Attend.
Ordinary schools . . . . . . . . . . . 8,100 401,000
Model schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 6,955
Convents and monasteries . . . . . . . 384 80,712
"The money is divided among these different schools as follows:
Amount. Per Capita.
Ordinary schools . . . . . . . . . . £1,038,854 £2 13s 10d
Model schools . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,755 3 19s 10d
Convents and monasteries . . . . . . 164,048 2 7s 6d
"The average daily attendance seems very small, and is due to several
reasons: first, the lack of accommodations and the long distances
between schoolhouses in the thinly settled sections along the west coast
of Ireland, where some families are many miles from a schoolhouse, and
where the children have no means of conveyance to reach them. In all the
poorer sections of the country, where the men of the family go off to
England or Scotland to do labor, the children have to stay at home and
look after the place. They take care of the cows and the sheep and the
pigs. Many parents make their children work where the compulsory
education law and the child labor laws are not enforced. In the factory
towns of northern Ireland the laws prohibit children under eleven years
old working, and they are pretty well enforced.
"The following table will show the number of children of the different
religious denominations enrolled in the national schools:
Roman Catholic . . . . . . . . . . 541,638, or 74.4 per cent
Church of Ireland . . . . . . . . . 87,904, or 12.1 per cent
Presbyterian . . . . . . . . . . . . 82,434, or 11.3 per cent
Methodists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,387, or 1.3 per cent
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,794, or 0.9 per cent
"Of the Catholic children a large number, perhaps 112,000, are in the
convents. The Catholic families prefer to send their girls to be taught
by the nuns. And about 10,000 boys are in the monasteries.
"Every teacher is required to pass an examination prepared by the
commissioner of education as a test of his or her qualifications, and
the teacher is responsible to the educational department for the
enforcement of the rules and the application of the methods of
instruction that have received its indorsement. But, as a rule, teachers
are nominated by the priests of the Roman Catholic church or the clergy
of the Church of Ireland or those of the non-conformist churches, as the
case may be. The consequence is that there have to be separate schools
for each denomination, which naturally adds to the cost of maintenance.
In two-thirds of the schools, however, you will find both Protestant and
Catholic children. Any sect that can furnish twenty pupils can have a
school of its own, to run it as it likes at the expense of the
government and select its own teachers, provided the persons selected
demonstrate their qualifications by submitting to the regular
examinations.
"Religious instruction, prayer, and other exercises of worship may take
place before and after the ordinary school hours, during which all the
children of whatever denomination may attend, but the regular school
business cannot be interrupted or suspended for any religious
instruction or worship or any arrangement that will interfere with its
usefulness or cause any pupils inconvenience in attendance.
"No pupil who is registered as a Protestant is permitted to remain in
attendance during the time of religious instruction in case the teacher
is a Roman Catholic, and no pupil who is registered as a Roman Catholic
can remain in attendance during religious instruction by a teacher who
is not a Roman Catholic, and further, no pupil can remain in attendance
during any religious instruction whatever if his parents or guardians
object. A public notification of the hours of religious instruction must
be made in every school and kept posted in large letters for the
information of the public as well as the pupils. No schoolroom can be
connected with any place of worship; no religious emblems or emblems of
a political nature can be exhibited in any schoolroom, and no
inscription which contains the name of any religious denomination.
"Thus we have, as you will see, all points guarded against religious
proselyting. Monks and nuns are eligible as teachers if they pass the
examinations, and any convent or monastery can be made a national school
by accepting the regulations and observing them.
"The salaries for men teachers range from £77 to £175, and for women
from £65 to £141, according to length of service, experience, the grade
of the school, and the number of pupils.
"We are introducing some modern ideas similar to those you have in
America. We have already introduced cooking into a thousand schools and
are introducing Gaelic as fast as the teachers can be found, but they
are very scarce. We furnish special instruction in the teachers'
colleges, or normal schools as you call them, and to excite the interest
of the children special prizes are offered for proficiency in Gaelic.
"We are improving our school buildings generally, and parliament has
allowed £40,000 a year for three years for building new primary
schoolhouses.
"Our secondary or intermediate schools are under the supervision of a
different board, also appointed by the lord lieutenant, and they
distribute £85,000 a year in grants to about four hundred different
institutions, preparatory, collegiate, and university."
"What is the ratio of illiteracy in Ireland?"
"It has gradually been reduced from 53 per cent of the population in
1841, the first census taken after the establishment of the national
school system, to 18 per cent in 1891 and 14 per cent in 1901. The ratio
of illiterates is being reduced nearly 1 per cent per year, and it is
calculated from five years old and upward. If the minimum age were made
seven years the ratio would be very much less. It is the old people and
the little ones under seven years who cannot read and write, and many
adults claim that they are unable to do so for their own reasons."
VIII
ROUND ABOUT DUBLIN
The street-car system of Dublin is excellent. It reaches every part of
the city and all the lovely suburbs, and every line starts at a lofty
column, which was erected many years ago in the middle of the principal
street in honor of Horatio Nelson, the greatest of Irish sailors, the
hero of the battle of Trafalgar. The cars are large and neatly kept, the
conductors and motormen are very polite and love to give information to
strangers, although they are paid only thirty and thirty-six shillings a
week, which would certainly make men of their occupation very reticent
in America. The roofs of the cars are arranged with comfortable seats,
from which one can see everything within the range of human vision and
gratify his curiosity about what is behind the high stone walls, green
with lichen and ivy and overhung with lustrous boughs. There isn't much
satisfaction going about in an automobile in the immediate vicinity of
Dublin, because the roadways are mere tunnels between walls eight feet
high and overhung with foliage, which makes a perpetual twilight, a
damp, cool atmosphere, a dustless ride, and a picturesqueness that an
artist would admire. The owners of suburban homes have shut themselves
in so successfully that nobody can see what they are doing or enjoy the
wondrous beauties of their private parks. But the seats on the top of a
tram car permit the public to penetrate their secrets, give an abundance
of fresh air, gratify the love of motion that we all inherited from our
savage ancestors, and enable us to look beyond the barriers into
beautiful gardens and groves.
The River Liffey, as I have told you in a previous chapter, divides all
Dublin into two parts and empties into a bay about four miles below the
business limits of the town. The bay is famous for its beauty, and is
closely embroidered with history, legend, and romance. One street-car
line follows the river and the north shore as far as the ocean, and then
turns northward to accommodate the population of several pretty
watering-places and fishing-towns. Another line, also starting from
Nelson's Pillar, follows the south bank of the Liffey and the bay and
encircles a most picturesque and romantic landscape. It takes three
hours to make a round trip by either of these routes, and one can spend
an entire afternoon or indeed a whole day with profit on both of them.
We will take the south side first. The track runs through the best
residence section of the city and several of the prettiest suburbs down
to the port of Kingston, where all deep-draft steamers have to receive
and discharge their passengers and cargoes because the water is too
shallow for them above. The turbine ferries that cross St. George's
Channel from England land their passengers there and send them by rail
into the city.
Between the frequent villages along the train line are comfortable and
spacious mansions surrounded by beautiful grounds owned and occupied by
the wealthy citizens of Dublin, and occasionally there is a long row of
"semi-detached villas" occupied by "the prosperous middle
classes,"--brick houses of two and three stories built in pairs, with
strips of lawn on either side and quite a little space for a garden at
the back. Every house has a name painted on the gatepost as well as a
number, and that is a matter of great importance, because, when Miss
Genevieve says she lives at Heatherhurst, Princes' Crescent, it sounds a
great deal more aristocratic than No. 1660 Rockville Road. Princes'
Crescent is a long block of two-story brick houses on a curve in the
street; Heatherhurst is one of them, situated about the middle, twenty
feet front and sixty feet deep, with thirty feet of lawn in the
foreground and a garden at the rear. And these houses are much more
comfortable than any the city can furnish, and I do not know of any town
so well provided with suburbs as Dublin.
[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN, SHOWING NELSON'S PILLAR.]
There are several historical places on the road. Beyond Booterstown
is Blackrock, where an ancient granite cross in the center of the main
street marks the limit of jurisdiction of the lord mayor. Many years ago
it was customary for that official after his installation to ride out
there and fling a dart into the waters of the bay, as a symbol of his
right of admiralty; but these old-fashioned demonstrations of power and
prerogative have been abandoned for stupid parades and long speeches.
Just before entering Blackrock the tramway passes the entrance of a
lovely estate christened "Frascati," after a favorite resort of Rome. It
formerly belonged to the Duke of Leinster, and was an early seat of the
Kildare family, and one of the strategic rendezvous of the Geraldines,
for two centuries the strongest clan in Ireland. Frascati has a pathetic
interest to every one, and particularly to all Irish patriots, because
for several years it was the home of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Pamela,
his mysterious French bride. It was there they spent their honeymoon and
there he left that fascinating little person while he was off on
political missions preparing for the Revolution of 1798. Her letters,
full of domestic details and loving prattle, written during this period,
have been preserved, and give us a charming impression of the character
of a woman who suffered much for the cause of Irish liberty, even
poverty and shame.
Edward Fitzgerald was a brother of the Duke of Leinster and the Earl of
Kildare, an amiable, high-minded, warm-hearted, gallant fellow of
learning and culture and fine manners. He served as a major in the
British forces during the American Revolution, and for a time was an
aid-de-camp on the staff of Lord Howe. He was dismissed from the British
army, however, for active sympathy with the French Revolution, went to
France, and took refuge among the friends he had made there. There he
met and married Anne Syms, better known as "Pamela," a woman of great
personal and mental attractions, whose origin was involved in a mystery
that was never revealed, and concerning whom many romantic stories have
been written and told. It is generally believed that she was an
illegitimate daughter of Philippe Égalité, Duke of Orleans, sometimes
called "Philip the Handsome," by an Irish woman named Syms, and was,
therefore, a half-sister of King Louis Philippe of France. By Edward
Fitzgerald she had three children: Edward Fitzgerald, who was an officer
in the British army; Pamela, who became the wife of Sir Guy Campbell;
and Lucy, who became the wife of Captain Lyon of the Royal Navy. Several
years after Fitzgerald's tragic end she married John Pitcairn, an
American, with whom she came to the United States, and lived in
Philadelphia until her death in 1831.
While he was in Paris Lord Edward met Wolfe Tone, the leader of the
Revolution of 1798, Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, an elder
brother of Robert Emmet, and other fellow countrymen, who were
conspiring with the French directoire for an attack upon Ireland. He
joined the movement with great earnestness and enthusiasm, and finally
arranged with the French government to send a fleet of forty-three
vessels with fifteen thousand troops under General Hoche, Wolfe Tone
being attached to the commander's staff, to attack the Irish coast
simultaneously with an uprising of the people. Ireland was taken by
surprise and thrown into a panic, but Providence intervened. A violent
gale arose, the landing was postponed, the French fleet became
separated, and each vessel found its way back to the Continent.
Lord Edward remained in France until March, 1798, when he returned to
Dublin, was betrayed by a man named Mangan, and a guard of soldiers was
sent to arrest him in 151 Thomas Street, just below the Bank of Ireland.
A tablet with an inscription now marks the house. There was a desperate
struggle, in which the captain of the guards was killed by Lord Edward,
and the latter received a bullet in the shoulder, from which he died in
prison a few days later at the age of thirty-two. As everybody knows,
the rebellion was a failure, and nearly all the other leaders were
captured and executed. Wolfe Tone was betrayed by an old school friend
and sentenced to be shot. He tried to kill himself in prison. The
wound, though fatal, was not immediately so, and he lay ill for several
months before death rescued him. Poor Pamela lived in poverty and
distress for several years before she was able to return to her friends
in France. "Frascati," her home, now belongs to a prosperous Dublin
tradesman.
A little farther down on the shore of the bay is a monument marking the
spot where the transport _Rochdale_, carrying the entire Ninety-seventh
Regiment of Foot, went ashore a hundred years ago, and the names of an
entire regiment, officers and men, were instantly erased from the
British army list. Since then an artificial harbor has been inclosed by
long breakwaters of masonry, giving a place of refuge for ships in
distress.
The tram line terminates in a pretty and picturesque village, called
Dalkey, which was a medieval stronghold and the scene of many fierce
fights, first between the earls of the Pale of Dublin and invading
Danes, and after that with the pirates who haunted this coast for a
century. It was a Danish settlement for several centuries, and afterward
the most important outpost of Dublin, defended by seven great castles,
three of which still remain in partial ruins. One of them is now
remodeled for use as a town hall. They are imposing piles of masonry,
and thick mats of ivy conceal the ancient wounds.
We took an "outside car" at the end of the tram line at Dalkey to drive
around the shore of the bay, which the driver assured us was the most
beautiful in the world and even surpassed the Bay of Naples, which it is
said to resemble, and for that reason many of the names are the same.
The resemblance might possibly be detected by a person with a vigorous
imagination. Killiney Bay, however, is a lovely sheet of water,
surrounded by high bluffs that are clad in June with glowing garments of
gorse and hawthorn. The first is a low bush which has a brilliant yellow
flower, and the hawthorn trees are as white as banks of snow. The land
is divided into meadows and pastures on the slopes by hedges of
hawthorn, and the turf is concealed by millions of buttercups as yellow
as gold. It is a rocky coast. Rugged crags that break out give a stern
expression to the picture, and sometimes rise a hundred feet or more in
frowning precipices of black granite.
Here and there the towers of a castle or the chimneys of a villa arise
from banks of foliage, and, perched along the bluff above the seashore,
like the chalets of Switzerland, are comfortable cottages and mansions
in which rich people from Dublin dwell. Clinging to the side of the
bluff and protected by a stone wall is a splendid roadway encircling the
entire bay, quite as beautiful, although on a smaller scale, as the
Corniche road from Nice to Monte Carlo. The deep blue of the water, the
vivid green of the foliage, which seems more pronounced in Ireland than
anywhere I have ever been, the great white banks of hawthorn, the yellow
of the buttercups and the gorse give a brilliancy to the landscape that
does not appear anywhere on the Riviera or anywhere else I know.
The winding road with this wonderful panorama always before you leads
finally through a glen into a park named after the late Queen
Victoria,--a wild stretch of rocky woodland and pasture, which in
ancient days was one of the principal meeting places of the Druids, and
it was well chosen. The land was purchased by subscription to
commemorate the queen's jubilee in 1897, and has been thrown open to the
public ever since. From the number of people who are present every
Sunday afternoon one would think the money was well invested.
A winding path leads to the summit, which is cleared of trees, and in
the center a shaft of stone rises about sixty feet, which, the
inscription tells us in quaint and laconic manner, was erected by John
Mapas, Esquire, June, 1742, in order to give employment to his less
fortunate neighbors, "last year being hard with the poor." A hundred
yards distant is a round, conical tower marked, "Mont Mapas." Nobody
seems to know who erected it or what it is for. And there is a pyramid
of seven tiers of stone thirty feet square at the base and eighteen feet
high, with a flat stone at the top.
There is a monument to mark the spot where the Duke of Dorset was killed
by being thrown from his horse in 1815, and what is more interesting,
four Druid judgment seats, formed of rough granite blocks about twelve
feet long, two feet high, and three and a half feet wide at the top.
They are situated in pairs some distance from each other, and tradition
says that the Druid chiefs in prehistoric times sat in judgment upon
them to settle disputes between their people and to receive petitions
from the members of their tribes. Of course, we know that Ireland was
held by the Druids once, and it is very certain that they could not have
found a more appropriate or a lovelier place than this for their
assemblies.
We took our luncheon at the Washington Inn at Dalkey, where a large and
familiar engraving of George Washington, a picture of Sulgrave Manor,
the English home of the Washingtons, a pedigree of the family, and a
representation of its coat of arms, showing its development into the
Stars and Stripes, hung upon the wall. I asked the landlady the whys and
wherefores of all this, and she told me that her name is Martha
Washington and that she is very proud of it. Her ancestors came from
Sulgrave, where they trace their relationship to the Father of our
Country.
Another trolley line, with cars marked "Howth" (pronounced Ho-th),
starting from the same place, Nelson's Pillar, on Sackville Street, will
take you entirely around the great island hill at the north entrance of
the harbor of Dublin and for a mile or two on the shore of the Irish
Sea. For the first fifteen or twenty minutes the car runs through the
busy streets of the city, past the Amiens railway station, which, a
friendly priest who occupied the adjoining seat told me, occupies the
site of the house in which Charles Lever wrote "Harry Lorrequer,"
"Charles O'Malley," and other famous novels, and the good father sighed
when he said that the reckless gayety and the jolly folks that Lever
painted with his pen existed no longer. He was a most interesting
companion was this friendly priest, and talked incessantly of the scenes
and associations through which our little journey led.
We passed a monumental gate supported by two classic columns. One of
them was marked in large letters "Deo Duce" and the other "Ferro
Comitante" (With God for my guide and a sword by my side), which, he
told me, was the motto upon the coat of arms of the great Lord
Charlemont, who had taken so active a part in the history of Ireland. It
was a famous family, he said, although the present earls are decadents
and have no place in public affairs.
This ancient family seat, called "Marino," was built at a tremendous
cost by a _dilettante_ earl who never allowed his expenditures to
trouble him, but left the anxiety entirely to his creditors. The
interior of the villa at the time it was built was the perfection of art
and luxury. The floors, the ceilings, and the wainscoting were of
mosaic. The walls were hung with the finest Irish poplin and decorated
by the most noted artists of the time. The villa has been the scene of
ghastly carousals and assemblies of the finest intellects in Ireland.
The grave and the gay have gathered and dined beneath its roof, but the
estate was sacrificed to the extravagance of the family, and its
splendor, somewhat tarnished and rusty, to be sure, is now enjoyed by
the students of the Christian Brothers, who occupy the beautiful villa
for a school.
On one side of the car line high walls shut out to the ordinary
passer-by the beauties they are intended to protect, but from the top of
the tram cars any one can share them for "tuppence." On the other side
is the water, the Bay of Dublin, and, running parallel with the shore,
is a long spit of land called the North Bull, which was formerly a
terrible menace to the commerce of the coast. Nearly every winter's gale
sent a ship or two to destruction, and the bodies of hundreds of poor
seamen have been washed up where the children are now playing in the
sand. Here and there the skeletons of dead vessels may yet be seen, but
the North Bull is no longer dangerous. Modern devices protect
navigation, and in the midst of the heather and the glowing yellow gorse
golf links have been laid out and a clubhouse has been erected,
surrounded by lilacs, laburnums, and hawthorns, now in the full glory of
their bloom. It is only twenty minutes' ride by street car from the
center of Dublin, and the business men can come out here to spend the
long summer evenings at their sport.
[Illustration: BAILEY LIGHT AT HOWTH, MOUTH OF DUBLIN BAY]
A little farther on is a beautiful mansion built in 1835 upon the site
and with the materials of Clontarf Castle, one of the oldest and most
famous within the English Pale--which was an area sixty miles long and
thirty miles wide around the city of Dublin. The castle originally
belonged to the Knights Templar, and from them passed to the Knights of
St. John. In 1541 it was surrendered to the crown by Sir John Rawson,
prior of Kilmainham, who was created Viscount of Clontarf as
compensation.
The famous battle of Clontarf, the final struggle between Christianity
and heathenism on the soil of Ireland, was fought here on Good Friday in
the year 1014 between the Danes under Sigtryg, the Viking, and the Irish
under Brian Boru. Eight thousand men were slain on one side and four
thousand on the other, including every prominent chief. The Irish were
victorious, and, although the Danes were not immediately driven from the
island, it was the end of their domination. They came in a thousand
boats all the way from Denmark, from Scotland, the Orkneys, and from the
many islands of the north, and when their leaders were killed they fled
to the water to regain their ships, which lay at anchor or were beached
on the shore of Dublin Bay. The Irish warriors followed and continued to
slay them until the sea was crimson with heathen blood.
Brian Boru was not a myth, although we commonly associate him with fairy
tales. He was the real thing, and it is often said that he was the only
Irishman that ever did rule successfully over all Ireland. He was the
first of the O'Briens and was King of Munster. His early career was very
much like that of Alfred the Great, who lived but a short time before
him in the middle of the ninth century, and he was not only the greatest
warrior, but the greatest lawgiver and executive, and the greatest
benefactor of his native country in the semi-savage days. His rival was
Malachi the Great, the first of the O'Neills, who became king of Meath
in 980 and reigned at Tara. To keep the peace Brian Boru and Malachi
agreed to divide Ireland between them; but they did not get along well
together, and Brian drove Malachi from his capital far into the north.
Malachi finally submitted, and then all Ireland, for the first time in
its history, was at peace under a single monarch for nearly forty years.
Brian devoted himself to the development of the industries, the
encouragement of agriculture, and the education of the people. He made
wise laws and enforced them with justice. He founded schools and
colleges. He encouraged art and science, he built roads in every
direction, and he gave the distracted country the blessings of peace and
prosperity. Instead of fighting among themselves, the people gave their
attention to farming, cattle-breeding, trade and manufacturing,
literature and the polite arts, and the historians say that another
twenty years of Brian's reign would have changed the entire history of
the country. Rare Tom Moore has given us a picture of Ireland in those
days, when, according to his verses, a beautiful young lady, "Rich and
rare were the gems she wore," traversed the entire country, from north
to south and from east to west, without being molested.
When Brian became an old man, Mailmora, king of Leinster, conspired with
the Danes, the Manxmen, the chiefs of the Orkneys, and the Scots to
overthrow him. Sigtryg of the Silken Beard arranged with them to
consolidate their forces to overcome the Irish. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney,
brought an army ten thousand strong. Broder, the great Viking of the
Isle of Man, brought a fleet of two hundred ships and ten thousand men,
covered with mail from head to foot, to meet the Irish, who always
fought in tunics. Broder had once been a Christian, but had fallen from
grace. He was the tallest and the strongest man of his time. His hair
was so long that he had to tuck it under his belt. He wore a coat of
mail "on which no steele could bite," and he had "no reverence for God
or for man, for church or sanctuary."
The venerable Brian Boru, then seventy-three years of age, was camped in
what is now Phoenix Park, surrounded by twenty thousand warriors
representing the different Irish clans. His sons prevailed upon him not
to engage in the battle, and he gave the command to his son Morrough.
But he led the column to the Hill of Clontarf on the morning of Good
Friday, and when the invaders were in plain sight Brian Boru, holding
aloft a crucifix, rode from rank to rank reminding his men that on that
day their Lord had died for them, and exhorting them to smite the
heathen hip and thigh for their religion and their homes. Then, giving
the signal for the onset, he withdrew to his tent at the top of the
hill, where he could observe the conflict.
Battles in those days were a series of hand-to-hand encounters. The
commanders selected each other for single combat. The fighting extended
for two miles along the shores of the Bay of Dublin, and human beings
were cut down like stalks of corn. The aged king remained in his tent
engaged in earnest prayer for victory while the air was filled with the
clash of steel, and the Danes and his own soldiers were dying by
thousands around him. Toward nightfall the heathen gave way and began to
retreat. Their commanders were all slain or desperately wounded. Brian's
grandson, Thorlough, smote the Earl of Orkney with his battle-axe and
cleft his head down as far as his neck. Broder, the great Viking,
desperately wounded, was flying from the field when he recognized Brian
of the Long Beard at the door of his tent. He rushed upon the old man
with a double-edged battle-axe. Brian seized his trusty sword and they
struck together. Brian's head was amputated and Broder's legs, one at
the knee and the other from the ankle. At sunset when they returned from
the battle, Brian's servants found their king dead and Broder stretched
by his side.
The body of Brian and that of his son Morrough were conveyed with great
solemnity to Armagh and laid at rest in the cathedral, but their tombs
have disappeared. The funeral ceremonies lasted for a fortnight, and all
Ireland was filled with lamentation. Every petty chief and prince in the
island tried to grasp the power. As the old song runs--
"Each man ruled his own tribe,
But no man ruled Erin."
And that condition continued for a century and a half, all Ireland being
distracted by the rivalries of the several chiefs, the O'Briens, the
O'Neills, the O'Connors, and the O'Loughlins.
That part of the battleground lying on the shore of the bay has been
built over, and behind it the land has been divided into small country
places where the rich men of Dublin spend their idle hours. Their homes
are encircled with high fences, and are divided by a maze of roads and
lanes concealed by canopies of green foliage that overhangs the walls.
A little farther on are the ruins of a church surrounded by a silent
battalion of gravestones. It was the Abbey of Kilbarrack, and one of the
tombstones, badly defaced, marks the burial place of Francis Higgins, a
detested government spy who betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald to the
government in the insurrection of 1798. He is known as "The Sham
Squire," because for a time he succeeded in passing himself off as a
country gentleman of wealth and was married to a lady of good family.
When the fraud was detected he was sent to jail, and she died of shame
and mortification. Being boycotted by all honorable men, he became a spy
and informer, and popular hatred pursued him to the graveyard, which had
to be watched because the people resented his burial in consecrated
ground and would have thrown his body into the bay.
The car line follows the curves of the coast down to the shore of the
Irish Sea, where a monstrous mass of rocks, covered with heather and
rhododendrons and gorse, now as yellow as gold, rises five hundred or
six hundred feet, with here and there a dense mass of foliage. It is
known as the Hill of Howth, and is considered one of the most
picturesque places in Ireland. At its foot is the village of Howth, and
on either side are the ruins of ancient strongholds, located so as to
command the entrance to the harbor.
The title of the Earl of Howth dates back to 1177, and was bestowed in
battle. It has been held honorably by the Lawrence family, one of the
oldest in Ireland. They won their name and their lands by the sword.
The founder of the house was Amory Tristam, a Norman adventurer, who
followed Strongbow to the conquest of Ireland, and has been immortalized
in Wagner's opera, "Tristam and Isolde." While Tristam, loyal knight and
true, was attending a red-haired Irish princess to her destined husband,
the King of Cornwall, they drank by mistake a love potion which bound
them forever in a frenzied romance. It ended with Tristam dying in his
castle and Isolde coming over the sea to perish like Juliet upon her
husband's lifeless form.
Amory Tristam assumed the name of St. Lawrence, because of a great
victory that he won over the Danes on the anniversary of that saint; and
Howth Castle has been the seat of the family from the beginning. A long
line of overlords lie under the shadow of a ruined old abbey, and the
present earl, William Ulick Tristam St. Lawrence, must join them soon,
because he is more than eighty years of age. He was a member of
parliament in his younger days, succeeded to the earldom in 1874, and
until he became too feeble was a famous sport. His son and heir, Thomas
Tristam St. Lawrence, is a man of fifty, who married the daughter of
Benjamin Lee Guinness, the great brewer of Dublin, and inherited many
millions from her father.
Many interesting legends are told of the hill and the Castle of Howth
and of events that have occurred during the eight hundred years since it
became a center of activity. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the
Princess of Connaught, Grace O'Malley, landed at Howth on her return
from England and found the gates of the castle closed. The warder
refused her entrance because the family were at dinner. Indignant at
this breach of hospitality she returned to her ships, and meeting on the
way the heir of the house, she picked him up and carried him off to
Mayo, where she held him until she had obtained a pledge from the earls
of Howth that they would never again close the doors of their castle
against hungry travelers. And they have faithfully kept the vow.
The Howth family holds the almost unique distinction in Ireland of
perpetual loyalty to the English crown.
Another trolley line runs out to Donnybrook, the scene of the famous
fair, which was abolished, however, nearly one hundred years ago, even
before the time of Sir Walter Scott's visit to Ireland in 1825, for he
says: "We dined at Walter's, and in the evening drove to Donnybrook--the
scene of the noisy fair which is now dissolved and abolished. It was a
charming ride, thick with villas and all the insignia of ease and
opulence; in fact, not to be distinguished from the innumerable hosts of
jaunting cars plowing the fine road in every direction at a speed
apparently most cruel." Sir Walter's description holds good to-day.
Donnybrook is the most respectable and aristocratic of all the suburbs
of Dublin. The tract of land where the cattle fair was formerly held in
the fall of each year is still vacant and is used for a pasture. A
"merry-go-round," or a "whirl-about," as they call it here, was the only
diversion that we could find in the silent and orderly surroundings, but
every year in August on the adjoining land and reached by parallel roads
the Dublin horse show is held, and it is the great event of the season
socially, and otherwise. It brings over from London and other parts of
England large crowds of fashionable people, it draws the sporting
element from every part of the kingdom, and all Ireland is represented.
Donnybrook, originally Dombenach Broc, in Gaelic, is a small but rapid
stream, which comes down from the hills of Wicklow and empties into the
Bay of Dublin. The cattle-dealers of Ireland for two hundred years used
to meet upon its banks for the sale, exchange, and exhibition of animals
for eight days in the month of August annually, and drew around them
saloon and restaurant keepers, peddlers of every sort, and shopkeepers,
who went out from Dublin with stocks of goods and exposed them as a
temptation to the men who had sold their cattle and had the money in
their pockets. In addition to the tradesmen, itinerant shows gathered to
entertain the ranchmen, strolling players, jugglers, Irish bards with
harps and songs, bagpipes, and other public entertainers made it their
rendezvous. Naturally these attractions called together the lads and
the lasses, who flirted, danced to the music, and had a good time
generally.
"Donnybrook capers, that bothered the vapors,
And drove dull care away."
But the entertainments were not entirely innocent, and the fair finally
became such a scene of disorder, thievery, and murder that the
authorities were compelled to abolish the annual festivities. It
attracted all the toughs and roughs and the desperate characters in
Ireland, and the old rhyme says:
"Such crowding and jumbling,
And leaping and tumbling,
And kissing and grumbling,
And drinking and swearing,
And stabbing and tearing,
And coaxing and snaring,
And scrambling and winning,
And fighting and flinging,
And fiddling and singing."
More misery and madness, more crime and unhappiness, more devilment and
debauchery, vice, and treachery was crowded into that little space for a
fortnight annually than might have occurred during an entire year in any
country of Europe. In those days fighting was a common pastime. But the
"broth of a boy" with his "shillelah" of black bog thorn wood, is no
longer seen dragging his coat over the ground at Donnybrook and inviting
any gentleman present to step on the tail of that garment. Those days,
as I say, are over, and Dublin is one of the most orderly cities on
earth, except for the drunkenness.
IX
THE LANDLORDS AND THE LANDLESS
The population of Ireland by the census of 1901 was 4,450,456, a falling
off of 248,204 in ten years since the previous census. In 1848, before
the great famine, the population was 8,295,000, which shows that it has
decreased nearly one-half since that time, during the last sixty years.
The area of Ireland is 20,157,557 acres, including bog and mountain. Of
this area only 2,357,530 acres are under the plow, 14,712,849 acres are
devoted to hay and pasture, of which it is estimated that 12,000,000
acres could be cultivated to crops. But it is a question whether such a
thing would be desirable, considering the great demand and the high
price for hay and cattle, beef and mutton. It would give employment to a
large number of people if 12,000,000 acres more were plowed and planted,
no doubt, but the experts assert that the profits on hay and cattle are
larger than on grain and potatoes.
Next to hay, the largest area, something more than 1,000,000 acres, is
planted to oats and only 590,000 acres to potatoes, which is surprising
when you consider that potatoes are the principal food of the Irish
peasant, and, as some one has remarked, "are his food and drink and
clothing."
William F. Bailey, one of the gentlemen intrusted with the work of
settling the land question and distributing the population of the island
more evenly than at present, estimates that thirty acres of average land
in Ireland is necessary to support a family, but the tax returns show
that the 20,000,000 acres are divided among 68,716 owners; that is, one
person in sixty-four is a landowner, with an average of 300 acres each,
counting men, women, and children, although that is not a fair basis of
calculation in Ireland, because so many of the young and middle-aged
people emigrate and leave more than a natural proportion of old men and
young children on the island.
The tax returns show that the land in 1907 was actually divided among
the 68,716 owners as follows:
Owning 100,000 acres or more 3
Between 50,000 and 100,000 16
Between 20,000 and 50,000 90
Between 10,000 and 20,000 185
Between 5,000 and 10,000 452
Between 2,000 and 5,000 1,198
Between 1,000 and 2,000 1,803
Between 500 and 1,000 2,716
Between 100 and 500 7,989
Between 50 and 100 3,479
Between 10 and 50 7,746
Between 1 and 10 acres 6,892
The changes in the size of Irish farms has been remarkable. In 1841, 81
per cent of the holdings were less than ten acres. To-day, as you will
see by the table, out of 68,000 farms, only 6,892 are of ten acres and
less.
The following is a list of Irish landlords who owned more than 30,000
acres each, and the average annual rentals collected from their tenants
prior to the passage of the Wyndham Land Act of 1903, which authorizes
the purchase with government funds of their estates, and the division
into small farms for the tenants who occupied them:
Annual
Acres Revenue
Law Life Assurance Company 165,804 £6,384
Marquess of Lansdowne 123,634 32,412
Marquess of Sligo 122,902 16,018
Marquess of Downshire 107,828 86,269
Earl of Kenmore 105,359 26,951
Lord Ventry 91,505 15,282
Earl Fitzwilliam 89,468 45,568
Viscount Dillon 78,898 16,933
Sir Roger W.H. Palmer 74,857 12,829
Earl of Bantry 73,360 11,628
Duke of Leinster 71,581 48,841
Marquess of Waterford 71,056 33,412
Lord O'Neil 65,857 45,308
Marquess of Hertford 63,265 75,699
Earl of Lucan 59,478 12,194
Earl of Kingston 54,165 32,565
Duke of Abercorn 51,919 26,689
Marquess of Clanricarde 51,006 18,472
Sir Charles H. Bart Coote 48,739 18,691
Viscount Powerscourt 47,551 13,563
Marquess of Ely 47,076 22,126
Earl of Bandon 46,129 20,438
Trustees of Kilmorrey Estate 46,054 20,663
Earl of Annesley 45,263 22,297
Capt. Henry A. Herbert 42,939 9,695
Thomas S. Carter 41,406 2,138
Earl of Leitrim 39,382 9,890
Lord Laconfield 39,048 16,558
W.H. and John T. Massey 37,241 9,001
Viscount Lismore 37,137 14,113
Lord Stuart DeDecies 36,788 15,473
Earl of Bessborough 36,372 22,649
Viscount Clifden 36,166 19,705
George Clive 35,513 836
Marquess of Londonderry 34,949 30,617
Lord of Antrim 34,493 12,600
H.L. Barry 34,376 26,464
Marquess of Conyngham 33,693 18,373
Lord DeFreyne 33,120 12,719
Earl of Devon 33,100 12,764
Duke of Devonshire 32,776 19,441
T.C. Bland 32,540 2,638
Hon. H.L. King-Harman 32,531 17,090
Sir George V. Colthurst 31,993 11,042
Lord Annaly 31,826 13,740
Marquess of Ormonde 31,794 17,457
Earl of Erne 31,069 16,758
Earl of Granard 30,725 15,816
Lord Digby 30,627 13,409
Earl of Caledon 30,502 15,725
Earl of Arran 30,346 7,111
Lord Farnham 30,191 19,347
Earl of Enniskellen 30,146 13,883
The owners of other large tracts and the persons who own between 10,000
and 30,000 acres are also nearly all noblemen. It would seem that
titles of nobility and large estates go together over here. That is the
rule in other countries, and is perfectly natural, because a poor man
has no use for a title of nobility and a rich man is usually anxious to
get one.
A peer has just as much right to own land as anybody, and the complaints
heard in Ireland are not on account of the rank or the station of the
landlords, but because of their neglect of their interests and their
tenants, especially because most of them do not spend the incomes from
their estates in making improvements or for the benefit of their own
people; they do not spend it in Ireland, but reside in London most of
the time and spend the money there, where the people who earn it receive
no benefit from it directly or indirectly. It is unnecessary to discuss
the evils of large estates. They are too numerous to mention, especially
when they are owned by people who live outside of the country. That is
the great obstacle to the development of Mexico, where millions of acres
in large tracts, granted to Spanish grandees before independence, still
remain in the ownership of their descendants, who live in Spain or
Paris, and spend the revenues there. It is true, also, of Russia,
Poland, Austria, and of many other countries, and to a certain extent of
Cuba, where a number of the valuable and productive plantations belong
to families who are living in Spain, Paris, or New York, and never even
visit them.
A few years ago, by order of Parliament, an investigation was made to
ascertain the habits of the large Irish landowners in connection with
their estates, and the following table shows the result:
Acres Rents
Landlords owned collected
Resident on or near the property 5,589 8,880,549 £4,718,497
Residing elsewhere in Ireland,
occasionally on property 377 852,818 371,123
Residing elsewhere in Ireland 4,465 4,362,446 2,128,220
Residing out of Ireland but
occasionally on property 180 1,368,347 601,072
Never resident in Ireland 1,443 3,145,514 1,538,071
Owned by charitable institutions or
corporations, 161 584,327 234,678
Not ascertained 1,350 615,308 331,633
No country ever suffered so much from absentee landlordism as Ireland,
and many great estates here have been entirely neglected, or practically
abandoned and allowed to go to ruin by the owners who intrusted them to
dishonest or incompetent managers and took no interest in their own
property. No one can blame the tenants upon such estates for their
enmity and resentment toward the proprietors, or condemn them for their
refusal to pay rent when they received very little or nothing in return.
But the system in Ireland has been very much improved of late years by
various acts of parliament, and many people think that the tenants now
have the advantage in every respect. Fifty years ago the landlord was
the owner and autocrat of the soil and everything that stood upon it.
The tenant had no legal rights beyond what was written down in his
lease, and when that expired the landlord could raise or lower his rent
or drive him off the land at pleasure.
Nearly every one of the peers who has sold his estates in Ireland under
the land act has taken the cash and has gone to London to live, and if
home rule is ever granted to the Irish people there will be little room
left for those who remain. Most of the Irish peers spend the greater
part of their time in London. Some of them never come to Ireland at all
except for the shooting season or horse show. Several prominent English
peers have estates in Ireland inherited from ancestors who have
intermarried with the Irish nobility. The Duke of Devonshire, for
example, owns one of the largest and finest estates in the kingdom at
Lismore, a few miles north of Cork. The late duke, who died in 1907,
took a great interest in the property and spent a great deal of time
there.
Forcible evictions are things of the past. Several years ago the demands
for "The Three Fs"--free sale, fair rent, and fixed tenure--were
complied with, and to-day the farms in Ireland are subject to what is
called "a dual ownership," peculiar to this country. No landlord can rob
a tenant any longer. Disputes concerning rent are now settled by a
tribunal which takes all the circumstances into consideration and
decides upon the equities rather than the technicalities of the case.
This has revolutionized the land system of Ireland, and by a succession
of acts of parliament during the past few years the government has gone
a great way toward equalizing ownership and creating a nation of peasant
proprietors, which, according to their ideas over here, is the ideal
condition.
During the last quarter of a century from six thousand to eight thousand
farmers have been evicted from farms in Ireland because they refused or
were unable or neglected to pay their rent. Some of them have remained
in the neighborhood and have squatted where they could, and waited their
chance to recover their holdings; others have emigrated to America;
others have gone into different parts of Ireland; others have engaged in
business of various sorts. Between five thousand and six thousand have
already applied for restoration under the Act of 1907, most of them
through the agency of the United Irish League. Of these, 1,595 families
had been restored up to July, 1908, most of them to the actual farms
from which they were expelled, not as tenants, however, for they will
never be asked to pay any more rent, but as the owners of the property
and improvements, purchased for them by the government, with money to be
repaid, not by them unless they choose to do so, but by their posterity
in the year 1975, or thereabouts. The only financial obligation imposed
upon them is to pay an interest of 3-1/2; per cent upon the purchase
money, which has been borrowed by the government upon bonds running for
sixty-eight years, at 3 per cent interest. The additional one-half per
cent goes into a sinking fund to pay the bonds at maturity.
About 75 per cent of the claims that have been filed under the Evicted
Tenants Act have been genuine; the remainder are apparently fraudulent
or in doubt, and some of those that have been already allowed are
questionable. I heard of a case in which a tenant who was evicted in
1889 for refusal to pay his rent was restored to his old home under
rather peculiar circumstances. His misfortunes were voluntary, and due
to political reasons rather than from the lack of means, and when he was
thrown off his farm he went into business as a cattle broker and became
rich. But, in common with his former neighbors, he filed his claims
under the act, was restored to his old home, and the generous agents of
the estates commission bought a couple of cows, a few sheep, and hogs
from his own pastures, paid him for them, and then gave them to him. He
is now occupying the place and cultivating it by hired labor, and will
be asked to refund the money the government has advanced for him in the
year 1975.
In the application of the provisions of the act no distinction is made
between those who were evicted because of their poverty and those for
political reasons. About one thousand evictions were the result of what
is known as the "Plan of Campaign" adopted in 1887, when the National
League determined to force the issue and organized a general strike
among the farmers against the payment of rent upon certain estates
selected because their landlords were habitual absentees, who spent the
revenues they derived from their estates outside of Ireland and were
oppressive to their tenants and generally offensive. As a rule, the
tenants paid half a year's rent to the agents of the league for a war
fund, so far as they were able. Most of them were able to pay, although
there was a great deal of suffering and privation among about a thousand
families who were thrown out of their homes during one land war which
lasted for two or three years. Practically all of them have already been
restored to their former farms.
In 1901 another land war was inaugurated, under the direction of Dennis
Johnston and John Fitzgibbons of the United Irish League, in Roscommon
and neighboring counties, and a large number of tenants who had
voluntarily agreed not to pay their rents were thrown off their farms as
voluntary martyrs in a campaign which finally resulted in the enactment
of the act of 1907, which was prepared and introduced into parliament by
George Wyndham, chief secretary for Ireland under the late conservative
government. This act authorizes the estates commission having in charge
the administration of the Land Act of 1903 to acquire by force if
necessary eighty thousand acres of land wherever they consider it
expedient, to be sold under mortgages of sixty-eight years at 3-1/2; per
cent interest to families who have been evicted from their former
homes. The commissioners are required to investigate the claims of those
who have been evicted, through their staff of inspectors, and if found
genuine to serve notice upon the owner to vacate the farms from which
they were evicted within a certain time. The landlord has the right of
appeal, but every one of the owners of lands from which tenants were
evicted has voluntarily consented to their restoration except the
Marquess of Clanricarde, and a Mrs. Lewis who has a large estate in
County Galway and has been one of the most vindictive and oppressive of
all the landlords. She is a woman of very determined character, and will
not even answer letters addressed to her by the officials of the
government.
The Marquess of Clanricarde is nearly eighty years old, very eccentric,
a miser, dresses very shabbily, lives like a recluse and pays no bills.
He has visited his Irish estates but once since he inherited them in
1874, He was in the diplomatic service as a young man during the
'fifties, and at one time was a member of parliament. His name is Hubert
George de Burg Canning, Marquess of Clanricarde, Viscount Burke and
Baron Dunkellin, and he has several other titles, but has no family--a
childless widower.
The Clanricarde estates lie directly west from Dublin in Galway County
and were obtained by his ancestor, William FitzAnselm de Burg, the
founder of the Burke family, under a grant from Henry I., and he founded
the town of Galway. To this day the whole province of Connaught is
dotted with the ruined castles of the De Burg family, monuments of four
or five centuries of uninterrupted fighting with the O'Neills, the
O'Donnells, the O'Flahertys, the O'Connors, and other powerful clans in
the early history of Ireland. The battle of Knockdoe, fought in the
fourteenth century between an undisciplined horde of native clansmen
under the Earl of Clanricarde, was provoked by an insult he offered to
his wife. She was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald the Great, Earl of
Kildare, and her affectionate father in vengeance attacked his
son-in-law with a disciplined force loaned him by his neighbors, the
lords of the Pale of Dublin. It is said that eight thousand dead bodies
were left upon the field. Those were strenuous days, and the earls of
Clanricarde have been reckoned among the fiercest fighters from the time
they came over from England in the fourteenth century. Sometimes they
have been on one side and sometimes on the other, but like most genuine
Irishmen, they have usually been "agin the government," whatever, policy
it represented. There have been several earnest patriots in the line. An
old Irish ballad begins with the line, "Glory guards Clanricarde's
grave!" but the present earl is not the one referred to.
The late earl was very popular with his tenants, and so liberal and
lenient was he, according to the gossip, that they got into bad habits,
and when the present earl came into the property in 1874 he pulled them
up very sharply and demanded a prompt and full payment of all their
obligations. Being unaccustomed to such stern measures, they were
resentful, and a quarrel began which has lasted until now, and
Clanricarde, convinced that he has right and justice on his side, has
used the mailed hand. There have been more trouble and disturbance upon
his estates than upon any other in Ireland. Every one of his tenants has
been evicted, and sometimes a succession of them, and their farms have
been let to what are called "planters,"--a term used in Ireland to
describe families imported from a distance and planted upon land which
no person in the neighborhood will rent because the previous tenant has
been evicted from it. Every man on the Clanricarde estates is a
"planter." After the passage of the act of 1907 the estates
commissioners requested him to sell his entire holding under the act of
1903, but he not only rejected the proposition, but has declined even to
discuss the subject, and has maintained that uncompromising attitude
from the beginning, an embittered, relentless, vindictive old man.
[Illustration: PORTUMNA CASTLE, COUNTY GALWAY; THE SEAT OF THE EARL OF
CLANRICARDE]
When the commission undertook to apply the compulsory clause of the
Evicted Tenants Act and published the notice in the _Dublin Gazette_,
the earl filed a protest. Mr. Justice Wiley of the Lower Court sustained
the commission, but the Court of Appeals, composed of twelve judges,
unanimously reversed the decision and decided that the estates
commission has no power to forcibly dispossess any _bona fide_ "planter"
from land already under lease.
This decision technically justified the position that the earl has
taken, and it applies to the estates of Mrs. Lewis also, so that the
commissioners cannot go any farther in their work of restoring the
evicted tenants upon those two properties. As soon as the decision was
rendered a bill was introduced in parliament confiscating the entire
Clanricarde estates. It is not expected to pass, but was intended to
advertise the situation and create public opinion. The government,
however, took the matter promptly in hand, and the Earl of Crewe
introduced a bill authorizing the estates commissioners to take by
force, after the usual legal proceedings, any occupied land they may
think necessary and proper for the restoration of evicted tenants,
provided they can obtain the consent of the occupant. This act was
passed, and notice was immediately given in the _Dublin Gazette_ that
the estates commissioners intend, under the Evicted Tenants Act, to
acquire compulsorily upwards of eighteen hundred acres of land on the
estate of Lord Clanricarde in County Galway. This means that the owner
of the property is to have nothing to say about the matter, but a _bona
fide_ tenant, who in good faith is occupying a farm from which his
predecessor has been evicted, cannot be ejected without his consent. We
are familiar with the methods of "persuasion" that have been used for
years by the United Irish League and other patriotic organizations, and
it is entirely probable that they will prove sufficient in all cases
that will arise under this new provision. Therefore, as soon as the
proposed act is passed, the tenants upon the Clanricarde estates will be
looking for trouble.
The Earl of Clanricarde cannot expect to live a great while longer. He
is already an infirm old man and his heir, Lord Sligo of Westport, a
nephew, is almost as old as he. Lord Sligo is one of the largest land
holders in Ireland. He owns 114,000 acres in the north, which is mostly
grazing land, and his tenants are miserably poor, living in squalid
hovels scattered over the estate. He does nothing for them, and exacts
the last halfpenny of his rent. His heir, who will soon come into both
the Clanricarde and Sligo estates, is his son, Lord Henry Ulick Browne,
of whom very little is known. He is fifty-eight years of age and lives
at Westport Castle, Westport, Ireland. As he has had the management of
much of his father's property for many years, it is generally believed
that he is responsible for the harsh policy that has been followed
toward the tenants, and that they can expect no better treatment when he
becomes their lawful lord.
The British Parliament has published a return (No. Cd. 4093) covering
all the proceedings under the Act of April, 1907, to restore evicted
tenants in Ireland; giving particulars in each case in which an evicted
tenant, or a person nominated by the estates commissioners to be a
personal representative of the deceased evicted tenant, has with the
assistance of the commission been reinstated, either by the landlord or
by the estates commissioners, or provided with a new parcel of land
under the Land Purchase Act.
It is a quarto pamphlet of forty-seven pages, and gives in fine type the
names of all the farmers in Ireland who have been evicted since 1876,
with the dates of the evictions, the area they formerly occupied, the
rent they formerly paid, the arrears of rent due at the time of the
eviction, the value of the property, the name of the landlord, the name
of the estate, the name of the town and the county, the date of
restoration, the price paid by the estates commissioners for each tract,
the valuation of the buildings and other improvements on the property,
and the compensation given to outgoing tenants who surrender their
holdings under the law, to those who were formerly evicted from them.
This report shows that forty tenants have been restored to the
Blacker-Douglass estates in Armagh, thirty-two have been restored on the
Charlemont estates in the same county; forty-four of those evicted from
1887 to 1889 by Lord Massareene in County Meath have been restored, and
thirty-nine on the estate of the Marquess of Lansdowne in Queen's
County. On the estates of Sir G. Brooke, in Waterford, seventy-eight
families, evicted in 1887 and 1888, have been restored; twenty-six on
the estate of A.L. Tottenham, Leitrim; thirty-four on the Vandaleur
estates in Leitrim; thirty on the estates of C.W. Warden in County
Kerry; thirty-three on the estates of the Earl of Listowel, and similar
numbers elsewhere.
So far as is known, every family in Ireland that has been evicted from a
farm during the last fifty years for non-payment of rent, or for
political reasons, has been restored wherever they are living, and, if
the head of the family at the time of the eviction is dead, his heirs
have been placed in possession of the place. And all this has been done
by the government at the expense of the taxpayers as a vindication of
the policy of the Irish Land League, the United Irish League, and other
organizations which have conducted the land wars.
The restoration of the evicted tenants was not voluntary on the part of
the British government. It was forced upon the parliament by the Irish
agitators. In a debate on this act in the House of Lords, the Marquess
of Lansdowne, who had evicted a large number of tenants from his
estates, admitted that he and other landlords accepted the proposition
with great reluctance, and "only because the government had represented
to them very earnestly, indeed, that the measure formed an integral part
of a policy of pacification which they desired to bring about in
Ireland, and if the landlords took the responsibility of rejecting this
particular item, the entire programme was destined to failure. It is on
the strength of these representations," said the Marquess of Lansdowne,
"that we ask the House of Lords to agree to the restoration of all Irish
tenants who have been evicted at any time for political reasons as well
as for failure to pay their rents."
The members of the National Party in Ireland concede this point
cheerfully. They willingly admit that they insisted upon the restoration
of all evicted tenants as the first and the most important proposition
in the programme of pacification in Ireland, and they agreed with the
Marquess of Lansdowne that it would have been a failure otherwise. It
should also be stated that all arrears of rent for which families have
been evicted from Irish farms have been cancelled, and the restored
tenants have become the actual owners of the land, the houses, and all
improvements. Instead of paying rent to a landlord, they become the
landlords themselves. The purchase money in every case has been advanced
by the government, and is to be repaid by the purchaser in sixty-eight
years with interest at three and one quarter per cent per annum. This
sum represents two and one-half per cent interest upon bonds issued to
raise the funds and three-fourths of one per cent for a sinking fund to
meet the bonds at maturity.
X
MAYNOOTH COLLEGE AND CARTON HOUSE
Two-thirds and perhaps as many as three-fourths of the Roman Catholic
priests in Ireland were educated at the College of Maynooth, which turns
out one hundred and fifty or more earnest, zealous, able young clergymen
every year, and is the most conspicuous and influential educational
institution in Ireland. Comparatively few of the graduates go to the
United States. Dr. Hogan, professor of modern languages and literature,
explained that nearly all of the Irish priests who emigrated to America
were educated at the missionary college of All Hallows, near Dublin, for
the United States was until recently counted as a mission field by the
holy see and was under the jurisdiction of the prefect of the propaganda
of the holy faith at Rome. There are quite a number of Maynooth
graduates in America, and during the recent visit of Cardinal Logue they
gave a dinner in his honor in New York.
Dr. Hogan took us through the buildings, which are spacious and surround
two large quadrangles. They are built of stone, four stories in height,
are entirely modern and fitted up with all the conveniences and
accessories that belong to an up-to-date institution of learning. The
chapel is also modern, built within the present generation and entirely
conventional. It is not large enough to accommodate all of the students,
and the underclass men attend mass elsewhere.
Beyond the second quadrangle is a campus of seventy acres of lawn and
garden and grove, where five hundred young men were engaged in taking
their daily supply of fresh air and exercise when we passed through the
archway. Almost every kind of game was going on, from croquet to
football. There were several cricket contests in progress; others were
playing at hockey and basketball; others were on the track running, and
the lazy ones were lying stretched out on the velvet grass. There are
now five hundred and sixty-two students, nearly all of them theologs,
and one hundred and twenty graduated in 1908. They come chiefly from
Ireland, a few from Irish families in England, a few more from
Australia, but at present there is no representative of the United
States. When I asked a group of young men how they got along without any
Americans, one of them illustrated the quick wit of his race by replying
promptly: "We hope never to have them here, sir; they are altogether too
smart for us. If they keep on, the Americans will run the world."
It costs very little to get an education at Maynooth. The fees are
small,--$20 for matriculation, $25 for tuition, $150 a year for board,
and other small fees for electric light, rent of furniture, etc., which
brings the total up to about $225 a year. There are two hundred and
seventy scholarships which have been founded by friends of the
institution and societies in the different parishes, and they pay an
average of $150 a year. There is a fine library with forty thousand
volumes, and a gymnasium and everything else that is needed.
The ancient castle of Maynooth, built by the Earl of Kildare in 1427,
stands at the gateway of the college, and occupies the site of the
original stronghold of the family, built in 1176 by the first Maurice
Fitzgerald, who came over with the Strongbow at the time of the
Conquest. It has been a ruin since 1647, and a beautiful ruin it is--one
of the largest and most picturesque in the kingdom.
[Illustration: MAYNOOTH COLLEGE COUNTY KILDARE]
Until 1895, when the centenary of Maynooth College was celebrated, six
thousand priests and prelates of Irish birth had been educated within
the walls of that "mother of love, and of fear and of knowledge, and of
holy hope," as her alumni call her. And now the number exceeds
seventy-five hundred. Most of them have been, and those now living are
still, doing pastoral work in Ireland, and nearly two thousand of the
alumni have gone abroad into the United States, England, Scotland,
Australia, South Africa, and other English-speaking countries. During
the first three-quarters of the eighteenth century and for several
hundred years before Catholic education was prohibited in Ireland, but
it was not possible for the British authorities to prevent young men
from crossing the sea, and during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries a number of Irish colleges were founded in the Peninsula, in
France, and in Flanders, and there most of the Irish priests of that
long period received their education. It has been often asserted that
the Catholic faith might have disappeared in Ireland but for the ardent
piety and ambition of these young students, who found the preparation
they needed for parish work from the Irish faculties of divinity schools
on the Continent. In 1795, at the time Maynooth College was founded,
about four hundred young Irishmen were attending such institutions, and
in 1808 a printed report names twelve colleges with four hundred and
seventy-eight Irish students.
Most of these institutions were in France, and they were closed and
desecrated by the French Revolution, which expelled their inmates,
profaned their altars, and confiscated their possessions. The Irish
bishops, in consequence, found themselves confronted with an alarming
situation. The foreign supply of priests was entirely cut off and the
laws of Parliament prohibited their education at home. In this extremity
they applied to the government, asking permission to found seminaries
for educating young men to discharge the duties of Roman Catholic
clergymen in the kingdom. William Pitt, then prime minister, was
persuaded that it was safer for England to grant this request than to
permit the young priests to imbibe the hatred of England and the
democratic and revolutionary principles that pervaded society on the
Continent. Edmund Burke and Earl Fitzwilliam acted in behalf of the
bishops, and the latter was instructed by the prime minister to
supervise the establishment of a new institution. Dr. Hussey,
confidential agent of the English government in Dublin, was appointed
the first president. He is described as a scholar, statesman,
diplomatist, and orator; he had a checkered and eventful career; he
undertook many things and excelled in them all. He was a fellow of the
Royal Society, a preacher of remarkable power, and the intimate friend
of such statesmen as Edmund Burke. He had the confidence of William Pitt
and was the trusted agent of princes and statesmen. He was a native of
County Meath, was educated at the ancient University of Salamanca of
Spain, and originally entered a Trappist monastery, but left it shortly
after and became chaplain of the Spanish embassy in London. The British
government, recognizing his ability and integrity, sent Dr. Hussey on
two confidential missions to the court of Spain, and rewarded his
success by granting him a liberal pension for life and appointing him as
confidential agent of the government in its negotiations with the
bishops, and afterward to be president of the first Catholic theological
seminary in Ireland. After two years at the head of the institution he
was appointed bishop of Waterford, where he remained until his death in
1803.
Instruction was commenced in a private house belonging to an agent of
the Duke of Leinster. The foundations of a new building were laid on the
20th of April, 1796, and seven months later it was opened with fifty
students on the roll. The Duke of Leinster, although a Protestant,
anxious to have the college on his estate, made very liberal terms, and
successive generations of the house of Kildare, of which he is the
representative, have been not only friendly but generous to the
institution.
Everything about the college reminds the student of the famous class of
Geraldines. The ancient castle of the Kildares, built by Maurice
Fitzgerald the Invader, and enlarged by John, the sixth earl, in the
year 1426, stands at the gate, and on either side of the main walk are
fine old yew-trees planted more than seven hundred years ago. According
to local legends that vain and reckless youth, "Silken Thomas," sat
beneath its spreading branches and played his harp three hundred and
seventy-five years ago, on the evening before he started for Dublin to
relinquish his trust as temporary viceroy and assault the castle. His
five uncles were hanged at Tyburn mainly because they were Catholics.
At the fall of the house the sole surviving heir was saved by his tutor,
a Catholic priest, who afterward became Bishop of Kildare. Several
generations later the earls of Kildare and the dukes of Leinster became
Protestants, but they always advocated the emancipation of their
Catholic fellow-countrymen, and have always been fair and honorable in
their dealings with the institution.
It was a difficult task to get a faculty in those days, as there had not
been a Catholic college in Ireland for centuries. But the French
Revolution had cast upon the shores of Ireland many competent exiles,
who were placed in charge of the various departments, and among the
clergy of Ireland were found a sufficient number of scholars to complete
the staff of instructors. The Revolution of 1798 broke out two years
after the college was opened, and many of the students were stirred by
aspirations which caused their expulsion. It was a test that many felt
to be very severe; but the faculty were determined to keep faith with
the government, and sixteen students were expelled. In 1803, the year of
Emmet's insurrection, there was a good deal of insubordination, which
has been described as a "ground swell from the outside agitation." Six
students were expelled, one of whom, Michael Collins, afterward became
Bishop of Cloyne.
The original grant of Parliament was $40,000 a year. In 1807 this was
increased to $65,000, which was expended in buildings. It was afterwards
reduced, and until 1840 was about $50,000. At that time there were four
hundred students, who could not be properly accommodated. In 1844 the
trustees drew up and forwarded to the government a strong memorial,
which was read in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Peel, who declared
that such a state of things was discreditable to the nation and that
Parliament should either cut Maynooth College adrift altogether, or
maintain it in a manner worthy of the state. In the face of resolute
opposition of a majority of his own party, he carried through a proposal
to give the sum of $30,000 for new buildings and an annual grant of
$26,360 for the maintenance of the college. Mr. Gladstone supported the
prime minister, Mr. Disraeli, then leader of the opposition, attacking
the bill fiercely. Thomas Babington Macaulay and Dr. Whately, the
rhetorician, both made eloquent and convincing speeches in its support.
In 1869, when the bill to dissolve the relations between the Protestant
church in Ireland and the government was passed, Mr. Gladstone, then
prime minister, was compelled to treat Maynooth College on the same
terms that he gave the Irish Episcopal branch of the Established Church,
and the Presbyterian, giving each a sum of money equal to fourteen
installments of its annual grants.
The interest upon that sum at three and one-half per cent is not
sufficient for the proper support of so large an institution, but the
college has had many generous friends, and with economy has been able
not only to maintain itself but to strengthen its position, enlarge its
facilities, and give its students better accommodations and greater
advantages year by year. The several bishops of Ireland have raised
funds to endow many scholarships, so that the expenses incidental to
student life have been very much reduced for those who are unable to pay
the full fee. Nevertheless, there is great anxiety among the trustees
and the professors to extend the buildings, add several chairs to the
faculty, and obtain more endowments.
Maynooth is the rendezvous of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, being
conveniently located and accessible to all the bishops. They meet here
frequently to discuss ecclesiastical matters and determine upon church
policies. His Eminence Cardinal Logue is president of the board of
trustees. His Grace the Most Rev. William J. Walsh, D.D., Archbishop of
Dublin, is vice-president. The Archbishop of Cashel, the Archbishop of
Tuam, and twelve bishops make up the board. The president of the college
is the Right Rev. Mgr. Mannix, D.D.; the vice-president is the Very Rev.
Thomas P. Gilmartin, D.D., and the deans of the different schools are
the Rev. Thomas T. Gilmartin, D.D., Rev. James Macginley, D.D., and the
Rev. Patrick Morrisroe.
Religion is a live thing in Ireland, and the Roman Catholic churches are
always filled to overflowing at every service with as many men as women,
which is unusual in other countries. In Ireland the situation seems to
be different, and the congregations are invariably composed about
equally of the two sexes. The Church of Ireland is comparatively weak in
numbers, and has more houses of worship than it needs, having inherited
many of them from the confiscation edicts of the English kings.
Naturally they are not so well filled, but the Roman Catholics are
compelled to have three or four services every Sunday in order to
accommodate the worshipers, and the priest is invariably the most
influential man in the parish. He enters directly into the life of his
parishioners, the parish boundaries are sharply divided, and his
jurisdiction is so well defined that he knows all the sheep and all the
goats that belong to his flock, over whom he exercises a parental as
well as a spiritual care. They come to him in all their troubles and in
their joys. He advises them about social, political, commercial,
domestic, and personal as well as spiritual affairs, and is the court of
highest resort in all disputes and family matters. No other authority
reaches so far or is rooted so deep in the community, and this peculiar
relation grows closer with years.
I formed a high opinion of the Irish priesthood from the examples I was
able to meet and to know. They impressed me as an unusually high class
of men intellectually as well as spiritually, and every one must admire
their devotion, their sincerity, and their self-sacrifice. Some of them
naturally become dictatorial, for it is often necessary for them to
assume an air of authority to preserve discipline in their parishes, but
I think that is more or less the rule in other countries and in all
denominations. You cannot talk back to a judge or a school-teacher or a
parson. And that is undoubtedly the ground for the charge so frequently
made that Ireland is "priest ridden." But the average of intelligence,
culture, and efficiency among the Irish priesthood is probably higher
than it is in any other country, and their influence is correspondingly
greater. There is a great deal of criticism in certain quarters about
the activity of the Irish priests in politics and that I found to be
largely a misrepresentation. Many of the priests do take an active part
in political affairs, but it is entirely a matter of individual taste
and inclination, and the proportion is probably no larger than it is
among ministers of all denominations in the United States. Those who are
well posted on this subject assured me that about one-third of the total
number of Catholic priests habitually interest themselves in political
affairs, local as well as national; a still larger number take an active
part in educational matters, and about one-half of them let politics
entirely alone. This is probably a fair estimate and will apply to the
clergy of the Church of Ireland and the nonconformist denominations with
equal accuracy, although they are much less numerous than the Roman
Catholic clergy.
It is always interesting to attend mass at a Roman Catholic church on
Sunday in Ireland, particularly in the smaller towns and country
parishes, where everybody except those who are too infirm to come out is
present in his best clothes, and, no matter how poor he may be, no one
passes the man who stands with a box at the entrance without dropping in
something, most of them only a penny or a halfpenny, but none without an
offering. The appearance of the people, and particularly the women, is
in striking contrast to that on week-days, and I am told that this
depends very largely upon the priests, many of whom insist that every
man, woman, and child shall have a suit of Sunday clothes and "wash up"
before coming to the house of God.
The Christian Brothers Educational Order of the Roman Catholic Church of
Ireland was organized in Waterford in 1802 by Edmund Rice, a wealthy
merchant who lamented the number of neglected boys he saw in the streets
and consulted Bishop Hussey, the first president of Maynooth College, as
to what he could do to rescue them. Mr. Rice sold his business and
opened a free school in his residence while a large building was being
erected for his use. The cornerstone was laid June 1, 1802. It was
finished the next year, was called Mount Zion, and is still in
operation, although very much enlarged. It has been the father house
and headquarters of the Irish Christian Brothers from the beginning.
Within a few years similar schools were opened in Dungarvan, Limerick,
Cork, Dublin, and later in every city and town in Ireland. In 1820 the
order was chartered by the Pope, and it has grown until there are now
more than one thousand brothers, all engaged in teaching day schools of
various standards, from primary instruction up to colleges. They have
technical and trade schools, commercial schools, orphanages, and schools
for the deaf and dumb and the blind all over the world, in Australia,
New Zealand, Africa, India, Gibraltar, and one house in New York. It is
independent of the American order of Christian Brothers, which was
founded in France in the seventeenth century by St. John Baptiste de la
Salle, a French abbé who was canonized by the Pope about four years ago.
In Ireland the Christian Brothers receive no grant from the government,
and all their primary schools are free. Tuition is charged at the
secondary and technical schools and the remainder of the support comes
from legacies, private and public contributions, collections in
churches, and other sources.
Edmund Rice died in 1844 at the age of eighty-two, and is buried in
Waterford cemetery, with this simple epitaph:
BROTHER EDWARD IGNATIUS RICE,
Founder of Christian Schools
In Ireland and England.
Carton House, the seat of the earls of Kildare, is on the opposite side
of Maynooth from the college. It is the present home of Maurice
Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster, a young man who came of age in March,
1908. He carries more rank and titles than any other person in Ireland,
and has more money than any Irishman except Dublin's titled brewer. He
spends much of his time at Carton House, which looks like a Florentine
palace, but is completely modernized and fitted up with electric light,
telephones, and elevators, and stands upon an eminence in the center of
a park inclosed within eight miles of stone wall ten feet high. It is a
drive of three miles from his front gate to the threshold of his front
door, and there are more than thirty miles of macadamized roadway within
the demesne. There are hills and dales, twelve lakes, and four
waterfalls, one of them thirty-nine feet high. There is a garden of
sixty acres laid out in the French style, with fourteen or fifteen
fountains and many arbors, kiosks, and pergolas. There are meadows,
pastures, vegetable gardens, and fields of oats and other grain, but
three-fourths of the park is primeval forest, that has never heard the
sound of an axe, and most of the trees are as old as history. I am told
that no private park in the world surpasses the grounds of Carton House.
Among other curiosities is a cottage built entirely of shells, to
commemorate a visit of Queen Victoria, who describes her experiences in
"Leaves from Our Life," and tells of jaunting cars, Irish jigs, and
bagpipes. The shell cottage is now used as a museum to contain the
family relics.
The young duke has several other residences. One of them is Kilkea
Castle, County Kildare, which came into the family in the thirteenth
century, with ninety thousand acres of farm land, which has just been
sold to his tenants under the Wyndham Land Act for more than $6,000,000.
The Duke of Leinster has also disposed of his farming lands in the
neighborhood of Maynooth for more than $800,000. The estates commission,
which has the responsibility of carrying out the provisions of the land
act, has purchased more land from him than from any other landlord, and
he has received from them in payment nearly one-fourth of the entire
amount of money that has been paid under the act by the government. He
has a plain but spacious town house on Dominick Street, Dublin, and Mrs.
John W. Mackay now occupies his London residence, 6 Carlton House
Terrace, under a long lease. His wealth is estimated at $50,000,000. He
is unmarried, and has no attachments so far as known. His accumulation
of titles is even greater than his wealth. He is the sixth duke of
Leinster, which title dates from 1761, and was bestowed by Queen Anne;
he is the twenty-fifth earl of Kildare, which title dates from 1316; and
the thirty-first baron of Offlay, a title that has been in the family
since 1168. He is the premier duke, the premier marquis, the premier
earl, and the premier baron; the head of the Irish nobility. And all
this rank and responsibility is borne by a frail boy of twenty-one.
[Illustration: CARTON HOUSE, MAYNOOTH, COUNTY KILDARE; THE RESIDENCE OF
THE DUKE OF LEINSTER]
He spent the winter of 1907-8 in America, incognito, under the name of
Maurice Fitzgerald. He and his tutor visited Quebec, Montreal, and
Ottawa, and all the principal cities in the United States. They
inspected Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, and Stanford
University, for the young duke has recently taken a degree at Oxford,
and was naturally curious to see some American institutions. He spent
some time in New York, and was in Washington for a couple of days
without disclosing his rank. He enjoyed himself immensely during the
entire journey and escaped all the matchmakers, the lion hunters, and
the society cormorants. He was not in search of a wife, but was seeking
health and completing his education. I am told that he is an exceedingly
sensible young fellow, modest, intelligent, thoughtful, and studious. He
does not need to marry for wealth nor for position. He can pick his own
wife, and has plenty of time to consider the choice.
The duke has been very carefully brought up and educated. His mother
died when he was nine years old. She was Lady Hermione Duncombe,
daughter of the Earl of Faversham. His father died at the age of
forty-two, when he was fourteen. The present duke inherits his delicate,
frail constitution, and has symptoms of tuberculosis, which has been the
death of many Geraldines. To preserve himself from its dreaded grasp he
has lived an outdoor life under the care of a physician, and every
preventive that medical science can devise has been used for his
protection. Since the death of his mother he has been under the care of
three aunts,--Lady Cynthia Graham, Lady Ulrica Duncombe, and Lady Helen
Vincent,--his tutor, Rev. the Marquis of Normanby, and his trustee, the
Earl of Faversham. He has had governesses and tutors, spent two years at
Eton and three years at Oxford, although his studies have been
frequently interrupted by sea voyages and camping tours in the mountains
for his health. He has a brother, Desmond, two years his junior, and
another, Edward, who is fourteen years old.
The Duke of Leinster is prepared to take his proper place in public
life, and has recently been appointed master of the horse to the Earl of
Aberdeen, lord lieutenant of Ireland. His acceptance of this post
indicates that he is a liberal in politics and a home ruler; and,
indeed, the tendency of his education has been in that direction. His
tutors and trustees are all home rulers and liberals. He is in training
for the viceregal throne of Ireland, which so many of his ancestors have
occupied, and that is his ambition. If Ireland should be granted
autonomy under the plan proposed by Mr. Gladstone twenty-five years ago
and demanded as their ultimatum by the Irish national party, the Duke of
Leinster will be the most available candidate for lord lieutenant, and
for many reasons his selection would be agreeable to those most
interested on both sides of St. George's Channel. His advent in politics
is an event of great importance, and therefore will be watched with
anxiety.
The mansion at Maynooth is an immense building of more than two hundred
rooms, sumptuously furnished. There are fourteen drawing-rooms, and the
banqueting hall will seat three hundred people. The library contains one
of the largest and most valuable collections of books in Ireland, and
the pictures are of great value as well as artistic interest.
The Leinster coat of arms is a monkey stantant with plain collar and
chained; motto, "Crom-a-boo" ("To Victory"). This is the only coat of
arms, I am told, that has ever borne a monkey in the design, and it was
adopted by John Fitzthomas Fitzgerald in 1316 for romantic reasons.
While an infant he was in the castle of Woodstock, now owned by the Duke
of Marlborough, which caught fire. In the confusion the child was
forgotten, and when the family and servants remembered him and started a
search they found the nursery in ruins. But on one of the towers was a
gigantic ape, a pet of the family, carefully holding the young earl in
its arms. The animal, with extraordinary intelligence, had crawled
through the smoke, rescued the baby and carried it to the top of the
tower. When he grew to manhood the earl discarded the family coat of
arms and adopted a monkey for his crest, which has been retained to this
day, and wherever you find a tomb of a Fitzgerald you will see the
figure of a monkey at the feet of the effigy or under the inscription.
Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, the child thus miraculously saved, was the hero
of many romances and adventures, and for his eminent services to the
crown King Edward II. created him the first Earl of Kildare, May 14,
1316. He was the ancestor of the famous earls, dukes, and marquesses of
Ormonde and the earls, dukes, and marquesses of Desmond, although those
branches of the family afterward became the rivals and the foes of the
Kildares. The Duke of Leinster, by reason of the marriages of his
ancestors and collateral members of the family, is related to almost
every noble in the kingdom.
The Fitzgeralds are descended from the Gherardini family of Florence,
one of whom passed over into Normandy in the tenth century and thence to
England, where he became a favorite of Edward the Confessor, and was
appointed castellan of Windsor and warden of the forests of the king. In
1078 he is mentioned in Doomsday Book as the owner of enormous areas of
land in England and Wales. In 1168 Maurice Fitzgerald, whose name was
anglicized and who was the father of the Irish branch of the family,
accompanied Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, better known as
Strongbow, in the invasion of Ireland and was granted large estates. He
died at Wexford in 1177 and was buried in the Abbey of the Grey Friars
outside the walls of that town. One of his sons became Baron of Offlay,
another became Baron of Nass, and Thomas, the third, was the ancestor of
the earls of Desmond. The next earl was a man of great piety. In 1216 he
introduced into Ireland the Order of the Franciscans and built them an
abbey at Youghal. In 1229 he induced the Dominicans to send a band of
missionaries and built them an abbey at Adair. And his son was equally
devoted to the church.
The castle at Maynooth, which for several centuries was one of the
largest and strongest in Ireland, was built by Gerald, the fifth earl,
in 1427, whose second son was the founder of the house of Ormonde and
was created earl of that name.
For sixteen generations the earls of Kildare were the most active men in
Ireland, and the history of their adventures would fill a book as big as
a dictionary. There was always "something doing" wherever they went;
they were on all sides of all questions and were sometimes fighting each
other as fiercely as the family foes. They led rebellions against their
sovereign, have suffered imprisonment, and have been executed at Tyburn
and the Tower. They have been the boldest and most powerful defenders of
British authority in Ireland and several times have saved the island to
the British throne. More lords lieutenants have come from the Kildares
than from any other family, and among the long list of earls have been
some splendid characters.
The eighth earl subdued all the native chieftains and made them submit
to English authority. An early historian describes him as "A mightie man
of stature, full of honoure and courage, who has bin Lord Deputie and
Lord Justice of Ireland three and thirtie yeares. He was in government
milde, to his enemies stearne, he was open and playne; hardley able to
rule himself, but could well rule others; in anger he was sharp and
short, being easily displeased and easily appeased."
Thomas Gerald, the twelfth earl, having incurred the enmity of Cardinal
Wolsey, was called to England and committed to the Tower for treason.
When he left Ireland he intrusted his official authority and
responsibilities to his son and heir, familiarly known as "Silken
Thomas," because of the gorgeous trappings of his retinue. The boy was
then but twenty-one, bold, brave, patriotic, and generous, and became
the victim of a plot devised by agents of Cardinal Wolsey, who spread a
report that his father had been beheaded in the Tower. The impetuous
young lord left the Castle of Maynooth, rode into Dublin, and, entering
the chamber where the council sat, openly renounced his allegiance to
the King of England, gave his reasons and laid mace and sword, the
symbols of office, upon the table. Archbishop Cromer, the lord
chancellor, besought him to reconsider, explaining that the rumor from
London might be false, and the young earl was about to yield when the
voice of the family bard, who had followed him to Dublin, was heard
through the window singing the death song of the Kildares. "Silken
Thomas" seized his sword, summoned the Geraldines, the family clan,
which was the mightiest and most numerous in Ireland, assaulted the
castle, and soon involved the entire country in a desperate revolution.
When the old earl heard the news in his cell in the Tower he sent a
message to Henry VIII. asking pardon for the rashness of his son and
then died of a broken heart.
All Ireland was in flames; three-fourths of Kildare County and the
greater part of Meath was burned; thousands of innocent people died of
starvation and thousands in battle before the rebellion was suppressed.
Finally Kildare, who was then but twenty-four, surrendered upon a
promise that he should receive full pardon when he arrived in London and
renewed his allegiance personally to the king. This pledge was
shamefully violated. Henry VIII. refused to receive him, and sent him to
the Tower, where for eighteen months he lay neglected and in great
misery. He wrote an old servant asking money for clothes, saying: "I
have gone shirtless and barefoot and bare-legged divers times, and so I
should have done still but that poor prisoners of their gentleness hath
sometimes given me old hosen and shirts and shoes."
Five of his uncles, although it was well known that three of them had
remained stanch adherents of the crown, were hanged, drawn, and
quartered at Tyburn, Feb. 8, 1537, and orders went forth from Henry
VIII. that the house of Kildare should be exterminated.
Gerald, the baby heir, the only survivor of his race, was wrapped in
warm flannels by Thomas Leverus, afterward Bishop of Kildare, carried
across bog and mountain, and committed to the protection of the
O'Brians, who by sending the infant from place to place were able to
save its life. The O'Brians passed the child over to the MacCarthys, and
Lady Eleanor MacCarthy, a widow, disguised as a peasant, conveyed him
to St. Mels, France, upon a fishing boat. Even there he was pursued from
one place of refuge to another, by detectives and adventurers in hopes
of the great reward, until finally he obtained a safe retreat in Rome,
where Cardinal Pole, a distant relative, protected and educated him.
When he grew to manhood he entered the service of Cosmo de Medicis, the
great Duke of Florence, with whom he remained until Henry VIII., the
vindictive enemy of his family, was dead. He could then return in safety
to his native country, and Queen Mary soon after pardoned him and
restored his hereditary titles and estates. Fourteen generations of
Kildares have passed across the stage since then, and the present Duke
of Leinster represents a family that has had more exciting experiences
than any other in the United Kingdom.
XI
DROGHEDA, AND THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE
One of the loveliest railway or automobile rides in Ireland is from
Dublin northward to the ancient town of Drogheda (pronounced Drawdah).
The railroad runs parallel with the highway along the shore of St.
George's Channel. Both touch several popular seaside resorts, fishing
settlements, and busy manufacturing towns, which alternate with
beautiful pastures filled with sleek cattle and unshorn sheep, and here
and there ivy-clad towers and little groups of chimney pots rise above
the foliage. The pastures and meadows, when we saw them, blazing with
yellow buttercups, looked like the Field of the Cloth of Gold. They are
divided into small plots by hedges of hawthorn twelve and fifteen feet
high, which in the early summer are as white as banks of snow, and so
fragrant that the perfume floated into the car windows.
Between the meadows and the pastures along the coast are plots of
cultivated ground, gardens of potatoes, cabbages, and other vegetables
and glorious groves. It isn't a bit like the Ireland one expects to see
after reading newspaper accounts of the terrible conditions that the
politicians complain of. It is not a country of downtrodden peasants and
a wretched tenantry crushed under the heels of oppressive landlords.
Right is not upon the scaffold in that section of Ireland, nor is wrong
upon the throne. On the contrary, every evidence of prosperity and
contentment and happiness abounds. The neatly whitewashed,
straw-thatched cottages are surrounded with gay gardens filled with
old-fashioned flowers, such as you see in Massachusetts and New
Hampshire. Large stables and storehouses are attached to almost every
cottage, which indicates that the farmer has something to put in them.
The traveler cannot see the mansions of the rich, because they are
hidden in glorious parks and protected by high walls. Occasionally in
the distance, however, he can catch glimpses of the towers of ancient
castles, each having a romance or a tragedy, and sometimes several of
both, contained in their history.
At Malehide forty or fifty golf players alighted from the train, with
kits of clubs over their shoulders, for there are two links near that
village--one for an exclusive club of rich Dubliners, and the other for
any one who is able to pay half a crown for the privilege of chasing a
little gutta-percha ball over the grass. Malehide is a lovely place,
situated on the seashore at the mouth of a little stream called Meadow
Water, with hotels of all grades and prices, fashionable and
unfashionable, and some of them are open for health seekers the year
around.
The chief attraction to tourists is the ancient castle of the Talbot
family, who have owned and occupied it continuously for seven hundred
years, an unusual record for Ireland or for anywhere else. The original
castle, built about 1180, in the reign of Henry II., is still standing,
although modern restorations and additions have changed it much. The
exterior has suffered more than the interior. The dining-hall, a very
large apartment, is considered one of the finest rooms in Ireland. The
wainscoting and the ceiling are of oak, richly carved, and mellowed by
exposure for more than six centuries. The chimney-piece, an exquisite
example of fourteenth century carving, represents the Conception. From
1653 to 1660 the castle was inhabited by Miles Corbet, the regicide, and
the very day he took possession of the place, according to tradition,
the figure of the Blessed Virgin was mysteriously detached from the rest
of the carving and disappeared until the night after the unholy tenant
fled from the place, when it was miraculously restored.
There is a fine collection of paintings in the castle, including
portraits by Van Dyck and other famous artists, three panels of
scripture subjects by Albert Dürer, which formerly belonged to Mary,
Queen of Scots, and were purchased by Charles II. for $2,000. The
library is a treasure-house of old tomes and manuscripts, and upon the
wall, in a heavy oaken frame, hangs the original patent by which the
estate was granted to the Talbot family by King Edward IV.
Within the roofless walls of an ancient abbey near by is the altar-tomb
of Maud Plunkett, whose husband, Sir Richard Talbot, according to the
epitaph, "fell in a fray immediately after the wedding breakfast, thus
making her maid, wife, and widow in a single day."
The village of Swords, three miles distant, has another ancient castle,
where the bodies of Brian Boru and his son Morrough rested the first
night after the battle of Clontarf while they were being carried to
their final tomb at Armagh.
All the little towns along the coast of the Irish Channel are associated
with St. Patrick and St. Columba, who spent more or less time there,
founding monasteries and building churches. One of the monasteries,
called "the Golden Prebend" because it was so rich, was held by William
of Wykeham in 1366 and was the seat of a cardinal for a century or two.
A mile and a half from the main line, beyond Swords, is the village of
Portraine, where Dean Swift's "Stella" lived for several years, and
where a branch of the insane asylum he founded in Dublin has since been
erected. It stands upon lands given by Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, the
Danish king of Dublin, for the endowment of a Christian church. The
house was occupied for many years by the nuns of St. Augustine, where
"the womankind of the most part of the whole Englisher of this land are
brought up in virtue, learning and in the English tongue and behaviour."
The little town of Rush, famous for its early potatoes and its tulip
bulbs, is called "Holland in Ireland." It has an old church, with
beautiful pointed arches, which dates back to the sixteenth century, and
contains a richly decorated monument to Sir Christopher Barnwell and his
beloved wife, who died in 1607.
Skerries is a fishing-town, where St. Patrick lived for several years,
and a quaint little chapel, like many others in Ireland, is attributed
to him, although it could not possibly have been built for several
centuries after his time. But in the history of these ancient
sanctuaries a few hundred years do not count.
While ruins are picturesque and ivy-clad castles that date back beyond
the Middle Ages have a fascination for tourists from a new world like
ours, it was a relief when the chauffeur brought us up to the entrance
of an old-fashioned factory in the compact little town of Balbriggan,
which has given its name to a certain kind of knitted goods that are
worn the world over. It is a quaint mass of high houses, built of stone
and brick on both sides of narrow but neatly kept streets, which seems
unnecessary when miles of green fields and glowing gardens encircle them
and give them every chance to spread out. But you will find the same
tendency to snuggle up as closely as possible in all the manufacturing
communities of Europe.
The men folks at Balbriggan fish and farm the soil, and the women work
in the mills, but the law, which is strictly enforced there, prohibits
child labor and compels the children to attend school for at least one
hundred and twenty-eight days in the year until they pass their
fourteenth birthday. The superintendents of the mills tell the same
story that I heard in the cotton factories of South Carolina and
Georgia, that they prefer adult operatives; that the children are
careless and inefficient and seldom earn their wages, but they are
compelled to employ them or lose the services of the parents. There are
two factories in Balbriggan for the manufacture of knitted hosiery and
underclothing by machinery invented here more than one hundred and fifty
years ago and since imitated everywhere. Both factories still remain
under the control of the families which founded them, but the shares are
distributed among a larger number of people by inheritance from
generation to generation.
Scattered along the coast at intervals of two or three miles, and
generally at the summits of hills overlooking the sea, are "martello
towers," fifty, sixty, and sometimes ninety feet high, and from forty to
a hundred feet in diameter. They were erected early in the nineteenth
century as defensive watch-towers, when the country was in dread of an
invasion by Napoleon. The name was taken from similar towers in Corsica
and Sardinia, where they were erected for protection against pirates in
the time of Charles V. These towers are said to have originally had
bells which were struck by hammers to alarm the people in case of
danger; hence they were called "martello" towers, that being the Italian
word for "hammer."
It makes a Protestant ashamed when he reads the history of Drogheda and
sees the ruins that Cromwell left there. Thousands of men and women and
children were butchered in the name of the Lord by Cromwell's soldiers
when he took that quaint old town by storm in September, 1649. It was a
ferocious massacre, and Cromwell admitted the facts while proclaiming
himself the agent of the Almighty to punish a rebellious people. This is
what he wrote with his own hand:
"The governor, Sir Arthur Aston, and divers considerable officers being
there, our men, getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all
to the sword, and, indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them
to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they
put to death about two thousand persons. Divers officers and soldiers
being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town, where about
a hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church steeple, some the West
Gate, and others a strong round tower next to the gate called St.
Sundays. These being summoned to yield for mercy refused. Whereupon I
ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired. The next day the
other two towers were summoned. When they submitted their officers were
knocked on the head and every tenth man of the soldiers was killed. The
rest shipped for the Barbadoes. The soldiers in the other tower were all
spared as to their lives only and shipped likewise for the Barbadoes.
"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these
barbarous wretches who have imbued their hands in so much innocent
blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the
future."
Two of the towers have remained these two hundred and fifty years just
as grim old Oliver left them, and there is much else of interest to the
antiquarian in the town, although today it is given up to linen
factories, flour mills, tanneries, and soap works, and has a large
provision trade with England. It is the center of a prosperous
agricultural community, and everybody seems to be doing well.
The greatest attraction is the ruins of Monasterboice, an extensive
monastery, founded by St. Patrick, like every other ecclesiastical
institution in this country, and three magnificent crosses which arise
among them, about six miles from town. We tried to get a carriage
instead of a jaunting car for the drive, because the latter allows you
to see only one side of the roadway, but Mrs. Murphy, who has a livery
stable and a tongue that is hung in the middle, could furnish us nothing
else. It is a delightful drive. On the outward journey we saw what there
is to see on one hand, and coming back we saw everything on the other.
The ruins of Monasterboice cover a large area, for five hundred monks
and several thousand students were there eight or nine hundred years
ago. It was one of the largest educational institutions in the world, as
well as a religious retreat. It dates back to the fifth century, and was
probably founded by St. Patrick,--certainly by one of his
disciples,--although there is no tangible evidence to prove that fact. A
"round tower" still in good condition, dates from the ninth century. It
is one hundred and ten feet high and fifty-one feet in diameter at the
base. It was intended for observation, for signaling to the country
around, for the storage of valuables and military supplies, and for
defensive purposes. Strangely enough, it sits in a hollow, in the lowest
part of an amphitheater, surrounded by hills, but the Irish monks as
well as the Irish warriors of ancient times always built beside streams
of running water and not upon the heights, like the Goths, the Huns,
the Teutons, and the Romans.
There are similar "round towers" at Cashel, Glendalough, Kildare,
Antrim, and other places in the interior of Ireland which have long been
subject of an irreconcilable dispute among archæologists. While no one
knows definitely who built them, or what they were for, the most
credited theory is that I have given above.
Dr. Petrie, who is a high authority, believes that they were built
between the years 890 and 1238, when the Danes were in the habit of
invading Ireland and plundering the ecclesiastical establishments. One
of the most perfect of these towers, at Antrim, is ninety-two feet in
height and forty-nine feet in circumference at the bottom; the summit
terminates in a cone twelve feet high, which, with the tower itself, is
of undressed stone, the walls being two feet nine inches in thickness.
The door is on the north side at a height of seven feet nine inches from
the ground. The tower was apparently divided into four stories by timber
floors, which, of course, vanished long ago. Each of the three lower
stories is lighted by a square window, and the upper story by four
square perforations opening to the cardinal points. It stands in the
grounds of a mansion. The turf between the two shows the dim outline of
buildings, supposed to be those of a monastery founded by Aodh, a
disciple of St. Patrick, the earliest notice of which occurs in the year
495. It was destroyed during the Danish incursions.
The walls of the chapel at Monasterboice are standing firm and strong,
but without a roof, and the grounds surrounding them and the ruins of
the monastery are still used for the burial of the families of the
parish. It is a free cemetery and belongs to the government and not to
the Catholic Church. Anybody--Protestant, Quaker, or Jew--can lay his
tired bones down under the hospitable trees by application to the
secretary of the board of public works. The oldest grave is that of
Bishop O'Rourke, who was buried there in 982; the latest, marked by a
clumsy wooden cross, was made in 1907.
What people go there to see are three splendid Celtic crosses, the
finest specimens of the kind in Ireland, and that means the universe.
They are believed to have been erected in the fifth century in honor of
St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Bridget. This, however, is
questionable. One of them bears the inscription, "A prayer for
Murriduch, by whom was made this cross." From the Irish Annals it may be
learned that two men of that name have lived in this neighborhood, both
of wealth and distinction, and they died, one in the year 844 and the
other in 924. It is entirely probable that either of them may have
erected the splendid monoliths. The largest is twenty-seven feet high,
and all of them are covered with carvings of religious subjects. The
crosses of Monasterboice have been photographed and reproduced many
times, and models have been shipped to all parts of the world. Perfect
replicas may be found in the museum at Dublin.
Four miles further on are the ruins of Mellifont Abbey, which was
founded in the twelfth century, and has had an important part in the
political as well as the ecclesiastical history of Ireland.
There are several drawbacks to motoring in Ireland, the chief of which
is that the country is so short on good hotels and so long on showers.
The next is the inability to see through or over walls of stone and
hedges that rise twice as high as one's head. Nevertheless, wherever
there is much to see and little time to see it in, one has to put up
with some annoyances, and an automobile is no longer a luxury or a mere
convenience, but an actual necessity.
The Irish climate is like the Irish character. A witty native once said
of his fellow countrymen, "They smile aisy and they cry aisy," and that
describes the habits of the heavens also. Clouds assemble and do
business in quicker time than in any other place I have ever been, but,
although it will "rain cats and dogs" for fifteen or twenty minutes, the
sun will be shining almost instantly afterward, as if nothing had
happened.
[Illustration: A CELTIC CROSS AT MONASTERBOICE, COUNTY LOUTH]
Unfortunately the hotel proposition is not so easily disposed of. Most
of the inns of the country districts and in the small cities are
absolutely intolerable. It isn't so much because of a lack of luxuries
and modern conveniences that the traveler finds in England, Scotland,
and on the Continent at similar places, as it is the excess of dirt and
bad smells. In the average country hotel in Ireland everything is in
disorder and out of repair. The bells don't work; the furniture is
crippled and decrepit; the mattresses are lumpy and half the springs are
broken or out of joint; the bedrooms are seldom swept, the table cloths
are seldom washed; sheets and pillow-cases, are seldom changed, and if a
guest should call for a clean towel the landlord would be likely to ask
what is the matter with the one he gave him a few days ago. The only
alternative to stopping at a dirty hotel is to ride on until you come to
a clean one, and that may be as far as the ends of the earth. The more
practical, and indeed the only, way is to accept the situation good
naturedly and get the best you can out of it. Any person who takes an
interest in this subject can find further and accurate information in
that charming book, "Penelope's Irish Experiences," by Kate Douglas
Wiggin. It is asserted by those who know that there are only five good
hotels in Ireland. We found nine, but did not keep count of the other
kind. They are too numerous to mention.
The road from Drogheda to Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland, follows
the valley of the famous Boyne River, and passes through the famous
battlefield where William of Orange, with thirty thousand men, in 1690,
overcame James II. with twenty-three thousand, and deprived the latter
of his dominion and his crown and gave the Protestants control of
Ireland for the next two hundred and fifty years. A stately monument has
been erected upon the field, and various small markers have been placed
about to show where important incidents took place.
The Valley of the Boyne is extremely beautiful. The banks are densely
wooded for miles, and the river flows through many fine estates owned
and occupied by rich people from London, Dublin, and other cities. The
climate is agreeable and healthful for nine or ten months in the year.
Only February, March, and April are unpleasant, because of the winds.
The scenery is peaceful and attractive, the foliage of the groves and
forests is rich beyond comparison, and it is difficult to conceive of
more desirable surroundings for a summer home for men of wealth and
leisure. To the antiquarian and the archæologist there is an unlimited
field for exploration that has only been touched thus far.
Only a few miles from Drogheda, and on the direct road to Tara, is a
collection of tumuli which are unsurpassed in Europe or any other part
of the world. They mark the location of Brugh-Na-Boinne, the royal
cemetery of ancient Ireland, the burying-ground of the kings of Tara for
centuries before the history of the country began. Although they do not
show the same architectural skill or artistic taste or mechanical
mysteries, and do not compare in magnitude with the pyramids and other
tombs of the kings of Egypt, they nevertheless have an entrancing
interest to those who love archæology and prehistoric lore. The tumuli
are scattered over a large area, and, according to the theories of
scientists who have explored them, contained the bodies of successive
royal families of Ireland until the invasion of the Danes, when they
were desecrated, looted, and nearly destroyed, just as the tombs of the
kings of Egypt were stripped of their treasures by the Assyrians and
other invaders.
[Illustration: RUINS OF MELLIFONT ABBEY, NEAR DROGHEDA, COUNTY LOUTH]
The most remarkable tumulus, at New Grange, has been described at length
by several eminent antiquarians. It stands on elevated ground, and
covers about three acres, the main part being two hundred and eighty
feet in diameter and about one hundred and twenty feet high. It is now
covered with dense vegetation. It is a vast cairn of loose stones,
estimated at one hundred thousand tons, those at the base being very
large--from six to eight feet long and four or five feet thick. They are
arranged in a circle without masonry; simply laid in order and smaller
stones placed inside and on top of them until an artificial cavern was
created, which was reached by a passage sixty-two feet long, formed of
enormous upright stones from five to eight feet high and roofed with
flagstones of great size. This passage leads to a low dome-roofed
chamber, nearly circular, whose ceiling is supported by eleven upright
pillars. The ceiling is nineteen and a half feet from the ground. There
are three other chambers, measuring eighteen by twenty-one feet in size,
which at one time were doubtless filled with the bodies of the royal
families. The archæologists compare them to the beehive tombs of Mycenæ,
known as "The Treasury of Atreus," and find many resemblances. The
surfaces of some of the stones are rudely carved with cryptographs and
ornamental designs.
There are several other tumuli in the neighborhood of different dates
and dimensions and of absorbing interest to science; and all of them we
know, from that accurate and comprehensive chronicle, "The Annals of the
Four Masters," were plundered by the Danes in the year 801. Those
vandals left nothing but bones and cinerary urns; they took away or
destroyed everything else. The tumuli are now in the custody of the
board of works, which is taking care of them, and is having careful
scientific excavations and other examinations made by competent
authorities.
There are several other cemeteries in the neighborhood that are not so
old, and they also are supposed to contain the dust of kings; but few of
the graves have been identified. One of them, marked with two tombstones
set with their tops together like the gable of a house, has been
declared to be of greater antiquity than any other Christian tomb in
Ireland, and is supposed to contain the remains of St. Eric, the first
bishop consecrated by St. Patrick. He died toward the end of the fifth
century. It is said that his custom was to stand immersed in the Boyne
River up to his two armpits from morn till evening, having his psalter
lying before him on the strand where he could read its pages, and
continually engaging in prayer.
In another grave lie the bones of Cormac, the greatest of the kings of
Tara, who was a Christian, having been converted by St. Patrick. His
death was brought about by the Druid priests, who cast a spell over him
and caused a bone of salmon to stick in his throat. He commanded his
people not to bury him at Brugh-Na-Boinne among his royal ancestors,
because it was a cemetery of idolators, but to place his body humbly in
consecrated ground, with his face to the east. These injunctions were
clear and positive, but the king's servants required a miracle to induce
them to obey. Three separate times they started from the palace at Tara
for the royal burying-ground at Brugh-Na-Boinne, when the river
miraculously rose to such a height that they could not cross. After so
many warnings their stupid brains finally saw the light and they laid
his majesty's ashes in consecrated ground, as he had commanded.
The little antiquated village of Kells, with pleasant surroundings and
glorious foliage, sleeps unconscious of its fame. It is of the greatest
interest to Christian archæologists, because it was the home of St.
Columba (or Columbkill), second only to St. Patrick in influence and in
the work of evangelizing Ireland. He was born in Donegal in 521, of
royal blood, being the great-great-grandson of King Niall of the Nine
Hostages, founder of the O'Neill family. Having heard the truth of the
gospel, he gave up his princely heritage for the service of his Master
and became a monk. He traveled for sixteen years, preaching from place
to place, founding churches and monasteries all over the country, which
are still venerated by the people, and are among the most interesting
ruins in Ireland. At Kells he built a famous monastery in the year 550,
and the cost was paid by Dermot, son of Fearghus, king of Tara, at that
time.
St. Columba made his headquarters there for many years and then crossed
the channel to the little Island of Iona, on the west coast of Scotland,
which had been granted him by his relative, the king of that country. He
founded a monastery there, from which he and his disciples traversed all
Scotland and the Hebrides, preaching the gospel, baptizing the people,
building churches and monasteries, until half the Scotch were converted
to Christianity. The rest of Great Britain was converted from paganism
by the missionaries he educated and sent out. After a life of
extraordinary activity and usefulness he died at Iona in the year 597
at the age of seventy-six years and was mourned by every one on the
shores of the four seas. His funeral lasted three days and three nights,
and he was buried within the walls of the monastery of Iona, whence his
remains were afterward removed to Downpatrick and buried in the same
grave as those of St. Patrick and St. Bridget.
A portion of the house of St. Columba still remains at Kells, half
concealed by a cloak of wonderful ivy. There is a tower one hundred feet
tall, and in the neighboring churchyard are several crosses of the
Celtic fashion, similar to, but not so large or so fine as those at
Monasterboice. They are, however, sacred in the eyes of all Irishmen and
date back to the tenth century.
The "Annals of the Four Masters" record many exciting incidents and
important events that have occurred in the history of the town of Kells.
It has been invaded and looted by Irish clansmen, Norwegian hordes, and
Danish Vikings. It has been devastated many times by fire, sword, and
pestilence. Sigtryg of the Silken Beard burned it to the ground in 1019,
and Edward Bruce in 1315, but it has arisen serene and smiling as often
as it has been destroyed, and prosperity has been restored again. It was
in the great monastery founded by St. Columba that the famous
illuminated "Book of the Gospels," preserved in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin, was made by the monks in the eighth century. Mr.
Westwood, a very high authority, pronounces it "the most elaborately
executed monument of early Christian art in existence." Kells was also
noted for its metal work in the Middle Ages. At present it is merely an
agricultural market and the seat of the Marquess of Headfort, who has a
large estate and a beautiful chateau surrounded by a wooded demesne and
a hunting preserve. There are several other delightful residences in the
neighborhood, and if there were a decent hotel within walking or driving
distance, Kells might have many visitors, but those who go there are
compelled to hurry away to find some place to stay overnight.
Navan, a neat little manufacturing town with a woolen mill and other
industries, has a reasonably good hotel, but you have to come back about
ten miles from Kells. There is another neat little town called Trim,
where it is possible to stay overnight and even to pass a day or two.
The country around Trim is lovely. The landscapes in every direction
would fascinate an artist, and the ruins of "King John's Castle," built
on the banks of the Boyne by Hugh de Lacy, are among the most extensive
and beautiful in the world. The walls, four hundred and eighty-six yards
long, with ten circular towers at nearly equal distances, are still well
preserved and there is a lofty keep, seventy feet high, with beautiful
turrets and flanked on either side with rectangular towers. There is
nothing to surpass it in Ireland for picturesqueness, and its
associations give it additional interest, for King John, Edward II.,
Richard, Earl of Ulster, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and other
famous characters, have lived there. Henry of Lancaster, afterward Henry
IV. of England, was imprisoned there; the parliament of Ireland met
within its walls, year after year, and it was once the mint of the
kingdom. In later days it was occupied by the Duke of Wellington, who
received his early education in the diocesan school within the grounds.
His name, you know, was Arthur Wellesley. He was a son of Lord
Mornington, of an old Irish family. His mother was a daughter of the
Earl of Dungannon of Tyrone, and she lived to see four of her sons
elevated to the peerage of Great Britain, not because of wealth or
political influence, but because of their ability and usefulness.
Richard, the eldest, was that celebrated statesman, the Marquis of
Wellesley; the second, William, was also eminent in politics and civil
affairs as Lord Mayborough; the third, Henry, Lord Crowley, spent his
life in the diplomatic service and made an enviable name, while Arthur,
hero of Waterloo and of the Spanish campaign, the man who broke the back
of Napoleon the Great, was the fourth and most famous of them all.
Arthur Wellesley was born May 1, 1769, in Merrion Street, Dublin, in a
house now occupied by the commissioners that are carrying out the land
act, and he died Sept. 18, 1852. It may be said that no other Irish
subject of a British king ever received greater honors or better
deserved them.
Dungan Castle, the home of the Wellesleys, is near Trim, about twenty
miles from Dublin, and the nearest railway station is Summer Hill.
Laracor, a secluded little village where Dean Swift was once curate and
where Stella lived with Mrs. Dingley, is only a mile or two distant.
XII
TARA--THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF IRELAND
In prehistoric times, before the conversion of Ireland to Christianity
by St. Patrick, the clan system prevailed there, as it did in other
countries of Europe. A "clan," or "sept," consisted of a number of
families and was ruled by a patriarch, the greatest warrior, or the
oldest man. A "tribe" was a larger group, consisting of several clans or
septs more or less related to each other and occupying a distinct and
separate territory under the command of a chieftain. Several tribes
composed a nation, as the word is used among the North American Indians,
ruled by a "ri," or king, while the "ard-ri," or over-king, a supreme
monarch with jurisdiction extending to the remotest shores of Ireland,
reigned and resided at Tara until the sixth century, with the province
of Meath as his own exclusive demesne for the use and support of his
family and his court. He received tribute from the local kings or "ri"
and was elected by their votes. Occasionally at his call, or at stated
intervals, the kings and chiefs would assemble at Tara to consider
matters of importance to all, to adopt laws and regulations for
preserving peace and promoting the welfare of their subjects and
protecting their common interests. Several feasts, held there annually,
were attended by the minor kings, chieftains, and nobles who were
followed by large retinues. Their warriors engaged in games, sports, and
tournaments to encourage the physical development of the race and teach
the arts of war. From the throne of the ard-ri decrees were announced,
laws proclaimed, justice dispensed, and prizes awarded. According to the
annals of those early days, one hundred and forty-two kings reigned at
Tara during a period of two thousand five hundred and thirty years,
when the place was abandoned in consequence of a curse pronounced by St.
Ruadhan of Lorrha for the failure to punish Hugh Garry for the murder of
a monk. Until the time of Cormac Mac Art, greatest and most luxurious of
all the ancient kings of Ireland, the rulers who sat at Tara were
pagans, but he was converted to Christianity, and the annalists in
glowing lines describe his piety and his devotions.
According to the ancient laws, the king of Ireland could not have a
blemish upon his person, and Cormac was obliged to abdicate power and
authority and retire to the top of the Hill of Skreen, across the valley
from the Hill of Tara, because his left eye was put out by an arrow shot
by Ængus, a rebellious chieftain, who is believed to have been under the
influence of Druid priests, to punish Cormac for accepting Christianity.
Cormac's administration was the golden age at Tara, and although there
was no pretense of architectural display in the wicker palaces that were
thatched with straw, nevertheless he and other kings of that period
possessed great wealth and made gorgeous displays at the ceremonies of
their courts. An early writer describes a banquet given by Cormac Mac
Art to one hundred kings, chieftains, astrologers, bards, and other
distinguished men, who were seated at twelve tables, sixteen attendants
at each table, and two oxen, two sheep, and two hogs were consumed,
besides other and many varieties of food.
"Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac," says the ancient
manuscript, "flowing slightly, curling golden hair upon him;
"A red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fastenings of
silver upon him;
"A crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him;
"Fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones;
"A torque of gold of curious design and richly graven around his
neck;
"A white shirt with a full collar intertwined with red gold thread
upon him;
"A girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him;
"Two wonderful shoes of gold with runnings of gold upon him;
"Two spears with golden sockets in his hand."
In such attire did the king appear at the banquet given in honor of his
chieftains:
"The feis of Temur each third year,
To preserve the laws and rules
Was then convened firmly
By the illustrious King of Erin."
The last _ard-ri_, or king of all Ireland, was Roderick O'Conor, who
died in 1198.
The archæologists, judging by the ruins and the traces of the walls,
find that the great banqueting hall was 759 feet long by 90 feet wide;
the other buildings were circular or oval; and it is apparent that they
were surrounded by walls of stone intended both for privacy and
protection.
No doubt the royal residences and other buildings at Tara were of wicker
construction. Furthest to the south, on the ridge or hill of Tara, is
the Rath Laoghaire (Leary), built by an old king whom St. Patrick tried
to convert, but without success; and somewhere in the rampart on the
southern side of this are the bones of Laoghaire. He was buried as he
ordered--in the bank of his rath, standing erect, with his shield and
weapons, with his face turned southward toward his foes, the Lagenians
(Leinstermen). Next northward is Rath na Riogh (Rath of the Kings),
probably the oldest structure at Tara, and the royal residence. It is
oval, and 853 feet long from north to south. Within its inclosure are:
Teach Cormaic (Cormac's House), a rath with an outer ring, probably
built by Cormac Mac Art. Its diameter is about one hundred and forty
feet. Next to the northwest, and joined to Teach Cormaic by a common
parapet, is the Forradh ("place of meeting"). Its greatest diameter
being 296 feet and the diameter of the inner circle 88 feet. To the
north of these, but still within the Rath na Riogh, is a mound called
Dumha na n-Giall (Mound of the Hostages), on the flat summit of which
was probably a house wherein dwelt the hostages often required by the
ard-ri of minor kings, of whose fealty he might have doubts. No doubt
the hostages of Niall of the Nine Hostages were kept here. To the west
of this mound are the remains of another, the Dumha na Bo, or Mound of
the Cow. Outside the inclosure of the Rath na Riogh, on the north, is
Rath na Seanaidh, or Rath of the Synods, so called because of the synods
held there by St. Patrick and his successors, though it is of much older
date.
Upon the summit of the hill is a rude statue of St. Patrick carved in
granite by Mr. Curry, a stone cutter in one of the neighboring towns,
and erected at the expense of local contributors many years ago. It
bears no likeness to any human being, but the motive which erected it
was pure and patriotic, and in a measure it is appropriate because on
Easter morning in the year 433 St. Patrick proclaimed the gospel of
Jesus Christ to the pagan priests and the King of Tara and his court,
standing upon the very spot now occupied by his statue. Father Mathew
once delivered a temperance speech from that holy spot, and in 1843
Daniel O'Connell addressed a monster meeting, attended by a quarter of a
million people, many of whom came fifty miles or more to hear him
advocate the political emancipation of the Roman Catholic population of
Ireland. The meeting lasted two days and O'Connell spoke twice. It was
one of his last meetings before his arrest and imprisonment at Dublin.
On or near the Mound of the Hostages, according to the best authorities,
stood the "Lia Fail," or "Stone of Destiny," upon which for ages the
monarchs of Ireland were crowned. This stone, according to tradition,
was the pillow of Jacob when he dreamed his dream and when the angels
descended and ascended a golden ladder at his head. It was preserved by
fugitive Israelites at the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion
of the tribes, was brought to Ireland with the Ark of the Covenant, and
passed into the possession of the early kings. This stone was carried to
Scotland and preserved at Scone until Edward I. took it to London for
his coronation, and ever since his day it has been the seat of the
coronation chair. All of the kings of England have sat upon it while the
crown of sovereignty was placed upon their heads, from Edward I. to
Edward VII., and any one may see it in the coronation chair at
Westminster Abbey.
Petrie, one of the highest authorities on Irish history, denies that the
coronation stone of Scone, now in the coronation chair at Westminster
Abbey, is the Lia Fail. He asserts that it never left Tara. And he
believes it is now there--a stone pillar, standing erect on the Forradh,
marking the place of the interment of a number of Irish who were killed
in the rebellion of 1798. It is about eleven feet long, and about half
of its length is in the ground, so that it appears but a rough, unhewn
pillar, five feet three inches high.
A similar stone was used by the Ulstermen to inaugurate The O'Neill. It
was in a rath at Tullyhogue, near Cookstown, County Tyrone, and was
broken up by an English expedition in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The
Clannaboy O'Neills used an inauguration chair, a fragment of gray
sandstone in the shape of a chair with a high back, without the mark of
chisel upon it--evidently found somewhere just as it was. It was kept at
Castlereagh, on the hills overlooking Belfast on the southeast. It was
found among the ruins of the castle about seventy-five years ago, and is
now in the Museum at Belfast.
Joyce's "History of Ireland" gives an interesting story of the taking of
the Lia Fail to Scotland: The Irish, or Gaels, or Scots, of Ulster, from
the earliest ages were in the habit of crossing over in their currachs
to the coast of Alban, as Scotland was then called; and some carried on
a regular trade therewith, and many settled there and made it their
home. The Picts often attempted to expel the intruders, but the latter
held their ground, and as time went on occupied more and more of the
western coast and islands. About A.D. 200, a leader named Riada (meaning
the long armed), a grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and first
cousin of Cormac Mac Art, settled among the Picts of Alban with a large
following of Munster fighting men and their families. From him all this
western portion of Scotland was called Dalriada (Riada's portion). There
was also an Irish Dalriada named for him, comprising what is now the
northern portion of County Antrim. The Venerable Bede, in his
"Ecclesiastical History," also gives an account of Riada and his colony.
About A.D. 503, three brothers, Fergus, Angus, and Loarn, sons of a
chief named Erc, and all Christians (Erc was a direct descendant of
Riada), led a large body of colonists over to Alban. They united with
the previous settlers from Ireland, and took possession of a large
territory, which they formed into a kingdom, of which Fergus, the son of
Erc (hence called Fergus Mac Erc), was made the first king. The Lia Fail
was taken over from Tara in order that Fergus might be inaugurated king
upon it, and was never brought back. So, if this is true, the Stone of
Destiny had been taken from Tara a generation before the curse of St.
Ruadhan caused Tara to be abandoned as a royal residence.
This Fergus is the reputed ancestor of the Scottish royal family, and
from him, through the Stuarts, descended, in one of his lines of
pedigree, King Edward VII. of England. Gradually the name of Scots,
which was originally that of the people of Ireland, was transferred to
the people of Alban, and the country of the latter finally assumed the
name of Scotland.
Carrickfergus (the Rock of Fergus) takes its name from this Fergus, the
first Scottish king. He was troubled with some ailment, and went over to
Ireland to use the waters of a well (presumably considered holy). He was
wrecked off the coast, and his body drifted ashore on the strand by the
rock on which the castle is now built; so the rock was named for him.
Across the valley on the Hill of Skreen, where Cormac took refuge after
his abdication, Father Mathew lived for several years, and the ruins of
an abbey may be found there still.
So firmly convinced were some antiquarians who have investigated this
place of the truth of the traditions of the coronation stone that they
have dug up the ground in various places and searched for the Jewish Ark
of the Covenant, which they believe was buried here by the Irish priests
to escape capture at the time the palaces of Tara were looted and
destroyed. But they have never been able to find any traces of it.
In 1798, during the rebellion, a battle was fought on Tara Hill between
a body of about four thousand insurgents, composed chiefly of young
farmers and peasant lads from the neighborhood, against nearly three
thousand well-armed troops, who easily overcame them and put them to
flight.
The Tara of to-day is a cluster of cottages, a post office, a police
station, a blacksmith shop, a general store, and the inevitable "public
house"--the curse of Ireland. The usual group of loafers were sitting
inside chatting with a slattern behind the bar. It was a filthy place,
and smelled of spilt liquor and bad tobacco, but, as usual, everybody
was very polite to us, and, when we climbed out of the automobile a
lame, round-shouldered, toothless old man came hobbling up to us crying
in a wheezy voice:
"I'm the guide! I'm the guide! I'm the lawful guide, yer honors, and
I'll show yez around."
[Illustration: CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE]
He was so deaf that he couldn't understand us, and he mumbled his words
so that we couldn't understand him, except now and then a word, but he
was so anxious to be of service, so eager to earn a tip, that he would
repeat everything he said again and again, until we were able to
comprehend it. With his crooked stick he pointed the way across the
fields and we followed him. We wouldn't have got much information,
however, had not Mr. Wilkinson, the first citizen of Tara, come to our
rescue. He saw us as we passed his house, which stands a little way down
the road, and, as he explained, "Having nothing better to do, and always
enjoying an opportunity to meet Americans," he fortunately came over and
joined our party and gave us intelligent and interesting explanations.
He is a rugged old gentleman, is Mr. Wilkinson. Although more than
eighty years of age, he "can do as big a day's work, six days in the
week, and enjoy the Lord's day for rest as much as he did when he was
only forty." His great-grandfathers as far back as he knows, like
himself, were born in the cottage in which he lives, and "I've seen
things come and go for many a day," he said. When Mr. Wilkinson had
passed beyond hearing with the ladies, the old guide seized me by the
arm, drew me anxiously to shelter and then in a whisper repeated several
times until I was able to comprehend:
"'E's the richest man in Tara and in all the country round about. 'E's
worth three thousand pun if he's worth a penny, and he got it from his
father before him. He's a good man, too, and I dunno what we'd do here
without Mr. Wilkinson."
They led us to the top of the hill, where we could stand beside the spot
once occupied by the coronation stone and admire all Ireland, spread out
like a cyclorama around us. It is one of the most beautiful landscapes
in the universe. There are no mountains, except in the far distance;
there are no rocks or other ungainly objects in view, but as serene and
peaceful and fertile a tract of territory as can be found upon God's
footstool. Ireland is the greenest country that ever was. The turf and
the foliage have a brighter color and a richer luster than those of any
other country. That, however, is not news. The fact was discovered
centuries ago and has been disclosed by every son of old Erin who ever
wrote poetry or prose. But nowhere is there such convincing proof that
the Emerald Isle was appropriately named as is offered from the top of
the Hill of Tara. You cannot transfer the testimony of the fields and
the forests to paper, either with a pen or a brush, and certainly not
with a typewriter. There are no words in the English language sufficient
to convey to another mind what the eyes can see of this glorious
landscape, and it is useless to multiply adjectives.
"Some sez it's the place of the coronation chair," mumbled the guide, as
we stood on the crest of the hill. "Some sez it's the king's chair; but
I calls it a very commandin' spot. Two years ago," he continued, "some
friends of Lord Dunsany came here. May be they have a son married to his
daughter, I dunno, but she was a very dacent lady. She wouldn't walk any
further than the hall, and she sez, sez she, 'Me man, bide here with
me,' and I sez, sez I, 'Have no fear, me lady, sit here on the soft sod
and I'll go with his lordship, for people are always comin' from
Scotland and Ameriky, and I always shows them about.' There's none else
that can do it so well as meself, and when they came back his lordship
gave me two shillin', and he's a vera dacent man."
Mr. Wilkinson gave us some interesting history, and repeated many
traditions and legends of the place. He told us how many parties of
archæologists had been here digging for the Ark of the Covenant and had
found nothing but dirt and stone. He took us through the modern
churchyard and opened to us the little sanctuary where Rev. Mr. Handy
preaches every Sunday morning and baptizes into the Church of Ireland
the babies of Tara, that are very numerous in the short, narrow street.
He told us that Mr. Briscoe was the largest landowner in the
neighborhood, and had inherited from several generations the sacred hill
upon which we stood. He had fenced in the remains to keep the cattle out
and kept down the grass so that the outlines of the ruins could be
followed. Mr. Briscoe has recently disposed of nearly all his holdings,
under the new land act, to his tenants, who occupy them, and now nearly
every acre within the range of human vision from the Hill of Tara
belongs to the man who tills it.
After we had thanked Mr. Wilkinson for his attentions and parted with
him on the roadside, a woman put her head out of one of the cottage
windows and in a stage whisper said:
"He's the best and richest man in Tara. He's worth every penny of ten
thousand pounds."
Cambrensis, one of the oldest and earliest writers of Ireland, says:
"There is in Mieth a hill called the Hill of Taragh, whereon is a plaine
twelve score long which was named the King his hall; where the countrie
had their meetings and folkmotes, as a place that was accounted the high
place of the monarch. The historians hammer manie fables in this forge
of Fin Mac Coile and his champions."
While Tara was the seat of authority for all Ireland, and the center of
military education and display, it was also the place where the bards
used to assemble in early times for competitions in poetry and melody.
Each year the troubadours of Ireland gathered there to recite heroic
epics in praise of their patrons and sing the ballads they had composed
for prizes. These musical and literary tournaments reached their
greatest fame and influence during the days when Cormac Mac Art was
king. He was not only the greatest warrior, but the greatest scholar and
legislator and judge that the Irish knew during the period of which Tara
was their capital. The poems and chronicles of his time describe him as
a model of majesty, magnificence, and manly beauty. He founded three
colleges in the neighborhood of Tara, one for the teaching of law, one
for poetry, literature, history, and music, and the third for military
science. He organized what was known as the "Fena of Erin," a body of
militia remarkable in many respects, which was under the command of Fin
Mac Cool, his son-in-law, who of all the ancient heroes of Ireland is
best remembered in tradition and combined the qualities of Hercules,
Julius Cæsar, and Solomon.
But no reference in literature to this sacred place is more familiar
than one of the ballads of Tom Moore. Indeed, the great majority of
people never heard of Tara from any other source:
"The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more!
"No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone that breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks
To show that she still lives."
The history of Tara, the proceedings of the nobles, kings, and learned
men who met there at intervals, with the ard-ri at their head, to devise
laws and promote the welfare of the kingdom, and to transact other
important business, were all written down in a book called the Psalter
of Tara. This book also contained a record of the "fes," or tournaments,
both military and athletic, that were held there, and contained a list
of the prize winners, but, although the Psalter of Tara is frequently
quoted by early writers the original of the book was lost or destroyed
ages ago.
There are, however, many venerable tomes, epic poems, as well as
history, that illuminate what are usually termed the prehistoric times
in Ireland. The history of this country does not fairly begin until the
time of St. Patrick and the introduction of Christianity and modern
learning. Since then the records are practically complete. The many
monasteries were filled with scriveners who kept a record of events with
considerable detail and probable accuracy. But the more interesting
period lies farther back, when the kings of Tara were in their glory and
the sun shone upon the exploits of half-savage clans that lived by the
chase and not by agriculture, as their descendants do. It is a familiar
joke to say that one's ancestors were kings of Ireland, but there is
more truth than witticism in such remarks.
There is no reliable authority for the existence of any national
military organization of professional or fighting men in Ireland other
than chiefs, down to the reign of "Conn of the Hundred Battles," who was
monarch at Tara from 123 A.D. to 157 A.D., in which year he was slain.
Still, it is stated that Conn himself came to the throne from the
command of the celebrated national militia, popularly known as the
"Fianna Eireann," of whom the great Finn, Mac Cumhaill, and his father,
Cumhaill, were the most famous commanders, just as many of the Roman
emperors rose to the purple through the backing and from the command of
the Prætorian Guards. This militia of ancient Ireland were accomplished
athletes to a man, and their preparation and competition for enlistment
were most arduous and remarkable. The name Fianna (hence the modern
"Fenians") is explained in an antique glossary preserved in a volume of
the famous "Brehon Laws." There were several severe conditions which
every man who was received into the Fianna was obliged to fulfill.
The first was that he should not accept any fortune with his wife, but
select her for her beauty, her virtue, and her accomplishments.
The second was that he should not insult any woman.
The third was that he should never deny any person asking for food.
The fourth was that he should not turn his back on less than nine
foemen.
No man was received into the Fianna until a wide pit had been dug for
him, in which he was to stand up to his knees, with a shield in one hand
and a hazel stake the length of his arm in the other. Nine warriors,
armed with spears, came within a distance of nine ridges of ground of
him and threw their spears at him all at once. Should he be wounded,
despite the shield and hazel staff, he was not received into the order
of the Fianna.
No man was received into the Fianna until his hair was first braided. He
was then chased by selected runners through a forest, the distance
between them at the start being one tree. If they came up with him he
could not be taken into the Fianna.
No man was received into the Fianna if his weapons trembled in his
hands.
No man could be received if a single braid of his hair had been loosened
by a branch as he ran through the forest.
No man was received into the Fianna whose foot had broken a withered
branch in his course. (This to insure light and careful as well as swift
runners, who left no trail.)
No man was received unless he could jump over the branch of a tree as
high as his head and stoop under one as low as his knee.
No man was received unless he could pluck a thorn out of his heel
without coming to a stand.
And finally, no man could be received until he had first sworn fidelity
and obedience to the king and commander of the Fianna.
It's a sin that there is no place for visitors to stay at Tara. The
nearest hotel is seven miles away, and the lord of the manor cannot
entertain every American tourist that comes along. I know of no lovelier
landscape or more attractive site for a summer hotel, but I suppose the
patronage would be limited, because Tara is a long way from the railroad
and an automobile costs five guineas a day with an allowance of seven
shillings for the board and lodging of the chauffeur and whatever
gasoline may be used.
We were sorry to leave the historic place. One is sorry to leave almost
every place in Ireland. It is such a fascinating country. But the next
stop will develop something else quite as novel and interesting as it
did to us at Castle Dunsany, the ancient home of the Plunkett family.
The "Annals of the Four Masters" relate that there were fierce lords
upon the road from Dublin to Tara, and that if the traveler was not
robbed by the Lord of Dunsany Castle he would be robbed by the Lord of
Killeen, and if he managed to escape Killeen he was sure to be robbed at
Dunsany. These two famous places stand on both sides of the highway not
more than a mile apart, and, although both have been restored and
remodeled for modern occupants they are still very old and associated
with much interesting history. Dunsany Castle was built by Hugh de Lacy
about the middle of the twelfth century. Killeen Castle was the seat of
the Earl of Fingal. Both are surrounded by magnificent demesnes or
wooded parks inclosed with high walls and filled with game, according to
the Irish custom. Near by Castle Dunsany, in the midst of a glorious
grove of trees that have been growing there for centuries, are the
roofless walls of the ancient Church of St. Nicholas, rebuilt upon the
site of an older sanctuary by Nicholas Plunkett in the fifteenth century
and named in honor of his patron saint. His sarcophagus is in the center
surrounded by other tombs of the Plunkett family for several
generations. At Killeen is another church of similar age and in similar
condition, and that also contains the monuments of the founder and his
family for many generations.
Hugh de Lacy was the original owner and occupier of the Abbey of
Bective, one of the finest of the many ruins in this section, and in its
time a very important establishment. He was a Norman knight of ancient
French family, who came over with Strongbow at the first English
invasion of Ireland and was given the Province of Meath for his
possessions. Although not the greatest fighter, he was the wisest and
best governor of all the barons who served Henry II. in Ireland. He
built strong castles in all parts of Meath, including Castle Dunsany and
Castle Killeen, and greatly increased his power and influence by
marrying a daughter of the old king of this province, Roderick O'Conor.
He was accused of conspiring to make himself King of Ireland, and did
not live to clear himself of the charge. One day while he was
superintending the building of a new castle at Durrow a young Irishman
drew a battle ax that was concealed under his cloak, and with one blow
cut off the great baron's head. The murderer afterward explained that it
was done to revenge the desecration of a venerated oratory that had once
been occupied by St. Columba and had been torn away by De Lacy.
Hugh de Lacy's son and namesake, after his father's death, attempted to
seize the throne of Connaught and was betrayed and killed in the
Cathedral of Downpatrick on Good Friday in the year 1204, where,
barefooted and unarmed, he was saying his prayers and doing penance for
his sins. When he was attacked he seized the nearest weapon, a large
brass crucifix, and dashed out the brains of thirteen of his assailants
with it before he was overpowered. When the elder Hugh de Lacy was
murdered his head was taken to the Abbey of St. Thomas, in Dublin,
according to the terms of his will, made several years previous. The
monks demanded the remainder of the body, but the abbot of Bective would
not surrender it until he had been commanded to do so by the pope.
XIII
SAINT PATRICK AND HIS SUCCESSOR
The little cathedral city of Armagh (pronounced with a strong accent
upon the last syllable) is the most sacred town of Ireland. It is the
ecclesiastical headquarters of both the Roman Catholic and the
Protestant churches, the seat of the most ancient and celebrated of
Irish schools of learning; the burial place of Brian Boru, the greatest
of all the Irish kings; the home of St. Patrick for the most important
years of his life, and the cradle of the Christian church in the United
Kingdom. It was from Armagh that the message of the gospel was sent to
the people of Scotland and England, and there was the genesis of the
faith that is now professed by all the nation.
Armagh is a quiet, well kept town of about eight thousand inhabitants,
built on a hill around the cathedral founded by St. Patrick in the year
432, and the streets are steep and rather crooked. It resembles an
English university town, and looks more like Cambridge or Winchester
than the rest of Ireland. More than twelve hundred years ago it was the
greatest educational center in the civilized world, and it still has
several important schools, including a Roman Catholic theological
seminary, a large convent for young women, a technological school, an
astronomical observatory, a public library of twenty thousand volumes
and a little old-fashioned Grecian temple of a building with a sign to
advertise it as the rooms of the Philosophical Society. The houses are
packed together very closely, as is the custom in all Ireland, although
there is plenty of room for the town to spread out, if it were the
fashion to do so. There are ranges of green hills all around, and their
sunny slopes are closely planted to grain, and other crops. We saw them
at harvest time when the song of the reaper and the mower was heard in
the land. There are several linen factories in the neighborhood which
furnish employment for the wives and daughters of the town, and a small
automobile factory. The population is about equally divided between
Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths. There are three Presbyterian
churches and one Methodist, which assert themselves boldly even in the
presence of an ecclesiastical see that is nearly fourteen hundred years
old.
'Way back about the year 444 St. Patrick came to Armagh and built a
church and a monastery upon the summit of a beautiful hill overlooking a
most delightful country, where he established his ecclesiastical
headquarters as Primate of Ireland. The land was given him by the King,
whose royal palace stood there for centuries, and that estate has
remained in the possession of the church ever since and is now occupied
partly by the demesne that surrounds the palace of the Protestant
archbishop and partly by the residences and business houses of the town,
and the ground rents furnish a handsome endowment. The ancient episcopal
palace is now occupied by the Rev. Dr. Alexander, Protestant Archbishop
of Armagh and Primate of the Episcopal Church of Ireland.
Across the valley, upon a similar hill, is another cathedral, also
dedicated to the glory of God and St. Patrick, and behind it, in a much
more modest mansion, is the residence of Cardinal Logue, Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland and a member of the sacred
college of Rome. Thus in the same little town we have two cathedrals of
St. Patrick, two archbishops of Armagh, and two primates of the Holy
Catholic church, both claiming ecclesiastical authority inherited from
St. Patrick, founder of the Christian church in Ireland, and first
archbishop of Armagh, through one hundred and fourteen generations of
archbishops who have lived and prayed and reigned in this picturesque
little place.
In several cities there are two archbishops or bishops, one Roman
Catholic and one of the Church of Ireland, and the duplication is often
the cause of embarrassment and confusion. If you are seeking or even
mentioning one of them it is necessary to make yourself clear by giving
the name of the church or the name of the man as well as the title. I
once addressed a letter to "His Grace, the Archbishop of Dublin," and it
was returned to me from the post office for more definite address. The
post-office authorities would not take the risk of delivering it to the
wrong man.
Archbishop Alexander and Cardinal Logue are the best of friends and see
each other frequently, co-operating in works of charity and movements of
public interest with cordiality and mutual esteem. When I was in Armagh
Cardinal Logue had recently returned from a visit to America, where he
went to assist in the celebration of the anniversary of the founding of
the diocese of New York. He was enthusiastic about his reception and
what he saw and did in the United States. He is a man of great dignity,
ability, and usefulness, but with all has a keen sense of humor and a
jolly disposition.
The town of Armagh is surrounded by scenes of transcendent historic and
ecclesiastical interest. On a lovely hillside is a holy spring where St.
Patrick baptized his first converts. A little farther away is a large
artificial mound, about eleven acres in extent, covered with aged
hawthorn trees, where stood the royal palace of Ulster, and it was
occupied for a century after the arrival of St. Patrick. Within the
grounds of the Protestant archbishop are the remains of a Franciscan
monastery and a well beside which St. Bridget lived for several years.
Eastward of the town, upon the hills, was located the ancient Catholic
University of Armagh founded by St. Patrick in the year 455, where as
many as seven thousand students gathered for instruction in literature,
the arts, and theology, and until the Reformation it was one of the
greatest schools of Europe.
Emania, now called the "Navan Fort," the residence of the kings of
Ulster, was founded by Queen Macha of the Golden Hair, whose legend is
most interesting. It was founded about 300 B.C. It was a royal residence
for six hundred years or more. It was then destroyed by the three
Collas, and has remained a waste ever since. St. Patrick came nearly a
century after its destruction. The petty king, Daire, who gave a site to
St. Patrick, was probably king of Oriel, or possibly of one of the
tribes which composed the kingdom of Oriel, or Oirgialla. Professor
Bury, in his "Life of St. Patrick" says:
"King Daire ... dwelt in the neighborhood of the ancient fortress of
Emania, which his own ancestors had destroyed a hundred years agone,
when they had come from the south to wrest the place from the Ulidians
[Ulidia is Ulster] and sack the palace of its lords. The conquerors did
not set up their abode in the stronghold of the old kings of Ulster;
they burned the timber buildings and left the place desolate."
Patrick's first foundation was not on the hill where the old cathedral
now stands. He asked that site of Daire, but the latter refused, and
gave him a site at the foot of the hill instead. The original church of
St. Patrick is believed to have stood somewhere about the spot whereon
the branch Bank of Ireland now stands in Armagh. Bury says of the
original structures of Patrick:
"The simple houses which were needed for a small society of monks were
built, and there is a record, which appears to be ancient and credible,
concerning these primitive buildings. A circular space was marked out
one hundred and forty feet in diameter, and inclosed by a rampart of
earth. Within this were erected, doubtless of wood, a 'great house' to
be the dwelling of the monks, a kitchen, and a small oratory."
Ultimately, King Daire gave Patrick the hill he coveted, then called
Drum-saileach, the "ridge of the willows." The story is quaintly
interesting. Daire brought to Patrick a bronze cooking-pot, as a mark of
respect. Patrick merely said in Latin, "Gratias agamus" ("I thank
thee"). This sounded, in the unlearned ears of the king, like
"gratzacham." Daire was annoyed that the pot should be received with no
greater sign of satisfaction. So, when he reached home, he sent
servants to bring back the cooking-pot, as something which the monk was
not able to appreciate. When they came back with the pot, Daire asked
what Patrick said, and was told "Gratzacham." "What," said Daire,
"'gratzacham' when it was given, and 'gratzacham' when it was taken
away! It is a good word, and for his 'gratzacham' he shall have his
cooking-pot." Then he went himself with the pot to Patrick, and said,
"Keep thy cooking-pot, for thou art a steadfast and unchangeful man."
And he gave Patrick, besides, the hill on which the old cathedral
stands.
The name Armagh is derived from that of Macha of the Golden Hair. It is
"Ard-Macha," that is, "Macha's Height." The legend is that she was
buried on the hill where the cathedral stands, and that it was named for
her in consequence. But some seven hundred years passed before Patrick
obtained the hill; its name had been changed to "Drum-saileach"; but
Patrick seems to have revived the old name. A spurious derivation is
given by some--"Ardmagh," the high plain; but there is no "high plain"
there, and the "Four Masters" give it Ard-Macha.
Naturally, the object of supreme interest at Armagh is the ancient
Cathedral of St. Patrick, the cradle of the Christian church in Ireland.
The present building, however, dates back only to the seventeenth
century, although portions of the walls were built as long ago as 830,
when "the great stone church of Armagh" is described in detail in the
"Annals of Armagh," one of the oldest of human records. The church was
partly destroyed by fire in 1268 and rebuilt. In 1367 it was restored
again. During the rebellion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was used
as a fortress by Shane O'Neill and burned by him. In 1613 it was
thoroughly rebuilt, and in 1834 was restored to its present condition by
Lord George Beresford, the wealthy archbishop of that date.
Although it has often been asserted that St. Patrick is buried in
Armagh, no such claim is made here, and the authorities of both the
Irish and the Roman Catholic churches accept the tomb at Downpatrick as
genuine. But the old cathedral is the burial place of several other of
the early saints, and somewhere under the tiling on the north side of
the high altar lies the moldering dust of Brian Boru, the greatest of
all the Irish kings, whose bleeding body was brought there after the
battle of Clontarf in 1014, in obedience to his dying request. There is
no trace of his tomb, which was destroyed centuries ago. All of the
tombs within the church are comparatively modern. The oldest epitaph in
the churchyard dates back to 1620, and most of the graves contain the
dust of archbishops who have presided over this diocese. In the east and
west aisles, in the center of the cathedral, are two beautiful
sarcophagi of white Italian marble, carved by an eminent artist with
effigies of two Beresfords, John George and Marcus Servais Beresford,
father and son, who were successive archbishops of Armagh. The principal
windows contain artistic memorials to their wives, Lady Catherine and
Lady Anne Beresford.
After the Reformation the few Roman Catholic residents of Armagh who
remained true to the church of Rome worshiped in "the old chapel," as it
is called, a humble structure erected in the seventeenth century to mark
the site of the house where St. Malachi was born in 1094. And when the
primatial see was revived at Armagh by the pope that old church was made
the cathedral of Ireland. In 1835 Archbishop Crolly undertook to raise
funds for a more appropriate building, and obtained two acres of land on
the other side of town, adjoining Sandy Hill Cemetery, which is the
oldest Christian burial place in the United Kingdom. His successors have
since obtained seven acres more, and hope ultimately to secure a larger
area. In 1840 Mr. Duff, a native architect, prepared plans for a
cathedral of massive proportions, and the corner stone was laid on St.
Patrick's day of that year. A building committee of laymen was formed
and priests were sent through the length and breadth of the land, and,
indeed, throughout the world, to collect funds. Generous gifts came from
the United States, from Canada, from Australia, and from every other
country where Irish emigrants have gone, and a great bazaar was held in
1865 at which $35,000 was raised. The exterior was not completed until
1873, when the finishing touches were added to the spires, and on the
24th of August the temple was dedicated, as the inscription over the
entrance reads, "To the One God, Omnipotent Three in Person, under the
invocation of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland." Dr. M'Gettigan was
archbishop then, and he lived until 1887, when he was succeeded by
Michael Logue, who had been chosen as his coadjutor by the parish
priests of Armagh.
Cardinal Logue was born in County Donegal in 1840, graduated from
Maynooth College and was ordained in 1866. For several years he was
professor of theology and belles lettres in the Irish College at Paris.
In 1876 he was made dean of Maynooth and professor of dogmatic and moral
theology. The following year, at the age of thirty-nine, he was
consecrated Bishop of Raphoe and for eight years labored among the
people of his native county with great energy and usefulness until he
came to Armagh. In January, 1893, he was elevated to the college of
cardinals, a dignity never before attained even by the greatest of the
long line of one hundred and fourteen primates since St. Patrick that
have presided over this see.
Immediately after going to Armagh in 1887 to assist his venerable
predecessor, Cardinal Logue began to raise funds to complete the
interior of the cathedral, which was then undecorated and fitted with
temporary altars and seats. His appeals to Irish patriotism were
responded to with great generosity, and in 1899 he organized the
National Cathedral Bazaar, as it was called, which continued for two
years and resulted in raising $150,000 to complete the cathedral, so
that on July 24, 1904, the building was again solemnly dedicated with a
great pageant and impressive ceremonies at which his Holiness, the Pope,
was represented by his Eminence, Cardinal Bishop Vincente Vanuetelli.
[Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL AT ARMAGH, THE SEAT OF CARDINAL
LOGUE, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIMATE OF IRELAND]
Cardinal Logue resides in a modest mansion in the rear of the cathedral,
between the synod house and the theological seminary. Many a parish
priest in Ireland and America lives in greater style. His manner of life
illustrates the simplicity of his character and tastes. His lack of
ostentation is one of his most charming traits.
It seems very remarkable that St. Patrick, St. Bridget, and St. Columba,
the three saints most venerated by Ireland, should be buried in the same
grave in an obscure little churchyard at the village of Downpatrick,
about twenty miles south of Belfast. There is nothing in the way of
documentary evidence to prove that the bodies of St. Bridget and St.
Columba were placed in St. Patrick's tomb, but the fact is stated in the
earliest histories of the church in Ireland, and is frequently referred
to by writers in the tenth century and later. And the claims of
Downpatrick to this great honor are not seriously disputed.
The "Annals of the Four Masters" refer to the death of St. Bridget in
525 as follows: "On February first, St. Bridget died and was interred at
Dun [Down] in the same tomb with St. Patrick, with great honor and
veneration."
St. Patrick died in the year 465 at the Monastery of Saul, which he had
founded at Downpatrick. It was his wish to be buried at Armagh, then, as
now, the ecclesiastical headquarters of Ireland, and during the twelve
days given up to mourning and funeral ceremonies a controversy arose
between the monks of Armagh and those of Downpatrick, who claimed the
body and insisted upon its burial in their cloisters. A wise old friar
suggested that the decision be left to heaven, and after saying mass the
coffin was placed upon a wagon and two young oxen were taken from the
field and yoked for the first time. It was agreed that they should be
started along the road to Armagh, and that wherever they stopped the
grave of St. Patrick should be made. The oxen commenced their journey
and the rival bodies of monks retired to their cloisters to pray.
The "Book of Armagh," written in the year 802, and now in the library of
Trinity College, Dublin, duly relates that, after proceeding for two
miles down the road slowly, the oxen turned from the main thoroughfare
and rested at Dundalethglass, the site of the present Cathedral of Down.
The monks from Armagh submitted to the will of heaven, and there the
sacred dust was laid. Shortly after this, about 495, a church was built
upon the site now occupied by the present edifice. It was rebuilt in the
twelfth century, a considerable portion of the original walls being
retained and several interior arches. And those walls and arches remain
to-day. It is therefore the oldest structure in Ireland and is entitled
to the veneration it receives. It stands in a grove upon the summit of a
hill, a plain, dignified pile of perfect proportions, with a square
tower and four spires--in no way imposing, but beautiful in its
simplicity.
[Illustration: DOWN CATHEDRAL, DOWNPATRICK, WHERE ST. PATRICK LIVED, AND
IN THE CHURCHYARD OF WHICH HE WAS BURIED]
The interior of the church is said to be precisely as it was originally
built, there having been no change in the arrangement. And most of the
columns which sustain the arches and several of the arches were a part
of the original building. The "Annals of Ulster" give the names of the
abbots who had charge of the monastery that was built in connection with
the church, as far back as the year 583, although there are several wide
gaps in the records of the eighth, ninth, and thirteenth centuries. The
abbey was plundered and partially destroyed on no less than eight
occasions, between the years 824 and 1111, and the "Annals of Ulster"
give the particulars of each invasion. In 1177 Sir John de Courcy, the
most powerful and able lieutenant of Strongbow, who assumed authority
over the kingdom of Ulster, made Downpatrick his principal residence and
erected there a strong castle, the greater portion of which remained
until about half a century ago. At his time the church and the monastery
were occupied by Augustinian monks, who were driven out by De Courcy and
replaced by Benedictines from the Abbey of Chester, England, and the
church was rededicated in honor of St. Patrick, having previously borne
the name of the Holy Trinity. And De Courcy gave the abbey a liberal
endowment. He also erected a Celtic cross, which is believed to be the
same that was recently recovered in fragments, carefully mended and
placed in the churchyard. Among the endowments of the Downpatrick abbey
were four of the principal ferries across the rivers of Ulster,
forty-seven "town lands," which probably correspond to our townships,
and every tenth animal upon the farms of Ulster. Of the extensive
monastic building erected by De Courcy's generosity not a trace remains
except the foundations, and these are covered with the accumulated
débris of four centuries. The inhabitants of Downpatrick and all the
country around have used the ruin as a quarry for building material.
Nearly all of the old houses in the village are made of materials from
that source.
The monastery was plundered and burned by Edward Bruce, brother of
Robert Bruce, the Scottish chieftain, who caused himself to be
proclaimed King of Ireland in 1315. It was rebuilt and burned again in
1512. Lord Grey, who was sent over by King Henry VIII. to quiet Ireland,
profaned and destroyed it, as he did everything else in this section, in
his attempts to exterminate the O'Neills. Lord Grey was executed in the
Tower of London in 1541. The fourth charge in the indictment against him
was that "He rased St. Patrick's, his church, in the old ancient citie
of Ulster and burnt the monument of Patricke, Brided and Colme, who are
said to have been there intoombed. That without onie warrant from the
King or Councill he profaned the Church of St. Patrick in Downe, turning
it into a stable after plucked it down and ship the notable ring of Bels
that did hang in the steeple, meaning to have sent them to England, had
not God of His Justice prevented his iniquitie by sinking the vessels
and passengers wherein the said bells should have been conveied."
The "Annals of Ulster," under date of 1538, record that "the monastery
of Downe was burned and the relics of Patrick, Columcille Briget and the
image of Catherine were carried off."
The oldest inscription in the church is on a tombstone erected to the
memory of Edward, Lord Cromwell and Baron Oakham, no relative of Oliver
Cromwell, but a great-grandson of Thomas Cromwell, the famous minister
of Henry VIII., who, after the pacification of the country obtained
possession of the Downpatrick estates, which continued in his family
until 1832, when they were purchased by David Kerr, and in 1874 sold to
the late Lord Dunleath, who now owns the largest part of the surrounding
country.
At the time of the Reformation, the monks of Downpatrick refused to
subscribe to the new ordinances and were driven out of the monastery.
The history of Downpatrick is quite vague from that time until affairs
quieted down, but from 1662 the records are complete.
Rev. John Wesley visited Downpatrick in 1778, and in his diary he
describes the ruins of the Abbey of Saul as "far the largest building I
have ever seen in the kingdom. Adjoining it is one of the most beautiful
groves which I have ever beheld with my eyes. It covers the sloping side
of the hill and has vistas cut through it every way. There is a most
lovely plain very near to the venerable ruins of the cathedral." Wesley
visited Downpatrick on four different occasions between 1778 and 1785,
and during each visit preached in the grove he describes, using as a
pulpit the pedestal upon which a statue of St. Patrick formerly stood.
Perhaps the most celebrated resident of Downpatrick was Rev. Jeremy
Taylor, who, while bishop of this diocese, wrote his famous book, "Holy
Living and Holy Dying."
Nothing but the irregular surface of the ground upon a hill about two
miles from Downpatrick marks the site of the ancient Monastery of Saul,
which from the time it was founded by St. Patrick in 432 was for several
centuries one of the most celebrated and influential educational
institutions in the world. Like the monastery at Armagh, only twenty
miles away, which was also founded by St. Patrick about the same time,
it was attended annually by thousands of students from England,
Scotland, France, Spain, and other countries of the continent to hear
and absorb the learning of the Augustinian and afterward the Benedictine
monks. Unfortunately, however, no records remain of the institutions
farther than an occasional reference in the "Annals of Ulster."
The sanctity of the place, however, is recognized by Christians of every
race and sect, although the grave of St. Patrick--and of two other
saints--which is a hundred feet from the entrance to the old cathedral
church, is marked only by an enormous granite bowlder, almost as nature
made it, bearing no inscription except the word "Patric" in celtic
letters beneath a celtic cross chiseled on the surface of the stone. It
is a most appropriate monument in its simple dignity, and one that you
might imagine that St. Patrick would have preferred rather than a lofty
and ornate tower. It is rather curious, however, that no movement has
ever been started to erect an imposing memorial here; there is no
evidence that any monument of size ever marked the grave, although the
three most venerated saints in the Irish calendar lie here together. A
distich, said to have been written by Sir John de Courcy in 1185, says:
"Hi tres Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno;
Brigidam, Patricius atque Colomba Pius";
which is liberally translated as follows:
"Three Saints in Down, one grave do fill;
Saints Patrick, Bridget and Columbkill."
Downpatrick is visited annually by thousands of pilgrims. The town is
practically supported by them, and the tomb has to be guarded against
vandalism, particularly on Sundays, Good Friday, Easter, and other
religious holidays. Relic hunters have carried away tons of earth from
about the grave, which they dig up with their fingers or trowels or
sticks and consign to bottles, boxes, or baskets. As soon as the
cavities become too large, the custodian hauls a cart of soil from the
nearest field and fills them up.
It is asserted in the guide book that St. Patrick was never canonized by
the pope, and that he is recognized as a saint only by the Irish people.
This is a singular assertion. The Roman Catholic prayer book used in
Ireland mentions March 17, the feast of St. Patrick, as one of the holy
days upon which there is strict obligation to attend mass and to
refrain from all unnecessary labor.
According to the best authorities, St. Patrick was born at Nemthur (the
Holy Tower), now known as Dumbarton, Scotland, in the year 387, and his
father, Palpurn, was a magistrate in the service of the Romans. When he
was sixteen, in the year 403, Patrick was taken captive and sold as a
slave. A rich man named Milcho brought him to Ireland and employed him
to herd sheep and swine in County Antrim. At the end of six years of
slavery he escaped, returned to his home and family and then went to a
monastic school at Tours, France. After receiving his education and
being ordained he went to Rome, where he was blessed by Pope Celestine
and commissioned to go to Ireland as a missionary. He landed at the
mouth of a little stream called the Slaney, only about two miles from
Saul, and settled at Downpatrick, where the chief gave him the use of a
sabhall or barn for divine service, and upon that site was erected the
famous monastery which took its name, Saul, from the barn. He remained
there for several years, teaching and training disciples, and then
visited every part of the island, preaching the gospel to the kings and
chiefs as well as to the poor half-civilized habitants of the mountains.
He founded many churches and monasteries in different places and finally
settled down at Armagh as Bishop of Ireland in 457, where he remained
for eight years. In March, 465, when he was seventy-eight years old,
while paying a visit to the monastery of Saul, the scene of his first
ministrations in Ireland, he was seized with a fatal illness and
breathed his last. The news of his death was the signal for universal
mourning in Ireland, and thousands of the clergy and laity came from the
remotest districts to pay their last tributes of love and respect to the
greatest of missionaries.
[Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF DOWNPATRICK]
St. Bridget, who ranks next to St. Patrick in the veneration of the
Irish, was the daughter of a nobleman, and was born at Fochard, a
village near Armagh, in the year 453. Her great beauty and her father's
wealth and position caused her to be sought in marriage by several of
the princes of Ireland, but early in life she became a convert to the
new religion, consecrated herself to its service, and retired to a
forest near Kildare, about twenty miles from Dublin. She built herself a
cell in the trunk of a great oak, around which grew a great religious
community. She died Feb. 1, 525, at the age of seventy-two years. For
many years the nuns of Kildare kept a light burning constantly in her
memory. "The bright light that shone in Kildare's holy flame" was
suppressed, however, by the Archbishop of Dublin for fear it would be
interpreted as a pagan practice.
The body of St. Bridget was originally buried at Kildare, but in the
year 1185 was translated with great solemnity to Downpatrick, attended
by the pope's legate, fifteen bishops, and a great number of clergy. Her
head was carried to the convent of Neustadt, Austria, and in 1587 was
removed to the Church of the Jesuits in Lisbon.
St. Columba, or St. Columbkill, died while kneeling before the altar of
his church on the Island of Iona, a little after midnight, Jan. 9, 597.
He was originally buried in his monastery, and his body was removed to
Downpatrick the same year as that of St. Bridget.
XIV
THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT
The Sinn Fein movement (pronounced "shinn fane") which promised so much
is not making great progress. Some of its principles are admirable, and
from a sentimental standpoint appeal to the patriotism of every
Irishman, but the management is in the hands of impractical amateurs who
have antagonized the Roman Catholic church, and that would be fatal to
any movement in Ireland or any other country where three-fourths of the
population profess that faith and the priesthood are as powerful as in
Ireland. Furthermore, the young men who are directing affairs have gone
into politics and have attempted to buck against the nationalist party,
which controls three-fourths of the Irish vote. For these reasons the
movement has suffered a setback, and it is doubtful whether it will ever
recover the impetus it acquired two or three years ago. If it had been
kept out of politics and out of religion like the Gaelic League, for
example, which is aiming at a portion of the same objects, it might have
done an immense amount of good. The leaders are earnest but
inexperienced; they are long on ideas but short on common sense, and
have more principles than votes, as has been illustrated at recent
elections in Ireland. The leaders of the national party, bearing the
scars of many political contests and familiar with all the tricks of
their trade, regard the Sinn Fein advocates as enthusiastic schoolboys
and play with them as a mastiff plays with a puppy.
The Sinn Feiners have formally demanded that the nationalist party shall
abandon its present policy and adopt their platform--a proposition which
its leaders consider very amusing, but when you can persuade them to
discuss it seriously they say that they have accomplished too much and
are too near the goal of home rule to abandon the present programme and
adopt one that is new and untried.
Sinn Fein means "for ourselves," and those two Celtic words describe the
policy and the purpose of the organization. It demands that Ireland
stand alone and work out her salvation by her own efforts, absolutely
boycotting the British government, which they declare is the only enemy
of Ireland and the cause of all the evils and the ills that afflict the
Irish people. It is an imitation of the policy adopted by Ferencz Deák
in the contest with Austria for Hungarian independence from 1849 to
1867. He organized a vast movement of passive resistance. Under his
leadership the Hungarians refused to pay taxes unless levied and
collected by their own officials; they refused to send Hungarian
representatives to the imperial parliament; they built up an educational
and administrative system of their own, and in less than twenty years
achieved practical independence for Hungary, the right to make their own
laws and administer their own government. The chief weapon was a
national boycott, and it was successful.
In 1903 a young newspaper man named Arthur Griffith conceived the idea
of applying the Hungarian policy to Ireland and boycotting the British
government. He wrote a good deal for the newspapers, went around the
island holding public meetings, organizing local societies, appealing to
the patriotic sentiments of the young men of the country, and started a
weekly newspaper as an organ of the cause. At first it was understood
that the Sinn Feiners would abstain from politics like the Gaelic
League, but the refusal of the politicians to join or assist them
provoked animosities, and in retaliation the Sinn Feiners nominated
candidates for several offices, who were in sympathy with them. This
developed a positive contest, the Sinn Fein movement was placed under
the ban by the Irish parliamentary leaders and soon became an
independent political party.
A similar collision occurred with the Roman Catholic church chiefly
because the ardent young leaders did not consult the priests and obtain
the indorsement of the hierarchy, which might have approved the
programme with some revision. The misunderstanding was allowed to grow
until now the Sinn Feiners are under the ban of the church as well as
that of the United Irish League and the parliamentary party, and the
opposition of those three powers cannot be overcome or even resisted.
Therefore the movement is doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the Sinn
Feiners have succeeded in electing several of their number to office on
their own platform. They now have twelve out of eighty members of the
Dublin common council and board of aldermen, and in other cities of
Ireland they have representatives in official positions. Not long ago
they nominated a candidate for the House of Commons in the North Leitrim
district, notwithstanding the fact that the first plank in their
programme demands the complete boycott of the British parliament. It was
an Irish bull and naturally excited much ridicule, but the Sinn Feiners
succeeded in polling 1,100 out of a total of 6,000 votes, which was a
great deal more than any one expected.
Some time ago the national council of the party devised a scheme for
raising money to establish a daily newspaper. They printed and offered
for sale very pretty postage stamps and asked everybody to buy them and
place them on their letters in addition to the portrait of King Edward,
which is required by act of parliament. It was a fatal error, because it
was an absolute failure and disclosed the weakness of the movement and
the insincerity of its members. I am told that less than five per cent
of the stamps printed were ever disposed of.
Some of the propositions in the programme of the Sinn Fein party, as I
have already said, appeal very strongly to the patriotism of the Irish
people; others are so fantastic as to destroy confidence in the judgment
of its leaders. For example, they issued an urgent appeal to the
newspapers and to the public to use no paper or stationery except of
Irish manufacture, which might have been to the advantage of the country
if there were any paper mills in Ireland. Again, they advocate Irish
ownership of all public utilities. They want Irish capitalists to buy up
the stock of all the railways and street car lines and other public
enterprises and employ none but Irishmen in their administration, which
might be done if there were a good deal more capital in the country; but
as long as the Irish people are too poor to pay for the stock, it would
seem a little premature for them to undertake to carry out the Sinn Fein
recommendations.
The first plank in the programme of the Sinn Fein platform is a national
Irish legislature endowed with moral authority to enact laws and
recommend policies for the adoption of the Irish people. This
legislature is to be composed of the members of the county councils, the
poor-law boards and harbor boards of all Ireland, to sit twice a year in
Dublin, and to form a _de facto_ Irish parliament. Associated with and
sitting with this body would be the present Irish members of the House
of Commons and their successors representing the constituencies as at
present defined. Before taking this step, however, it is proposed that
the Irish members of the House of Commons should make a dramatic
demonstration in parliament, to emphasize the significance of their
retirement. They are to rise in their seats and formally decline any
longer to confer on the affairs of Ireland with foreigners in a foreign
city.
Among other functions of the proposed Irish legislature shall be the
assessment of a tax of one penny to the pound--that is, two cents for
every five dollars' worth of property--without regard to present
taxation, and thus acquire a fund "to serve and strengthen the country
in bringing about the triumph of the Sinn Fein policy." This fund would
be used in the payment of bounties to develop Irish industries, to
establish libraries of Irish literature and museums of arts and
antiquities; to establish gymnasiums for the physical training of the
young people and schools for their moral training and discipline and
instruction in Irish history.
The first laws to be passed by the legislature would exclude all goods
of English manufacture from Ireland, prohibit the use of foreign
articles by the government, forbid the appointment of any but natives of
Ireland to public positions, withhold support from newspapers which
publish emigration advertisements, require the study of the Celtic
language in all the schools for certain hours and prepare text-books so
that no other language would be necessary in instruction, raise the
standard of wages among workingmen, increase their proficiency by
technical instruction, develop the resources and industries of the
country, and extend the area of tilled soil and the planting of forests.
After having accomplished these objects the Irish legislature, according
to the programme of the Sinn Fein, should establish a national
university, open and free to the poor as well as the rich, with none but
Irish instructors and the Celtic language substituted for the English.
Next a union of manufacturers and farmers for co-operation, both
pledging themselves to use none but Irish goods and products so far as
possible. In cases where an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article
as cheaply as it is produced in England or other countries he is to be
paid a bounty or protected by a tariff similar to that which has
advanced the prosperity of the mechanical industries of the United
States.
The next step is to establish an Irish mercantile marine similar to that
of Scotland and Norway. Ireland has no steamers; Scotland has many and,
according to the Sinn Feiners, there is no reason why there should not
be as large a fleet sailing from that country.
It is proposed to establish an independent consular service of Irishmen
in the principal capitals and commercial centers of the world where a
market may be found for Irish produce. These consuls are to act
independently of the regular representatives of Great Britain and devote
themselves entirely to Irish interests.
The proposed parliament shall take immediate steps to plant trees all
over the island, which, it is asserted, will result in raising the mean
temperature at least four degrees and thus render the soil doubly
fruitful. The tree planting is to be done under the direction of the
poor-law boards, which are to employ the inmates of the poor-houses so
far as their physical condition will permit, in planting, watering, and
looking after the young trees.
The parliament is to establish national courts of law entirely
independent of the present courts which are to be entirely boycotted by
the people. It is declared to be the duty of every Irishman to submit
all disputes to the arbitration of his neighbors who are to serve
without pay. The national courts are to be composed of the justices of
the peace already elected by the people, who shall sit outside the
regular legal hours and terms of court, so as to avoid complications.
A national stock exchange is to be established which shall deal only in
Irish securities, and a system of banks which shall limit their dealings
to natives of Ireland and encourage the transfer of the $250,000,000 of
Irish money alleged to be now deposited in the English banks and
invested in English securities, to Irish banks and Irish securities, and
to encourage its investments in active industries and public works, to
develop the resources of Ireland and to give employment to Irish labor.
One of the principal planks in the Sinn Fein platform is to boycott the
British army and navy. It is asserted that Ireland supplies more
fighting men for the British empire than England; that 354 Irishmen out
of every 10,000 of its population are British soldiers, while only 276
out of every 10,000 in England go into the army. If the Irish would
refuse to enlist it would paralyze the military service of the empire,
and deal a serious blow to British prosperity by drawing a large number
of the employees of the shops and factories into the army and navy.
Another form of boycott recommended is for all Irishmen to refuse
appointments in the British civil service and the constabulary on the
theory that every Irishman who accepts employment from the British
government takes up arms against Ireland and becomes the active enemy of
his country, "being employed to keep a hostile country up, and to keep
his own country down."
A plank in the platform in which we are directly interested advocates an
invitation of the natives of Ireland in America to invest their money in
the development of Irish industries and resources. It says: "There are
in the United States to-day thirty Irishmen or men of Irish blood whose
names on a cheque would be good for £50,000,000. Few of these men take
any public part in affairs, but all of them profess in private a desire
to help Ireland. We invite them as men of business to undertake a work
which will be mutually profitable to themselves and to Ireland."
These propositions are embodied in a manifesto which has been printed
and widely circulated throughout Ireland to explain the purpose of the
Sinn Fein movement, and they have attracted a large number of active
adherents to the cause and many silent sympathizers. But, as you may
imagine, some of them do not appeal very strongly to practical men. If
the Sinn Feiners had undertaken to do less, had kept out of politics and
had avoided the enmity of the church they might have become a powerful
and useful agency in promoting Irish industries and stimulating Irish
patriotism, but the leaders have gone too far to retrace their steps.
They cannot retract the unkind words they have said about the Irish
parliamentary party or their bitter criticism of the interference of the
bishops and the priests. It would be fatal for them to amend their
programme by omitting the impractical portions. Hence it is not probable
that the movement will gain much strength in the future, and, indeed, it
is already on the decline.
XV
THE NORTH OF IRELAND
The traveler from the south or west enters a zone of prosperity when he
comes within forty miles of Belfast. The northern counties look like an
entirely different world. The beautiful rolling landscape, with an
occasional grove and flowering hedges, is similar to the rest of the
east coast of the island, but the farms are larger and more thoroughly
cultivated; very little of the land is given up to grazing, few cattle
are seen, but fields of grain, flax, potatoes, turnips, and other
vegetables take the place of pastures, and the large farmhouses are
surrounded by well-kept gardens and big barns. There are no more filthy
one-room cabins, with manure piles in front of the doors, and few signs
of poverty or neglect. The people live in two-story houses and sleep in
beds instead of on the mud floors; they have cook stoves and ranges
instead of boiling their food in pots over a peat fire out of doors.
There are no barefooted women; none with blankets over their heads.
Every one seems to be well dressed and to have a pride of appearance as
well as habits of neatness and bears evidences of comfortable
circumstances. Tall chimneys rise from the centers of the towns. We see
large factories in every village and square miles of linen cloth spread
out upon the turf to bleach.
The north of Ireland is as different from the rest of the country as New
England is from Alabama, and there is a corresponding difference in the
character of the people. They are not so genial and gentle and obliging
in the North; they are not so poetic, but are more practical, and they
are looking out for themselves. The manners of the people of Belfast
are said to be the worst in the world. They are often offensive in their
brusqueness and abruptness, and a stranger is sometimes repelled by
their gruff replies. The Belfasters make no pretensions to politeness,
and speak their minds with a plainness and directness that are sometimes
disagreeable. But they have a reputation for honesty, enterprise,
industry, and morality, which they consider virtues of greater
importance and of a higher value than the art of politeness.
There is a series of beautiful villages and towns along the coast south
of Belfast, and one of them is called Rosstrevor because a gentleman by
the name of Ross married an heiress by the name of Trevor, a younger
daughter of the Viscount of Dungan. It is situated upon a height, with a
background of wooded hills, plentifully sprinkled with villas. The
village shows evidence of the fostering care of its late owner, Sir
David Ross, and its present owner, Sir John Ross-of-Bladensburg, who is
commissioner of police for Ireland, and is a person of great importance
in his own estimation as well as that of others. He takes an active part
in political and ecclesiastical affairs and is always occupying a front
seat when anything is going on. He signs himself John Ross of
Bladensburg, because his grandfather, Major General Ross, commanded the
British troops at the battle of Bladensburg, and after one of the most
bloody and important conflicts in the history of human warfare he led
them triumphantly into the capital of the United States and destroyed
the palace of the President, the parliament house, and the navy yard!
All this and more appears in the much published biographies of the Ross
family, and because of the glory thus acquired they added the word
"Bladensburg" to their name when they were elevated to a baronetcy.
[Illustration: ROSSTREVOR HOUSE, NEAR BELFAST, THE RESIDENCE OF SIR JOHN
ROSS OF BLADENSBURG]
The Ross family have erected an obelisk to the memory of their famous
ancestor upon a promontory above the sea at Rosstrevor, and have
inscribed upon it the following epitaph:
The Officers of a Grateful Army,
Which, Under the Command of the Lamented
MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT ROSS,
Attacked and Defeated the American Forces
at Bladensburg on the 24th of August, 1814,
And on the Same Day
Victoriously Entered Washington,
The Capital of the United States,
Inscribe Upon This Tablet
Their Admiration of His Professional Skill
And Their Esteem for His Amiable
Private Character.
There are three other inscriptions of similar purport, one on each face
of the pedestal. General Ross, it appears, is buried in Halifax.
Belfast is the center of a great manufacturing district. Each factory is
surrounded by groups of neat two-story brick cottages, with gardens,
churches, schoolhouses, and shops, which are very different from the
rest of Ireland, and are similar to those in the suburbs of
Philadelphia. Belfast ranks high among the manufacturing cities of the
world. It is proud of the title of "The Chicago of Ireland." The people
are as boastful of their progress, their wealth, and their prosperity as
those of its namesake. But for the strong Scotch accent one might
imagine himself in Kansas City, Seattle, or Los Angeles because of their
civic pride. Every man you meet tells you that a hundred years ago
Belfast had only fifteen thousand population, while to-day it has nearly
four hundred thousand; that its wealth has doubled six times in the last
twenty-five years; that it has the largest shipyards, the largest
tobacco factory, the largest spinning mills, and the largest rope walk
in the world. When they take you up on the side of a high mountain and
show you a view of the city spread out on both sides of the River Lagan,
they defy you to count the chimneys and the church spires, which are as
numerous as the domes of Moscow. Belfast is the most prosperous place
in Ireland and an example of matchless concentration of power, industry,
and ability.
The people have good ground for their vanity, and while their claims are
somewhat exaggerated, few cities have so much to boast of. One of the
shipyards has produced more than four hundred ocean steamers, another
built the first turbine that ever floated on the ocean, and together
they employ fifteen thousand hands. The machine shops of Belfast are
also famous. They provide spinning and weaving machines for all the
linen mills in the world, and ship them even to the United States. The
engines, boilers, and other machinery that is turned out from the shops
of Belfast are shipped to every corner of the world, and the product of
the linen factories' trade now amounts to more than sixty million
dollars a year. The largest mill covers five acres, with 60,000
spindles, 1,000 looms, and more than 4,000 hands. A single tobacco firm
pays $4,000,000 in taxes every year and a distillery has an annual
output of $7,500,000.
Belfast has sixteen factories for the production of ginger ale,
lemonade, soda, and other aërated waters, which are famous the world
over. It manufactures agricultural implements and machinery for every
kind of industry, and much of the machinery is the invention of its own
citizens.
Belfast is no relation to the rest of Ireland. It is a Scottish town,
and most of the people are of Scotch ancestry--all except the lowest
class of labor, which has drifted in from the neighboring counties. The
city lies at the head of a bay, or lough, as they call it there, nine
miles long. The headlands at the mouth of the bay are only eighteen
miles from the shores of Scotland, which may be seen very plainly on a
clear morning.
The shortest distance between Ireland and Scotland is only twelve and
three-quarter miles--between Torrhead and the Mull of Kintyre. The
shortest practicable crossing, between Larne, a few miles north of
Belfast, and Stranraer, Scotland, is thirty-nine miles, and is made in
two hours by steamer. The crossing from Belfast is sixty-four miles, and
it is five hours to Glasgow. There are steamers several times a day--in
the morning, afternoon, and at night--and the largest part of the
business as well as the sympathies of the people are with the Scots.
Since the tunnel under the Hudson River has been completed between New
York and Hoboken, the plan for an "under sea railway" between Larne and
Port Patrick has been revived. The engineers have reported that they can
make a tunnel from Ireland to Scotland, less than forty-five miles, one
hundred and fifty feet below the sea level, at a cost of $60,000,000,
and some day, perhaps, it will be possible to cross by train under the
Irish Channel, rather than by boat over it.
The racial, religious, and political antagonisms between the north and
south of Ireland are well known, and can never be removed. Three-fourths
of the population in this section of the island are Protestants, mostly
Calvinists of the sternest kind, and the portraits of John Knox and
Oliver Cromwell hang on the walls of the houses rather than those of the
popes. The religious feeling, however, is not so intense as formerly. A
generation ago, the 12th of July (the anniversary of the battle of the
Boyne, in which the Protestant army of William of Orange overcame and
dispersed the Roman Catholic forces under James II.) never used to pass
without a riot and many broken heads, but of recent years there have
been very few collisions. Formerly, the Roman Catholics used to lie in
wait at a certain bridge to attack the procession of Orange societies as
it passed over, with shillalahs and stones. The Orangemen, who are
mostly mechanics from the shipyards and machine-shops, always armed
themselves with iron bolts and nuts for the fray, and missiles flew
freely, leaving many unconscious and sometimes dead men on the ground.
And on other holidays, whenever the representatives of either religious
faith came out in force, the other usually attempted to interfere with
them. But those days have passed. The rival religionists glare at and
taunt each other now, but do not strike.
One cannot blame the Roman Catholics for their bitterness. In the
middle of the sixteenth century, in consequence of the rebellion of the
earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the heads of the great clans of O'Neill
and O'Donnell, against the authority of Queen Elizabeth, the territory
belonging to them and their followers was confiscated by the crown and
sold to Protestants, chiefly from Scotland, just as the southern
counties were distributed among the "undertakers" from England, but with
a difference. The "undertakers" who were granted the estates of the
rebellious earls in southern Ireland were mostly adventurers and
speculators. Many of them never came to Ireland at all. Few of them
settled permanently upon their grants, while nearly all of those who
undertook to carry out the contract of colonization were indifferent to
the class of settlers they brought in. In Ulster Province, however,
which is the northern third of Ireland, after the "flight of the earls,"
their confiscated lands were taken up in small parcels by actual
settlers from Scotland, whose descendants have occupied them until this
day--a sturdy, thrifty, industrious, and prosperous race, and the
children of these "Scotch-Irish" Protestants have borne as important a
part in the settlement and development of the United States as the
children of the Pilgrims have done.
The "planters," who came over from Scotland, brought with them their
morals and their religion, and most of them were Presbyterians. In 1637
the surveyor-general of the Ulster plantations reported to the king that
there were forty Scots to one English, and fifteen Presbyterians to one
of all the other sects combined. And the Presbyterians have ever since
been the leading religious body in the north of Ireland. They are a
stern, stolid, conservative race, stubborn of opinion, persistent of
purpose, and fully conscious of their own rectitude. When William,
Prince of Orange, invaded Ireland in 1689, after James II. abdicated his
throne and fled from England, he landed at the little town of
Carrickfergus, about six miles below Belfast, where he was received with
great rejoicing. Here he unfurled his flag and displayed his motto, "The
Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England I will maintain," and
the people of Belfast have endeavored to maintain them with vigor ever
since. The term "Orangemen" has ever since been applied to organizations
of Protestants of a political character, and they have received more or
less support from the church. Most of them are semi-benevolent, like the
Hibernian societies among the Catholic population of southern Ireland,
and they are found in every town and village in the province of Ulster.
There are Orange halls in every parish of Belfast and the surrounding
country. They embrace in their membership representatives of all the
Protestant denominations, the Church of Ireland and the Methodists as
well as the Presbyterians--but the latter are most numerous and in some
districts you will find none but Presbyterians.
The O'Neills were kings of Ulster in ancient times and their coat of
arms was a red hand, whereby hangs a startling tale. According to
tradition, the original O'Neill came over from Scotland with a party of
invaders, among whom it was agreed that he should be king whose hand
first touched the soil of Ireland. The boats were all stranded on the
beach, and the captains and the crews were striving desperately to make
the shore, when "The O'Neill," with the nerve that has always
distinguished his clan, drew his sword, chopped off his own left hand at
the wrist, threw it upon the beach and claimed the throne, which was
accorded him. Hence a red hand or "Lamh dearg" is on the coat of arms of
Ulster, being placed upon a small shield in the center of a large
shield, upon which appears the red cross of St. George, thus signifying
England's domination over Ulster.
Neill of the Nine Hostages, who reigned from A.D. 379 to 405, was the
most warlike and adventurous of all the pagan kings, and, with two
exceptions, all the overkings of Ireland, from the time that Red O'Neill
tossed his amputated hand upon the shore, to the accession of Brian
Boru, belonged to this illustrious family. And they gave England a great
deal of trouble. In 1551, Conn O'Neill was created Earl of Tyrone, and
Mathew, who claimed to be his son, was given the right of succession.
"Shane, the Proud," the legitimate son and heir, was a mere boy at that
time, but when he grew to manhood he disputed his half-brother's
parentage and apologized for his father's conduct with the remark that,
"Being a gentleman, he never refused a child that any woman named to be
his."
After the death of Henry VIII. Shane O'Neill inaugurated a rebellion
which cost England more men and more money than any struggle that has
ever occurred in Ireland; an expenditure equal to $10,000,000 of our
present money, besides tens of thousands of lives and millions of
private property destroyed. After peace was restored in 1558, Shane was
elected "The O'Neill," in accordance with the ancient Irish custom, and
in 1561 he accepted the olive branch from Queen Elizabeth and went to
London at her invitation, followed by his gallowglasses in their strange
native attire--loose, wide-sleeved, saffron-colored tunics, reaching to
their knees, with shaggy mantles of sheepskin over their shoulders,
their heads bare, their long hair curling down on their shoulders and
clipped short in front, just above the eyes.
The last of the earls of Tyrone was Hugh O'Neill, a son of Shane, who
organized another rebellion in 1584, and, being defeated, fled to his
castle in the dense woods of Glenconkeine, and there awaited anxiously
for Philip of Spain or Clement VIII., the reigning pope, to succor him.
One by one O'Neill was deserted by all the Irish chieftains except Rory
O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, and as they saw no hope of relief they
made peace with England. Several years later, in 1607, being accused of
a plot, they fled from the shores of Ireland with a party of ninety-four
kinsfolk and retainers. They finally found their way to Rome, where Paul
V., the reigning pontiff, gave them shelter and expressed his deep
sympathy with the Irish exiles. The following year Rory O'Donnell, Earl
of Tyrconnell, died of Roman fever, and in 1616 the last of the Irish
kings bearing the name of O'Neill was laid to rest in the Church of San
Pietro on the Janiculum, the same which claims the dust of St. Peter.
[Illustration: SHANE'S CASTLE, NEAR BELFAST, THE ANCIENT STRONGHOLD OF
THE O'NEILLS, KINGS OF ULSTER]
The misfortunes which always followed Hugh O'Neill's footsteps continued
to pursue his sons. Henry, the eldest, died in command of an Irish
regiment in the Netherlands; John, his next brother, succeeded him and
died in battle in Catalonia; Bernard was assassinated when but seventeen
years old; Hugh died of Roman fever, and Conn, the youngest, who, for
some unaccountable reason, was left in Ireland in the hurry of his
father's flight, was arrested, taken to London, and imprisoned in the
Tower, where he was lost sight of, and the male line of the O'Neills
became extinct. The living representative of the family, Baron Edward
O'Neill of Shane's Castle, Antrim, is descended in the female line. His
name was Chichester until he was created baron in 1868, when he assumed
that of his ancestors. He lives in the old castle, about fourteen miles
north of Belfast.
The lord of the county, however, is the young Earl of Shaftesbury,
grandson of the famous philanthropist, who inherits many of his
grandfather's traits and takes an active part in religious,
philanthropic, political, and municipal affairs. He is very
public-spirited, is always willing to do his part in charitable
movements, has served as alderman and lord mayor of Belfast with great
credit, and has held several other important positions. He was educated
at Eton and Sandhurst Military School, was elected alderman in Belfast
in 1905 and lord mayor in 1907. In 1899 he married Lady Constance
Grosvenor, granddaughter of the late Duke of Westminster. He inherited
Belfast Castle, the former seat of the Donegal family, which they have
occupied ever since. It is about three miles from Belfast, and entirely
modern. The state apartments and picture galleries on the main floor are
very fine. A short distance from the castle is a beautiful little
private mortuary chapel erected by the late Marquis of Donegal, as a
burial place for the family.
On the opposite side of Belfast Lough is the seat of the late Lord
Dufferin and Ava, one of the ablest and most useful men in the British
empire for many years. His figure in bronze under a marble canopy in the
City Hall Park reminds the people of Belfast of his ability, his
patriotism, and his public services. He was Viceroy of India,
Governor-General of Canada, ambassador to France, Italy, and Turkey, and
held other important positions and received unusual honors, but he died
here in 1902 broken hearted because his reputation had been used by a
swindler, named Wright, in promoting an enterprise that seemed to him
proper and promising, but turned out to be the worst kind of a fraud.
His situation was similar to that of General Grant after the Grant-Ward
failure in New York. Lord Dufferin gave up all his property as
restitution to the victims of the scheme and retired to the seclusion of
his ancestral home here. Wright was convicted and sentenced to twenty
years in prison, but committed suicide before he was sent to the
penitentiary. The dowager marchioness still occupies the family mansion
with her younger children and is actively engaged in charitable work.
The young earl occupies an important position in the foreign office at
London. He was born in 1866, and in 1903 married an American girl, Miss
Florence Davis, daughter of John H. Davis, 24 Washington Square, New
York City.
Upon the loftiest eminence overlooking Belfast Lough is a tall, round
structure known as Ellen's Tower, which the late marquis erected in
memory of his late mother, Ellen Sheridan, a granddaughter of Richard
Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist. She was a woman of great ability and
exercised a wide influence. She wrote books and poetry and songs and was
the author of the old-fashioned ballad that was very popular in your
grandmother's time: "I'm Sitting on the Stile, Mary."
On the north side of the Bay of Belfast, about six miles below the city,
is the ancient town of Carrickfergus, which is of peculiar interest to
Americans, because the father of Andrew Jackson was born there and from
there emigrated in 1765 and found a farm in the wilderness of North
Carolina.
It was there also that John Paul Jones, with the _Ranger_, fought the
_Drake_, a British sloop of war, April 24, 1778. The _Drake_ was in the
harbor near the Castle of Carrickfergus, when the _Ranger_ came in
sight, and coaxed her out for an engagement, which occurred promptly in
midchannel, and for a while there was very lively action on both sides.
The _Drake_ carried twenty 4-pound guns and 142 seamen. The _Ranger_
carried eighteen 6-pound guns and 155 seamen, several of whom were
Irishmen from Belfast and one from Carrickfergus. The _Drake_ was the
larger vessel, but was not handled as easily as the _Ranger_. The fight
lasted an hour and fifteen minutes when the _Drake_ struck her colors.
Her captain, Burder, by name, was killed; Lieutenant Dobbs, the next in
command, was mortally wounded, and her deck was covered with the dead
and the dying. The _Ranger_ had only three killed and five wounded.
Captain Jones remained in the bay for several days, making repairs, and
sent all the wounded ashore to Carrickfergus. Lieutenant Dobbs died the
morning after the battle and is buried in the churchyard of the little
village of Lisburn near by, where he lies beside the great and good
Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Armagh, who died in 1667.
It was on the day before the battle that Captain Jones made his raid
upon the castle of Lord Selkirk at Kirkcudbright, Scotland, across the
Irish Channel, and carried away with him the family plate, which was
surrendered by Lady Selkirk to avoid a mutiny among the crew. But
Captain Jones, after five years of persistent work, recovered the entire
collection and restored it safely to its original owners, even paying
for its carriage to Scotland. Captain Stockton, the American military
attaché at London, sent to the Navy Department at Washington, copies of
several characteristic letters written by John Paul Jones to Lady
Selkirk and to Lord Selkirk, concerning the matter.
Belfast has had many distinguished sons in addition to those whom I have
already named, but none more eminent and useful than James Bryce,
British ambassador to Washington, who was born there May 10, 1838, and
shares with Lord Kelvin the honor of being the most famous of all
Belfasters. He went from there a young man to the University of Glasgow
and there developed his extraordinary mental and physical energy. From
Glasgow he went to Oxford, where he took his degree in 1862, and then to
Heidelberg to perfect himself in German, of which he is a thorough
scholar. We next find him studying law in London where he was called to
the Bar in 1867 and immediately was recognized for his legal ability and
learning. Only three years later he was invited to accept the Regius
professorship of law at Oxford, which he held from 1870 to 1893. In the
meantime he was the busiest man in England and engaged in the greatest
variety of activities. He was writing history, exploring Iceland,
climbing Mount Ararat, making records in the Alpine Club, studying
Ireland, running for parliament, serving as parliamentary secretary for
foreign affairs, and afterward as chief secretary for Ireland in the
British cabinet and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
And all this time, when he was not doing anything else, he was writing
books, and almost all of his works are regarded as the best books ever
written upon the subjects of which they treat. "The American
Commonwealth" is acknowledged to be the best account of our institutions
ever penned by a foreigner. "The Holy Roman Empire" is a model of
historical literature, while Mr. Bryce's other books, on a variety of
subjects, are of equal rank in scholarship and in literary merit.
The late Rev. Dr. John Hall, in his day the most eminent Presbyterian
divine in America, was born at Armagh, where Cardinal Logue, the Roman
Catholic Primate of Ireland, presides over the ancient see of St.
Patrick. Dr. Hall was born in 1829, entered Belfast College when he was
only thirteen years old, and although the youngest in his class, ranked
first in scholarship and took the largest number of prizes. He studied
theology at the Presbyterian Seminary here, and when he was only
twenty-two years old became pastor of the First Church at Armagh, his
native town. In 1856 he was called to Dublin as pastor of the Rutland
Presbyterian Church, and was appointed commissioner of education for
Ireland. In 1867 he was sent to the United States as a delegate to the
general assembly, and created such a favorable impression that he
immediately received a call to the pulpit of the Fifth Avenue Church,
Presbyterian, of New York, which he accepted and occupied the rest of
his life.
XVI
THE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST
Belfast has a population of 380,000, according to the most reliable
estimates. The latest enumeration, in 1901, showed a population of
349,180, which is just double that returned by the census of 1871. Of
this population 120,269 are Presbyterians, 102,991 are Episcopalians,
84,992 are Roman Catholics, 21,506 Methodists, and the remainder are
divided among a dozen different religious denominations. It is
distinctively a theological town.
You hear workingmen discussing theology in the street cars instead of
politics, comparing the eloquence of their ministers and their soundness
in the faith.
There is a remarkably large attendance at church. All the churches are
crowded every Sunday. There is a difference of terms, however, with the
several denominations. Catholics go to "mass" where a priest officiates;
members of the Church of Ireland attend "service" which is performed by
a parson; while the Presbyterians and other nonconformists go to
"meeting" and hear the gospel expounded by a minister. The Presbyterian
services are very long and heavy. They begin at 11 o'clock on Sunday
morning and last till 1:30, and the Sunday school continues two hours.
The congregation is never satisfied with a sermon less than an hour
long, while an hour and a quarter is preferred, and they insist that
their ministers shall expound doctrinal texts to their satisfaction or
they criticise them freely and fiercely.
The Irish are the most old-fashioned kind of Presbyterians, being
stricter than the Scotch. Few churches allow musical instruments or
hymns that rhyme, and the congregations follow a precentor with a tuning
fork in chanting Rouse's version of the Psalms of David.
The people remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy only until
afternoon. There are no railway trains or street cars running in the
morning, and you cannot find a cab or a jaunting car on the street. No
boats arrive or depart from the docks on Sunday, and when I took a walk
along the river front one Sunday I found the men who were accustomed to
work there all sitting around eating "willicks," or periwinkles--a sort
of water snails which are picked up on the beach of the bay and are
peddled about by old women and small boys like chestnuts. You can buy
half a pint of them for a penny. The peddler has a paper of long pins in
his basket and gives one to each purchaser to pry the snails out of
their shells. That seems to be the Sunday morning occupation. But Sunday
afternoon everybody comes out for a good time, the streets fill up with
promenaders and the cars are crowded with excursionists.
The Belfast directory gives a list of sixty orthodox Presbyterian
churches, and they are numbered from the First Presbyterian Church
consecutively to the Fifty-eighth Presbyterian Church, with two extras,
called the Strand Presbyterian Church and Albert Hall Presbyterian
Church. In addition to these are five "nonsubscribing" Presbyterian
churches whose members have refused to subscribe to some article of the
confession of faith, but are otherwise orthodox and are numbered with
the elect; four "Reformed Presbyterian churches," one "Original
Secession Church Presbyterian," one "East Reformed Presbyterian Church,"
and one "United Free Presbyterian Church," making altogether seventy-two
Presbyterian churches in a city of three hundred and eighty thousand
inhabitants, an average of one Presbyterian church for every five
thousand inhabitants.
As I was passing under the archway of Queen's College with a
Presbyterian doctor of divinity from Cincinnati he intercepted an old
gentleman and inquired the name of the church with the handsome spire
across the street.
"That's the Fifth Presbyterian Church," was the polite reply.
"And what church is that over yonder, whose spire we see beyond the
college?"
"That's the Twenty-seventh Presbyterian Church."
"You seem to have an abundance of Presbyterian churches in Belfast; you
ought to feel certain of salvation."
"I'm not so sure of that," was the reply. "I'm not convinced that a
Belfast Presbyterian is any more certain of salvation than the rest of
us. We once had here a famous doctor of divinity. He was a great man and
a good man, and you will see his statue in bronze down beyond the
railway station in the middle of the square--Rev. Dr. Cooke. He was
highly respected and revered by the community, but his son was a
scapegrace and gave the old gentleman a great deal of trouble and
anxiety. One Sunday morning the good doctor found Harry at breakfast and
remarked pleasantly:
"'I hope you are going to meeting this morning, Harry?'
"'Well, I'm not,' replied Harry with a grouch.
"'And why not?' asked his father.
"'I'm never going to meeting any more; I never got any good from
meetings.'
"'You'll find no meetings in hell, sir!' said the doctor, solemnly.
"'It'll not be for the lack of the ministers!', was Harry's reply."
And the genial old gentleman smiled grimly and passed on.
At least two of the public monuments in Belfast have been erected in
honor of Presbyterian divines,--Rev. Dr. Cooke, of whom the above story
is told, and Rev. Hugh Hanna; and one of the largest and most beautiful
buildings in the city is the Presbyterian House, where there is an
assembly hall that will seat twenty-five hundred people, smaller halls,
and committee rooms, and the offices of the various missionary societies
and other organizations belonging to that denomination. It was erected
by private subscription and dedicated with great ceremony two years ago.
It is the headquarters of Presbyterianism in the north of Ireland and
its noble tower can be seen for a long distance.
On the second floor of the building are clubrooms, reading-rooms, and
amusement halls, and other attractions for the young men of Presbyterian
families, a sort of denominational Y.M.C.A.; and, strange to say, the
amusement-room is fitted up with two billiard tables, which I am told
are in great demand every evening. The janitor in charge admitted that
some of the stricter members of the sect had made urgent objections
against this form of entertainment, but the committee "was not willing
to let the devil have all the fun."
The general assembly of the Presbyterian church holds its annual
sessions in the big hall of the new Presbyterian building, and all the
other denominational gatherings are held there. At the last assembly
Rev. Dr. McIlveen, the moderator, reviewed the progress of that
denomination during the last forty years. It was true, he said, that its
numbers, as reported by the official census, had not increased. In
common with other religious denominations, the Presbyterians had lost
largely by emigration. Many of their members, especially the young and
vigorous, had gone forth to seek homes in the colonies of the empire, or
the great republic of the West. In the period to which he was referring
the population of Ireland had decreased more than a million, and while
in comparison with the other large denominations the Presbyterians had
suffered less proportional loss, yet their membership had decreased
fifty-five thousand. Yet they had four thousand more families than they
had forty years ago and six thousand more contributors to the stipend
fund. The givings of the people to various objects had more than
doubled. There had been an annual increase of $100,000 in the stipend
fund; $75,000 in the ordinary Sabbath offerings, and more than $90,000
annually to missions. During the same time there had been invested more
than $5,250,000 in the erection and repair of churches, manses, and
other Presbyterian buildings; the Church House at Belfast had been
erected at a cost of $400,000, and $5,250,000 had accumulated in the
hands of the boards of trustees of different benevolences as capital.
In addition to the seventy-two Presbyterian churches in Belfast, the
directory notes thirty-seven under the care of the Church of Ireland,
thirty Methodist, eighteen Roman Catholic, seven Congregationalist, six
Baptist, two Moravians, one Friends' meeting-house, one Jewish synagogue
and two societies called Plymouth Brethren, who announce "breaking of
bread at 11:30 A.M. and gospel at 7 P.M."--making a total of one hundred
and seventy-six houses of worship.
The working people of Belfast do not live in tenement houses as is the
custom throughout the rest of Europe, but every family has its own
separate cottage, and there are long streets of neat brick, two-story,
five-room houses very similar to those that you find in Philadelphia,
only the rents are very much lower there. For ten dollars a month a
Belfast mechanic can get a neat and comfortable six-room dwelling, 20
feet front and 36 feet deep, with a garden 100 feet in depth. For five
dollars and seven dollars and fifty cents a month he can get four or
five roomed cottages that are equally comfortable. And the mechanics
there take a great deal more interest in their homes than those in the
rest of Ireland. If you will look through the windows as you pass
through the streets you will see them draped with neat Nottingham lace
curtains and linen shades. There are shelves of books and pictures, neat
carpets and center-tables with a family Bible and photograph album and
religious newspapers and periodicals. There are often books on
theology,--more than anything else,--commentaries on the Bible and other
denominational works, for the well-to-do Belfast mechanic is a
Presbyterian and always prepared to defend the doctrines of that faith.
The manufacturers, the merchants, and the middle classes generally are
Presbyterians. The land owners, the professional men, the nobility, and
the aristocracy are nearly all members of the Church of Ireland, while
the common laborers are Roman Catholics.
[Illustration: Queen's College, Belfast]
When the Scotch "planters" came to the north of Ireland they brought
their love of learning and their scholarship with their religion, and
Belfast has always been an educational as well as a denominational
center, more noted than any other city in Ireland for the excellence
of its schools. Queen's College, founded nearly sixty years ago by Queen
Victoria as a state institution, is at the head of the system and will
soon be a university. Queen's is one of the "godless" colleges that we
hear so much about in ecclesiastical circles, because there is no
chapel, no religious exercises or instruction. But the atmosphere of the
institution is thoroughly Presbyterian, and Rev. Dr. Hamilton, the
president, who will also be president of the proposed university, is one
of the most eminent ministers in that denomination. The buildings of
Queen's College, six hundred feet long, are imposing in appearance and
of solid construction, after the Tudor school of architecture, with a
central tower and two wings, inclosing quadrangular courts. There is a
school of law and a school of medicine, with more than four hundred
students, and one of the most important in Ireland.
Just behind Queen's College is the General Assembly's Theological
Seminary, founded in 1853 to train men for the Presbyterian pulpit. It
occupies a massive building of red sandstone that is simple and severe.
Across the way from Queen's is a Methodist college with two hundred and
fifty students, the building being after the same general plan as
Queen's. These three institutions are entirely in sympathy and are
working together, although they have no legal or official relation.
The City Hall of Belfast is an imposing building, which cost a million
and a half of dollars, and is very ornate for its purpose. It stands in
the center of a large square, admirably located so that its fine
proportions may be admired from all sides. The interior is very
ornamental, the walls and stairways being of Carrara marble elaborately
carved. On either side are handsome monuments. The building is 300 feet
long and 240 feet deep; the façade is of the same design on each of the
four sides, and there is a dome 175 feet high. There is a great hall for
official ceremonies and public assemblies that will seat a thousand
people, and several other state apartments handsomely decorated.
In front of the City Hall is a recent statue of Queen Victoria in
marble, and a very good one it is. On another side the late Lord
Dufferin is represented in bronze wearing the robes of a Knight of St.
Patrick, while Sir Edward J. Harland, founder of the great shipyards at
Belfast, is honored in a similar manner. Not far away is the Albert
Memorial, a clock tower, 143 feet high, of Gothic design, which was
erected to the memory of the Prince Consort in 1870. There are several
other statues of local dignitaries in different parts of the city and a
soul-stirring memorial to the members of the Royal Irish Rifles who died
in the Boer war.
The business architecture of Belfast is unusually fine and in striking
contrast to the rest of Ireland, where there has been very little
building for a century. Belfast, however, is a distinctively modern city
and up-to-date. There are no skyscrapers, and the limit of height seems
to be six stories, but there is considerable architectural display; and
the shopping streets are entirely modern, with large and attractive show
windows.
You hear a great deal about the weather of Ireland, and I have already
quoted an old and common joke that it never rains on the 31st of
February. People never go out without an umbrella or a mackintosh,
because it is always safer to carry them. It rains in the most
unexpected way. The clouds gather very suddenly and the predictions of
the weather bureau cannot be taken seriously. But the natives don't seem
to mind it. They are so used to getting soaked that it is a matter of no
consequence, and over in the shipyards and elsewhere we saw men working
on through a pouring rain without taking the slightest notice of it.
Women who are compelled to weather the storms frequently line their
skirts with rubber cloth or leather so as to keep their underclothing
dry, and every man carries his mackintosh over his arm when he leaves
home in the morning.
[Illustration: Albert Memorial, Belfast]
The official reports show that in the year 1907 rain fell on 232 out of
the 365 days, and in 1906 there were 237 rainy days. In October, 1907,
there were twenty-nine rainy days; in December, twenty-seven; in May,
twenty-two; but in September there were only nine rainy days, which
might be called a drought. In 1906 January had twenty-nine rainy days,
August twenty-four, April twenty-three, and November and December
twenty-two each. The average annual rainfall for the last forty years
has been 33,523 inches.
The highest temperature in 1907 was 79.8 degrees in the shade, and
lowest, on the 30th of December, was 19 above zero.
Belfast is a very healthy city, however, the death rate averaging about
twenty per one thousand. It has been very much reduced during the last
fifteen or twenty years by the improvement of the water supply and
sewerage. The birth rate is very high and has sometimes run up to
thirty-seven per one thousand of population. Last year it was thirty-one
per one thousand.
On Saturday and Sunday nights we saw a good many drunken men upon the
streets. But I am told that there is a great improvement in this respect
in recent years. The Orange associations of Protestants and the
Hibernian and other friendly societies of Roman Catholics are both
taking an active part in temperance work, from economical as well as
moral motives, because they realize how much misfortune, poverty,
sickness, and death--all of which increase their assessments--are due to
drink.
I have not been able to find out how much money is spent for whisky in
the Protestant counties. There is no way to ascertain or estimate it
accurately, but the sum must be very large. But everybody agrees that it
is diminishing. There is a less number of saloons by twenty-five or
thirty per cent than there was ten years ago, and a corresponding
decrease in the amount of drunkenness. The number of arrests for
drunkenness and disorder have fallen off noticeably during the last few
years. This has given a great deal of encouragement to the temperance
advocates.
There is a much higher degree of intelligence and mechanical skill among
the working people in Belfast than in any other part of Ireland, and
the ratio of illiteracy is much lower in County Down and County Antrim
than in any other part of the island. The highest degree of skilled
labor is required in the machine shops and shipyards and commands the
best wages that are paid to any artisans in Ireland. The women work in
linen mills and shirt and collar factories.
A technical school for the specialized training of boys for mechanics
was established here in 1902, evening instruction in the applied
sciences, drawing, sketching, and the other arts, and in mathematics,
mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, having been given for
several years in classes maintained by voluntary subscriptions from
citizens. Five such institutions were in existence at that time, having
between seven and eight hundred students on their rolls. An act of
parliament passed in 1899 authorized the consolidation of these schools,
and a beautiful building in the very center of the city, admirably
adapted to the purpose, was erected and equipped at the expense of
$750,000. The school now has a stated income of $96,000 from regular
taxation. In 1902 classes were opened with the total of 3,381 students.
At present this number has been increased to 5,064 men, women, and
children between fifteen and sixty-five years of age, representing all
classes and castes, who are studying everything in the way of useful
arts and trades. Thirty teachers are exclusively employed, with one
hundred and thirty experts from different factories and machine shops,
who give evening instruction or have special classes on certain days.
Nothing is free. Everybody who enjoys the benefits of the institution is
required to pay a fee ranging from one dollar a term upward to sixty
dollars, according to the amount of attention required. The largest
classes are in engineering, drawing, electricity, and the commercial
occupations, but nearly every trade is taught in connection with the
ordinary rudiments of English, mathematics, and geography in the evening
classes to those whose early education was neglected.
The municipality owns the building and supports the school. Sir James
Henderson, editor of the _Daily News-Letter_, who was lord mayor of
Belfast at the time that the school was established, is the chairman of
the committee in charge, and is to be congratulated upon a great
success. The attitude of the labor unions, which at first regarded the
enterprise with distrust, is becoming more friendly, and they permit
their members to avail themselves of the facilities provided by the
school. The education of apprentices to trades without limitations is
still a question of controversy. The attitude of the employers is more
favorable, because nearly all of them recognized increased efficiency
among their journeymen who have attended the school, and many of them
are paying a part or the whole of the fees of all their workmen who will
attend regularly the classes in their respective trades. The investment
is, therefore, a good one for the city of Belfast. The technical school
will certainly result in the improvement of the efficiency of the
mechanics of the city.
Belfast has quite a number of municipal utilities. The city owns the gas
works, the electric lighting plant, and all the street car lines, as
well as the water supply. The gas works have proven to be a very
profitable undertaking, and gas is furnished for sixty-seven cents a
cubic foot, with a fair profit to the city. A municipal electric plant
lights the streets and furnishes power for the street railway lines and
also pays a profit. The street railway line, however, is not a
profitable investment and is running behind under municipal management
for several reasons.
The municipality also owns a large hall that will seat 2,097 persons,
and a smaller hall that will seat 330. Each of these halls is rented for
concerts, lectures, assemblies, exhibitions, conventions, balls, and for
other purposes at a rate of twenty dollars per night for the smaller one
and sixty dollars for the larger one, including light, heat, and
attendance, and there is a good income from both. It also has a series
of organ recitals in the large hall every winter, which are attended by
audiences varying from six hundred to two thousand, who pay a nominal
price for admission--from six to twelve cents, according to the
seat--and thus the entertainments support themselves. The city also
owns a number of private bathing houses, situated in different parts of
the town, for which tickets can be bought for two cents and four cents,
according to the accommodations. These are largely patronized by the
working people, and are self-supporting. Altogether the municipal
management of Belfast is admirable and affords examples which other
cities may study with profit.
The advantages of Belfast for the manufacture of linen goods, the very
damp climate which softens the thread so that it does not snap in the
spindles or the looms and enables the fabric to be woven closer and
softer, and the purity of the water for bleaching, were recognized long
ago; and, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, when six
hundred thousand Protestants fled from France, a party of Huguenot
refugees under Louis Crommelin were invited to come over and introduce
that industry. Crommelin belonged to a family that had woven linen for
four hundred years. He was a man of great business ability, common
sense, energy, and perseverance, and they called him "Crommelin the
Great." Belfast certainly owes him a heavy debt, and it has not been
paid. Although the Irish parliament passed a resolution thanking him for
his services in 1707, his grave in the little churchyard at Lisburn, a
suburban village, is marked only by an ordinary slab of stone. There is
no monument to remind the people of the north of Ireland what they owe
to his ability and devotion.
The business grew rapidly for the first century and a half, and as early
as 1833 Belfast had eighty mills and was producing $25,000,000 worth of
linen fabrics annually. In 1840 there were 250,000 spindles buzzing
about this town, but the trade reached its maximum in the '70s, and has
not increased much since. There are in all of Ireland about 35,000 looms
and 900,000 spindles, all of them in this immediate vicinity, except two
factories at Dublin, one at Cork, and one at Drogheda.
These are divided among about two hundred factories with about one
hundred and twenty thousand operatives, of whom two-thirds are women.
Their wages range from three to four dollars a week, and for men from
six to seven dollars a week, the week's work under normal circumstances
being fifty-five hours the year around, beginning at six o'clock in the
morning, with an hour off for breakfast from eight to nine; another hour
from one to two for lunch, and then they remain at work until six
o'clock. An act of parliament does not permit operatives in textile
factories to remain in the buildings where they work during the
breakfast and lunch hours for any purpose whatever. If they bring their
meals with them, they must eat them outside of the factory, for the
purpose is to give them a change of air and require them to take a
certain amount of exercise. Many of the companies here feed their hands
in dining-halls connected with, but apart from, the workrooms.
Even these small wages have been increased from ten to twenty per cent
within the last five years, and it is remarkable how people can live and
support families upon such limited incomes. The wages are paid on
Saturday noon--when a half-holiday is allowed, and the money is given to
the hands in tin boxes. Each operative has his own number. As they pass
the paymaster's window they call out their number, receive their box,
take out the change, and throw the empty tin into a bin that is placed
near the door for that purpose.
There are not less than 78,000 persons employed in the linen trade and
its allied industries in the city of Belfast, and not less than 130,000
people are dependent directly or indirectly upon that industry for
support. The situation is quite different there from many cities,
because the fathers and husbands can find work in the shipyards and
foundries, and thus the whole family is able to get employment. The law
does not allow children under fourteen years of age to work in the
factories, but a large number of boys and girls between fourteen and
seventeen are engaged at wages from one dollar to two dollars a week,
and much is done in the way of embroidery, hemstitching, and other forms
of finishing in the households. The patterns are stamped on the cloth
and the pieces are given out to women and girls to finish in their
homes.
The employers exercise personal interest and have a paternal policy for
the treatment of their employees, which does not occur often in the
United States and other countries. This is largely due to the fact that
generations have worked in the same mills for the same companies. Our
manufacturing industries are not old enough for such an experience.
Labor is not migratory as it is in the United States. It is customary
for sons to follow the trades of their fathers, and when the daughters
are old enough to go into the mill, the mothers leave it. The workmen
there are satisfied with small wages; their standard of living is so
much lower than in the United States that they can get along very well,
as their fathers and ancestors have done for generations, upon their
scanty earnings. Very few of them save any part of their wages. Not five
per cent of the wage-earners of Belfast patronize the savings banks.
They live from hand to mouth, and, knowing this fact, their employers
are compelled to look after them in hard times. If they did not, the
operatives who are out of employment would scatter and when work was
resumed it would be difficult to fill their places.
The work of the operatives in linen factories is very trying on the
health, because the atmosphere of the rooms is kept as damp as possible
in order to soften the threads and make them more pliable. Few of the
operatives live past middle life unless they have unusually strong
constitutions.
More than half of the flax used in Belfast comes from Russia. Only about
twelve thousand tons is raised in Ireland, and that entirely in Ulster
Province, where fifty-five thousand acres are devoted to its
cultivation. An average of forty thousand tons a year is imported from
Holland, Belgium, and other countries, as well as Russia. S.S.
Knabenshue of Toledo, the American consul, attempted to induce farmers
in the Northwest of the United States, who grow flax for the seed, to
ship over here the straw they throw away, but he has not succeeded in
arousing any interest, although they might find a permanent and
profitable market.
Until recently the spinning of the flax into thread was done by separate
companies and the thread was sold to the weavers, but several years ago
a combine was organized and many of the spinning plants went into a
trust, which has enabled them to command better prices and be more
independent. The linen manufacturers, however, are practically dependent
upon the United States. We take more than half the products of Irish
linen. The average for the last forty years has been 51.1 per cent sold
to the United States, 19.3 to the British possessions, and 29.6 per cent
to other foreign countries.
In 1907 the value of the linen shipped to the United States was
$14,970,051 out of a total export of $26,895,014. In 1906 our purchases
were about $1,000,000 less, but the proportion remains about the same,
and American buyers may be always found at the Belfast hotels, although
most of the big manufacturers have their agencies in New York.
Belfast has the largest ropewalk in the world, which employs three
thousand hands, and for years was under the management of the late W.H.
Smiles, a son of Samuel Smiles, author of "Self-Help" and other
well-known books. It is a model institution, and among other features
the firm maintains a large cookhouse and dining-room, where the
employees and their families can obtain wholesome meals much cheaper
than they could be supplied at their own homes. Such a benevolence would
serve to decrease the drunkenness of Ireland and Scotland more than any
other measures that could be adopted. Medical authorities agree that the
principal cause of alcoholism is insufficient nourishment and ill-cooked
food, which creates a craving for stimulants, and argue that if the
working people could have better food they would spend less money for
drink.
Belfast is the greatest producer of ginger ale, bottled soda, lemonade,
and other aërated waters in the world, and ships them to every corner of
the globe. There are sixteen factories engaged in that business. It is
asserted there that soda water was invented in Belfast. Although there
is no positive evidence to that effect, there is no doubt that ginger
ale was first made by a druggist named Grattan in 1822, who started a
factory here that is still running and has had many imitators. The great
advantage found there is in the quality of the water, which is
especially adapted to aëration, just as that at Burton-on-Trent is
adapted to the manufacture of ale.
Belfast has two celebrated shipyards which launched 137,369 tons of
steamers in 1907 and 150,428 tons in 1906. The firm of Harland & Wolff
launched 74,115 tons, and Workman, Clark & Co., 63,254. Harland & Wolff
ranked fourth in the order of British shipyards and Workman, Clark & Co.
stand ninth in the list.
The latter firm built the first ocean turbine steamers and Harland &
Wolff the first ocean greyhound, the _Oceanic_, in 1870, which was the
pioneer of fast sailing on the Atlantic and a notable advance in the
science of navigation. She was an epoch-making vessel from the point of
view of naval architects, because of her general design and
construction, being of much greater length in proportion to her beam
than any that had ever been built up to that time, and she represented
the first attempt to insure the maximum of comfort and luxury in ocean
travel by sacrificing freight space to passenger accommodations and
locating the saloons and cabins amidship. Since then all of the
steamship companies have adopted the same plan, and the comfort and
conveniences that are now found upon vessels have no doubt enormously
increased the passenger traffic.
XVII
THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF DERRY
Londonderry, usually called Derry, is an ancient burgh, in which much
history has been enacted, and is unique in several respects among all
the cities of the earth. It does not look like an Irish city at all. It
resembles Plymouth, England. If you were dropped down from a balloon you
might easily imagine yourself in that driving seaport, which is
perfectly natural because everything in Derry is English and there is no
sympathy with the rest of Ireland, or relationship either in race,
religion, commerce, or customs. And the town is the property of the city
of London, which accounts for the name.
It was called Derry in ancient times until King James I., in 1612, for
money advanced him by the guilds of the city of London when he was hard
up, gave them an area of two hundred thousand acres, confiscated from
the O'Dohertys and the O'Neills for disloyalty. The grant includes every
inch of land upon which Londonderry stands, "and the liberties thereof,"
which means jurisdiction over everything within a radius of two miles
around. The aldermen of the city of London, that small but wealthy
community which surrounds the Bank of England and the Mansion House in
the world's metropolis, formed what is known as the Honorable Irish
Society, composed of representatives of the different guilds, to hold
the charter, and they hold it still. The aldermen of the city of London
elect the governor of the society, who is now Sir Robert Newton, lord
mayor of London, and the deputy governor, who is now a Mr. Gardiner, a
resident of Londonderry, as is customary. The lord mayor's functions are
nominal. The deputy governor exercises full authority, assisted by a
council of twenty-four members, selected from among the most prominent
residents. The municipal expenses are paid by the ordinary forms of
taxation and the government is conducted like that of any other city in
Ireland, but the Honorable Irish Society collects ground rent from every
house within a radius of two miles. It also owns the fisheries in the
River Foyle. The money is not devoted to the payment of ordinary
municipal expenses, but goes into the treasury of the society in London,
and a portion of it is devoted to public objects here. Magee College,
the Presbyterian institution, receives a generous grant. Foyle College,
a nonconformist institution, and the Roman Catholic college, each gets
something, and liberal subscriptions are made for the benefit of
hospitals and other charities and the churches of the city. The Irish
Society was purely Protestant at the time of its organization, and is
Protestant still, but it is impartial in its contributions to the
different religious sects. There are two cathedrals, two bishops, one
Roman Catholic, and one Church of Ireland, and the latter holds the
ancient cathedral which, with an abbey, was founded by St. Columba in
the year 546 and still is called by his name. In the pedestal of a group
of statuary, known as "the Calvary," at St. Columba's Roman Catholic
Church, is a famous relic known as St. Columba's stone, although his
name is a misnomer. It is a massive block of gneiss, about six feet
square, made with the prints of two feet, left and right, each about ten
inches long.
This stone has been improperly associated in some way with St. Columba
by the common people, but it has an equally interesting history, having
been the crowning stone of the O'Neill clan for centuries. At his
installation the newly chosen king was placed upon this stone, his bare
feet in the footmarks, a willow wand was put into his hands as an emblem
of the pure and gentle sway he should exercise over his people, an oath
was administered to him by the chief ecclesiastic that he would preserve
inviolable the ancient customs of the clan; that he would administer
justice impartially among them, that he would sustain the right and
punish the wrong, and that he would deliver the authority to his
successor without resistance at the command of the tribe. Having taken
this oath, "The O'Neill" turned his face to the four corners of Ireland
to signify that he was ready to meet all foes from whatever quarter they
might come; kissed his sword and his spear to signify that he was ready
to use them wherever necessary, and then descended from the stone and
was hailed with wild acclamations as the chief of the O'Neills, while
his knights knelt before him pledging their loyalty and devotion.
At the time of Ireland's conversion to Christianity by St. Patrick that
holy man visited Londonderry, where Owen O'Neill, the King of Ulster,
was converted from paganism to the new faith and baptized. And, at the
same time, St. Patrick consecrated this stone and blessed it for ever.
The long line of the O'Neill ancestry was terminated in 1607 by the
flight of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, after his unsuccessful rebellion against
Queen Elizabeth, and the O'Dohertys, who were not so powerful, were
compelled to surrender to the English. They were expelled from their
lands, with all the followers of the Earl of Tyrone. All of the county
was confiscated and sold or granted to Englishmen and Scotchmen, who
came in and took possession and hold it still. Large areas still belong
to the guilds of London, to whom it was granted for money loaned by them
to King James I. The Tailors' Guild owns the city of Coleraine, a clean,
busy town of seven thousand population, famous for its whisky and linen.
It is governed by officials appointed by the Tailors' Guild in London,
which collects ground rents from all the inhabitants and derives a
considerable revenue from the salmon fisheries. The Fishmongers' Guild
owns the town of Kilrea, the Drapers' Guild owns Draperstown, and other
ancient organizations of merchants in the city of London own other towns
and villages in this country which they obtained in a similar manner.
Londonderry is unique for being the only city in Ireland where the
ancient walls and fortifications are preserved in the most careful
manner and kept in perfect order with the antique guns mounted as they
were at the time of the siege 225 years ago. They do not inclose the
entire city, but only the ancient part of it, and are about a mile in
length, twenty-four feet high and nine feet thick. The top of the walls
between the bastions is laid out as a promenade and is the favorite
resort of the inhabitants, who may be found there in large numbers every
day after the close of business hours. Some of the business houses and
residences open upon the top of the walls, as do several popular
resorts. The walls are pierced by several monumental gates, which remain
precisely as they were in ancient times, and the old guns, which date
back to 1635 and 1642, are kept as relics, precious as the Declaration
of Independence in Washington. The bastions have been turned into little
gardens, and here and there in the angles shrubs and flowers have been
planted.
One of the guns which bears the name of "Roaring Meg" was presented to
the city of Londonderry by the fishmongers of London and is the most
precious object in the town, because of its effective work in the siege
of 1689, when King James II., with an Irish army, besieged the city for
105 days, but its determined defenders succeeded in preventing his
entrance. They suffered famine and pestilence, and were reduced to
eating hides, tallow, and the flesh of cats and dogs. During the siege
only eight of the defenders were killed by the enemy, but ten thousand
persons perished from hunger, disease, and exposure in three and a half
months. When the siege was lifted by the appearance of a squadron of
ships laden with arms, ammunition, and provisions, King James and his
army retired from one of the most important episodes in the history of
Ireland. You can still see evidences of that terrible struggle. The
cathedral is decorated with relics and trophies, including a bombshell
which came over the wall, containing the terms of capitulation offered
by King James. The laconic reply of the Rev. George Walker, rector of
the Episcopal church, who was in command of the citizens, was "No
surrender."
A statue of Rev. Mr. Walker, whose courage, fortitude, and apostolic
influence saved the city, was long ago erected upon the bastion which
bore the heaviest fire during the siege. His noble figure stands upon
the top of a shaft ninety feet high in the attitude which he is said to
have assumed in the most terrible emergency, to revive and sustain the
faltering courage of his parishioners. In one hand he grasps a Bible;
the other is pointing down the river toward the approaching squadron of
deliverance in the distant bay. At another point upon the walls is a
Gothic castellated structure erected by public subscription as a
clubhouse for the boys and young men of Londonderry. It is known as
Apprentices' Hall, and was erected as a memorial to the courage and
foresight of a group of thirteen young apprentices who, during the
excitement caused by the approach of the king's army, had the presence
of mind to drop the heavy gate without instruction from their elders,
and thus made it possible to defend the city against the assault.
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, who was in command of the garrison at
the time, was a coward, and insisted upon surrendering the city to the
king's army, but was prevented from doing so by Rev. Mr. Walker, rector
of the Episcopal church, and Adam Murray, an elder in the Presbyterian
church. Lundy persisted in his purpose, carried on secret negotiations
with the enemy, and was preparing to open the gates when his intentions
were discovered. He escaped in disguise by climbing down the branches of
a pear tree which grew against the wall on the east side.
Twice a year, on the 18th of December and the 12th of August, the dates
of the beginning and the end of the siege, the apprentice boys of the
city lead a procession of all the Protestant organizations to attend
divine service at the Episcopal Cathedral and then pass the rest of the
day as we celebrate the Fourth of July. At nightfall an effigy of
Colonel Lundy is always burned in a prominent place. These celebrations
are deplored by thoughtful people, as keeping alive religious
animosities, but of recent years the collisions which used to occur
between the Orange societies and the Roman Catholics have been avoided.
The population of Londonderry is very largely Protestant.
The cathedral is an ugly old building, but quite interesting because of
its historic associations and the relics it contains.
Magee College, the leading Presbyterian institution of Ireland, occupies
a beautiful site about fifteen minutes' walk from the center of the
city. It was built and endowed by the widow of Rev. William Magee of
Lurgan, was opened in 1865, and is under the care of the general
assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church. There are several
departments, a staff of seven professors, and an average of two hundred
and fifty students, most of whom are studying for the Presbyterian
ministry. Magee is the only college in Ireland which has been founded
and supported entirely by private benefactions. It has never received a
dollar from the state, although there is an annual grant from the Irish
Society, which owns the city of Londonderry. Under a recent act of
parliament it is united with Queen's College, Belfast, on equal terms in
the new university bill. There is no religious test for students or
professors, although the latter, upon accepting appointment, are
required to sign a pledge that they "will not do, write, or say anything
which might tend in any way to subvert the Christian religion or the
belief of any person therein." Magee has always taken a high stand for
scholarship, and although the building is small it is noble in design,
massive in construction, and well equipped for its purpose.
The principal business of Londonderry is to make shirts, collars, and
cuffs, which are shipped to Australia, South Africa, India, and other
British colonies. There are several large factories which employ about
two thousand men to do the heavy work and twenty thousand women who do
the stitching and laundering by old-fashioned methods. An American buyer
I met in Belfast spoke rather contemptuously of the Londonderry shirt
factories, which, he declared, "are not in it for a minute" with those
of the United States. He insists that a single factory in Troy makes
more shirts and collars than all the factories in Londonderry combined,
and that by their modern machinery and processes the Troy factories can
make and finish half a dozen shirts while they are making one there.
Londonderry is unique for another reason. The ordinary relations of
husband and wife and their domestic responsibilities are reversed here.
Many women work in the shirt factories whose husbands stay at home, keep
the house, do the cooking and washing and take care of the children,
because there is nothing else for them to do. There is a large excess of
women in the population. They number two to one man, which is not due to
natural causes, but because women are attracted here from the
neighboring towns and counties to obtain work in the factories, and the
young men have to leave Londonderry and go elsewhere to find employment.
Many of them go to the United States and Canada. Three lines of American
steamers touch here every week--the Anchor Line, the Allan Line, and the
Dominion Line--which offer low rates of transportation and carry many
third-class passengers away.
The Giant's Causeway, of which much has been written, for it is one of
the wonders of the world, lies on the north coast of Ireland, about two
hours by rail from Belfast, and there are several trains daily to the
nearest town, called Portrush. There is an excellent hotel there, owned
by the railway company, which ranks as one of the best in Ireland, and
several other smaller hotels, inns, and boarding-houses innumerable for
the accommodation of the crowds of people who go there every year as
"trippers" and to spend their holidays.
The Giant's Causeway, about five miles from Portrush, is reached by an
electric railroad, which, I am told, was the first ever successfully
operated in all the world. It was built in 1883, designed by the late
Sir William Siemens, the celebrated electrician, and operated with power
generated by the water of the Bush River. It was originally on the
third-rail system, but was changed into an ordinary overhead trolley
seven or eight years ago. The first trolley railroad was built in
Richmond, Va., three years later than this.
The most interesting object at Portrush is an ancient but well
preserved Irishman of the type you see in pictures and formerly on the
stage, who stands at the street corner, where the railway tracks take a
curve, with a big dinner bell and rings it with almost superhuman energy
whenever the cars approach from either direction. This occupation
engages him from some unknown hour in the morning until some unknown
hour in the night, and if he ever eats or sleeps or rests that fact is
not easily ascertained by a stranger. There are no bells on the cars, no
alarm can be given for some reason, but nobody ever complained that he
was not warned of danger at the crossing by the bell ringer, who seems
to have a profound sense of his responsibilities.
It is a delightful ride along rocky cliffs that have been worn into
fantastic forms by the incessant pounding of the ocean, and, although
many people express their disappointment at the Giant's Causeway, it is
well worth a visit because it is unique in geology. A stream of lava, at
the most twenty-six hundred feet wide and about fifteen miles long, was
arrested by some means upon the extreme north coast of Ireland, and in
cooling took the form of detached columns from six to thirty feet long
and from eight to twenty-four inches in diameter. There are more than
forty thousand of these columns in three parallel terraces, standing
upright and presenting a smooth surface, but they are all separate and
no two of them are of the same size or shape. There is said to be only
one triangle, only one nonagon, and only one of diamond shape in all the
forty thousand. Most of them are pentagons and hexagons and octagons.
[Illustration: THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY, PORTRUSH, NEAR BELFAST]
In one place on the cliff there has been a landslide, which has thrown
the pillars in that locality into horizontal positions, but elsewhere
along the coast they are upright. At what is called the Giant's Loom the
columns are exposed for about thirty feet, but the rest of them form a
curious and extraordinary mosaic flooring, stretching out into the sea
and extending for several miles with remarkable regularity. Each column
is absolutely distinct from the rest of the forty thousand; none of them
are monoliths so far as can be seen, but they are divided into drums
about two feet in thickness, which fit into each other like a ball and
socket. The geologists generally agree that these extraordinary forms
are the result of the contraction and division of the lava in cooling,
and the process may be illustrated by the experiments with ordinary
laundry starch, which takes the form of similar miniature columns when
it cools.
Mr. S.S. Knabenshue, American Consul at Belfast, has been searching out
the ancestry of the late President McKinley, who lived in the village
Conagher in County Antrim in the north of Ireland. The family were
Scotch Presbyterians and came over at some date unknown, and settled
upon a little farm of forty-two acres. Generation after generation were
born and lived and died there, leaving no record but that of honest,
hardworking, God-fearing tillers of the soil. The family burying lot is
in Derrykeighan Churchyard, where, among others, rest the remains of
Francis McKinlay, who was executed for participation in the Revolution
of 1798, and those of his wife and daughter. Francis J. Bigger, a widely
known Irish archæologist and historian, has traced the descent of the
late President from a great-great-grandfather who emigrated in 1743 and
settled in York County, Penn. His son David McKinley emigrated to Ohio
in 1814, and had a son named James whose son, William McKinley (Senior),
was the father of the late President.
The cabin in which the family lived for generations is now used as a
cow-shed, the present owner of the property having built himself a more
pretentious residence. It has three windows and a door facing on the
street. The door opens directly into a large room, which was the dining
room and kitchen; the two bedrooms on each side of the fireplace have
been turned into cow stables, the windows being cut down and replaced by
doors so that the animals can enter from the outside.
In the Irish village at the recent Franco-British Exposition in London
the McKinley cottage was reproduced, and the original doors, door
frames, windows, attic floor, staircase, and the iron crane and the big
pot from the fireplace all came from the real cottage, having been sold
to the owner. Consequently there is nothing left of the original cottage
except the stone walls and the thatched roof.
[Illustration: BISHOP'S GATE, DERRY]
XVIII
IRISH EMIGRATION AND COMMERCE
A gentleman from Erie, Penn., who had been traveling about Ireland for
several weeks made a suggestion which seemed to me to be worth adopting,
and I proposed it to several organizations for promoting the welfare of
Ireland without exciting much enthusiasm. There seems to be an
apprehension that somebody will make political capital out of it, and
very little is done without such motives. Politics and whisky are the
curses of Ireland. However, the plan is to apply to Ireland the
principle of "the old home week" that has been so popular and successful
in New Hampshire and other parts of New England, only it is proposed to
make it a month instead of a week and have special days set apart for
reunions in the different counties, at which as many natives of those
counties and children of natives as possible may come over from the
United States to visit their old homes and birthplaces. They can thus
renew their acquaintances with their former neighbors and the playmates
of their childhood, revive their interest in Irish affairs, and
stimulate the patriotism and love of "the ould sod" which are marked
characteristics of the race.
It would be easy to make arrangements with the different steamship lines
to give low rates, not only those which touch regularly at Queenstown,
but also the Holland, Antwerp, Italian, Scandinavian, and other lines
which go by but do not stop at Irish ports. The tide of emigration is
westward and there are comparatively few steerage and second-class
passengers going east on the Cunard and White Star steamers that touch
at Queenstown. The steamship companies would make a low rate for the
round trip which would give an opportunity for thousands of Irish-born
citizens of the United States to spend a short vacation across the sea
visiting their old homes and the homes of their fathers. The fact that
everybody is doing the same would be a great incentive, and for a few
weeks Ireland would be crowded with her former sons and daughters.
A very important result of such a visitation would be to leave in
Ireland large sums which would quicken business, increase the demand for
labor, create a market for everything that is made or grows, and flood
Ireland with money. Each visitor would contribute his share, although it
might be a little, but the total of the expenditures of such pilgrims
would be enormous and create a condition of prosperity greater than
Ireland has ever seen. Five million dollars has been expended in New
Hampshire by visitors from other States since the Old Home Week
celebrations and the advertisement of abandoned farms were first
undertaken. If that amount of money should be spent in Ireland it would
be of everlasting benefit to the people. If ten thousand visitors came
from the United States and spent only a hundred dollars each, which is a
very low average, it would leave a million dollars in circulation here.
It might be natural also, as has occurred in New Hampshire, that many
natives who went to the States in their childhood and have become
wealthy and are now approaching the period of their rest and leisure
would purchase homes in Ireland and spend their declining years in the
scenes of their youth as Mr. Croker is doing, and three or four other
persons I met. There was a man at the hotel from Chicago looking for a
country place. He expects to invest a hundred thousand dollars in an
Irish home somewhere near Dublin. Then, think of the contributions that
would be made in aid of the churches, the benevolent institutions, and
other charities as well as to insure the comfort and happiness of
individuals in whom the visitors might be interested. One might suggest
many other ways in which Ireland might be benefited by such
celebrations, and those who participate in them will certainly have a
deep sense of gratification for their share. Perhaps the most important
result would be to correct the misapprehensions that are almost
universal concerning the material condition of Ireland. Things are much
different in many respects from what Irish-Americans have been led to
believe by newspaper articles and other publications, and it is right
and necessary that misapprehensions should be corrected.
If the month of July, three or four years ahead, were selected for
reunions of the sons of Ireland, it would give sufficient time to make
the necessary arrangements, and local organizations in the different
countries could fix their own dates most convenient for reunions of
those who would come from those particular localities. Irishmen in
Australia, Canada, South Africa, and other parts of the world would be
glad to join their American cousins in carrying out such a plan. I met
an American priest at Cork who was enthusiastic over the suggestion and
declared that twenty families in his own parish would undoubtedly come
over on such an occasion to visit their old homes. And he expressed the
surprise that I felt about the improved conditions of the Irish people
and the prospects for peace and happiness and prosperity in the island.
There are now nearly two million natives of Ireland in the United
States, and nearly six million people whose parents were born there or
who were born there themselves.
The following statement will show the number of natives of Ireland in
the United States as returned by each census since 1850:
1850 961,719
1860 1,611,304
1870 1,855,827
1880 1,854,571
1890 1,871,509
The census of 1900 shows 3,991,417 citizens of the United States both of
whose parents were born in Ireland.
Since the census of 1900 was taken the average arrivals from Ireland
have been about thirty-eight thousand per year, which has added at least
three hundred thousand to the total of 1900, and, making due allowance
for deaths and departures, increased the number of natives in the
United States to nearly two millions.
The improved conditions in Ireland during the last few years have caused
a considerable decrease in emigration. At the present time a smaller
number of people are seeking work in other countries than ever before
since the famine of the '40s. This is the most significant evidence of
the prosperity of the country and the success of the government in
promoting contentment and improving the condition of the peasants by the
enactment of the land laws and the work of the Congested Districts
Board, of which I have written at length in previous letters.
Low tide in emigration was reached during the first six months of 1908,
when the total number departing from Ireland was only 13,511, being a
decrease of 8,713 in comparison with the corresponding period of 1907.
Of these 9,974 went to the United States and 1,598 to Canada; 1,868 went
from Leinster Province, 3,762 from Munster, 4,611 from Ulster, and 3,270
from Connaught.
The total number of emigrants from Ireland in 1907 was 39,082, but
unless something extraordinary happens the total for this year will fall
below 25,000.
During the last fifteen years the population of Ireland has decreased
292,370, and during the last fifty years it has fallen off three and one
half millions. During the last fifteen years the population of Scotland
has increased 689,825 and that of England and Wales has increased
5,461,197. The birth rate in Ireland is larger than it is in either
England or Scotland, and the death rate is about the same, so that the
decrease in population has been entirely due to emigration.
Since the distribution of the great estates in Ireland among the tenants
in small farms there is a growing complaint concerning the lack of
labor; and the emigration of young men to the United States and the
migration of farm laborers who spend from five to nine months in
Scotland every year where wages are higher than in Ireland are creating
a very serious problem.
There are in Ireland about 400,000 farms, of which 165,000, embracing
three-fourths of the total area, average more than thirty acres, and
that is all one man can cultivate. All farms more than thirty acres in
extent, and many of smaller area, require hired labor, which has usually
received about 12 shillings per week until the last two or three years,
when farm wages were advanced to 14 shillings and 16 shillings a
week--that is, $3.50 and $4. The recent census shows that 217,652 men
are employed as laborers upon these 165,000 farms and that an average of
76,870 extra hands are employed during the harvest. During the last
three years, although the area under cultivation has been growing
smaller annually, it has been difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of
labor to carry on the harvests, and wages, in many cases, have advanced
to 18 shillings a week.
Notwithstanding the demand for home labor, 24,312 persons, including 750
women, left Ireland in May, 1907, and went to England and Scotland,
where they remained to work on the farms until the following November.
Most of them went from the northwestern part of Ireland, from counties
Mayo, Roscommon, Donegal, Galway, and Sligo, which have the least land
under cultivation in the country.
An investigation made by the estates commissioners showed that 3,245 of
these persons had holdings of five acres, 987 had holdings of between
five and ten acres, 912 between ten and fifteen acres, 458 between
fifteen and twenty acres, 471 between twenty and twenty-five acres, 93
between twenty-five and thirty acres, 102 between thirty and forty
acres, and 75 had farms of more than forty acres. Most of them left
their little farms to be cultivated by their wives and sons and
daughters during their absence. Among the migrants were 9,308 sons of
farmers, who work on their father's farms when they are in Ireland, but
go to England and Scotland because they are able to make more money than
by staying at home.
The average wages of these migrants was 26 shillings a week, and they
varied from 20 to 30 shillings, according to intelligence, with food,
lodging, and in many cases their traveling expenses one way. It is
customary for the Scotch and English farmers to pay the railway fare
over and leave the migrant to buy his ticket home in the fall. Most of
the migrants save the larger part of their wages. It is estimated that
the average net savings was £12, or $60 per person, and that the total
amount taken back to Ireland at the end of the season was about
£275,000, or $1,375,000 in American money. These savings are sufficient
to keep their families through the rest of the year with the aid of
their small farms, fishing, weaving, lacemaking, and other home
industries.
According to the reports of the estates commission, the number of farm
hands employed in 1871, in addition to the owners of the land and their
families, was 446,782, or more than twice as many as are employed at
present. In 1881 the number was 300,091. The number of occasional
laborers or extra harvest hands employed in 1871 was 189,829, as against
76,870 employed in 1907, which indicates in a striking manner the decay
of agriculture in Ireland.
At the same time wages have increased 30 per cent and the cost of
boarding farm hands has increased 40 per cent. The hands now demand
better accommodations and better food, and everything they require is
much more expensive than it was thirty years ago. The average wages for
steady farm hands in Ireland with board, according to the official
statistics, is $12 a month, while ten years ago labor was plenty at $9 a
month. Wages of household servants are about the same and have advanced
as rapidly.
The census statistics of Ireland are quite interesting and show that for
the last ten years the population has remained fairly stationary, the
excess of births over deaths making up the loss by emigration. The
latest vital statistics available are for the year 1905, which show a
population of 4,391,565, an excess of births over deaths of 27,671; an
emigration of 30,676, and a net decrease in population of 2,915. The
following table shows the number of births, deaths, and emigrants for
ten years:
Years Births Deaths Emigrants
1895 106,113 84,395 48,703
1896 107,641 75,700 39,995
1897 106,664 83,839 32,535
1898 105,457 82,404 32,241
1899 103,900 79,699 41,232
1900 101,459 87,606 45,288
1901 100,976 79,119 39,613
1902 101,863 77,676 40,190
1903 101,831 77,358 39,789
1904 103,811 79,513 36,902
1905 102,832 75,071 30,676
------- ------ ------
Average 103,811 80,731 39,549
Through the efforts of Mr. Boland, M.P., the foreign commerce of Ireland
is now given independently in the statistical reports of the United
Kingdom, and the following table shows the imports and exports for
recent years:
Imports Exports
1904 £53,185,523 £49,398,536
1905 54,793,183 51,174,318
1906 56,365,299 55,598,597
1907 60,521,245 61,617,225
It will be noticed that there was a considerable increase every year in
both columns, but the increase in exports was considerably greater than
in imports. This increase was particularly noticeable in live stock
shipments to England. In 1905 there were 1,852,423 head of horses,
mules, cattle, sheep, and swine shipped from Ireland to England, and in
1907 the shipments had increased to 2,025,292 head.
The exports of butter also increased, and Ireland now has the lead among
the nations that contribute to the British poultry market. In 1907 the
value of the poultry exported from Ireland to Great Britain was
£725,441.
Ireland ought to furnish all the bacon that the British people eat.
Irish bacon is the best in the world, and brings the highest prices,
but, notwithstanding that fact, more bacon was imported into England
from the United States, from Denmark, and from Canada than from Ireland.
The exports of manufactured goods--linens, woolens, and other
textiles--from Ireland during the fiscal year 1907, exceeded
£20,000,000. The imports of similar articles amounted to £27,000,000.
The Irish import a vast amount of bacon from the United States when they
ought to supply their own market.
The following table will show the commerce between the United States and
Ireland during the last three years:
Imports from Exports to
Ireland Ireland
1906 $11,456,739 $10,824,350
1907 12,023,469 9,593,658
1908 8,899,799 10,101,065
The falling off of the exports from Ireland in 1908 was due entirely to
the panic of that year in the United States, which caused an almost
total stagnation of trade for several months.
There is no limit to the demand for Irish agricultural produce at good
prices, but the cultivated area of the island continues to diminish
annually, and the area given up to pasturage and the breeding of cattle
and sheep increases. The Irish farmer has an unlimited market for bacon,
hams, butter, eggs, poultry, potatoes, and other vegetables in London,
Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, and other great
manufacturing cities which are now very largely fed by Holland and
Denmark. More eggs and poultry, more butter and bacon, are imported into
England from Denmark than from Ireland, notwithstanding the difference
in distance and cost of transportation. The provision dealers of the
great manufacturing cities of England always have agents in Ireland, and
the Department of Agriculture and the Irish Agricultural Organization
Society are both active and efficient in securing and cultivating
markets for Irish products. They are advancing large sums of money to
establish co-operative dairies and to improve the dairy cattle, the
swine, and poultry of Ireland, but many of the farmers are indifferent
to their opportunities and with the happy-go-lucky characteristic of the
Irish race are happy and satisfied so long as they have enough to feed
their own mouths.
Sir Horace Plunkett, who has been especially active in trying to improve
the condition of the farmers of Ireland, says: "The settlement of the
land question and the new system of governmental aid to agriculture are
proceeding rapidly and doing great good, but along neither of those two
lines of national advancement, nor along both combined, is agricultural
prosperity to be attained. The result depends entirely upon voluntary
individual effort and co-operation. The British market will take all the
produce we can send, and the more we send of uniform quality--and this
can be done by co-operation--the more it will pay for our produce. It
follows that every dairy farmer in Ireland is not only interested in
seeing that every farmer in his district forwards the best butter he can
produce, but he is also concerned to see that farmers in other districts
do the same. The ownership of the land by the occupier, which has been
brought about by legislation, will not of itself give the Irish farmer
the prosperity he hopes for. It is not only the farms, but the habits of
the people upon the land which need improvement. Capable under certain
influences of surprising industry, they lack the qualities which secure
the fruits of industry, because their education and economic
circumstances have not developed the industrial habit. They are surely
clever in their resourcefulness and shrewd in their bargainings, but as
a rule in the management of their farms and commercial dealings they
display a total lack of the most elementary principles of either
technical or business knowledge. In spite of a passionate devotion to
their country, they emigrate to America whenever they can obtain the
money to pay their passage, and seem to have no fixed purpose or
ambition to develop the resources that lie around them."
The factories of Ireland are confined almost entirely to the northern
province of Ulster, although a few mills and other textile
manufactories are scattered in other parts of the island. The textile
and other manufacturing industries have enjoyed unprecedented and
extraordinary prosperity for eight or ten years.
Household industries, particularly the manufacture of handwoven tweeds
and various kinds of lace, received a gratifying impetus from the
advertising obtained at the Irish village at the Columbian Exposition at
Chicago in 1893, under the patronage of Lady Aberdeen, who for twenty
years had interested herself in the practical and successful development
of lacemaking and hand weaving of woolen fabrics. Her energetic efforts
have been supplemented by the Royal Irish Industries Association and the
Royal Dublin Society, both of which hold annual exhibitions, offer
prizes for excellence of design and workmanship, and provide agencies
for the sale of homemade and convent-made products in London and other
cities.
The Congested Districts Board has given much practical aid and
encouragement by loaning money to people who cannot afford to buy looms,
by sending teachers in industries throughout the island into the
households, by establishing fixed schools at central points, and by
furnishing thread and other materials to lacemakers and weavers, for
which it collects payments after the product is sold. All through the
poor districts of Ireland, where for centuries there has been a
desperate struggle for existence, thousands of looms and spinning-wheels
may now be found in the cottages of the poor peasants, where both the
parents and the children have been instructed in spinning and in weaving
by government teachers. And in almost every village on the west coast
there is a lace school attended by from twelve to fifty young women
under the instruction of a patient and tactful teacher working with
thread advanced to them without payment by the Congested Districts
Board. The lace produced is sold for them at the agencies of the board,
and they are thus enabled to contribute several pounds a month to the
incomes of their families.
It is a familiar joke that our principal imports from Ireland are
priests, politicians, policemen, and baseball pitchers, but they are not
all by any means. I do not know what other country has furnished so many
famous Americans--generals, admirals, statesmen, politicians,
financiers, merchant princes, actors, writers, lawyers, and other
professional men too numerous to mention. If you will look through the
list of the generals during our Civil War, if some one will make up a
catalogue of millionaires and mining kings and empire-builders and
captains of industry they will realize that all the Irishmen who have
come to the United States have not gone into politics or pugilism or
baseball teams. I must say, however, that the Irish have almost the
monopoly of the prize ring and the baseball diamond.
Cardinal Logue made a speech upon his return from America in 1908, in
which he discussed this subject at length and related what he had
himself seen of Irish millionaires and other successful business men in
the United States. He spoke particularly of New York City, and alluded
with gratification to the fact that the subway of New York City and the
new tunnel under the Hudson River were both built by Irishmen.
"I was proud to know," he said, "of the vast number of our countrymen
who were honored citizens of the United States. They have asserted
themselves, especially in New York, and occupy the leading positions
there. You find Irishmen prominent in every walk of life, you find them
among the most distinguished of the judges on the bench, you find them
among the most successful barristers, you find them among the most
eminent in medicine and in the other learned professions, and then I
found that the largest contracts in New York [and he might have said in
the entire country] had been allotted to Irishmen, because of their
ability to organize and carry out great works. I visited the tunnel
under the Hudson and was proud to think that that great work had been
carried out by an Irishman who had carved out his own advancement and
had made his own way in life by his native talent and genius. Then,
again, when they were undertaking the stupendous work of building
subways under the city of New York they gave that contract to an
Irishman, who succeeded in completing it to the satisfaction of
everybody, and it was one of the greatest works ever undertaken by man.
"And they succeed in other branches of life also, equally well,"
continued the cardinal. "As I was sailing up the Hudson River one day we
passed a city called Hoboken, and I was told that it was inhabited
exclusively by Germans with the exception of two solitary Irishmen, and
one of them, Lord, is mayor of the city and the other is prefect of
police. That is an indication of how our people are going ahead in
America. And even in the humbler walks of life I found them hard
working, well educated, and giving every sign of having retained their
own faith and that love for Ireland which is the characteristic of our
race in every part of the world. Some of them of the third and fourth
generations were as warm and as strong in their love for Ireland as
those born in this dear old land of ours."
Cardinal Logue forgets that the ancestors of the men he speaks of in
America were once kings of Ireland, and they have the right to success;
but I often wonder what would have happened if all the great Irishmen we
read about--the Duke of Wellington, Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener,
General Sheridan, A.T. Stewart, John W. Mackey, John McDonald, Thomas F.
Ryan, and the thousands of other famous Irishmen--had remained here
instead of going out into a wider field of fame and usefulness. The
result would be incomprehensible.
And there is a good deal of truth in the joke about the kings of
Ireland. At the time of St. Patrick and up to the Norman invasion in the
twelfth century Ireland was divided into many little kingdoms in
addition to the four grand divisions which correspond to the provinces
to-day. The O'Connors were kings of Connaught, the O'Brians of Munster,
the O'Neills of Ulster, the McMurroughs of Leinster, the Kavanaughs of
Wexford, the O'Carrolls of Tipperary, the MacCarthys of Cork, the
O'Sullivans and the O'Donaghues ruled in the southwest, the O'Flahertys
in Galway--and so on through a long list. What is a county now was a
kingdom then, and the descendants of the rulers still bear their names.
XIX
IRISH CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS
If any one should write a book on Irish characteristics, I think he
should rank good humor as the most prominent, and that makes up for a
great many defects. We were on the island for nearly three months and
visited more than half the counties, seeing a good deal of both city and
country life, and coming in contact with all classes of people, and it
is safe to say that no one uttered a cross or an unkind word to us, but
everywhere and under all circumstances and from everybody we received a
most cordial welcome and the most courteous treatment. And when we asked
questions which many times must have seemed silly and unnecessary to the
people to whom they were addressed, the replies have always been polite
and considerate.
Irish retorts are proverbial. For "reppartay" the race is famous, and we
have had numerous illustrations. Wit is spontaneous. It doesn't take an
Irishman long to frame an answer, and it is generally to the point.
"Blarney" is abundant. Every old woman calls you her "darlin'," and
every man calls you "me lud" or "yer honor." The insidious flattery that
is used on all occasions does no harm to the giver or the receiver. It
makes the world brighter and happier, though it may be flippant and
insincere.
[Illustration: IRISH MARKET WOMEN]
The man who "always said the meanest things in such a charming way" must
have been an Irishman, although I do not remember to have heard a mean
thing said of anybody over there. The Irish race are not diplomatic in
their actions; history demonstrates that, but no race is so much so in
conversation, and the tact and taffy shown in the treatment of strangers
are admirable. Nor does the Irish peasant wear his heart upon his
sleeve. He may be frank and sincere in his expressions, but it is quite
as probable that he is otherwise. He has the faculty of concealing the
bitterest malice under the gentlest smiles and flattering compliments.
It is always difficult to get a serious answer from a native in Ireland.
The peasant is always suspicious, and, while he will make himself
agreeable and amuse a stranger with his wit and humor, it is difficult
to get deeper into his confidence and seldom safe to place any reliance
upon what he says. This, I am told, is the result of centuries of
persecution, treachery, and danger, so that the Irish race from
necessity learned to wear the mask, until it is now a habit.
Notwithstanding their ready replies and their apparent frankness, you
are never satisfied with the information they give you when you question
them upon serious topics. You are convinced that they are not expressing
their real opinions. I make it a rule to discuss the land laws and
political policies with car drivers and other people I meet of the
working class, but have never been able to get an opinion from them. I
have never yet heard an Irish peasant express an unkind opinion of
anybody. After talking with them about politicians, landlords, and
others, I feel like the child in the cemetery who asked where bad people
were buried.
But what you most admire is the witty and ingenious way in which they
turn a mistake. A young Irishman stepped up to a gentleman the other
day, and with a musical brogue inquired:
"I'm thinkin', sir, that you are Mr. Blake."
"You're thinkin' wrong," was the surly reply.
"I beg yer honor's pardon; I sez to mysilf, when I seen you, sez I, that
must be Mr. John Blake for whom I have a missage; but if it's not, sez I
to mysilf, it's a moighty fine upsthanding young gintleman, whoiver he
may be."
Sometimes there is a tinge of sarcasm, as when an old hag asked: "Won't
yer lordship buy an old woman's prayers for a penny; that's chape."
"The hivins be your bed, me darlin'," was the way an old beggar woman
expressed her thanks.
Sir Walter Scott says: "I gave a fellow a shilling on one occasion when
a sixpence was the proper fee.
"'Remember you owe me a sixpence, Pat,' I said.
"'May yer honor live till I pay ye!'"
When he was leaving the ruins of the Seven Churches at Glendalough, Lord
Plunkett, his escort, whispered to the custodian:
"That's Sir Walter Scott; he's a great poet."
"Divil a bit," was the reply, "he's an honorable gintleman, an' he gave
me half a crown"--when the fee was a shilling.
Very often we hear poetic expressions from the most unexpected sources.
As we were driving down to Ballyhack from Waterford, the jaunting car
driver pointed at a mile stone with his whip and remarked:
"The most lonesome thing in Ireland; without another of its kind within
a mile of it."
The common use of the name of the Creator is often shocking to strangers
and seems blasphemous, but it is an unconscious habit. The word is
constantly on the tongue of the poor and not always in a profane sense.
You hear, "God bless you," "God prosper you," "Praise God," and similar
expressions continually. One neighbor seldom greets another good morning
or good night, without an appeal to the Almighty or the Redeemer or the
Holy Virgin. "Howly Mother" is the commonest of ejaculations, but Irish
profanity is always associated with blessings and not with curses. You
never hear the anathemas that are so common in the United States. Nobody
ever damns you; if the name of the Almighty is appealed to it is always
for his blessing and not for condemnation.
Everybody in Ireland does not speak with a brogue. It has often been
said that the purest English is spoken in Dublin and Aberdeen, but that
is true to a very limited extent among the highly educated and the
cultured classes with whom strangers do not often come in contact. In
some places the brogue is so dense that a stranger requires an
interpreter. It is difficult to understand an ordinary remark. And you
hear the brogue in the pulpit as well as in the slums. There is no form
of speech richer or more musical than the brogue of an eloquent
Irishman, and his natural gifts of oratory enable him to convey the
meaning of his words to the fullest degree by his accent. I never heard
the service of the Episcopal church read in a more eloquent and
impressive manner than by a young curate with a brogue "that you could
cut with a knife," as the saying is. There is nothing to compare with it
except the "sweet, soft, southern accent in the United States." When you
inquire where the Irish got their brogue, the answer will be, "At the
same shop that the Yankee got his twang."
We know that one of the most conspicuous and charming traits of the
Irish race is to have a pleasant word for everybody, no matter what is
in their hearts, on the theory attributed to St. Augustine that a drop
of honey will attract more flies than a barrel of vinegar. The Irish
call it "deludering" and "soothering," both very expressive words.
The pleasant way in which questions are answered is very gratifying,
especially to a stranger. You never hear a gruff word in Ireland. An
Englishman is brutally abrupt, but the Irish are always agreeable. The
other day when I asked the guard of a railway train how soon it would
start he replied promptly:
"Not till yer honor is aboard, sir."
When I complained to the hotel porter that it was raining all the time
in Ireland he replied apologetically:
"But it's such a gintle rain, sir."
Some of the retorts you hear from the common people are highly poetic.
When I bought a bunch of flowers from an old woman in the street the
other day she replied:
"God bless your kind heart, sir; your mother must have been a saint."
"Good luck to your ladyship's happy face this morning," was the greeting
of an old hag to my daughter.
"Oh, let me poor eyes look at ye, me lady, and your voice is as swate as
your face."
In a little book I picked up one day, I found a dialogue between a
farmer and fox, as follows:
"Good morrow, Fox."
"Good morrow, Farmer."
"And what are ye ating, my dear little fox?" said the farmer
insinuatingly. "Is it a goose you stole from me?"
"No, my dear farmer, it is the leg of a salmon."
One day I was speaking to the jarvey who was driving us about in the
jaunting car, of a neighbor I had met, who had spent some years in
America. He had returned to his native place with a "tidy purseful" of
money, and was looking around for some business in which to invest his
little capital.
"He seems to think very well of himself," I suggested.
"He acts as if he came over with Cromwell a thousand years ago, and he
looks down on thim of us who was kings of all the counthry, even before
the mountains was made."
An American tourist said to his driver: "Why do you speak to your horse
in English, when you talk Celtic to your friends on the road?"
"Sure, an' isn't the English good enough for a beast?" was the reply.
The term "himself" is used to describe the boss, the head of a family,
the chief man in an association, the commander of a ship, or the colonel
of a regiment. It is applied in the same way as the term "old man" that
we are accustomed to in the United States. When a subaltern in the army
speaks of "himself," you may understand that he means the colonel of the
regiment. When an employee of a railway company alludes to "himself," it
is the general manager. And when a sailor uses that term he means the
captain of the ship. Wives use it to describe their husbands; children
refer to their fathers in that manner and workmen to their
superintendent or the boss of the gang:
"Did himself give yez the order?"
"I will not take any directions except from himself."
"You'll have to wait till himself comes in," said a young boy behind the
counter in a Dublin shop.
"We're waiting for himself to come home to dinner," was the remark of a
good wife, when I inquired for her husband.
"Himself has not been very well lately."
The word "Himself" is frequently written upon envelopes, where it has
the same significance as the word "Personal" or "Private" with us, and
is a warning that no one should open it but the person to whom it is
addressed.
But these ancient customs are being abandoned, and most of the
superstitions are dying out. The Irish people are the most highly
imaginative and superstitious in the world, and the national schools are
blamed for the change that is taking place among them in this respect.
John Dillon told me in Dublin that he was not quite satisfied in his own
mind whether this was a good thing for the country. Personally, he would
much prefer that the people would adhere to the customs and preserve the
superstitions of their ancestors. But there is more than one opinion on
that subject. The superintendent of the insane asylum at Killarney
asserts that the most prolific causes of insanity here are the
imagination, the superstitions, and the habitual use of strong tea. But
the national schools and the Christian religion have not been able to
banish some of the most baneful spirits like the Banshee, which still
gives notice of approaching death, sorrow, and misfortune, and still
commands the faith and confidence of the great majority of the Irish
people. Even those who ridicule the Banshee and deny its omens hate to
hear the cry. The superstition is inborn. It is like the evil eye in
Italy. People who do not believe in it will nevertheless dodge a person
who is accused of carrying such a curse.
There is a great deal of regret, which all of us must share, that the
common people of Ireland have abandoned many of the quaint and odd
customs that gave them their individuality, and are taking up modern
English notions instead. The old sports and games which were inherited
from the Gaelic ancestors are becoming obsolete. The peasants never
dance in the fields nowadays, and their festivals are very like those of
the English yeomen. They are taking up cricket, golf, tennis, and other
English games, which you see them playing in the parks and on the
commons, instead of the distinctively Irish amusements that were so
common in the past generation. The Celtic League is working for a
revival with a little success.
A newcomer is always puzzled by the large number of names on the map
beginning with the word "Bally." In that amusing book called "Penelope's
Experiences in Ireland," one of the girls suggested that in making up
their itinerary they should first visit all the places called "Bally,"
and after that all the places whose names end or begin with "kill." That
is the Gaelic word for a grove or a clump of trees.
The word "Bally" means "town," and corresponds with the word "ville" in
our geographical nomenclature. The map of Ireland is spattered with
names with such a prefix. Here are some of them:
Ballybain Ballybunion Ballyhiskey
Ballybarney Ballycumber Ballyhu
Ballybeg Ballydehob Ballyhully
Ballybully Ballydoo Ballyknockane
Ballybought Ballyduff Ballylug
Ballyboy Ballygammon Ballymoney
Ballybrack Ballygasoon Ballyhack
Ballynew Ballyroe Ballywater
Ballywilliam Ballydaniel Ballyragget
Each of these names has a significance. Ballyragget means a town where
there is a ford, Ballyroe is a red town, Ballysallagn is a dirty town.
Ballybunion was named in honor of a man called Bunion, Ballydoo is a
black town, Ballykeel is a narrow town, Ballykill is the town of the
wood or the town of the woods.
Kilcooly is the church of the corner, Kilcarne is the church of the
carne or glen, Kilboy is a yellow church, Killduff is a church of black
stone, Killroot is a red church, and so on. Almost every name in Ireland
has some significance.
I saw only one harp during the three months we were in Ireland, and that
was being played by a man in the street, who had an excellent touch and
good expression. Street singers have almost entirely disappeared. The
love of music and the love of fighting, however, cannot be eradicated
from the race that has possessed them since creation, and the Celtic
League is doing much to revive the ancient popular airs like "Home,
Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and "Way Down on the Suwanee River." All of
these are adaptations from melodies that have been sung by mother and
child among the peasants of Ireland for centuries. General Sherman used
to tell of a joke on himself when he was visiting Ireland shortly after
the war. Hearing a band coming down the street playing "Marching through
Georgia" he naturally assumed that it was a serenade in his honor. He
put on his other coat, brushed his hair and whiskers and sat down to
await a summons which did not come. After the music had passed beyond
hearing he asked his aid-de-camp to find out what had happened. Colonel
Audenreid, who was with him, quickly returned to explain that a local
military company had marched down the street to the music of an old
Irish air which had been plagiarized for one of our war songs.
The last of the bards was Carolan, who died in 1788, and whose memory is
preserved by a tablet in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The ancient
bards were more influential than warriors or priests or statesmen, and
stood next in rank to the king. The praise or the censure of a bard was
alike potent. Their satire was as much to be feared as the malediction
of a priest, and their approval was as precious as the gifts of the
gods.
XX
WICKLOW AND WEXFORD
South of Dublin, along the coast, is a string of summer resorts and
bathing places which are attractive in their way, but ought to be very
much more so. They are very different from what we are accustomed to.
They look more like factory towns than summer resorts. Although land is
cheap and there is plenty of it, the hotels and houses are built in
solid blocks usually facing upon a highway that runs along the shore.
There is no shade, no glorious groves like those which surround the
country houses half a mile away; no lawns, no cozy green nooks; only
masses of brick and mortar divided into tenements twenty-five feet wide,
in the presence of the majesty of the sea. Across the roadway, on the
beach, are rows of little frame houses painted dove color, that are
called "bathing machines." Each is independent of the other and is about
four feet square, with a narrow door and, inside, a seat made of board
resting on cleats nailed to the side, and hooks fastened above it on
which the bather hangs his or her garments. When the bather is properly
clad in the bathing suit, the "machine" is picked up by two stalwart
attendants, who run poles through the sides of the house and carry it
down to the edge of the water, where my lady may step into the surf.
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT BRIDGE IN COUNTY WICKLOW]
Back from the seashore all the way down to Waterford on the coast of St.
George's Channel is a succession of beautiful villas and mansions and
farms, each surrounded by lawns and groves and, in some cases, primeval
forests. It is the "Garden of Ireland" and there is no sign of poverty
or oppression or unhappiness visible to the human eye. There is no
lovelier land on earth. "The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland" are
unsurpassed in gentle natural beauty, and about forty miles south of
Dublin, in the Wicklow hills, is a little patch of Switzerland
surrounded by mountains that rise as high as three thousand feet. You
can go there by train from Dublin three or four times a day, taking a
jaunting car at Rathdrum or Rathnew station. In the tourist season
coaches await the arrival of every train and carry "trippers" through on
excursion tickets and at very low rates.
The more enjoyable way, however, is to hire an automobile at Dublin
(five guineas or $26.25 a day) and run down to Glendalough by one route,
stay over night at the hotel on the lake and return the next day by
another. In the meantime circle around through the country and catch its
beauties as you go. The only drawback, as I have said before, is the
high walls that hide the beautiful estates. These were erected,
generations ago, I suppose, because the proprietors were afraid of
losing their property. But notwithstanding these massive protections
many an Irish estate has slipped out of the hands of its owner. It is a
habit they formed about the time of the conquest and the invasion of the
Normans.
Some of the most beautiful and valuable property in Ireland has been
lost at the gambling table or at the race course; more has been
sacrificed for political partisanship and more for religious causes. In
the early days kings used to have a funny way of taking a man's property
from him because he didn't go to the same church and confess the same
creed. Half the land in Ireland has changed owners for this reason, and
some of it several times. Henry VIII., as the newspapers might say, was
a prominent real estate dealer along about 1540, and Queen Elizabeth did
a large business about 1584, at the time of the "flight of the earls,"
and nearly half the island changed hands by her majesty's grace without
the payment of a dollar. When the earls who had resisted her authority
ran away to France, she calmly wiped their noble names off the books of
the recorder of deeds and transferred their property to English
"undertakers," as they were called, because they "undertook" to drive
off the rebellious Irish occupants and repopulate the land with loyal
English colonists. Many of the great landlords of Ireland of to-day
obtained their property and their titles at this time.
And then a gentleman named Oliver Cromwell went into the real estate
business over in Ireland about the middle of the seventeenth century. He
drove the inhabitants of a vast area from their farms and the towns in
which they lived and compelled them to take refuge in other parts of the
country, while he issued scrip that could be located upon the farms they
left and paid his soldiers with it because he was short of cash. Many of
his soldiers remained here and married and were the ancestors of the
present population. Others sold their scrip to speculators who located
upon large tracts and eventually disposed of them to men who had the
money.
These real estate transactions of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Cromwell
have been severely criticised, but they must have been right because we
did very much the same thing with our Indians, the original owners of
the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." Whenever an Indian
tribe has rebelled about something, just as the Irish have rebelled from
time to time since the conquest of Henry II., we have driven them from
the homes of their forefathers; have penned them up in reservations, and
have sold their lands to immigrants from Ireland, Sweden, and other
European countries, precisely as the English sovereigns disposed of the
homes and the farms of the Irish. We did it in the name of civilization;
they did it, very often, because they could not worship the same God in
the same way.
About an hour by automobile from Dublin, beyond Bray and Greystone and
other summer resorts, is a lovely place that you will be pleased to hear
about because there is a pretty story attached to it. It is an old Tudor
mansion of the seventeenth century, covered with luxuriant ivy and half
concealed by ilex, arbutus, hawthorn, and rhododendron bushes that are
all in bloom in May. They call it "Hollybrook" and it is the seat of Sir
Robert Adair Hodson, whose great-grandfather, Sir Robert Adair, a
dashing soldier, was knighted by his king on the field of battle for
the handy way he had of amputating the heads of his majesty's enemies.
He afterward became a lieutenant-general and one of the most famous
soldiers in the United Kingdom. But what interests us more is that he
was the young gentleman for whom the song "Robin Adair" was written by
Lady Katherine Keppel. She loved him very much, they say, and broke her
heart for him.
Just beyond the railway station of Rathdrum is the Avondale estate, the
seat of the family of the late Charles S. Parnell, the Irish political
leader, which has recently been purchased by the new Irish department of
agriculture, as a school for the training of foresters. Here we enter
that romantic region known as the Vale of Avoca, which has been
described in a pretty ballad by Tom Moore, called "The Meeting of the
Waters"--the rivers Avonbeg and Avonmore. Here was a meeting place of
the Druids in ancient times. Their altars and seats of judgment remain,
and you can see the hurling stone of the great Finn McCool, which is
fourteen feet long, ten feet wide, and seven feet thick, but he was so
strong that he had no trouble in tossing it about like a football.
Beyond "The Meeting of the Waters," seven or eight miles over a very
attractive road, are the Woods of Shillelagh, which gave their name to
the traditional weapon of offense and defense, formerly carried by every
Irishman, but long ago obsolete. You can buy genuine shillalahs at the
curio stores, those that have been in actual use and "have cracked many
a head," as the dealer will tell you. You will find them also put away
in the cabins with other heirlooms, with the christening clothes of the
gossoons and the confirmation dresses of the colleens, but that
interesting and typical weapon of the Irish peasant has entirely
disappeared. It was a blackthorn stick, about eighteen inches long, from
an inch to an inch and a half thick and a knot at one end of it. The
best material in Ireland was found in the woods that surround the
ancient little village of Shillelagh--hence the name.
Wicklow is especially fascinating to the artist and the antiquarian. The
scenery is not so wild nor on so large a scale as that of the Alps, but
bits of Switzerland in miniature are scattered about among the Wicklow
hills and, indeed, several other very respectable mountains. Douce is
2,384 feet high, Duffhill 2,364, Gravale, 2,352, and Kippure 2,473 feet,
and they rise immediately from the level of tide water within a few
miles of the sea, so that they seem much higher. There are twenty-one
mountains more than two thousand feet high, three more than two thousand
five hundred, and one more than three thousand (Lugnaynilla) in this
immediate neighborhood and within twenty miles of the coast. Concealed
among them are several charming little lakes and rugged canyons and
glens and dense forests. Nearly all of these are associated with
religious history, with the lives of several saints who went there in
retreat for meditation or lived like hermits in the caves and dells and
prayed for the salvation of the world.
This was the home of Laurence Sterne, author of "Uncle Toby" and
"Corporal Trim." The record of his baptism is inscribed upon the
registry of a quaint old church, and in 1720, according to the local
traditions, he accidentally fell into a mill race and narrowly escaped
being crushed to death by the water wheel which was working at the time.
This was the land of the O'Tooles. The ruins of Castle Keven, the
stronghold of the clan, are visited daily in the summer by hundreds of
people.
[Illustration: THE VALE OF AVOCA, COUNTY WICKLOW]
Glendalough is known as "the ancient City of Refuge," and the weird,
mysterious, somber scenery is associated with one of the strangest
manifestations of human piety that may be seen anywhere. For there,
within the shadow of gaunt and gloomy mountains, St. Kevin, "The Fair
Born," a prince of the House of Leinster, which produced five saints in
a single generation, three brothers and two sisters, built seven tiny
churches in a group. It is known as the Valley of the Seven Churches.
Each of them has its own individuality. Each of them is dedicated to a
different saint, and all have been the homes and the places of worship
and the object of pilgrimage for holy men and devout Christians for
thirteen hundred years. As Sir Walter Scott says, they are probably
the oldest buildings now surviving in any country in which the Christian
religion was taught, and naturally have a corresponding interest and
sanctity to all who love their Lord.
St. Kevin died in 618 after a remarkable experience. The date of his
birth is unknown. He stands in fame and sanctity among the Irish saints
after St. Patrick, St. Bridget, and St. Columba only. His uncle, the
Bishop of Ardstrad, was his preceptor, and, having renounced his claims
to the throne of Leinster, and to all the pomps and vanities of the
world, he retired to this retreat and here spent the rest of his life.
His biography has been written several times, and as far back as the
ninth century. It has recently been rewritten and published at the
expense of the Marquis of Bute. One of the early writers calls him "A
soldier of Christ in the land of Eire, a high name over sea and wave,
chaste and fair, living in the glen of the broad line, in the valley of
the two lakes."
"Kevin loves a narrow hovel.
It is a work of religious mortification
To be everlastingly praying
But a great shelter against demons."
St. Kevin lived in a hollow tree for seven years and afterward in a
narrow cave in a precipice of great height overhanging the lake, to
which there is no access but by a boat. According to tradition he came
here to escape from "Eyes of Most Unholy Blue," worn by a maid named
Kathleen with whom he fell in love in spite of his monastic vows. The
legend says that she traced him out, and when St. Kevin woke from his
sleep one morning he found her sitting beside his bed. He rose and
hurled her into the lake, afterwards whipping himself with nettles as
penance. There are many other legends concerning him, but most of them
are romance. There is no doubt, however, of his piety, and that he
founded the Seven Churches. His feast is celebrated on June 3, the day
on which he died, with great ceremony.
The Seven Churches are all small and stand in a group around a
cathedral, within sight of each other, except for the foliage. They are
roofless and partially ruined, but of late years the board of public
works has taken possession of them, repaired them, and is keeping them
in order. Several monasteries have been maintained there from time to
time, and a thousand years ago Glendalough was one of the most famous
seats of learning in the world. Scholars and students went there from
all parts of Europe to study.
The cathedral, which is the center of interest, is probably the smallest
sanctuary of that dignity in existence. The nave is only 48 feet long by
30 feet wide, and the chancel is 25 by 22 feet, but the masonry is
massive. The Church of the Trinity has a chancel only 13 feet 6 inches
long by 9 feet wide and a nave 29 by 17 feet. It contains the tomb of
Mochuarog, son of Brachan, King of Britain, who was a disciple of St.
Kevin and administered the last rites to him when he died. The Church of
St. Savior is 45 by 19 feet; the Church of Our Lady has a nave 32 by 20
and a chancel 21 by 19; St. Chalaran's has a nave 18 by 15 feet and a
chancel 8 feet 8 inches by 8 feet 4 inches; Reefert Church has a nave 29
by 18 feet and a chancel 14 by 9 feet. This was the burial place of the
O'Tooles and contains several tombs dating as far back as 1010. What is
called "Kevin's Kitchen" is an oblong oratory, 23 by 15 feet in size.
There is a tower of imposing dimensions, 110 feet high and 52 feet in
circumference, standing in the center of an ancient cemetery and
surrounded by tombstones. There are several fine Celtic crosses of great
age and sanctity before which pilgrims are constantly kneeling, and many
other objects of great interest.
What was once a beautiful interlaced cross has been half carried away by
vandals in chips as "mementos" from the grave of a "rale oulde Irish
king." One of the tombs has an inscription in Celtic, reading, "The body
of King Mac Thuill, in Jesus Christ, 1010"; another is inscribed, "Pray
for Carbre ma Cahail," but most of the inscriptions are obscure.
A few miles down to the south of Glendalough, on the other side of the
divide, is the village of Ennisworthy, where the great Grattan lived
between the sessions of the Irish parliament, and where many scenes are
associated with his memory. It was near Ennisworthy or Vinegar Hall that
one of the fiercest battles was fought between the British troops and
the Irish rebels on the 21st of June, 1798. The rebels threw up hurried
earthworks around a ruined windmill and defended them with pikes,
scythes, and other agricultural implements, for those were all the arms
they had. The British assaulted the hill and massacred or captured the
entire force. Five hundred are said to have been killed in the
engagement.
The little place is called Ferns, is a favorite resort of rich Dublin
people, and has many interesting historical associations. It was the
seat of government of Leinster in early times, and the home of Dermot
MacMurrough, who betrayed Ireland to the Normans. His castle, which
stood upon an eminence overlooking the town, is believed to date back to
the sixth century and was besieged and burned and partially destroyed
several times. Near by is the ruin of an Augustinian monastery, with a
tower seventy-five feet high, which was founded by MacMurrough in 1160,
and in which he is buried. The Protestant Church of Ireland has a
cathedral here and an Episcopal palace built in 1630 by Bishop Ram, then
in charge of the ecclesiastical affairs of this diocese. Being of very
advanced age when he built the house, he placed the following
inscription over the entrance:
"This house Ram built for his succeeding brothers:
Thus sheep bear wool, not for themselves, but for others."
We walked from the station at Wexford along a very narrow street to a
deceptive hotel called the White's. It has a dark, narrow, uninviting
entrance, but extends back into the middle of the block like the roots
of a tree, and contains comfortable beds, neat sitting-rooms, and a
dining-room, wherein toothsome, orange-colored salmon just from the
river and most excellent gooseberry tarts are served.
Wexford is very different from Dublin and every other place in Ireland
that we saw, because of its narrow streets, which are more like those of
a Spanish or oriental town, some of them so narrow that you can almost
shake hands through the windows with your neighbor across the way. And
it is a very clean town. And furthermore, all the children we met looked
as if they were just from a bath. We saw troops of them in the street on
their way to school with "shining morning faces" and neat jackets and
frocks and wearing shoes and stockings, which is a rare sight in
Ireland, therefore a welcome one to see. The contrast in the dress and
general appearance of the people of Wexford and those of Dublin is so
striking as to cause comment.
In a large plaza in front of the railway station is a monument in honor
of John Edward Redmond, uncle of John and William Redmond, the present
leaders of the Irish party in the British parliament. He represented
this district in the House of Commons for many years and did a great
deal for the town and the neighborhood. He got a breakwater, which makes
the harbor safe, a bridge across the River Slaney, and an appropriation
to construct a macadamized road along its banks. The Redmond family have
lived here for generations and have been prominent in local affairs.
Most of them have been engaged in the leather business and have had
large tanneries. The inscription upon the monument to John Edward
Redmond reads:
"My heart is with the town of Wexford. Nothing can extinguish that
love but the cold sod of the grave, and when the day comes, I hope
you will pay me the compliment I deserve of saying that I always
loved you." Last words of J.E. Redmond, 1865!
A deputation of farmers which appeared before Mr. Russell, the secretary
of agriculture, at Dublin, asserted that Wexford is "the most
agricultural county in Ireland."
There is every appearance of prosperity about Wexford. The people are
well dressed, the cattle are sleek, the horses are the best we have
seen, and we are quite prepared to believe the assertion that this is
the "Garden of Ireland." There is a good deal of commerce at Wexford
also, going out as well as coming in from a fine harbor which is formed
by an estuary from the sea at the entrance to the Irish Channel. There
is a long breakwater to protect the ships against storms; and quays,
three thousand feet long, with double lines of railway track, and modern
machinery for loading and unloading vessels. There are steamship lines
to Liverpool, Bristol, and other markets in that hated and despised
territory called England. Several sailing ships are now tied up at the
dock which bring over coal and take back barley to make the British
beer, for this is the headquarters of the barley trade in Ireland.
Wexford has been the scene of much political disturbance. The people are
intense in their hatred of England, and every baby in the cradle is a
violent home ruler. Perhaps this unanimous sentiment is in a measure due
to the influence of the Redmond family, which belongs here.
On the site of an ancient bull ring is a bronze figure of a young man in
a belligerent attitude with a long pike. He is called "The Insurgent"
and the figures "1798" are on the pedestal--nothing more.
"It's one of the patriots of '98," said the jaunting car driver. "They
are putting up statues like that everywhere in Ireland now, to keep the
events of the past in the memory of the people."
There is a great deal of significance in that statue, and even more in
the photographs and post cards of it which are hung for sale in the
windows of every stationer and news stand and cigar-shop. Under the
picture is printed in plain letters the words, "Who fears to speak of
'98?"
What are called "the twin churches" are two fine Roman Catholic houses
of worship, exact duplicates of each other, within two or three blocks,
with beautiful spires two hundred and thirty feet high. They cost
$250,000 each and were paid for by the congregations of this city and
neighborhood. It is astonishing how much money the people of Ireland
spend upon their religion, and the twin churches of Wexford are
illustrations of the display that is found in every part of the
country. It is a common subject of comment and criticism that the
bishops should permit such extravagance, but they reply that no man is
ever poorer because of what he gives for his religion. It may be said,
also, that all of the Roman Catholic churches are crowded on Sunday,
early and late.
St. Sellskar's Church is built upon the foundation of the Abbey of the
Holy Sepulchre, which was established here a thousand years ago, and
within it was signed the first treaty ever made between the English and
Irish races. This was signed in 1169 by Dermot McMurrough, King of
Leinster, and Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, better known by the
name of Strongbow. And it was in this abbey that Strongbow resided, and
in this church his sister, Bassilia de Clare, was married to Raymond le
Gros in 1174. The Princess Eva, daughter of Dermot McMurrough, King of
Leinster, who married Strongbow on the field of battle, is buried in a
stone coffin at Bannow, in the suburbs of Wexford, down on the coast. It
was formerly a populous and prosperous city, of which no traces can now
be seen except the ruins of the church that contains her tomb. The rest
of the town has been buried under the encroachments of the sea, and sand
now lies ten and twenty feet deep upon the tops of the houses. Until a
few years ago Bannow returned two members of parliament, although for
many generations there was nothing for them to represent except the
ruins of this church and a solitary chimney. However, for the loss of
this franchise the British government paid £15,000 to the late Earl of
Ely, whose seat is in the neighborhood. His ancestor, Rev. Adam Loftus,
was lord high chancellor of Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
He was one of the founders of Trinity College and the first provost. The
romantic story of this extinct city is related in a novel entitled,
"Eva, or the Buried City of Bannow," and contains a good deal of
interesting history mixed up with the fiction.
I suppose that sooner or later the energetic Normans would have found
their way across the St. George's Channel, but their invasion was
invited in 1169 by Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, who is thus
responsible for the loss of his country's freedom, and subsequent
centuries of bloodshed and distress. He was a good soldier, but the
Christian influence under which he was educated did not remove all the
savage traits from his system and he was guilty of many wicked, brutal,
treacherous acts of tyranny and violence against his neighbors and his
subjects. He kidnapped the wife of Ternan O'Rourke, King of Leitrim, and
the latter persuaded the other kings in southern Ireland to join with
him to punish the insult. McMurrough was driven from pillar to post and
finally fled to the court of Henry II. in London, where he offered to
betray Ireland to the English monarch.
The latter declined to give Dermot any personal assistance, but
permitted his vassals to do what they liked, and a number of British and
Welsh barons of broken fortunes, under the leadership of Richard de
Clare, Earl of Pembroke, organized an invasion. In May, 1169, they
landed at Wexford with a force of two thousand well armed Normans,
Englishmen, Welshmen, and renegade Irishmen. Strongbow was given the
leadership of the expedition with a promise of the hand of Dermot's
daughter in marriage and the succession to the throne of Leinster.
Before the invaders landed Dermot returned quietly to his castle at
Ferns, and during the winter of 1168-69 pretended to do penance for his
sins in the Augustinian monastery he had founded there, in order to
throw his Irish enemies off their guard.
The King of Connaught, Roderick O'Conor, who was the acknowledged
suzerain of all Ireland at that time, collected a large army and marched
against the invaders, and he might easily have crushed them, but he was
a weak and credulous man, without the ability or vigor of Brian Boru,
and Dermot fooled him completely, promising to expel the foreigners
provided he was restored to his kingdom. As soon as Roderick had marched
away, however, and Dermot felt himself strong enough to break his
promises, he led his allies with fire and sword into the city of Dublin
and the English have occupied it ever since.
Strongbow's wedding with Eva took place Aug. 25, 1170, upon the battle
field near Waterford, among the corpses of the slain. There is a
striking picture of the scene in the National Gallery at Dublin. And the
bridegroom continued his career of massacre and devastation until he
"had made a tremblin' sod of all Ireland."
Henry II., having heard of the conquest of Strongbow, became nervous for
fear he might become too powerful, and prepared an expedition with which
he landed at the little town of Crook, or at the still smaller town of
Hook, near the mouth of the River Suir. Some said that he landed by Hook
and some said he landed by Crook, and that was the origin of the saying
that is heard to this day, "either by hook or crook." Henry II. had
about ten thousand fighting men and they were so well organized and
armed that resistance was impossible. Almost all the Irish kings and
chieftains came promptly to make submission, and the Irish bishops,
presided over by Lawrence O'Toole, met in synod and acknowledged him as
their sovereign. Their action was based upon a bull issued by Pope
Adrian IV., authorizing Henry II. to take possession of Ireland. Adrian
IV. was an English monk named Brakespear, and he was influenced by an
unfair and exaggerated account of the influence of the Church in England
and by misrepresentations of the state of religion in Ireland. Some
historians have questioned the genuineness of this edict; others have
declared that it was a myth, but there seems to be no reason to doubt
that Adrian IV. did authorize Henry II. to invade Ireland, believing
that a strong centralized government there would be for the advancement
of religion and for the good of the people.
Troubles with the Holy See resulting from the assassination of Thomas à
Becket called the king back to England before he had completed his plans
of settlement, and he left Ireland in April, 1172, after remaining there
less than six months. He had intended to erect a string of Norman
castles at frequent intervals throughout the island and garrison them
with English troops in order to overawe the native kings and
chieftains, and so that his own earls might watch and check each other.
But he left that work to his subordinates and rewarded them with grants
of enormous area without regard to the rights of the native owners.
Leinster was given to Strongbow with the exception of Dublin and two or
three other towns on the coast; the province of Meath was given to Hugh
de Lacy, and the province of Ulster to John de Courcy, and other tracts
to the ancestors of many of the noble families of Ireland to-day.
Under Strongbow, after Henry II. left, Ireland fell into a state of
anarchy and confusion. He was tyrannical and unreasonable. The native
princes rebelled and almost overcame him. They drove him to Waterford
and besieged him there, where he was rescued by Raymond le Gros, who
demanded the hand of his sister Bassilia as his reward. They were
married here, as I have told you, in the Abbey of the Holy Sepulchre.
Strongbow took up his headquarters at Dublin. He built Christ Church
Cathedral and other churches and endowed several large religious
establishments, although he had shown very little veneration for the
relics of St. Patrick and other Irish saints. In 1176 he died of a
malignant ulcer in his foot, which his enemies ascribed to a miracle of
the Irish saints whose shrines he had desecrated. His sister Bassilia,
who was a woman of strong character, concealed the fact of his death
until she could communicate with her husband, Raymond le Gros, who was
besieging an Irish king at Limerick, and prepare him to take advantage
of the situation. As a letter might be captured and read, she sent him a
courier with the message:
"The Great Jaw Tooth, which used to trouble us so much, has fallen
out--wherefore return with all speed."
Raymond understood the meaning and returned to Dublin, took charge of
the government and buried Strongbow with great pomp in Christ Church
Cathedral, which he had founded, the famous Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop
of Ireland, conducting the ceremonies. But King Henry had had enough of
the Strongbow family, and when he heard of the great earl's death
appointed William de Burgo, founder of the Burke family, as viceroy.
Raymond le Gros, with Bassilia, retired to their castle in Wexford,
where he resided quietly until his death in 1182.
And that is the way the English obtained possession of Ireland.
XXI
THE LAND OF RUINED CASTLES
Waterford is a busy, clean, dignified old town with large shipping
interests, which are conducted upon a wide quay that follows the bank of
the River Suir and is faced with substantial walls of stone. The cargoes
of the vessels are loaded and unloaded from the roadside. The commercial
business consists of the export of bacon, which is famous, barley, and
other agricultural produce. A good many live cattle are sent over the
channel to feed the enemies of Ireland. The stores and shops are upon
streets that run at right angles with the river. The professional men
occupy blocks of former residences in the neighborhood of an ancient
courthouse which faces a park, usually filled with babies and blue-eyed
children playing on the grass. Back in the city the ground rises from
the river to a hill that was once crowned with a castle, a cathedral, a
monastery, and several other institutions of warfare, charity, learning,
and religion. A "Home for the Widows of Deceased Clergymen of the Church
of Ireland" occupies the site of the palace of King John. When I dropped
a penny in the lap of an old crone, who squatted at the gate, she looked
up at me with the winning smile of her race and said:
"May you have a happy life, sor, and a paceful death and a favorable
joodgment."
There are few beggars in the Irish cities to-day, such as you read about
in the tales of travelers who were here twenty or even ten years ago.
There are two or three in Dublin hanging around the entrance of the
hotel, usually with flowers for sale or something else to offer as
compensation for your money, and when one goes into the slums he is apt
to be approached by drunken men and drunken women. But outside of
Dublin we didn't see a single beggar.
Besides being famous for the best bacon in the United Kingdom, Waterford
is the ancestral home of Field Marshal Lord Roberts and that intrepid
sailor, Lord Charles Beresford, who was annexed to the United States at
a Gridiron dinner during a visit to Washington several years ago. It has
a population of about thirty thousand, was founded by the Danish King
Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, and for centuries was the seat of the
McIvors, the Danish kings, who arrived in 870 and ruled until Strongbow
and the other Norman adventurers came over from England in 1169. At the
principal corner in the town are the remains of a castle built by
Reginald McIvor in 1003, and it still bears his name. The city has
endured many sieges and attacks. At one time it was almost entirely
destroyed. For centuries it was the most important city in Ireland after
Dublin, and is now the fourth seaport. It was loyal to the king when the
pretender Perkin Warbeck claimed the throne of England, and Cromwell was
unable to reduce it even after a long siege. It was the only city in
Ireland that Old Ironsides did not conquer, and thereby it earned its
motto, "Urbs Intacta." Beside Reginald's Tower very few of the ancient
walls remain, but there are two old churches of great interest. One of
them, the Protestant Cathedral, stands upon the site of a church built
in 1050 and the bishop's palace and deanery adjoin it. The present
structure was erected in 1774 by John Roberts, architect, the
great-grandfather of "Bobs," the hero of Kandahar, now Earl Roberts of
the British peerage. He was the architect of several other important
buildings in the city.
In 1693 a colony of refugee Huguenots came to Waterford from France.
They were kindly received and the bishop gave them the choir of an
ancient monastic church as a place of worship. It became known as "the
French Church" for that reason. Among the immigrants was a family named
Sautelles, whose daughter married John Roberts, a rising young
architect, in 1744. They had twenty-four children, and both are buried
within the roofless walls of the chancel of the old church. One of the
sons, Rev. John Roberts, rector of St. Nicholas' parish, married the
daughter of his associate, Rev. Abraham Sandys. Sir Abraham Roberts,
their son, married Miss Sleigh, the daughter of a family prominent among
the gentry of the neighborhood, and died in 1874, leaving issue
Frederick Sleigh Roberts, the present earl, who spent his happy boyhood
in an old manor-house in the suburbs of the city.
All of the Roberts family for several generations have been buried
within the walls of the old French Church, and it is still used for the
tombs of the passing generation of a few old families who possess that
enviable privilege. The latest monument bears the date of 1881, and
"siveral places are bespoke," the custodian told me. The ruin is kept
with the greatest care. The ivy mantle that covers the walls is tenderly
trimmed each spring and fall, the turf is cut frequently, the gravel
walks are raked every day, and when I remarked upon this peculiarity not
often observed in the crumbling castles and churches of long ago, the
custodian exclaimed with pride:
"It's all thrue, as yer honor has said, ivery wurrd of it, an' it's as
dacent a ruin as you'll find in all Ireland."
Several illustrious characters in Irish history are buried in the
cathedral. Among them are Strongbow and his son who was carved in twain
by his amiable father on the field of battle because he acted as if he
was afraid of the enemy. It is entirely appropriate that so energetic
and comprehensive a person as the first Earl of Pembroke should have two
tombs, and no one has any right to complain. He is buried in Christ
Church Cathedral in Dublin, as well as in the cathedral at Waterford,
and lies quietly in both places. And only a few days ago I noticed that
Edward VII., King of England, was paying a week's-end visit to his
descendant, the present Earl of Pembroke, at his country seat, Wilton
House, in Wiltshire.
Everything in Waterford seems to be inclosed by high stone walls--even
the bishop's palace and the poorhouse--and when I asked a man I met on
the street why it was so, he answered:
"They're old walls, sir, very old, and were put up when they were
needed. They're not taken down, for they may be needed again. The poor
guardians are afraid they'll lose a pauper, and the bishop some of his
prayers."
The jarvey who drove our jaunting car told us that there are nine
hundred people in the poorhouse and nine hundred more in the insane
asylum, the latter "bein' mostly women who came there from drinkin' too
much tay"--and the excessive use of that herb is destroying the nerves
of the feminine population.
I have often been told to "Go to Ballyhack," and many a time I have
heard people wish that somebody they were offended at might go there,
but I never had an opportunity to do so until I reached Waterford.
Ballyhack is quite an attractive place, a pretty little fishing village
of about one hundred people on the bank of the River Suir, eight miles
south of the city and nine miles from the sea. It is not considered
profane to condemn a person to Ballyhack any more than to Halifax,
although you may have a warmer place in your mind. It is a delightful
excursion from Waterford in a jaunting car, through fertile farms and
velvety meadows, to the town of Passage, whence a boatman will take you
across the river to Ballyhack, which is a group of stone buildings,
fish-packing houses, and tenements of the fishermen, with a tall,
picturesque old tower rising from their midst by the roadside. The top
is crumbling, the stones are loose, but the walls for sixty feet or more
from the ground are yet perfectly solid and quite as firm as they were
when they were erected by the Knights Templar a thousand years ago to
defend one of the most convenient landing places on the river.
It is believed that the tower of Ballyhack was intended as an outpost
for the protection of these two monasteries against pirates and other
marauders and that the monks stored their arms and munitions there and a
supply of provisions. There is no dock. The fishboats are hauled up on
the gravel beach and their cargoes are carried across a narrow roadway
in big baskets to the packing-houses, where they are cleaned and salted
or shipped fresh to London and Liverpool.
Curragmore, the seat of the famous Beresford family, is twelve miles in
the opposite direction from Waterford, over hill and down dale, and
through a most delightful country. It is an ancient place, for the
Beresfords are a very old family, descended from Sir Robert la Poer, who
landed with Prince John at Waterford in 1185 and was given a vast tract
of land that had belonged to an Irish earl who refused to submit to the
sovereignty of the Norman king. That was the fashion in those days when
people were not so particular about the rights of others as at present.
In this highly moral and righteous generation there's a court sitting
regularly to hear any complaints that a tenant may wish to make
concerning the rent exacted for his farm or his cottage. A difference of
opinion over a bed of turnips or a rabbit or "any other kind of bird" is
argued one side and then the other by the lawyers, and many people are
questioned to ascertain who is wrong and who is right. But at the date
when the first Beresford arrived at Waterford from over the channel, his
majesty the king decided the ownership of the territory in Ireland
according to his whims. A frown could cost a man a farm and a smile
could win him one. But life has not been all sunshine and taffy for the
Beresfords. They have had their troubles like the rest of us. In 1310
the wife of John la Poer was burned as a witch--one of the grandmothers
of that much beloved and hearty old sailor, admiral of the North
Atlantic fleet of Great Britain, who visited us only a few years ago and
made so many friends among the people of America.
The motto of the Beresford family is not exactly what one would expect,
knowing the character and disposition and habits of the men. It is: "Nil
Nisi Cruce" (No Dependence but the Cross). I suppose it is all right for
Lord Charles Beresford, the "Fighting Bob" Evans of the British navy, to
wear those words upon his crest, but his words and his acts do not
always conform to such a pious phrase. The people round here are very
proud of him and of Earl Roberts also--"Both fighters from their very
cradles," as a gentleman said.
"And there was Bill Beresford," he continued, "a gallant soldier and the
best horseman in Ireland--good, old 'Ulundi Bill,' as he was fondly
known. There isn't a man between the four seas to-day that can compare
with him, either for a fight or a frolic. Bill Beresford overtopped them
all. He did more to improve and encourage horse racing in Ireland than
any man that ever lived except it was his father, Lord Henry Beresford,
the third Marquis of Waterford. They called him the Nestor of the Irish
turf, and he did deeds of daring and devilment in every corner of the
world. His lordship was killed in the saddle, the place where he would
prefer to die, for he loved horses as much as men, and there was
mourning in all Ireland. His son Bill took closely after him. As colonel
of the Ninth Lancers, Bill saved the British forces at the battle of
Ulundi and was given a big jeweled star and a Victoria Cross for the
job. But Charley is just as good a man as Bill. The Beresfords are all
fighters. No family in Ireland has drawn the sword so often or so
effectively, even if you go back to the invasion of the Normans when
they first came into the country. And what's the matter with the motto,
'No dependence but the cross'?"
Lord "Bill" Beresford was laid to rest on the first day of the twentieth
century and his obituaries said that he was the most popular man in
Ireland. He was the third husband of that beautiful American woman,
Lillian Warren-Hammersley-Churchill-Beresford, originally of Troy, N.Y.,
and afterward of Washington, widow of the late Duke of Marlborough and
still one of the most charming women in London society. There was
another brother, who recently died in Mexico, where he lived for many
years as a ranchman, and left a large family of half-breed children.
The present Marquis of Waterford, Henri de la Poer Beresford, was born
in 1875 and married Lady Beatrice, daughter of the Marquis of Lansdowne,
in 1897. He is a lieutenant in the Horse Guards at London, is said to be
a fine young fellow, and is developing the hereditary traits of the
family. He has a son--the Earl of Tyrone, born in 1901--and three
daughters who are younger.
Carrick Castle, which stands on the banks of the Suir not far from
Waterford, is another beautiful place, built in 1309 by the great Earl
of Ormonde. The Carricks were originally Butlers, and trace their
descent as far back as Rollo, Duke of Normandy, grandfather of William
the Conqueror. Edmund Butler was created Earl of Carrick in 1315, and
his descendants have owned this estate ever since his time. The
beautiful but unfortunate Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII. and mother of
Queen Elizabeth, was born in Carrick Castle and lived there until she
was fifteen years old, when she went to England with Sir Thomas Boleyn,
her father, and Lord Rochford, her brother, who was executed upon the
same scaffold with herself.
The Province of Munster might be called properly "the Land of Ruined
Castles," for they are more numerous here than on the banks of the
Rhine. You are scarcely ever out of sight of a crumbling tower or a
useless gigantic wall wearing a mantle of ivy. Nearly all of these ruins
are attributed to Cromwell and his army, who have no defenders, and the
religious historians and local guides tell us that they were destroyed
by that man of mighty prejudices and purposes in order to plant
Protestantism upon the ruins of the papal power in Ireland. Cromwell was
undoubtedly guilty of atrocious cruelty and devastation at the cost of
thousands of innocent lives and hundreds of millions of property, but he
could not have destroyed all these castles and monasteries if he had
remained in Ireland ten times as long as he did, because many of them
were in ruins when he arrived and many were not built until after his
departure.
Torna, the Druid, prophesied that a wind from the southeast would fell
the tree that covered Ireland. And that was always a vulnerable shore.
Agricola planned to cross with his legions from the Cornish coast and
add Eire, as this country was then known, to the Roman Empire. The
southeastern corner, the counties of Wexford and Waterford, with their
harbors open and undefended, were the gates through which many foreign
invaders came and brought death and devastation with them. The harbor of
Waterford was called the Haven of the Sun until the Danes came, but was
afterward known as the Valley of Lamentation, because of the mourning
that followed the battles that were fought there. And even the invaders
did not do so much damage as domestic strife. The kings and the clans,
the Desmonds and the Geraldines, the O'Briens and the O'Donoghues, the
MacCarthys, the O'Connors, the O'Sullivans, and other local chiefs who
occupied the southern third of Ireland, were always attacking each
other, besieging the castles of their rivals and often leaving them as
we see them now--green wrecks and grassy mounds. And they spared not the
monasteries that were built near all the homes of the great. This was a
form of munificence as well as piety which prevailed also in Italy and
France in the Middle Ages, where every robber baron kept a small army of
friars and monks to do his praying, just as he kept squadrons of knights
to do his fighting. Hence you will invariably find in southern Ireland
the ruins of an abbey or a monastery beside the ruins of a castle, and
most of them are the result of duels and feuds between the native
chieftains and their clans, although many were left in flames and gore
by the forces of William of Orange, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, as
well as Cromwell.
[Illustration: THE RIVER FRONT AT WATERFORD]
Ireland has never been at peace until now. No soil has been fought over
so often. The mysterious round towers that we see on the hilltops and in
the glens in their lonely majesty are evidence that it was necessary for
the overlords to build places of refuge for their servants, and provide
means for lighting signal fires to warn them against the enemies that
surrounded them.
"In the Island o' Ruins remembrance o' grief
Hallows the hills as, when summer is slowly
Fadin' in darkness, the fall o' the leaf
Makes the woods holy.
"Green are the woods though the mountains are gray;
Spring is too young to remember old doin's.
Ah! but I wish I was roamin' to-day
In the Island o' Ruins!"
The little station of Doneraile is the getting-off place for visitors
who would see one of the most attractive ruins in Ireland, both for its
picturesque beauty and for its historical associations. A solitary
tower, standing by a small river in a lonely and deserted glen, is all
that remains of Kilcolman Castle, one of the greatest strongholds of the
Geraldines, afterward and at the time of its destruction the home of
Ireland's greatest poet, Edmund Spenser. He came here in 1580 as private
secretary to Earl Grey, then lord lieutenant, and after one of the many
rebellions he was given a little more than three thousand acres which
surrounded this castle, confiscated from the Earl of Desmond, as one of
the "undertakers," as certain speculators and adventurers were called
who agreed to colonize the country with English settlers. It was here
and in the neighboring town of Youghal, the home of Sir Walter Raleigh,
in 1589 and 1590, that Spenser wrote the "Faerie Queene," which was
published at the expense of Raleigh and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.
For this honor the queen proposed to give him quite a liberal pension.
Lord Treasurer Burleigh remonstrated, saying:
"What? So much for a rhyme?"
"Well, then, give him what is reason," said her majesty.
Nothing further was heard of the matter, however, until Spenser sent the
Virgin Queen the following epigram:
"I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme.
From that time, until this season,
I've had neither rhyme nor reason."
Elizabeth was so pleased that she instantly ordered Spenser's name to be
put upon the pension rolls at fifty pounds a year.
Spenser married an obscure relative of the famous Earl of Cork, a Miss
Boyle, and lived in the old castle until 1598, when it was sacked and
burned by the rebels in the Tyrone uprising. His youngest son perished
in the flames and, heart-broken and beggared, he took the rest of his
family to London and died within a few months from starvation and grief.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex.
It is said that the sins of the fathers are sometimes visited upon their
children and children's children, and this prophecy applies with
singular aptness to the Spenser family, for the poet's grandson was
driven from his home at Kilcolman by Cromwell's men, just as the
Desmonds had been driven from the same place by Earl Grey.
It was a cheerful change to find a castle without a scar or a crumbling
stone and all the modern improvements at Riding House, the Irish estate
of the late Earl of Devonshire. He was one of the wealthiest, the
ablest, and the most influential of the British nobility, and a
conservative leader in the House of Lords, and died, universally
lamented, a year or so ago. He was one of the largest landowners in
Ireland, having more than a hundred thousand acres rented to tenants,
and managed to get along with them without much friction, which is the
highest proof that he was a just, honorable, tactful, and conscientious
man. There are good landlords in Ireland; there are many of them, and it
is not true in every instance that the tenants show little or no
appreciation of their generosity, although, unfortunately, there have
been some conspicuous cases of that kind. Several large property owners,
who have endeavored to treat their tenants with kindness, have lowered
their rents and made generous concessions to them, have been accused of
cowardice by the very people they tried to please, and have been treated
very badly. But the Duke of Devonshire was not one of those. He had
honest, brave, fair-minded agents on the ground and looked closely
after the management of his Irish property himself.
[Illustration: LISMORE CASTLE, WATERFORD COUNTY; IRISH SEAT OF THE DUKE
OF DEVONSHIRE]
Riding House is near the town of Lismore, and, on the principle that to
him who hath shall be given, it was inherited by the Duke of Devonshire
in 1753 through his wife, Charlotte, daughter of Richard Boyle, fourth
Earl of Cork, who was a munificent patron of literature and the arts and
the friend of Pope, the poet. The Cork family is one of the most famous
in the history of Ireland, although not one of the oldest. The first
earl lived on Cork Hill, where the Castle at Dublin stands. He was a
native of Hereford County, England, and was born in 1566. He studied law
at the Middle Temple, London, and was called to the Bar, but, having no
clients, he embarked for Ireland as an adventurer. After a while he
obtained the favor and protection of Queen Elizabeth, which enabled him
to amass considerable wealth and won him his title. His brother Michael,
who went to Ireland with him, became Bishop of Waterford. Richard, a
nephew, became Archbishop of Tuam, and his son, Michael, became
Archbishop of Armagh.
The second Earl of Cork was a distinguished figure in camp, court, and
in the literary world. He was lord lieutenant of Ireland under Cromwell.
He was known as "the great Earl of Cork," and lies in the old Church of
St. Mary at Youghal with his figure at full length in marble in the
center of an enormous monument that covers a quarter of an acre of wall.
There is a duplicate quite as large in St. Patrick's Cathedral in
Dublin.
The present Earl of Cork was the largest landholder in this section
except the Duke of Devonshire, but has sold most of his estate under the
provisions of the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. The Devonshire estate is
still intact, and, as the late duke had no sons, was inherited by Victor
Cavendish, his nephew. The late Earl, Richard Edmund St. Lawrence Boyle,
was an aid-de-camp to Queen Victoria, with whom he had a warm
friendship. He was devoted to her all his life and was her master of
horse and master of buckhounds for many years. He married in 1853 a
sister of the present Earl of Clanricarde, who is fighting the Wyndham
Land Act so bitterly. His eldest son and heir, late the Viscount
Dungarvin, was born in 1861, served in the army for several years, and
commanded the Twenty-second Battalion of Yeomanry against the Boers in
South Africa. The second son of the late earl, Robert John Lascelle,
born in 1864, married Josephine Hale, daughter of J.P. Hale of San
Francisco, and the son of this American girl is the heir presumptive of
the great Cork estate. One sister of the present earl married Francis
Henry Baring of the famous London banking house, and another married
Walter Long, one of the leaders of the unionist party in parliament. He
represents a district of the city of Dublin, although he is an
Englishman and never lived there.
"Tipperary is the deadest town in all Ireland," said a bookseller of
that place, of whom we were buying some postcards. "I don't believe
there was ever a deader town than Tip-rar-ry [for that is the way they
pronounce it] and everybody is going to America who can get away." And
that seemed to be the prevailing sentiment among the people I talked
with. It is the most pessimistic community I found in the country,
without even a single good word for their own town. "There's no business
outside of cattle and dairying," said another merchant. "Trade is so
dull that the shopkeepers are loafing half the day." But the people seem
to keep up their interest in politics, and that they have some money
left is evident, because at a meeting here, the day before my arrival,
£95 was collected in a few minutes for the expense fund of the
parliamentary Irish party. Outside, in the streets, there was a good
deal of activity. It was market day and the farmers from all the
surrounding country were in town to sell their produce and buy a stock
of supplies for the ensuing week, but there was no vehicle, not even a
jaunting car, at the railway station to take us to the hotel, and
evidently nobody was expected. So we had to do the best we could and
succeeded in persuading a farmer who was there with an "inside car" to
carry us and our luggage, which he managed to do by sitting on the
shafts himself. And afterward when we wanted to see the town we
couldn't find a vehicle in the street, although Tipperary is a town of
six thousand population, and the hotel proprietor sent out to a livery
stable for one.
Tipperary lies in the midst of a lovely country, more level than that we
had been traveling through for the past three weeks, but there are only
a few patches of timber and a few gentle slopes and no peat bogs so far
as we could see from the railway train. The landscape reminded me of the
Western Reserve of Ohio, with the exception that the Silievenarmick
Hills rise in the background to the height of nine hundred and one
thousand feet. The Aherlow River waters the plain and runs through the
town. There doesn't seem to be much cultivated ground in the
neighborhood, but there are long stretches of meadow in which the
farmers were cutting the hay, and we can perceive the perfume as we pass
through them if we stand at the open window of the car. Alternating with
the meadows are fine pastures, where large herds of sleek and fat cattle
and many yearling colts and foal mares are feeding. There are several
large stock farms in the neighborhood, and, as it was the season for
county fairs when we were there, the Tipperary farmers are raking in
prizes for all kinds of stock. In the town is a creamery which, we were
told, is the largest in Ireland. It employs one hundred and twenty hands
and its butter is shipped almost entirely to London.
The most interesting feature of Tipperary is the new town lying on the
outskirts of the old, which represents an exciting incident in Irish
history. During the land war of 1887 the leaders of the Irish party
selected several landlords as examples for boycotting for the purpose of
attracting attention to the conditions in the country and creating
public opinion. This was called "The Plan of Campaign." Among the places
selected as storm centers were the Ponsonby estate near Cork, the
Vandaleur estate in County Clare, the Defrayne estate in Roscommon, the
Massaure estate in County Louth, and the Smith Barry estate in
Tipperary. These estates were selected as battle grounds because the
landlords were treating the tenants badly, were very exacting and
oppressive, and furnished excellent examples to illustrate the evils of
the Irish land and tenantry system. Some of the tenants were behind in
their rents and, being unable to pay, were threatened with eviction
unless they settled on or before a certain date.
Arthur Hugh Smith Barry, the landlord who was selected as an awful
example at Tipperary, is descended from the Earl of Barrymore, whose
title expired when the direct male line became extinct forty or fifty
years ago. He came into possession by inheritance of a large tract of
land near Cork and another tract covering between eight and nine
thousand acres in this vicinity, which paid him an annual revenue of
£7,368. His first wife was a sister of the present Lord Dunraven. His
second and present wife was Elizabeth Wadsworth Post, a sister of former
Congressman James Wadsworth of Geneseo, N.Y., and was the widow of a Mr.
Post at the time of her marriage with Mr. Barry in 1889. They have a
beautiful home at Fota on Fota Island, in Cork Harbor, near Queenstown,
and a town residence in Berkeley Square, London. Mr. Barry has been a
member of parliament and has served the government in different
capacities with great credit to himself and usefulness to his country.
For that reason the old title of his family was revived in 1902 and he
was elevated to the peerage as Lord Barrymore.
The courage and determination he exhibited during the fight that was
made upon him by the Land League was one of the reasons for giving him
the honor. The boycott was managed on behalf of the Land League by
William O'Brien, then, as now, member of parliament for that district.
Under the latter's direction between five and six hundred tenants of Mr.
Barry stopped paying rent. Some were actually too poor to do so; others
were perfectly able, but they all went in together and made a common
cause and boycotted their landlord, who promptly took steps to evict
them. Mr. O'Brien and other leaders of the Land League appealed to
patriotic Irishmen all over the world and raised between £40,000 and
£50,000--nearly $250,000--in America, Australia, Ireland, and
elsewhere, with which they started to build a new town upon land
belonging to Stafford O'Brien, who, by the way, is no relation of the
member of parliament of the same name. Several blocks of tenement-houses
were built of substantial materials and attractive appearance, and are
models in their way. But when Mr. Barry got the machinery of the law in
motion and wholesale evictions commenced, the managers put up cheap
barracks of wood as rapidly as possible to accommodate those who were
turned out of their homes.
There was a general and generous response to the appeal to the
patriotism of Ireland, and people in this country who had no money gave
material and labor to help the cause. Carpenters and stone masons,
bricklayers, and other mechanics came to Tipperary from all parts of
Ireland to work on the buildings, without wages, and within a short time
all of the evicted tenants of the Barry estate were comfortably housed,
free of rent, while his revenues ceased entirely and the boycott was
complete. It was a significant illustration of the unity of purpose of
the common people of Ireland; but, unfortunately, the leaders of the
party quarreled before the demonstration was complete. The death of
Charles S. Parnell in 1891, about eighteen months after the boycott was
undertaken on the Barry estate, caused a split in the Irish party which
continued until a few years ago. The effect of this division was to
demoralize their followers at Tipperary, and the tenants of the Barry
estate began gradually to slip back to their old homes and resume paying
their rents. The houses at New Tipperary which were built at that time
now belong very largely to Stafford O'Brien, who furnished the land upon
which they were built. Others are still the property of the Land League,
and the rent, which is collected by a committee, goes into the
parliamentary fund.
Many people at Tipperary now declare that the "kick-up," as they call
the quarrel between the leaders of the Land League, ruined the town,
because it broke the boycott and compelled the tenants to surrender to
the landlords, who have had them under their heels ever since. Several
people told me that the "kick-up" ruined the butter business, but I
could not get anyone to explain why. At any rate, Tipperary lost a great
deal of its prosperity as well as its commercial importance immediately
after that trouble, especially because it was followed by a large exodus
to the United States. As many of the Barry tenants as could raise the
money emigrated when the support of the Land League was withdrawn from
them. They refused to stay and surrender to the landlords. All the young
people in the county caught the emigration fever and left for the United
States as fast as they could get money enough to buy steamship tickets.
I was told that several of them had come back, bringing a good deal of
money with them, and had bought farms in the neighborhood, but they soon
became discontented. The experience of a few years in the United States
unfits people for the primitive methods and the monotony of life in
Ireland; and the eagerness of everybody to get to the United States is
very significant. The jaunting car drivers, the hotel porters, the
dining-room waiters, the chambermaids at the hotels, and everybody of
the working class that a traveler comes in contact with, always ask
questions about the expense of the journey, the probabilities of
securing employment in the United States, and express their
determination to emigrate as soon as they can.
Tipperary also claims the authorship of that ancient and beautiful old
air, "The Wearing of the Green." It is one of the oldest of Irish
melodies, but only modern words are sung to it now, and there are
several versions. That which Henry Grattan Curran, who is an excellent
authority, claims to be the original, was written at Tipperary and runs
as follows:
"I met with Napper Tandy,
And he took me by the hand,
Saying how is old Ireland?
And how does she stand?
She's the most distressful country
That ever yet was seen,
And they're hanging men and women
For the wearing of the green.
"I care not for the thistle,
I care not for the rose,
When bleak winds round us whistle
Neither down nor crimson shows;
But, like hope to him that's friendless,
When no joy around is seen,
O'er our graves with love that's endless
Blooms our own immortal green."
The late Dion Boucicault used to sing another version in one of his
plays, which he said was made over from a street ballad that he once
heard in Dublin. He was not able to get all of the words and filled in
what was lacking himself, as follows:
"Oh, Paddy, dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round?
The Shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground:
No more St. Pathrick's Day we'll keep, his color can't be seen,
For there's a bloody law agin' the wearing of the green.
I met with Napper Tandy and he tuk me by the hand
And he said, 'How's poor ould Ireland and how does she stand?
She's the most disthressful counthry ever yet was seen,
For they're hangin' men and women there for wearing of the green.'
"Oh, if the color we must wear is England's cruel red,
Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed.
Then pull the shamrock from your hat and throw it on the sod,
Ah, never fear, 'twill take root there, though under foot 'tis trod.
When the laws can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow.
And when the leaves in summer time their color dare not show,
Then I will change the color, too, that I wear in my caubeen;
But till that day, plaze God, I'll stick to wearing of the green."
The Earl of Lismore is the Lord of Tipperary, and the head of the
O'Callaghan family, who were formerly kings of Munster and are descended
from a famous Milesian prince. The various generations have taken an
active part in the affairs of Ireland since history began. They have
been bishops, statesmen, lawyers, soldiers, sailors, and priests; they
have married the daughters of the most prominent houses in the kingdom
and their sisters have been the wives and mothers of dukes. They live at
Clogheen, in the famous Sharbally Castle, and occupy land which has been
in the family for many centuries.
XXII
THE IRISH HORSE AND HIS OWNER
We attended the races at Leopardstown, about forty minutes south of
Dublin by rail toward the picturesque Wicklow hills. The gate is at the
railway station and the embankment upon which it stands gives an
opportunity to see the entire panorama, and a beautiful one it is. One
could not easily imagine a more peaceful, yet picturesque landscape, the
race course being in the center of an amphitheater surrounded by wooded
hills of lustrous green. I have said several times and will be apt to
keep on saying--for it is the most interesting and the truest thing in
Ireland--that the fields are greener and the foliage has a deeper tint
than anywhere else I have been. And although it rains half the time and
showers are more plentiful than sunshine, they make the grass and the
leaves and the flowers more beautiful and rich in color and give old
Mother Earth a brighter robe.
The horses run on the turf, and there is no such thing as a trotting
race. All of the entries are from breeding farms, not from sporting
stables. The winner cares more for the cup than the money, for he enters
his horses to increase the reputation of his stud rather than the size
of his purse. There is a great deal of betting, both by owners and by
the general public, but that is a secondary consideration. The chief end
of a race is glory, and not gain.
The course at Leopardstown is a perfect oval; the track runs between
hedges instead of rails and is shaven like a lawn, but the grass is
quite long in the infield, and cattle and sheep are grazing in bunches
here and there. At one end is a group of vine-clad buildings, covered
with red tiles, almost entirely hidden by overhanging boughs. A large
stone house which used to be occupied by the farmer who owned this
place is now the home of the caretaker, who sets a table for the
trainers and the jockeys, and they sleep in the stables with their
horses. I don't know exactly where or how they make their beds; perhaps
they lie on the straw in the mangers, but it is the practice over here,
and a groom seldom leaves his horse. There is little trickery on the
Irish race course, because it is patronized by men of the highest social
standing and integrity. They not only frown upon all forms of sharp
practice, but there is no penalty too severe for a man that cheats or a
jockey or a groom that violates the regulations. You read in novels of
English and Irish life about horses being dosed with "knockout drops"
and various other disreputable proceedings to make the situations more
dramatic and startling, but it is asserted that there hasn't been a
scandal of any consequence upon the Irish turf for the last ten years.
As one enthusiastic horseman expressed himself, "It's run as honestly as
the church, and more so than the government."
The admission to the grounds is a shilling for all comers, but after the
spectators enter they are classified according to the dimensions of
their purses. Anybody can get a seat upon the bleachers for another
shilling, and the larger part of the crowd go that way, because the
grand stand prices are almost prohibitive to the working classes, being
$1.50 for ladies and $2.50 for gentlemen. The grand stand is small and
is not patronized by many people because the cheaper seats attract the
crowd and the members' pavilion and clubhouse on the other side are open
to all subscribers to the Jockey Club. As the privilege of membership
can be had for a couple of guineas, nearly every gentleman of affairs
who ever attends the races subscribes and that gives him admission to
all the meetings and the privileges of the clubhouse. There were many
carriages, motor cars, jaunting cars, and saddle horses in the infield,
because the course is within driving distance from Dublin, and those who
can prefer to come down that way. Under the grand stand is a restaurant,
a tea-room, and a bar, all small and cozy and well kept, and the
attendants are women,--cashiers, barmaids, waitresses, and cigar
venders,--dressed in pretty liveries. The accommodations at the
clubhouse are quite attractive as well as convenient, although they are
closed to strangers like the ordinary clubs of the English and Irish
cities. A member may invite a friend to luncheon or dinner, but he
cannot put him up at a club in England and Ireland as we do in the
United States. They are very selfish about such privileges.
Behind the grand stand and the clubhouse is a large shaded inclosure
accessible to the occupants of both, where the horses are brought before
the races and the jockeys are weighed. The horses are brought there
after the races also and the people stand in large circles around them
to see them rubbed down. The paddock looks more like a garden party than
a stable yard, for it is filled with ladies and gentlemen chatting
gayly, promenading, and sometimes drinking tea, eating ices, or taking
other refreshments on the benches, under the trees between races, or
standing at the scales discussing the horses and talking to their
owners. You have read descriptions of such scenes in society novels, no
doubt, for many authors introduce the races as a feature. Here and there
you can see a party with their lunch spread on a white cloth that covers
the grass, and I have no doubt a good deal of flirting is going on,
although it is more interesting to watch the horses and the crowd.
There are many queer-looking people to be seen, in the oddest sort of
clothes, from cap to boots. You cannot tell the rank of a person by
looks, however. I have seen duchesses whose dresses didn't fit them at
all, and countesses whose faces are so plain that they would stop a
clock. I worshiped beside the wife of a "belted earl" at St. Patrick's
Cathedral one Sunday, and her hat looked very much as if some one had
sat upon it just before she started for church. The late Duke of
Westminster, who was the richest man in the British Empire, had also the
reputation of being the most slovenly. Dukes often look as if they were
wearing "hand-me-downs," and the smartest-looking man in an assembly may
be the worst rascal of the humblest rank. And that rule, I was told,
applies to the race track as well as to other gatherings of mankind.
I saw people who looked as if they had stepped out of the pages of
Dickens or Thackeray, so old-fashioned were their garments, their hats,
and their behavior. There were tall, gaunt farmers with fiery red faces;
solid-looking burghers wearing silk hats and fringes of whiskers under
their chins; jaunty military men, dashing young sports in riding habits,
and hundreds of farmers in tweed and heavy woolen knickerbockers, nearly
every one of them smoking a pipe. The stature of the men was noticeable.
There are giants in Ireland in these days. Many of the women were very
pretty and wore bright-colored gowns and sunshades that enlivened the
scene. And several hideous old dowagers were very keen on betting, and
pushed rudely to the front when the horses were running. You can always
recognize a coachman, a groom, or a jockey in England or Ireland, and
they were so numerous that they didn't interest us.
The races were conducted very much like ours at home, and in the last
one, as is usually the case, the horses were ridden by their owners.
There was a field of sixteen, which caused confusion and delay at the
starting post and a helter-skelter scramble along the track. Some of the
gentlemen riders didn't come in at all, others were distanced, and the
winners were greeted with tremendous applause by their friends and
acquaintances, although very little enthusiasm was shown over the
ordinary races. In no case did the winner receive a demonstration such
as we consider essential in the United States.
Mr. Richard Croker had two entries and should have won the second race,
but Lucius Lyne, his Kentucky jockey, as the papers declared the
following morning, went to sleep. He led the field easily all the way
around and was cantering toward the wire without any show of speed when
another horse under whip and spur overtook and overlapped him by a nose.
As Croker's horse was the favorite with long odds, considerable
indignation was expressed. He could have won the race without an effort;
or at least that is what the men who lost their money on him say.
Everybody bets on the races in Ireland, and the way in which the pink
sporting supplements to the newspapers are grabbed on the streets by
people in shabby garments indicates that the submerged section of the
population feel an eager interest in the results of the races. An
ordinary observer would infer that an equal number of people stake a
similar amount of money in the United Kingdom and in the United States,
but there seems to be no harm done there, or at least not enough to
provoke the ban of the law. On the contrary, betting is "regulated."
Bookmakers are all licensed by the government, and if they do not
conduct their business honestly, or if they transgress the proprieties
in any way, their privileges are taken away from them.
They were scattered here and there among the spectators on the
Leopardstown course, but there is evidently a rule requiring them to
occupy a fixed place, because each of them stood upon a mat or a little
wooden platform or a wagon cushion and never stirred from the spot. Some
of them were dressed in a very conspicuous manner--indicating their
individuality, I suppose, or carrying out some fad. One wore a bright
orange suit that could have been seen a mile or two; another was in
brilliant blue, a peculiar shade of that color I had never seen before,
and his cap was of the same material. Another was in white duck, with
his name painted in large, fancy red letters across his shoulders and
across his breast. Each bookmaker wore a sash, upon which his name was
plainly printed for identification, as well as the number of his
license. Hence we knew that Mike Kelley, Joe Matterson, Timothy Burke,
Patrick Sarsfield, George Bevers, and others, no doubt famous in their
profession, were present. They were all in the open air in front of the
stand, and each bookmaker had a book, a large one, in which he noted
every bet as it was made and gave the bettor a ticket to identify it
which corresponded with the number in the book. There is considerable
clerical work in every transaction; and each bookmaker had a cashier
beside him, wearing a leather pouch over his abdomen that hung from a
strap around his neck. These pouches seemed to be uniform, and also bore
the name and number of the man to whom they belonged. The cashier takes
the money and makes the change while the bookmaker is booking the bet,
and he cashes the tickets of the winners at the close of each race.
When the bookmaker wasn't booking bets he was yelling like a lunatic to
attract attention. When his lungs were exhausted his cashier relieved
him, and in stentorian tones shouted his judgment as to the result of
the next race. "Put your money on Cathie," one of them would yell. "Put
your money on Desmond," came from a red-faced bookmaker a little
distance away. "Bet your pile on the field," roared a third. "Even money
on Baker's Boy." "I'm giving five to one on Sweet Sister." "I'm offering
three to one on Silver Bell," and so on. The air was filled with similar
cries, which were unintelligible, or at least without significance to a
stranger, but we assumed that each bookmaker had favorites that he was
booming to the best of his ability.
Well-dressed, respectable-looking women were booking bets as well as
men, and mingling with the crowd on even terms. There was no distinction
of age or sex or rank or previous condition. And we were told that it
was no sign of immorality and no violation of the laws of propriety for
a lady to participate in the pools. Some of them, perhaps from a dislike
to be jostled by the crowd, sent their escorts to book their bets, but
messengers are evidently not allowed. I should judge that the stakes
were small. I watched the cashing in of the winning tickets after
several of the races, and it was mostly silver and a few pieces of gold
that changed hands. I saw but one paper note passed, and you know that
the lowest denomination of the paper money is £5. There was perfect
order, although there seemed to be a great deal of drinking. There was
always a large crowd before the bar between races, but no disturbance at
all. The excitement seemed to occur just after the jockeys were weighed
and while the horses were trotting slowly to the starting post. When the
tapping of a bell told us they were off everybody was silent, and the
victor received no applause when he passed under the wire. The winners
turned their faces from the race track toward the bookmakers, cashed
their checks, and the rest of the crowd strolled off toward the paddock
to look over the candidates for the next running.
Richard Croker, late of New York, lives on a beautiful farm of five
hundred acres overlooking the Irish Channel, about nine miles south of
Dublin, about two miles from the coast and four miles north of the
ancient town of Bray, which has been celebrated so many times in song
and story. It is an ideal country seat. He has shown the highest degree
of taste in selecting the site and improving the property. He calls it
Glencairn, and the name is chiseled upon the massive pillars that
support a pair of iron gates. These gates are usually open, for he
retains his democratic habits and is an excellent exemplar of Irish
hospitality. Following a short drive between masses of rhododendrons,
laburnums, and hawthorn trees, with friezes and wainscotings of glowing
flower beds, one soon reaches a handsome and well-proportioned miniature
castle of white granite of pleasing architectural design. And from a
flagpole that rises at the top of the tower Mr. Croker sometimes unfolds
the Stars and Stripes.
Several people told me that there is no finer place for its size, and
Mr. Croker's home is estimated among the first dozen of country seats in
Ireland. It was a rough tract of land when he bought it from one of the
judges of the Irish courts, and had been neglected for many years. At a
large expense and a great amount of labor he has turned it into a little
paradise. What was formerly a wild waste is now one of the loveliest
landscapes you can imagine. The house is surrounded by a lustrous lawn
and a garden of flowers and foliage plants, and behind it is a series of
large hothouses in which he is raising orchids and early fruits and
vegetables. About one hundred acres are in wheat, oats, potatoes, and
other crops, about ten acres in garden, and the remainder of the five
hundred acres is meadow and pasture.
The interior of the mansion is handsomely furnished according to the
conventional requirements of a wealthy country gentleman, and the walls
are hung with paintings representing racing incidents and famous race
horses of the present and the past. At one end of the portico at the
main entrance is a large screen of white canvas covered with cryptograms
of Egypt, cartouches of the Pharaohs and other designs which Mr. Croker
brought back with him from his visit to the Nile last winter. And in the
main hall are several other Egyptian souvenirs.
All of the work upon the place has been done by local artisans, and all
of the employees of the stock farm belong to families in the
neighborhood, for Mr. Croker believes in practical home rule. His chief
trainer is an Irishman, like all his grooms, but Lucius Lyne, a
Kentuckian, has ridden his horses since 1906. John Reiff, a famous
American jockey, rode Orby when he won the Derby, and Mr. Croker will
not trust any but American jockeys in his saddles. Every one else about
the place, however, is Irish. And Mr. Croker has been a veritable fairy
godfather to the poor people in his neighborhood, although his old
friends in New York will agree that he does not look the part. He has
not only given employment at good wages to almost every man in that
locality, but has assisted several families in a substantial manner. His
generosity seems to be boundless. He gave every dollar of his winnings
at the Derby to Archbishop Walsh of Dublin for the charities of the
church, and it would amuse you to hear the enthusiastic terms in which
his neighbors praise him for his good heart and his good works.
He takes no part in local politics, although his sympathies are very
strongly with the nationalist party, and at the last parliamentary
election in 1906 he contributed generously to the campaign fund, and on
election day loaned his automobile and his carriage to haul infirm and
lazy voters to the polls. The contest was between Walter Long, an
Englishman, who had been defeated for parliament by one English
constituency and was sent over there by the conservative leaders in
London to contest one of the Irish seats, and a labor leader named
Hazelton, who had been nominated by the nationalist party. Mr. Croker
took an unusual interest in the fight because, from his point of view,
it was not only an impertinence but an indignity to set up an
Englishman for the votes of an Irish constituency. And he was even the
more indignant when Long was elected, as he claims, by the votes and
influence of the officials and pensioners of the government and the
soldiers of the garrison. He criticises the management of the
nationalist committee for not looking after the registration of their
voters. The registration laws are very strict over here and many of the
poorer classes are disfranchised for not complying strictly with them.
Mr. Croker says that if the contest had been in New York the Tammany
leaders would have got out every vote and Long would have been defeated.
Next time he will undoubtedly give the nationalist campaign managers
some hints as to how an election should be conducted. Mr. Croker is an
earnest home ruler, although he would prefer to see Ireland a republic,
but he says that he does not intend to get mixed up in Irish politics.
He considers his political career as finished and he intends to spend
the rest of his life in the quiet seclusion of his present home with his
horses and intimate friends.
He says that the Tammany people in New York do not bother him much with
political matters. Occasionally he receives a cablegram, or a letter
asking his advice or his influence, and occasionally somebody comes over
to confer with him, but he considers himself "entirely out of it and
does not want to be bothered."
Mr. Croker showed us around the place in his silent, matter-of-fact
manner, but could not suppress the pride he feels in his horses and his
satisfaction with the record he has already made upon the turf in
Ireland and England with his own colts, for he doesn't own or race any
but those that are foaled and bred and trained in his own stables. That
is what he is here for, and that is his greatest gratification, and he
likes it a great deal better than politics. He brought with him to
Ireland a famous Kentucky mare named "Rhoda B.," which we did not see
because she was down in the pasture, and from her he has been breeding a
string of colts that have had remarkable success. Every one of them has
been foaled at Glencairn. He has won the English Derby and two Irish
Derbys, and the English Newmarket, which is the third in order of the
great events on the English turf. Rhodora won the thousand-guinea race
in the Newmarket, and Mr. Croker is confident that another colt called
"Alabama" will win the Derby just as Orby did.
[Illustration: AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR]
Back of his mansion and his flower garden and his hothouses is a
quadrangle of box stalls. In the center is a statue of Dobbin, the first
horse Mr. Croker ever owned and for which he had great affection. There
are a dozen stalls, and in the first he showed us Orby, a beautiful
creature, as vain and conscious as a prima donna, that seems to realize
the supreme importance of a Derby winner. Nailed upon the door is a gold
plate properly inscribed and inclosed by one of the shoes worn in that
race.
Across the quadrangle were a number of two-year-olds named Lusitania,
Fluffy Ruffles, Lady Stepaside, Lotus, Lavalta, and one or two others,
all foaled on the place, and six yearlings which Mr. Croker exhibited to
us with the pride of possession, and one or two others which he said
"were no good." At the stable of Alabama he showed more animation and
did more talking than those who know him would suppose him capable of.
Mr. Croker has the reputation of being one of the most reticent and
unemotional men in the world, as all American politicians know, and I
never saw him warm up over anything before. He has a face like a
bulldog, perfectly expressionless, and no one can ever tell whether he
is pleased or displeased from the lines in his face or the tone of his
voice, which is always low and deliberate. But when he showed us
Alabama, the son of Americus and Rhoda B., he woke up and actually
became animated as he described the fine points of the colt and told us
what he had been doing and what he is expected to do.
Mr. Croker has an even dozen horses and colts in training, and he showed
us some yearlings of great promise. His two-year-olds and
three-year-olds are all entered for races in Ireland, and those that do
well will be sent over to England. In 1907 his horses won forty races in
both countries, and his stable has altogether about three hundred to
its credit since he came to Ireland.
The horse show at Dublin in August is the greatest event in Ireland, and
draws from the entire kingdom as well as from the Continent, thousands
of horse breeders and horse owners and fashionable people. It is
probably the most brilliant and important horse show in the world.
There are three kinds of jaunting cars,--"outside cars," in which the
passengers sit back to back with their feet on shelves over the wheels;
"inside cars," in which they sit face to face with their feet in the
middle, and "single cars," which have one seat accommodating two persons
facing the horse. The latter are the most comfortable of all, but give
the passengers a good shaking up, which we are told is excellent for the
liver.
It is a curious fact that the jaunting car, although it is distinctively
Irish, and would not be tolerated in any other country, was invented and
introduced by an Italian, Charles Bianconi, a native of Milan, who
arrived in Ireland about the year 1800 and set up at Clonmel as an
artist and picture dealer. Being struck by the absence of vehicles in
the country, for everybody went on horseback in those days, he built a
conveyance of his own design which immediately became popular and was
imitated by every one who had the means to build or buy a box and a pair
of wheels.
Only in Dublin can you hire a covered carriage--four-wheelers or
"growlers," as they are called in London; but in Waterford, Cork, and
Limerick are "covered cars," which are without doubt the most
uncomfortable vehicles that anybody ever rode in, unless it be a Chinese
cart. They are "inside cars," with a hood of canvas or leather over
them, supported by an iron frame or hickory bows. Imagine a large,
square box with one end knocked out of it, and replaced by a step or two
for the passengers to enter; two seats, one on either side, upon which
the passengers sit _vis-a-vis_, clinging to straps suspended from the
roof. There are no windows, no place for ventilation except the open
back, which is covered with a curtain that may be raised or not,
according to the state of the weather.
[Illustration: GOING TO MARKET]
Two things which everybody can commend in Ireland are the horses and the
donkeys--the style, strength, beauty, and speed of the one and the
uncomplaining endurance of the other. An Irish horse never gets tired,
is never lazy, and never vicious--at least, that is what his breeders
and owners say of him, and, of course, the Irish hunters are the best in
the world. But the Irish donkey, who does the humble and insignificant
traffic, who hauls the vegetables to market and does the teaming for the
small farmers, is an object of universal admiration. Not for his beauty,
of course, but for those higher qualities that make up character, for
his strength of purpose, his untiring industry, his patient fidelity.
They are the mainstay of the Irish poor, and, although the object of
ridicule and wit, I think the people appreciate them, because they treat
them so much better than the Italians and Spaniards and the peons of the
Spanish-American republics of America.
"Go back to your brother!" said a street urchin the other day to a
costermonger who left his donkey by the roadside for a few moments. "Go
back to your brother!" said the chauffeur of our automobile to a woman
who was driving a donkey cart and came across to inspect our machine.
"Go back to your brother!" said a policeman to a young boy who was
driving a donkey cart and had jumped off his ordinary seat upon the
whiffletree to resent the attack of some street urchin. And when I asked
the policeman about the use of that phrase, which one hears continually,
he explained that it was common all over Ireland for a donkey driver to
call his beast "brother," and it deserves that name for its fidelity if
for nothing more.
XXIII
CORK AND BLARNEY CASTLE
Cork is a neat but an ugly town, which had a hundred thousand population
twenty years ago and now has only eighty thousand. The missing ones,
they tell me, have gone to the United States. It is one of the most
prosperous and one of the cleanest cities in Ireland, and, although in
former years strangers complained of pestiferous beggars, we have not
seen a single one. The common people are much better dressed and the
children are much neater in their appearance than those of the similar
class in Dublin. They don't buy their clothing at a slopshop. They are
more cheerful and happy, and the women show more pride and better taste
in their apparel.
The River Lee, which rises over on the west coast, in Lake
Gougane-Barra, near Killarney, divides into two streams just as it
reaches the city of Cork, and embraces the business section of the town
between the two channels. They are walled up with masonry, and wide
quays on either side furnish plenty of room for handling the commerce,
which seems to be considerable. Large sums of money have been spent to
deepen the channel and furnish conveniences for handling the trade, and
vessels drawing twenty feet of water can come up to the very center of
the city at low tide, where they discharge Welsh coal and English
merchandise and receive agricultural produce, bacon, woolen goods,
hides, and leather, and various other products of Ireland. The walls of
the quay are hung with unconscious artistic taste every morning with
fishing nets. The fishermen bring their catch up the river to the very
door of the market and spread their nets over the gray stones to dry.
The entire distance from these quays to the Atlantic Ocean at
Queenstown, about twelve miles, is a panorama of beauty. For the river
on both sides is inclosed between high bluffs that are clad with the
richest of foliage and flowering plants, among which you can catch
glimpses of artistic villas. Tom Moore called it "the noble sea avenue
of God."
All tourists like Cork. It is a cheerful city. The atmosphere is
brighter and the streets are more attractive than in Dublin. The shops
are large and the show windows are well dressed, and on St. Patrick's
Street, which, of course, is the principal thoroughfare, there are
several windows full of most appetizing buns and cakes and other things
to eat. But the tradesmen are remarkably late about getting around in
the morning. When I go out for my walk after breakfast, between eight
and nine o'clock, most of the shops are still closed, the doors are
locked, and the shutters are up. None of the retail merchants expect
customers until after nine, and then they open very slowly. The markets
do not commence business until nine o'clock and wholesale dealers and
their clerks do not get down until ten. A gentleman of whom I inquired
about this indolent custom declared that it was as ancient as the ruins
of Fin-Barre Abbey. He declared, however, that although they lie abed
late in the morning the business men of Cork made things hum when they
once got started.
Cork is a city of churches and some of them are modern, which is a
novelty. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is an imposing structure and the
interior is magnificent.
One of the "Godless colleges" is in Cork--Queen's College--which
occupies a beautiful situation upon a bluff on the outskirts of the
city, entirely hidden among venerable trees and flowering plants, with a
swift flowing brook at its feet. It was the site of a monastery
established here by Fin-Barre, the patron saint of Cork, who came here
about the year 700, built a chapel, and started a monastic school that
became famous and attracted many students from the continent of Europe.
The city grew up around that monastery and was first composed of
students who lived in huts and cabins of their own construction while
they carried on their studies. Then business men and farmers began to
come in and Cork became a place of sufficient importance to attract the
attention of the Danish sea-rovers who, after plundering it again and
again, took a fancy to the place and settled down here themselves. St.
Fin-Barre was buried in his own church and his dust was afterward taken
out of the tomb and enshrined in a silver reliquary which was carried
away by one of the O'Briens when he drove the McCarthys, who happened to
be a power in 1089, out of his stronghold and looted the place.
Over the arched entrance to the Queen's College are the significant
words:
"Where Fin-Barre Taught, Let Munster Learn."
It is a modern college founded by Queen Victoria in 1849, together with
two others of the same sort at Belfast and Galway, and the three are
affiliated under the title of "The Royal University of Ireland." That
gives the degrees bestowed upon their graduates a higher character and a
greater value according to the notions of the people here. The buildings
are pretentious and of the Tudor order of architecture. They look very
much like those of the Washington University at St. Louis, and are
arranged in a similar manner, only the damp atmosphere here gives the
stone a maturity of color that no college in the United States is old
enough to acquire. There are no dormitories. The students room and board
where they like. There are only lecture-rooms, examination halls, a
library, and a museum. There is no chapel, no religious services, and no
bishops or other clergymen are upon the board of trustees. That is why
the institution is under the ban of the Catholic church, and is not
patronized by the people of the Church of Ireland. There are departments
of art, science, engineering, law, and medicine, but no theology. There
is a school, at which the applied sciences and the trades are taught,
occupying the old building of the Royal Cork Institute and attended by
many ambitious young men and women. It is a sort of Cooper Institute,
founded by a brewer named Crawford, who made his money here. There is
also an agricultural and dairy school, with an experimental farm of
one hundred and eighty acres on the hills about half a mile from the
city, where instruction is given in butter and cheese making and in
general agricultural science. Cork is the center of the dairy trade of
Ireland and exports a great deal of butter to London.
[Illustration: QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CORK]
There are several Catholic seminaries and convents and Protestant
boarding-schools for boys and girls and preparatory institutions of
various grades attended by children from all parts of southern Ireland,
which make Cork an educational center. There is a handsome library
presented by Mr. Carnegie, adjoining the City Hall, with twelve thousand
volumes and about three thousand ticket-holders, who, according to the
report of the librarian, borrowed 85,406 books last year, of which
63,902 were works of fiction. There is another library belonging to a
chartered association that is available only to its members. There is an
opera-house and several theatres, and all the advantages and attractions
that one would expect in a city of this size, with a race course of two
hundred and forty acres on the banks of the river, just outside the city
limits.
There is an attractive promenade, a mile long, called the Mardyke,
sheltered by splendid old trees which form a natural arch overhead,
which was fashionable for gossip and flirtation as long ago as 1720, but
is now given up chiefly to servant girls and their lovers and nurses and
children.
The birds sing more sweetly in Cork than any place we have been, or
perhaps we have noticed them more readily than we have done elsewhere.
Irish birds are as cheerful and happy as Irish people. When we were
wandering through the campus of Queen's College, just after a shower,
the trees were alive with larks and thrushes. They had come out of their
hiding places and were bursting with song.
I met an old woman, bent and gaunt and gray, with bright blue eyes and a
canny expression, and asked her the way to the house I was seeking. She
answered with politeness, and I gave her a penny.
"God welcome you to Ireland," she said. "An' may yer honor's visit be
prosperous. Yer honor is from America. I kin tell that by yer fine looks
and yer fine manners, and I've a son over there meself. I'm nothin' but
a poor widdy on the edge of the grave, or I'd be follering him there at
all, at all."
And it is astonishing how many people we meet here, who have sons and
brothers and sisters in the United States. Most of them seem to be in
Chicago, Boston, and Brooklyn. Even a rosy-cheeked little newsboy from
whom I bought a paper on the street recognized my nationality and
remarked, "An' I've a brother in Brooklyn, meself, sor." At least
one-fourth of the population of Cork have emigrated to the United States
since the census was taken in 1891, and more are going by every steamer.
The Protestant Cathedral is a fine, modern building with a lofty central
tower and four smaller towers of the same design surrounding it. It was
finished only a few years ago and cost half a million dollars, most of
the money being derived from legacies. It stands on the site of an
ancient church built by St. Fin-Barre. The grounds are large and
beautifully shaded, with here and there a tomb of some distinguished
man. The service and the singing are quite impressive, and we heard the
best choir we have found in Ireland.
But the church where everybody goes, which every tourist must visit, is
St. Anne's, on the other side of the river, on Shandon Street, which was
built in 1722, and is remarkable for an extraordinary-looking tower one
hundred and twenty feet high, faced on two sides with red stone and on
the other sides with white stone. It is exceedingly ugly, but the people
of Cork are very much attached to it, and particularly to the chime of
eight bells which hang in the tower and have been immortalized in a
simple little poem by "Father Prout," who was the Rev. Francis Mahoney,
and is buried in the churchyard in the tomb of his ancestors.
"Father Prout" was the _nom de plume_ of this witty and sentimental
clergyman, who was most prolific with his productions. He wrote odes to
almost everything in Ireland--plain, simple, homely lines, but full of
sentiment and the true poetic spirit. The common people admire them
above all other literary works except the ballads of Tom Moore, and
indeed Father Prout's verses rank with Moore's melodies in popularity.
He also published a great deal of prose, stories and satires and
anecdotes illustrating the thoughts and the habits of his fellow
countrymen, and occasionally a political satire which involved him in a
controversy with his bishop or some political leader. Father Prout in
his famous lyric described the peculiar appearance of the spire of his
church:
"Parti-colored like the people,
Red and white, stands Shandon's steeple."
"With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would
In the days of childhood
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
Their magic spells.
"On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee,
With thy bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of
The River Lee."
Most of the streets of Cork are wide and well paved, although they are
entirely devoid of architectural features and, with the exception of the
cathedral, Queen's College, and the courthouse with a stately Grecian
portico, there are no buildings in the city worthy of special mention.
On the Parade, as one of the principal streets is called, is a
conspicuous pile of carved granite that is intensely admired by
everybody. It is designed like a shrine, and under a granite canopy is a
rude statue of "Erin," leaning upon a harp. Outside, at each corner of
the pedestal, are still ruder figures intended to represent Wolf Tone,
Davis, O'Neill, Crowley, and Dwyer, heroes of the continuous struggle
against British domination. The faces of the pedestal are closely
inscribed with names, with these lines in English and Gaelic:
"Erected through the efforts of the Cork Young Ireland Society to
perpetuate the memory of the gallant men of 1798, 1803, 1848 and
1867, who fought and died in defense of Ireland, and to recover her
sovereign independence. To inspire the youth of our country to
follow in their patriotic footsteps and to imitate their heroic
example.
"And righteous men will make our land
A nation once again."
The breakfast-room at the Imperial Hotel one morning was filled with a
lively and noisy crowd of gentlemen of all ages wearing red coats,
waistcoats of startling pattern, jockey caps, leather leggings, and
heavy brogans. I was told that they represented the nobility of County
Cork, and had gathered to hunt otter along the River Lee and the creeks
that feed it west of the city. There was one woman in the party, who
wore a short skirt of gray tweed, a red jacket, a jockey cap, and high
boots. In the stableyard was a pack of hounds in leash which had been
brought in from the country. The Marquis of Conyngham was master of the
hunt. Otter hunting in the summer along the swampy, muddy banks of the
creeks of Ireland takes the place of fox hunting in the winter. The
elusive otter is tracked to his hole by the hounds and is then stirred
out by gallant gentlemen with pikes--long poles shod with iron
tips--after they have chased him through the mud. They keep the skins
for robes, stuff the heads for ornaments, and mount the tails for
brushes. These hunts take place at least twice a week during the summer
season and are sometimes attended by forty or fifty noblemen and gentry.
Cork is a very orderly city. The laws are strictly enforced. I noticed
by the newspaper reports of the police courts that people are fined for
profane swearing and for boisterous behavior. We didn't see a drunken
man or woman in Cork, and in Dublin they were common. This is largely
due to the work of Bishop O'Callahan and the priests of his diocese and
the influence of Father Mathew, the great apostle of temperance, who led
a movement that reached every corner of the world about fifty years ago.
There are monuments to Father Mathew in many of the cities of Ireland.
There is one in Dublin on the principal street, between that of Daniel
O'Connell and that now being erected to Parnell, while in Cork the
statue of Father Mathew on St. Patrick's Street is the center and focus
of all activity. It faces the entrance to the principal bridge over the
River Lee and all the street-car lines terminate there. A memorial
church has been erected to his memory here, and the Church of the Holy
Trinity, of which he was the pastor, has been restored and enlarged.
Father Mathew is buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery, on the outskirts of
the city, which was formerly the Botanic Gardens, and was obtained by
him for a burial place for his congregation in 1830. His precious dust
is inclosed in a fine sarcophagus surmounted by the figure of an angel
in white marble.
Theobold Mathew was a Capuchin friar, born in Cork, and was attached to
the Church of the Holy Trinity in that city. In 1838 he joined a
temperance society that had been started by some Protestant gentlemen,
chiefly Quakers, for the purpose of offering an example to young
mechanics in his parish. He soon became the leading spirit of the
organization, was made its president, and finally started upon a mission
throughout Ireland to organize similar societies and to promote total
abstinence among the people. From that time he devoted his life to the
work, and being an orator of remarkable power and possessed of
extraordinary energy, zeal, and devotion, he excited the interest of
every class of people and of every community on the island. The
influence of his agitation was felt in England, Scotland, Australia,
America, and in every other part of the world until his name became a
universal synonym for temperance. Father Mathew's Total Abstinence
societies are still found in almost every city and town in which the
English language is spoken. He addressed immense audiences and spoke
twice on Tara Hill, which was the throne of the kings of Ireland before
Julius Cæsar ruled at Rome. He administered total abstinence pledges to
half the people in the country, and intemperance in drink, with its
attendant evils and misery, almost disappeared from Ireland. The famine
that followed his crusade destroyed much of the good effect, because it
demoralized the people and many tried to drown their sorrows in drink.
It has been said that Father Mathew died of a broken heart, because so
many of his converts violated their pledges, but, since the days of
Peter the Hermit, no individual has exercised such a moral influence.
"Now, Terence, me b'y, tell the loidies and gintlemen all ye know, an'
kape the rist to yoursilf," was the parting injunction of the porter of
the Imperial Hotel to the jarvey of the jaunting car, as he tucked the
rugs around our legs and started us off for Blarney Castle, which is
five miles from town. It is a delightful drive, for the suburbs of Cork
are surrounded by fertile farms and the pastures are illuminated with
buttercups in summer, and inclosed in hedges of hawthorn that are bright
with blossoms. All nature seems to be in a cheerful mood these days, and
the frequent rains, which interfere considerably with motoring, give an
appearance of freshness to all the vegetation and a vitality to the
trees and plants and flowers and everything growing. That is peculiar to
Ireland. It is true that showers come down and cease with surprising
suddenness and frequency, and the rain falls as if it was very heavy and
had dropped a long distance, but if you carry an umbrella, and that is
the universal custom, you are none the worse for it.
A narrow-gauge baby railway starts from outside the campus of Queen's
College in Cork and runs to Blarney, a town of about eight hundred
inhabitants, mostly farmers, who cultivate the surrounding soil and
breed cattle, while their wives and daughters work in a woolen factory
belonging to the Mahoney brothers, which is said to produce the best
tweed in the kingdom. And you can buy suitings at the shops in Cork.
Nothing is sold at the factory.
Blarney Castle, as everybody knows, is one of the best preserved and
most beautiful of the many ruins of Ireland, and is probably better
known throughout the world than any other because of the marvelous
qualities of a famous stone which forms a part of its walls. As Father
Prout in one of his verses expresses it:
"There is a stone there
That whoever kisses,
Oh, he never misses
To grow eloquent.
'Tis he that may clamber
To my lady's chamber,
Or become a member
Of parliament."
The castle stands on the banks of a dashing stream called the Comane,
full of trout and well protected, and is surrounded by a wonderful
forest of cedar, birch, and beech trees that are centuries old. Their
trunks are entwined with ivy, and the rocks and ledges upon which the
castle stands are cushioned with the same material. I don't know that I
have ever seen such luxurious ivy or such sumptuous vegetation out of
the tropics, or such fragrant shade. There are natural caves and
grottoes in the cliffs, all of which have served a useful purpose in
ancient times, and are associated with various fascinating legends.
There is a difficult ascent to a natural terrace that is called "The
Witch's Stairs." A thoughtful owner of this glorious forest has placed
benches at easy intervals, where visitors may sit and read the history,
traditions, and legends of the place and imagine that he can see the
fairies that dance by moonlight on the carpet of ivy that conceals the
earth. Every step is haunted by a goblin or a ghost, and every dark and
gloomy corner has been the scene of a tragedy.
The castle is well kept, and Sir George Colthurst, the owner, makes it
as pleasant as he can for the thousands of tourists who come here every
year from all parts of the world, and of course a large majority of
them are Americans. No tourist thinks of visiting Ireland without seeing
Blarney Castle, and aside from the legends and the satisfaction of
having been here it is well worth the trouble. The tower or "keep,"
which was the fortified part of the building, is almost intact except
the floors, but the residential portions have crumbled and fallen away.
The castle was built by Cormack MacCarthy, Prince of Desmond, who ruled
all of Ireland south of Cork, in 1173. The Desmond clan fought the
Geraldines (the followers of the Earl of Kildare, whose territory
adjoined them on the north) until 1537, when a league was formed between
the two clans, with other princes, against the English, who were kept
pretty busy within the Pale, as the territory immediately around Dublin
was called.
Lady Eleanor MacCarthy saved the life of Gerald Fitzgerald, the son of
Silken Thomas, Earl of Kildare, who rebelled against English authority.
She succeeded in escaping from the country with him and taking him to
Rome, where the babe, the only survivor of the vengeance of Henry VIII.,
was concealed and cared for by a cardinal who happened to be a distant
relative. And it was thus, through the devotion of a brave woman, from
its hereditary enemies, that the house of Kildare escaped extinction.
In the time of Queen Elizabeth, however, upon the suppression of what is
known in history as the Geraldine rebellion, the vast estates of the
Earl of Desmond and those of the MacCarthys and one hundred and forty
other chiefs and landowners in Munster were confiscated by a parliament
that met in Dublin, and were given to English adventurers for two pence
and three pence an acre and sometimes for no price at all, upon
agreements that they would colonize the lands with Englishmen. The head
of the house at that date was imprisoned in the Tower of London with Sir
Walter Raleigh, accused of treason, and it was he who outwitted Queen
Elizabeth with his "deludering" until she coined the word "blarney" to
describe his fluent conversation.
[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE, COUNTY CORK]
The famous Blarney stone is as well known as the King of England, and
the superstition is that whoever kisses it becomes instantly endowed
with wonderful persuasion of speech. But very few people and only the
most daring athletes have ever tried the experiment. The miraculous
stone is the sill of a window, which projects from the main wall near
the top of the tower. As it is eight or ten inches below the level of
the floor and across an open space of about twenty or twenty-four
inches, it is not only difficult, but dangerous to attempt to reach it.
A slip would send you head first to the ground, one hundred and twenty
feet below. The only way in which it can be done is for the person who
tries to support himself over the edge of the wall by straps from the
top, and, with his face upward, draw himself across until his lips can
reach the stone. Almost everybody that visits Blarney Castle comes home
with a tale of the time he had in kissing the Blarney stone, but no one
has seen him doing so for years, and it can only be done by carrying
tackle to the castle. Mrs. Hanna Ford, a gentle and considerate old
lady, who has been custodian of the place for more than thirty-six
years, told me that she had never known but half a dozen people to kiss
the stone in all that time.
Sir George Colthurst, the owner, charges a sixpence of every visitor and
collects scarcely enough to pay the expenses of keeping the place in
order. The visitors average about one hundred a day during the summer
months, but nobody ever goes out there during the winter.
Kilkenny is one of the prettiest and most interesting little cities of
the kingdom, and is simply loaded with historical associations,
political, personal, military, and religious. No town has more
fascination for a student of the history of Ireland, because here was
enacted that extraordinary and outrageous code known as the statute of
Kilkenny of 1367, which was intended to exterminate everything Irish
from the face of the earth. According to this law intermarriage, trade,
and relations of every kind between the English settlers in Ireland and
the natives was forbidden as high treason, and the punishment was death.
It was intended to separate the two races entirely and forevermore. If
any man wore Irish clothing, or used the Celtic language, or rode a
horse without a saddle, as the Irish were accustomed to do, his lands
and houses were forfeited and he was sent to prison. The Irish were
forbidden to follow their ordinary customs and habits, and were
commanded to speak only English, a language they did not know. It was
forbidden them to speak Celtic, it was forbidden them to sing native
songs or to receive or listen to Irish bards or pipers; no native could
become a clergyman, a lawyer, or enter any of the professions, and every
possible connection with the past was obliterated. All Irish books and
manuscripts were ordered to be destroyed, and if the intention of the
parliament which passed that law in Kilkenny in 1367 had been obeyed,
every event, tradition, and legend concerning the Irish race would have
been forgotten. But it soon became a dead letter. It could not be
enforced, and the English and the Irish continued to live in a friendly
way, and intermarry and enjoy themselves as much as ever before.
Then Kilkenny was the scene of the famous "Irish confederation," which
met here in 1642 with the intention of reconciling all the conflicting
interests in Ireland and doing exactly the reverse of what was proposed
by the statute of 1367. It was desirable to unite the Irish with the
English to sustain King Charles I., and to defend the Roman Catholic
religion against Cromwell and the parliament. Therefore Kilkenny became
the object of resentment and vindictiveness to the parliamentary army
when it invaded Ireland. The destruction committed by that army may be
seen all through this part of the country. Kilkenny is in the midst of a
land of ruins, and this county has been fought over for ages--one of the
most frequent scenes of conflict in all the universe ever since history
began.
There is an Irish town and an English town, as in Limerick, and the two
are engaged in an eternal controversy, the racial prejudice being
intense. This controversy, which at one time had nearly impoverished
both communities, was illustrated by a writer two centuries ago by the
famous story of the "Kilkenny Cats," which, by the way, is said to be
true. In the sixteenth century, during the time of Queen Elizabeth, some
soldiers of the English garrison at Kilkenny Castle amused themselves
one day by catching two vagrant cats, tying their tails together and
hanging them over a line. An indignant officer coming up in the midst of
their hilarity endeavored to separate the animals, and, being unable to
do so, released them by slashing off the tails of both with his sword;
and as their paws touched the ground, they fled into oblivion. The
waggish soldiers preserved the remnants of the tails and showed them as
evidence of the combative abilities of the cats of Kilkenny, which
fought until nothing was left but their tails.
Kilkenny claims the most beautiful church in Ireland--the Cathedral of
St. Canice, formerly Roman Catholic, but since the Reformation belonging
to the Church of Ireland. It dates back to 1251, but was thoroughly
restored in 1865, and is now in almost perfect condition. It is
particularly rich in medieval monuments, and no other church in the
country can compare with this for number, variety, artistic beauty, and
historic interest. The Roman Catholic cathedral is also a gem and
entirely modern, having been completed and consecrated in 1857. It is
greatly admired for the symmetry and chasteness of its details.
Kilkenny is also famous as an educational center, having several noted
schools. One of them, known as The College, has had Dean Swift, Bishop
Berkeley (who went to America in 1728, and established schools and
missionary stations), Congreve, and other famous Irishmen as pupils.
The Castle of Kilkenny, which was erected by William Le Mareschal,
son-in-law of Strongbow, in 1191, is still in excellent condition, but
has been added to and repaired from time to time during the centuries.
It was thoroughly altered and restored about fifty years ago by the
father of the present Duke of Ormonde, and has since been occupied the
greater part of the year by the family. Fortunately, in the extensions
and restorations, the original character of the structure has been
preserved and its individuality has not been impaired. It forms three
sides of a large quadrangle with three round towers, castellated in the
style of the twelfth century. The dining-hall is one of the finest rooms
in Europe and contains many pieces of gold plate, antique ivory, and
china that have been in the family for centuries. The picture gallery is
a splendid apartment, one hundred and twenty feet long and thirty feet
wide, and contains more than one hundred and eighty pictures, including
family portraits by Van Dyck, Holbein, Lely, Kellner, Reynolds, and
others, and gems of Murillo, Correggio, Salvatore Rosa, Claude Lorrain,
Tintoretto, and other great masters. In the drawing-room is a picture of
the Virgin and Child, by Correggio, which was presented to the second
Duke of Ormonde by the Dutch government in recognition of his services
in the Low Countries during the reign of Queen Anne. The garden and the
park are superb and the family are generous enough to permit the public
to share in their enjoyment of them.
The Ormonde family stands next to the Geraldines at the head of the
nobility, and the two have always been rivals in power and equals in
renown. Their history has been the history of Ireland and fills many
interesting pages from the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. The
surname of the family, Butler, originated in the appointment of Theobold
Fitzwalter, who accompanied Henry II. as chief butler to the king and
was granted the prisage of the wines of Ireland--a very valuable
monopoly. He returned to England with his sovereign but afterward
accompanied Prince John into Ireland in 1185, and was granted large
tracts of land for his services. The family grew in numbers and in power
and wealth and the rivalry with the Kildares began in 1300, although
they were intermarried in several generations. James Butler was created
the first Earl of Ormonde by Edward I. in 1321, and married a daughter
of the king. He was granted the regalities, libraries, etc., of County
Tipperary and built his castle there. James, the second Earl of Ormonde,
was also a man of great importance. He was called the noble earl,
because he was a grandson of King Edward I. and was Lord Justice of
Ireland from 1359 to 1376.
[Illustration: KILKENNY CASTLE; RESIDENCE OF THE DUKE OF ORMONDE]
The Castle of Kilkenny was built by James, third Earl of Ormonde, in
1391. His daughter married the Earl of Desmond. James, the fifth Earl of
Ormonde, was created Earl of Wiltshire in the peerage of England by
Henry VI., and was lord high treasurer of England for many years, but
was beheaded at Newcastle by the Yorkists. His titles and estates were
confiscated, but were restored to John, sixth Earl of Ormonde, who was
ranked the first gentleman of his age. He was a complete master of all
the languages of Europe, was sent as ambassador to all of the principal
courts, paid a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and King Edward IV. once said
that if good breeding and liberal qualities were lost to the world, they
might all be found in the Earl of Ormonde.
Thomas, the tenth in line and called from his complexion "The Black
Earl," was lord treasurer for Queen Elizabeth, with whom he was a great
favorite. James, the twelfth earl, was made Duke of Ormonde in 1610 and
was for many years lord lieutenant of Ireland, administering that high
office with consummate ability during the civil war. He was known as the
Great Duke of Ormonde and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
His son James was one of the first to join the standard of the Prince of
Orange and, when the latter ascended the throne, was appointed high
constable of England. He attended William to Ireland, fought by his side
at the battle of the Boyne, and entertained his sovereign most
sumptuously at the family castle at Kilkenny. He was made
commander-in-chief of the army sent against France and Spain by Queen
Anne in 1702; he destroyed the French fleet, sank the Spanish galleons
in the harbor of Vigo, and remained as captain-general of the British
forces until the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Two years later, after
George I. succeeded to the throne, Ormonde was impeached of high
treason, his estates were declared forfeited, all his titles and honors
were extinguished, and a reward of fifty thousand dollars was offered by
the British parliament for his apprehension if he should attempt to
return from France, where he had fled for refuge. His wife was the
daughter of the Earl of Rochester, and, unfortunately, he had no sons,
but one of his daughters married the Duke of Somerset and the other the
Duke of Beaufort, two of the most eminent men in England. Ormonde
resided in seclusion at Avignon until his death, in November, 1745, when
his remains were brought to London and deposited in Henry VII.'s chapel
at Westminster Abbey. His brother, the Earl of Arran, claimed the estate
and the title, but it was decided that no proceedings of the English
parliament could affect Irish dignities, and he never enjoyed them, but
lived in Scotland.
In 1791 the House of Lords restored the ancient rights and estates to
the eldest son of the eldest daughter. Walter, the eighteenth earl, in
1810 disposed of the prisage of the wines of Ireland granted to the
fourth earl by Edward I., to the crown for £216,000, and the contract
was approved by parliament. It was not until the coronation of George
IV. that the family was entirely reinstated. James, the nineteenth earl,
was then installed a knight of St. Patrick, was advanced to the dignity
of a marquis of the United Kingdom, and was made lord lieutenant of
Ireland. He had a large family and his sons and daughters married well.
His son John, born in 1818, married the daughter of the Marquis of
Annesley, and died Sept. 25, 1854, leaving two sons--James Edward
William Theobold, the present marquis, and James Arthur Wellington Foley
of the Life Guards, who in 1887 married Ellen Stager of Chicago,
daughter of the late General Anson Stager, formerly president of the
Western Union Telegraph Company. As the present duke has no direct heir,
Nellie Stager's son will inherit the titles and estates of one of the
oldest and most famous families of Ireland.
At Clonmel, which claims to be the cleanest town in Ireland, is another
fine castle over which an American girl presides--the wife of Lord
Doughnamore. She was a Miss Grace of New York, a niece of the late
William R. Grace and a daughter of Michael P. Grace, who owns and lives
in that famous castle known as "Battle Abbey" in Kent County, England,
near the city of Canterbury. Mr. Grace and Lord Doughnamore were
partners for many years in what was known as the Peruvian Corporation--a
company which assumed all of the foreign indebtedness of that republic
and took over all of its railroads as compensation.
XXIV
REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH
In the year of Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne a terrible
rebellion broke out in Ireland, led by the Earl of Desmond, chief of the
Geraldines, the most powerful of all the clans, which was put down by
Lord Grey of Wilton, who came over from England and laid the Kingdom of
Munster in ashes. The great Earl of Desmond who had been master of
almost half of Ireland and the owner of numerous castles, was defeated
in many battles, his forces were scattered, his stronghold destroyed,
and he was proclaimed an outlaw and hunted from one hiding place to
another. In order to repopulate the country the vast estates belonging
to him and one hundred and forty of his adherents were confiscated, and
proclamation was made throughout all England inviting gentlemen to
"undertake the colonization of this rich territory at the rate of two or
three pence an acre." None but English settlers were allowed, and tracts
of land of four thousand acres and upward were granted to favorites of
the throne, to enterprising English noblemen, and to worthless
adventurers, very few of whom ever saw the property, but some of them
organized colonies and sent them over to Ireland in charge of agents.
[Illustration: THE ANCIENT CITY OF YOUGHAL, COUNTY CORK; THE HOME OF SIR
WALTER RALEIGH]
Edmund Spenser, the poet, author of that famous poem, "The Faerie
Queene," was private secretary to Lord Grey, and received twelve
thousand acres in County Cork, including Kilcolman Castle, the ruins of
which, near the town of Buttevant, are visited by tourists still. Sir
Walter Raleigh got forty-one thousand acres, also from the Desmond
estate, in the counties of Cork and Waterford, and made his home in what
is now known as Myrtle Lodge in the ancient town of Youghal. His
house still stands very much as it was when he left it, and is owned and
occupied by Sir Henry Blake, recently retired from the governorship of
the British Colony of Hong-Kong. Lady Blake is a relative of the Duchess
of St. Albans, whose husband is descended from the illegitimate son of
Charles II. and Nell Gwynne. He is one of the most influential peers in
the United Kingdom and kindly looks after his kin. The previous owner of
the property, curiously enough, was Sir John Pope Hennessy, the
predecessor of Sir Henry Blake as governor of Jamaica, of Ceylon, and of
Hong-Kong.
Sir Walter Raleigh called Youghal his home from the time he first came
to Ireland, twenty-eight years old, as a captain in the command of Lord
Grey, and, according to the records, received a salary of four shillings
a day for himself, two shillings a day for his lieutenant, fourteen
pence a day each for four non-commissioned officers, and eight pence a
day for every common soldier, all of whom were also provided with "good
furniture," that is, suitable armor and trappings, at the expense of the
government. They were mostly Devonshire men, like their captain, full of
reckless courage and energy, like their captain, and the amount of
damage they committed under Sir Walter's leadership was entirely out of
proportion to their numbers and their pay. Sir Walter lived at Myrtle
Lodge where he studied the chronicles of the Spanish and Portuguese
explorers of South America, and started from there upon his ill-fated
expedition to Virginia. He returned to this home whenever he could
escape from the presence of his affectionate but fickle queen, and it
was there that he wrote most of his poems and his letters and commenced
his "History of the World." After he lost his power and influence and
was committed to the Tower as a traitor, his property was confiscated.
Lady Raleigh was deprived of everything he left her, including an estate
called "Tivoli," in the neighborhood of Cork, and was actually in want
of bread when James I., in response to a touching petition, gave her a
pension of £400 per annum and a home for life. She was granted another
special favor which she valued very highly. After Sir Walter's execution
his head was sent to her. She had it embalmed and carried it about with
her wherever she traveled. At her death the ghastly relic was left to
Carew Raleigh, who treasured it as highly as his mother had done, but,
fortunately for subsequent generations, stipulated that it should be
buried in his coffin with him when he died. Raleigh's confiscated
estates fell into the hands of Sir Richard Boyle, the second Earl of
Cork, and were retained by that family after his death.
Lady Desmond, the widow of the great earl, who until his treason, was
the richest man in Ireland, and was known as "Queen Elizabeth's
wealthiest subject," was also compelled by her poverty to apply for a
pension. Upon the recommendation of Sir Walter Raleigh Queen Elizabeth
allowed twenty-two pounds a year to "this lady of princely castles and
fair gardens," whose gowns of cloth of gold are referred to in one of
Raleigh's letters. The royal warrant granting the pension, above the
bold autograph of Elizabeth, is now among many other interesting relics
in the old house at Youghal. Lady Desmond is buried in the ancient
Church of St. Mary's, which occupies the adjoining ground. She lies in a
recess in the south wall with her effigy carved upon her sarcophagus.
Her liege lord, the great Earl of Desmond, lies in a similar tomb in a
similar recess in the opposite wall, although he lost his head in the
Tower of London. Why the husband should rest on one side of the church
and the wife on the other has never been explained. She must have been a
very remarkable old lady, for, according to the records, she lived more
than one hundred and forty years. She was born in 1502, married Thomas
Fitzgerald, eighth Earl of Desmond, in 1520. His estates were
confiscated in 1585; Raleigh first met her in 1589, and her pension was
granted in 1598. Robert Sydney, second Earl of Leicester, refers to her
about 1640, when he was ambassador at Paris, as follows: "The old
Countess of Desmond was a marryed woman in Edward IV.'s time in England,
and lived till toward the end of Queen Elizabeth, so she must needes be
neare 140 yeares old. She had a new sett of teeth, not long afore her
death, and might have lived much longer had she not mett with a kinde of
violent death; for she would needes climbe a nut tree to gather nuts;
so, falling down, she hurte her thigh, which brought a fever and that
fever brought death. This, my cousin, Walter Fitzwilliam, tolde me."
The wealth of the Earl of Desmond at the time of his rebellion may be
judged from the fact that eight hundred thousand acres of his property
were confiscated in County Cork, five hundred and seventy thousand acres
in County Limerick, and over a million acres in Tipperary. All of this
area, by virtue of a proclamation, reverted to the crown and was divided
by Queen Elizabeth among her favorites and among the "undertakers" who
agreed to settle the lands exclusively with Englishmen and to drive out
the Irish from them entirely. There were other conditions, also. They
were to encourage the English and discourage the Irish in every way
possible and no natives of Ireland were to be allowed upon their
possessions.
The Earl of Desmond is said to have owned thirty castles and fled from
one to another, accompanied by his faithful wife, who never left him
except occasionally when she went to intercede for him with his enemies.
His grandson, William Fielding, was made Earl of Denbigh, in the English
peerage, by Charles I., as a reward for his loyalty, and the family have
been known since by the latter title. He was mortally wounded in a sharp
skirmish at the head of the king's forces against Cromwell in a battle
near Birmingham and died soon after. His son attended Charles I. to the
scaffold and received from his sovereign a few moments before his
execution a ring in which his majesty's miniature was set. That ring is
now in possession of the family.
The present earl is Rudolph Robert Basil Aloysius Augustine Fielding,
who was born in 1859 and married in 1884 to the daughter of Lord
Clifford. He was a lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria for several years,
until her death, and is now a lord-in-waiting to his majesty, King
Edward. He served as aid-de-camp to the Marquis of Londonderry when the
latter was lord lieutenant of Ireland.
Canon Hayman, who was curate of St. Mary's Church at Youghal for many
years and made a thorough investigation of the history of the town and
the church and all the remarkable incidents that have occurred here from
the beginning of time, tells us that the Countess of Desmond was one
hundred and thirty years old when she went to see Queen Elizabeth about
her pension, and that she walked all the way from Bristol to London
because she was too poor to hire a conveyance. And the young man who
showed us about St. Mary's Church added another interesting item to the
already interesting story,--that her daughter, who was ninety years of
age, made the trip with her, but became so weak and weary that the
countess had to carry her on her back--which seems to be spreading it on
a little thick.
In the garden of Myrtle Lodge Sir Walter Raleigh planted, probably in
the year 1586, the first potatoes that were brought to Ireland. Potatoes
are natives of Peru and their merits were discovered there by the
Jesuits, who accompanied Pizarro during the conquest. They sent samples
back to Spain, as they did with quinine or cinchona bark, which was
named in honor of the Countess of Cinchona, wife of the Spanish viceroy
of Peru. They also sent potatoes to the Spanish colonies in the West
Indies, where Sir Walter Raleigh obtained the seed that he planted in
his garden at Youghal, and the fruit of that seed has fed the population
of Ireland for nearly three centuries. The garden is also interesting
because the first cherry tree in Europe was grown there. Sir Walter
Raleigh brought the seed of the affane cherry from the Azores Islands,
whence it is believed to have been transplanted to America. The cherry
orchards throughout the United Kingdom can nearly all be traced to this
source.
You can run down to Youghal from Cork by rail in an hour, for the
distance is only thirty miles and the train passes through a very pretty
country. Shortly after leaving the station it dashes by Black Rock
Castle, now a lighthouse and a storehouse for extra buoys and cables and
lights for the harbormaster, the place from which William Penn embarked
for America. His father, an admiral in the navy, lived at Macroom, about
thirty miles west of Cork, where the great Quaker was born. On the other
side, a little farther down, as we follow the banks of the River Lee, is
Tivoli, an amusement resort, which was once the home of Sir Walter
Raleigh, and Lady Raleigh lived there while he was off on his final
expedition to America.
"Wood Hill" was the home of John Philpott Curran, the great orator and
barrister, whose daughter was the sweetheart of Robert Emmet.
Youghal is a summer resort. There is sea bathing and boating and
delicious salt air which gives one a lazy feeling and takes away his
eagerness for antiquities and history. The only thing in the town to
attract strangers is the home of Sir Walter Raleigh and St. Mary's
Protestant Church, which is said to be the oldest house of worship in
which service is regularly held in all the world. It remains practically
unaltered from the eighth century, and one of the transepts dates from
the sixth century. There are tombs dating back to the eighth and ninth
and tenth centuries, and a slab of marble upon the altar is said to have
been taken from a Druid temple which stood on the same site.
Four holes about five inches in diameter have been made in the walls
each side of the chancel about two-thirds of the way to the roof opening
into large chambers within the walls. The verger told us that this was
an invention to relieve an echo and had been entirely successful. I have
never seen it anywhere else, and he insisted that it is unique.
He also pointed out Masonic emblems on tombs of the twelfth century and
several quaint epitaphs. One of them was as follows:
"A burial for Cristas Harford
Here is made,
Where he and his intend
For to be laid.
His life is known
Both what he was and is.
Who hopes to end the
Same in Heavenly Bliss.
1618.
Mayor of Youghal and Knight,
Knight of the Garter."
The tomb of Sir Edward Villiers, brother of the great Duke of
Buckingham, is decorated with his lance and his banner. He died "Lord
President of Munster, Anno Domini 1620," and his epitaph reads:
"Munster may Curse
The time that Villiers came
To make us Worse.
While leaving such a Name
Of noble Parts
As none can Imitate.
But those whose Harts
Are married to the State.
But if they Press
To imitate his Fame
Munster may Bless
The time that Villiers Came."
Mrs. Charles Fleetwood, daughter of Oliver Cromwell and widow of General
Ireton, who died from wounds during the siege of Limerick, is buried in
the center of the chancel. Cromwell had his headquarters here for some
time and appointed his son-in-law, Fleetwood, lord deputy in 1649.
Raleigh was twenty-eight years old when he came to Ireland from
Devonshire in 1579 as captain of a levy of troops, and Youghal is the
only home he ever had so far as we know. He sailed from there upon his
last and fatal voyage on Aug. 6, 1617.
There is still another association which will appeal with force to the
majority of the masculine readers of these lines. From Myrtle Lodge Sir
Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into the United Kingdom, having
brought it home from the West Indies where the Spaniards found the
natives smoking it at the time of the discovery of America. Columbus and
his followers carried it back with them to Spain. Fifty years afterward
Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it at the court of Queen Elizabeth and
brought to Youghal the first tobacco ever seen in Ireland, which he
smoked under a group of four wonderful yew trees while he read the
manuscript of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," which had been submitted
for his criticism by the author. A considerable part of the fourth book
of the poem was written at Myrtle Lodge while Spenser was Sir Walter's
guest, and the remainder at Kilcolman Castle on the River Blackwater.
The poem was never finished, but its publication is due to Sir Walter,
for he took the manuscript to London, placed it with the printer, and
provided the means to pay the expense. He thought so highly of the poem
that, in a double sonnet, composed while Spenser was visiting him at
Youghal, he says:
"All suddenly I saw the Faerie Queene,
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept."
It is therefore very natural that Spenser should reply in these lines:
"Thou only, fit this argument to write,
In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower,
And dainty love learnt sweetly to indite."
Spenser was a man of delicate sensibilities and great refinement of
character, but lacked the masterful spirit, the ambition, the energy,
and the dominating will of Raleigh. The latter, however, had rare
literary taste. He is better known as soldier, adventurer, sailor, and
explorer. Spenser called him the "shepherd of the seas," but some of his
sonnets are immortal. They rank with those of Shakespeare in poetic
fancy, delicacy of expression, and sublimity of thought, and his prose
work, especially his history of the world, which was begun at Myrtle
Lodge and finished while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London,
ranked among the literary triumphs of his day and generation.
Sir John Pope Hennessy, to whom I have already referred as the former
owner of the home of Raleigh at Youghal, spent several years in an
investigation of state papers and other historical material relating to
the administration of Irish affairs during the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
and does not leave a fragment of Raleigh's reputation as a man of honor.
He has written a book entitled "Raleigh in Ireland," which is begun and
finished in an unfriendly spirit, and holds Raleigh responsible for all
the troubles that occurred in Ireland at his time and since.
If one-half that Hennessy tells of Raleigh's work in Ireland is true, he
was a man of treachery, untruth, unbridled passion, and monstrous
cruelty, but this is no place to discuss that question. Raleigh was a
prisoner in the Tower of London with James, Earl of Desmond, successor
of the man whose estates he confiscated and occupied. The death of the
earl prompted Raleigh in a letter from the Tower to say:
"Wee shal be judged as wee judge--and bee dealt withal as wee deal
with others in this life--if wee beleve God Hyme sealf."
[Illustration: MYRTLE LODGE; THE HOME OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH]
Myrtle Lodge remains very much as it was when Raleigh lived there. Few
historical houses have been altered so little or have been preserved
with greater care. Sir Walter's study is hung with an original painting
of the first governor of Virginia and a contemporary engraving of
"Elizabeth, Queen of Virginia." The long table at which he wrote, an oak
chest in which he kept his papers, a little Italian cabinet filled with
old deeds and parchments, some bearing his seal; two bookcases of
vellum-bound volumes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and all
of the furniture dates from his time. We are assured that there is
nothing in the room that was not in the house at the time he occupied
it. The dining-room is one of the choicest examples of fifteenth century
domestic architecture that can be found, having a deep projecting bay
window and porch, an orieled closet, a wide, arched fireplace, and
walls wainscoted with rich, ripe Irish oak. The drawing-room has a
carved oaken mantelpiece which rises to the ceiling. The cornice rests
upon three figures representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. In the
adjoining bedroom is another mantelpiece of oak, and the fireplace is
lined with old Dutch tiles. Behind the wainscoting of this room, while
repairs were being made fifty years ago, an ancient monkish library was
found, which, it was thought, was hidden there to escape the Covenanters
at the time of the Reformation.
A gentleman on our train to Youghal made the interesting statement that
Sir Walter Raleigh was the first patron of Protestant foreign missions.
He contributed £100 to start the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Lands. I had never heard of this fact before, but my
informant said that it came out at the three hundredth anniversary of
the organization of that society which was celebrated in London in 1906.
Until the Congested Districts Board undertook the work, lacemaking was
practically confined to the convents. There are two classes of true
Irish lace--needle-point, which is made by the needle, and the bobbin
lace--the threads of which are twisted around small bobbins of bone,
wood, or ivory. Both of these laces are made entirely by hand, which is
not true of the Limerick and Carrickmacross laces. Needle-point lace was
first introduced into Ireland by the sisters of the Presentation Convent
of Youghal, as a means of helping the famine-stricken inhabitants to
earn money in the terrible years of 1847-50. It was imitated from
Italian models, but has since been much developed and enriched both in
design and execution so that it may be considered original. Irish point
lace has its individuality as strong as Brussels point.
The Presentation Convent was founded in 1833 by Rev. Mother Mary
Magdalene Gould, a wealthy Irish woman, who had lived many years in
foreign countries. She was distinguished for her benevolence and love
for the poor, and consecrated her life and her property to the
education of the children of the poor. When the famine occurred in 1847
she admitted to the convent every child that could be accommodated, and
also gave asylum to many widows who were left homeless and destitute. In
order to furnish her _protégés_ some occupation and and enable them to
earn a little for their own support, she decided to teach them the art
of lacemaking, which had been carried on for centuries in the convents
of Italy. She took some of her own lace, examined the process by which
it had been made, unraveled the threads one by one, and put them back
again over and over again until she at last succeeded in mastering the
intricacies of the construction of needle-point. She next selected the
brightest and most deft-fingered children and women in the convent and
taught each separately what she herself had learned. Most of the women
and girls displayed an aptitude for the work, and after the necessities
of the occasion were over and the emergency passed, she had about her
many well-trained lacemakers. Some of them developed considerable
ingenuity and taste, inventing new designs and easier methods of
handling the needle. Other convents throughout Ireland imitated the nuns
of Youghal, and the same lace is now made in every part of the island.
Limerick lace is of two kinds, known as the "tambour" and "run lace."
"Tambour" is made on net and the pattern is formed by working with a
tambour needle in white or colored thread. "Run lace" is made with an
ordinary needle and a more open stitch. Limerick lace is in disfavor at
present, owing to the large amount of miserable specimens that have been
hawked about the streets of Limerick and forced upon the London markets.
Carrickmacross lace has been made in the neighborhood of that town, in
County Monaghan, since the year 1820, when it was brought from Florence
by Mrs. Grey-Porter, wife of the rector of the parish church, and
introduced among the peasant women as a means of earning a livelihood.
It is made upon a foundation of net. There are two varieties. In
appliqué the pattern is traced out on fine muslin and sewed down round
the edges to the net. So far it is not strictly a lace, but rather a
sort of embroidery or net. Open spaces, however, are generally provided
for, which leaves the effect and which are filled with lace stitches
like those of flat point. In Carrickmacross guipure, much the same
procedure as in appliqué is adopted, only that instead of the foundation
being allowed to remain it is ultimately cut away, the figures of the
pattern, which, as in appliqué, are wrought on muslin, being joined to
each other by lace stitches known as "brides." A very interesting and
striking development of Carrickmacross lace is found in a combination of
appliqué and guipure, the main design being appliqué, while the panels
of guipure are introduced into it.
A little to the northward of Cork is the famous Trappist Monastery of
Mount Mellery. It was founded here about thirty years ago upon the site
of an ancient monastery by Cistercian monks who were expelled from
France. They have about seven hundred acres of rich woodland, fertile
pastures, and vegetable gardens, with large and comfortable buildings
which they erected with their own hands. They maintain two schools, one
free for poor children, and another for boarding pupils whose parents
pay moderate fees for the instruction. There is a guesthouse in
connection with the monastery, where all travelers are welcome to
shelter, saint and sinner, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, and
no questions asked and no bills presented. Any person can have a bed
with clean, sweet linen and a hard but comfortable mattress, coffee and
rolls for breakfast, cold meat and milk for luncheon, soup and a roast
and a tart or pie for dinner, without charge, although there is a box at
the door where the guest at his departure is expected to drop a coin,
large or small according to his means and disposition. There are limited
accommodations for women, which are sparsely but comfortably furnished,
and, what is more important, as clean as a Danish dairy--an unusual
condition for Ireland.
There are seventy monks who dress in white and maintain perpetual
silence, living entirely upon a vegetable diet with water and skimmed
milk as their only drink. About twenty lay brothers, dressed in brown,
do the heavy labor and the menial work about the place. The white monks
rise at two o'clock in the morning and spend four hours in the chapel in
silent devotion. Then they take a light meal and go to their work in the
fields, the gardens, or the schoolroom, where the rule of silence is
relaxed only enough to permit of imparting instruction. At six o'clock
they have dinner, consisting of vegetable soup, boiled vegetables,
bread, and skimmed milk, after which they spend two hours at prayer in
the chapel, and retire at nine. This is the only Trappist community in
Ireland, but there are two in the United States.
There has been very little trouble with the landlords in County Cork.
Perhaps that is due to a considerable degree to the fact that the soil
is rich and the harvests are good, and because the farmers are able to
get a satisfactory return for their labor and their money. Nearly all
the large estates are being broken up, however, and have been purchased
by the tenants under the Act of 1903. Very soon County Cork and all the
southern section of Ireland will be owned by the men who till the soil.
Each farmer will have his own permanent home.
XXV
GLENGARIFF, THE LOVELIEST SPOT IN IRELAND
It isn't far across the southern counties of Ireland and from Cork to
Glengariff, the loveliest place in the United Kingdom and one of the
loveliest spots on earth, only seventy-five miles. There are two routes.
You can go by rail to the little old-fashioned town of Bantry at the
head of Bantry Bay, which is the rendezvous of the British fleet and the
place of their regular annual maneuvers, and from there by coach around
the shore of the bay or by a little steamer across its matchless blue
waters; or you can take the more interesting and picturesque route by
rail as far as Macroom, and then by coach or carriage over the
mountains, through the most picturesque canyon in Ireland and up and
down the mountain sides. Glengariff is 'way down in the southwesternmost
corner of Ireland, and as a gentleman said the other day in describing
its location: "If you go jist one step further, there'll not be a dry
spot to rist yer foot on till you enter the harbor of New York, bedad,
or maybe Boston."
The best route in every respect and one of the most interesting journeys
that can be found anywhere is by way of Macroom, and it is such a
favorite with tourists that during the summer season there is an almost
continuous procession that way. The arrangements for taking care of
travelers are perfect, and all you have to do is to buy your tickets and
let the attendant look after the rest. The railroad carries you about
thirty miles, an hour's ride from Cork, and there is a good deal of
interest to be seen from the car windows on the way. The conductor
sticks his head in the window every now and then and warns the
passengers what to look out for. There is a castle on one side or a
ruined abbey on the other or some sign of the devastation committed by
Cromwell and his Covenanters when they were trying to convert the Irish
to Protestantism, two or three centuries ago.
I became very skeptical about the Cromwellian ruins. Every time we came
across an abandoned limekiln or the roofless walls of some cabin from
which a family has been evicted and burned out, they told us that the
damage was done by Cromwell's soldiers. Kate Douglas Wiggin satirizes
that situation in "Penelope's Irish Experiences" by having her party
occupy rooms in Irish hotels where Cromwell, in the confusion of his
departure, forgot to sweep under the bed.
You can't convert people from one religion to another by the use of the
sword, by burning houses and sacking monasteries, and murdering innocent
women and children. That has been clearly demonstrated by the Duke of
Alva in the Netherlands, by Philip II. in Spain, and by Cromwell in
Ireland. It partially restores one's cheerfulness to be able to realize
that such means of evangelization have been abandoned.
There are ruined castles and monasteries all the way from Cork to
Glengariff, and nature has done her best to hide the shame and cruelty
that are associated with them by the glorious mantles of ivy which cover
their crumbling walls. Kilcrea Abbey, founded by Cormac MacCarthy, the
king of this country in 1465, for the Franciscan friars, was the burial
place of the MacCarthy family, the owners of Blarney Castle for two
centuries or more. Several of the tombs are well preserved. A little
farther along, at Crookstown, is another of the MacCarthy strongholds
called Castlemore, and still farther are the ruins of Lissardagh and
Clodagh, where they kept their forces and received the tribute of their
dependents as they did at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Those ancient kings
had strings of castles through their territories, each one of them in
charge of a seneschal, who kept the place with a guard of retainers and
received tribute from the peasant farmers of the surrounding country as
payment for protection and blackmail. Within the thick walls the loot
they brought from battle was stored; their prisoners were held for
ransom, and there they entertained their allies and their friends,
reveling for days and nights together in the spacious halls. The
MacCarthys were energetic citizens and ruled the south shore of Ireland
with a despotism that had no parallel in Ireland at the time. But they
were as generous to their friends as they were vindictive to their foes.
This country used to abound in fairies, gnomes, koboles, pixies, and all
kinds of queer little people, but they are all gone now. Our jarvey, as
the driver of a jaunting car is called, insists that they have emigrated
to America, but when I asked him where we could find them over there, he
confessed that he didn't know. He had no acquaintance with the place.
There are all kinds of fairies, or rather there used to be in Ireland,
friendly and unfriendly, good and bad, and they formerly appeared in a
great diversity of form and for a variety of purposes, but they are
seldom seen nowadays, even among the ivy-draped ruins of the castles and
among the moss-covered rocks where they used to make their homes.
Sidheog is a friendly fairy and Sidhean and Sheeaun are places where
fairies live. Certain hills and forests which were thickly peopled with
fairies in the early days can be identified by such names as Shean,
Sheaun, and similar variations of the terms that are applied to haunted
hills. There are "good people" and "bad people" who invade the privacy
of those who dwell in mountain cottages and bring them blessings or
treat them badly, as the case may be. At one time they were numerous up
in these woods. The best known fairy, however, the busiest of them all,
and an odd mixture of merriment, mischief, and malignity, is "Pooka,"
who is known in England, in Germany, and other places under the name of
"Puck." Shakespeare describes him as "a merry wanderer of the night,"
who boasts that he can "put a girdle round about the earth in forty
minutes." This capricious goblin is known to every child in the
mountains, and stories are told of him in every cabin. Carrig-Peeka, the
Pooka's home in a great rock, can be seen two miles west of Macroom. It
overhangs the Sullane River near the ruins of one of the MacCarthy
castles. This rock is well known as the place where Daniel O'Rourke
started on his celebrated voyage to the moon on the back of an eagle,
and for generations Pooka made it his headquarters and used to play all
kinds of pranks upon the peasants in that neighborhood.
There is a hideous kind of hobgoblin called a dullaghan who can take off
and put on his head at will; in fact, people generally see him with that
useful member under his arm or absent altogether, and on such an
occasion it is well to pass on as quietly as possible without disturbing
him. Sometimes giddy and frivolous bands of dullaghans have been seen in
graveyards at midnight amusing themselves by flinging their heads at one
another and kicking them about like footballs. Down in this neighborhood
there is a little lake called Lough Gillagancan, which means "the Lake
of the Headless Man," because they are in the habit of haunting it
during the long winter nights and playing their ridiculous games there.
Cleena is the queen of the fairies, and once exercised a powerful spell
over the peasants around Glengariff, but she is losing her influence.
The national school board is opposed to her. The teachers have disputed
her power and authority with such persistence that she cannot exercise
them among the present generation as she did among those of the past. It
is only among the schoolless communities, far back in the rocky glens
along the seashore, where the people cannot read or write and do not
have candles to illuminate their lonely cabins during the long winter
nights, that she is remembered at all. In more thickly settled parts of
the country where the national schools stand at three-mile intervals,
the children even scoff at her and ridicule her and say that she may
play all the pranks she likes with them and welcome. Cleena has been a
favorite of the Irish poets for ages, and appears in many old-fashioned
love stories.
"God grant 't is not Cleena, the queen that pursues me;
While I dream of dark groves and O'Donavan's daughter."
Cleena often did a kindly act, and when Dooling O'Hartigan, the bosom
friend of Murrough, the eldest son and heir apparent of Brian Boru, was
on his way to the battle of Clontarf, she met him and tried to persuade
him to stay out of the fight. But nothing could induce him to abandon
his friends in such an emergency, particularly as the aged king had
given Murrough the command of the army that day. Having failed to
persuade him, Cleena placed a magic cloak around O'Hartigan and warned
him solemnly that he would certainly be slain if he threw it off. He
fought fiercely all day by the side of his friend and made fearful havoc
among the Danes. The field was strewn with the bodies of the men he
slew, and Murrough, observing the slaughter, but being unable to
recognize the cause of it, cried out:
"I hear the blows of O'Hartigan, but I cannot see him!"
In order to console and encourage his friend, O'Hartigan threw off the
cloak that made him invisible. The moment he stood unprotected an arrow
from the bow of a Dane smote him in the temple, and he died for
neglecting Cleena's words of warning.
It is only occasionally that the fairies interfere with people nowadays.
Then it is to make trouble for innocent men who are out later than they
should be and get bewildered in their brains or suffer other lapses that
they are not responsible for. A friend of mine told an amusing story of
his coachman, who frequently suffered from the mischievousness of a
fairy not long ago, and explained in the morning:
"If yer honor will belave me, it's the most mystarious thing that ever
happened to a mortal man. I was coming p'aceably home along the roadside
when I saw the strangest sight that mortal eyes ever looked upon, an'
the ground seemed to go away from me and funny little cr'atures were
dancing from one side of the road to the other. Thin all at once I fell
down, and I didn't know another thing until I picked myself up from out
of the ditch in the morning.
"Dhrinking, was it, ye say; divil a bit did I taste a drop at all, at
all, that day, barring a few glasses I had wid me frinds on the way
home."
Macroom is a pretty village with a castle, of which Admiral Penn, father
of the founder of Pennsylvania, was once in command, and where William
Penn is said to have been born. The venerable old pile was built
originally in the time of King John, more than seven hundred years ago,
has been burned down no less than four times, and was besieged and
plundered in the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries again
and again. It now belongs to Lord Ardilaun, one of the sons of Benjamin
Guinness, the greatest brewer in the world, who has erected a beautiful
modern residence near by and occasionally occupies it. Lord Ardilaun
owns so many castles that he would find it difficult to live in all of
them the same year. He would be kept moving about like a commercial
traveler. He has a beautiful estate on one side of Glengariff and a
shooting lodge on the other, and his favorite residence is a stately
château near Muckross Abbey on the shores of the Lakes of Killarney. He
has a shooting lodge at Ashford, and another at Ross Hill in Central
Ireland, a fishing lodge at Kylemon Pass in Connemara, and city
residences on Stephens Green, Dublin, and at No. 11 Carleton House
Terrace, London.
The traveler bound for Glengariff changes from the railway train to an
open coach at the railway station of Macroom. The coach is built for
mountain travel, strong and heavy, and the seats, which extend from side
to side, accommodate four people of ordinary dimensions. The handbags
are stowed away under the seats and in a cavern which opens from the
rear. A couple of steamer trunks can be taken along also. There is a
roof to the stage, which is very much needed to keep off the rain, and
it can be rolled up into a ridge in the middle of the supporting hoops
in the sunshine.
[Illustration: LAKE GOUGANE-BARRA, COUNTY CORK]
The driver of a stage in Ireland doesn't flourish and crack his whip
like the gentlemen who pursue that line of business in Montana and
Colorado. He is usually a talkative chap, and tells interesting stories
with a deep, rich brogue and quaint wit that is charming, but he drives
quietly through the villages and pulls up at his destination as
modestly as if he were on a cart instead of a coach full of tourists. In
the Rocky Mountains the stage driver always "shows off" at the end of
his journey, but he never tries to do anything of that sort in Ireland.
The road follows along the banks of the Sullane River until it reaches a
string of lakes called Inchageela, which are dotted with lovely little
islands, and are said to be full of fish. There is not a tree to be
seen, but the ground is covered with a rich, thick, velvet turf, and
myriads of wild flowers of all colors and all varieties--a crazy quilt
of bloom. No one ever imagined that there could be so many wild flowers
or such beautiful ones.
The little town of Inchageela is the lunch station, where we were served
with a wholesome meal of roast mutton, potatoes, lettuce, and gooseberry
tart that tasted as good as anything I ever had at the Waldorf, and the
buxom, red-faced landlady gave us a hearty, cordial blessing as we
climbed back into our seats to continue the journey. We passed several
ruined castles, some of them near the roadside and the others
picturesquely situated on the mountain slopes among the rocks. They all
once belonged to the MacCarthys, who were kings in this country until
they lost their power by foolish fighting, and to-day I have been
assured that not one foot of sod in the County of Cork or in the County
of Kerry is owned by a man of that name or clan.
After a while we turned from the main road at a little village called
Carrinacurrah, which is hardly as big as its name, and slowly climbed a
picturesque hill to the mystic lake of Gougane-Barra, and stopped to
rest the horses and ourselves at a neatly kept inn. As it was a holiday,
all the people in the neighborhood were gathered at Cronin's Inn when
the two coachloads of passengers drove in from Macroom, and several of
them accompanied us across to Gougane Island and told us the history of
that sacred place. There was an old man with bog-oak walking sticks to
sell, and boys with post cards, for there isn't a spot in Ireland that
hasn't been photographed and transferred to a post card in hideous
colors. Mr. Benjamin Shorten, a man of importance in the community, had
hailed the coach when it passed his house, and was therefore not only an
entertainer but a fellow-passenger of the strangers within his gate. And
it was a strange story that he told us of the restoration of the ruins
and the erection, by Mr. John R. Walsh of Chicago, in memory of his
parents, of the little shrine on the site of St. Fin-Barre's oratory
which had been blessed by St. Patrick fourteen hundred years ago.
Mr. Walsh could not have chosen a more beautiful or a more appropriate
place for a memorial to his parents, and the work has been well done. It
is a sacred as well as a most romantic spot. Gougane-Barra is what they
call a "tarn," a jagged glen in the mountains nearly a mile long and
about a quarter of a mile wide, almost entirely filled with water like a
Norwegian fiord and entirely inclosed with walls of rock rising to a
height of nearly eighteen hundred feet. The principal peaks are called
Conicar (1,886 feet), Bealick (1,762 feet), and Foilasteokeen (1,698
feet). The cliffs cast a deep shadow over the water and add to the
solemnity and mystery with which the place has been invested from its
association with the patron saint of the city of Cork and one of the
earliest apostles in Ireland. After heavy rains each mountain side
becomes a foaming cataract, and the natives say that the sound of the
water pouring down the rocks may be heard for miles. The lake is very
deep and is the source of the River Lee, which runs sixty-five miles
from here to the Bay of Cork.
The island is approached by a narrow, artificial causeway, at the head
of which is an arched tomb built into the side of the mountain, in which
Father Mahoney, a recluse, was buried in 1728. He was the last of the
monks to live in the little abbey. He is regarded by the peasants as
next to St. Fin-Barre in holiness, and Fin-Barre is ranked next to St.
Patrick, only a little below him in their veneration. When the old women
passed Father Mahoney's tomb they knelt and kissed it and said their
prayers.
[Illustration: CHAPEL ERECTED BY MR. JOHN R. WALSH OF CHICAGO ON THE
ISLAND OF GOUGANE-BARRA]
The ruins of St. Fin-Barre's hermitage, which has been carefully
restored, consist of a quadrangle of stone about thirty-six feet square,
and there are eight cells with arched entrances in which the monks used
to live. Over the entrance to each cell are modern plaster casts of the
stations of the cross, and in the center, upon a pyramid of five steps,
a plain wooden cross has been erected.
The little chapel erected by Mr. Walsh upon the foundation of St.
Fin-Barre's Oratory is thirty-six feet long by fourteen feet broad with
a simple little altar and an altar rail. The remainder of the space is
filled with wooden seats. There is no organ or other musical instrument,
and the services that are held there every third Sunday in the month by
an itinerant priest are of the simplest order. But the celebration of
the anniversary of the saint on the 24th of September brings the
peasants from all the country around and is attended with great
solemnity. The people carry their rations with them, and camp upon the
shore of the lake and along the roadway that leads down from the tarn.
When we were there in June the entire island was a mass of rhododendrons
in the fullness of their purple glory. If you searched the world over
you could not find a more beautiful abode for a saint in peace and
retirement. It has been the theme of many poems, and a native bard has
painted with graphic lines the scene that is hallowed by so many pious
associations and surrounded with so much natural beauty.
It is one of the holiest places in Ireland, and the consecrated waters
of a spring called St. Fin-Barre's Well, which has been carefully walled
in, have the power to heal all kinds of diseases except those that have
been caused by dissipation. At the annual festival of St. Fin-Barre the
peasants bring their sick children and even their ailing animals to be
cured. And the neighboring bushes that surround the well and the wooden
crosses that have been erected there in recognition of relief are hung
with votive offerings. A penitent who comes to be cleansed of his sins
may find full instructions engraven upon a large slab of brown stone. It
is said to be more than two hundred years old, but records the good
deeds of Rev. Dennis Mahoney, who died in 1728. It is necessary to say
five "aves" and five "paters" at the first station of the cross within
the ruins, and add five more at each as they are passed, making forty
"aves" and forty "paters" at the last cell.
Of course, there is a legend connected with the well--there always
is--and in this case St. Patrick, after banishing the reptiles from the
country, overlooked one hideous snake. It crawled into the Well of
Gougane to escape him, and it created serious depredation in the
surrounding country, coming out at night to attack the flocks of sheep
and the herds of goats and cattle, until St. Patrick came here and drove
it out by sprinkling the well with holy water. "The ould enemy" vanished
and has never since ventured to leave his loathsome slime upon the green
banks of the island. In order to prevent his return St. Patrick sent St.
Fin-Barre here to watch the well and exterminate the monster if it came
again. But it has not reappeared, and as a token of gratitude St.
Fin-Barre erected the Cathedral of Cork and founded a great monastery
beside it, leaving several devoted priests here in his hermitage to keep
watch of things.
The driver gave us an hour to see this lovely and sacred place, and then
we returned to the main road, resumed our journey, and soon entered the
Pass of Keimaneigh, which divides these savage mountains in twain and
permits people to pass from the former kingdom of the MacCarthy clan to
that of the outlawed O'Sullivans. The mountains were split by some
terrible cataclysm ages ago, but Nature has done what she could to heal
the wound. The almost perpendicular walls were clothed with wild ivy,
arbutus, hawthorn, laburnum, rhododendron, and other trees and shrubs,
which were glorious in color and light up the gloom of the gorge with
wonderful beauty. We have many grander canyons in the Rocky Mountains,
and several of the fiords on the Norwegian coast are grander and
inclosed by loftier peaks and more precipitous walls, but none of them
that I have seen are anywhere near as beautiful.
[Illustration: THE PASS OF KEIMANEIGH THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN CORK
AND GLENGARIFF]
Nor do I remember a panorama where the fiercer and the gentler moods
of nature are expressed in such striking contrast. The eagles and hawks
that soar in the narrow skyline, directly above our heads, and encircle
the rugged and irregular peaks that rise on either side, look down upon
an exhibition of wild flowers that was never surpassed, and the colors
seem to be more brilliant than elsewhere.
People always ask, How did they come there?--these blotches of scarlet
and purple and pink and blue and gold against the dark gray surface of
the rock. The wind was the landscape gardener here, and a wonderful
artist he is. The dust that gradually accumulated in the crevices and
scars of this mountain wall was carried, storm by storm, from some dry
spot, upon the wings of the wind. And the same messenger carried the
seeds, perhaps for many miles, and dropped them in the nest that he had
already provided, where the sun and the rain could reach them and they
could germinate and their souls could awaken. The germs of life that lay
hidden in their tiny cells then reached out for air and began to grow
and bloom and illuminate this stern and gloomy canyon with their smiles.
As the journey continues the gorge grows wilder, the walls higher, and
the vegetation less, except in the turf beside the roadway, where the
violet, the forget-me-not, the belated shamrock, and that other modest
little flower called "London Pride," sing a silent song of praise to
Heaven.
They call Glengariff "the Madeira of Great Britain," because its climate
varies only a few degrees, winter and summer, and is about the same as
that of the Madeira Islands, without a trace of frost or snow except up
among the rugged mountains that protect it from the cold winds and make
it an ideal resort for those who seek health, rest, or solitude. The
name signifies "a rough glen," and that describes it exactly--a deep
cleft in the mountains, a gash which some irresistible glacier made ages
ago in the rugged rocks, about three miles long and a quarter of a mile
wide, which terminates upon an exquisite little sheet of water, a branch
of the Bay of Bantry, on the far southwestern coast of Ireland. The glen
is filled with wonderful trees and wonderful flowers, which seem to
bloom perennially. The surrounding mountains are of the wildest
description, being naked moorlands covered with heather and gorse and
huge gray bowlders and peaks which project into the air. Among them, it
is said, there are no less than 365 little lakes, that number having
suggested to the pious peasants, who attribute everything to apostolic
interposition, that some holy saint prayed effectually for a separate
one to supply water for each day of the year. The rocks reach far away
to the westward and down into the cold blue of an uneasy ocean, which
beats impetuously upon the outer walls, but the water is seldom
disturbed by more than a ripple within the bay. For a combination of
ocean, mountains, lakes, rocks, waterfalls, forests, and flowers I have
never seen the like, and any one can easily understand why Glengariff is
called the most beautiful spot in Ireland.
The town of Glengariff is composed of fourteen houses, six saloons, a
post office, a vine-covered headquarters for the constabulary, which
looks altogether too picturesque and beautiful for such a practical
purpose, a Catholic church, brand new and built with money from America,
an old church where the Catholics formerly worshiped, now used as a
school for teaching lace making, a pretty little Church of Ireland
chapel, an ivy-clad rectory adjoining, and several comfortable hotels.
There are four hundred inhabitants in the parish, mostly farmers,
scattered within the glen and upon the surrounding rocks. They are
mostly Harringtons, Sullivans, Caseys, and O'Sheas, and are nearly all
related. All the population are Roman Catholics, except twelve families
who belong to the Church of Ireland and are ministered to by the Rev.
Mr. Harvey, who is paid a salary of £200 a year and is given a
picturesque old manse in the midst of one of the loveliest gardens and
groves you can imagine.
Eccles Hotel has been famous for more than a century. You will find a
flattering account of it in Mrs. Hall's book on Ireland, published in
the '50s. And, by the way, that work contains a charming description of
the country, although so much in detail that it fills three ponderous
volumes that weigh four or five pounds each. There have been many
changes since the book was written, but they concern only the people and
their customs. Its historical references, its legends, and descriptions
of scenery hold good to-day.
The hotel, not the book, is a rambling, irregular structure with many
gables and many chimneys, and is almost completely covered with a
lustrous robe of English ivy. It sits at the foot of the glen where the
rocks and the ocean meet and the prospect from the front windows is
unsurpassed. The bay is enclosed like a wall with mighty mountains.
Titanic rocks have rolled down into the water in some great cataclysm
and now lie in picturesque shapes, here and there, as a tasteful artist
would have arranged them, clad in vivid green. The outlines of the bay
are irregular. Little arms of water reach up among the rocks that
inclose it, and, when the tide goes out, it discloses deep beds of
wondrous seaweed, curious vegetable and animal forms that Nature in her
fantastic moods has designed in her studio under the waters of the sea.
In the foreground at the right is a landing place for the little steamer
that comes over from Bantry twice a day, and beyond it, rising from a
rocky eminence, are the ruins of an ancient castle with a tower intact
that was once a stronghold of the O'Sullivans, when they were kings in
these parts. Now it belongs to the estate of the late Earl of Bantry.
On the other side of the bay a long point of land protrudes across the
horizon, and there it was that the French troops intended to land under
Wolfe Tone and General Hoche on Dec. 26, 1796. There were 17 ships of
the line, 13 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 gunboats, and 6 transports, with
about 14,000 men and 45,000 stands of arms, and it was expected that the
news of their landing would be the signal for an uprising of the Irish
people. Simon White, who lived near the point where the landing was to
be made, was a man of quick movements and energy, and as soon as the
fleet was sighted he saddled his horse and rode direct to
Cork--sixty-five miles--in half a dozen hours to notify the military
commander and other authorities of the invasion. For that the king made
him the Earl of Bantry and gave him a strip of land around the bay
twenty-two miles on one side and twenty-two miles on the other,
stretching back into the mountains an average of six miles. The title
has lasted through three generations, but has expired because the third
Earl of Bantry left no son to wear it when he died a few years ago.
Providence intervened, however, on the side of the English, and averted
what might have been a disastrous struggle with France, with Ireland as
the battlefield, as well as a civil war for the overthrow of British
authority. A storm came up and dispersed the fleet. When the wind
subsided, a dense fog overspread Bantry Bay and the ocean. When the air
cleared the ships were so scattered that each sailed away on its own
account during the next fortnight, and one by one they returned to the
harbors of France. General Hoche, in the _Fraternitie_, finally reached
Rochelle, after several narrow escapes, with his ship in a sinking
condition. Several of the largest ships went upon the rocks, and about
eighteen hundred sailors and soldiers perished. No Frenchman trod upon
Irish soil with the exception of a lieutenant and seven seamen, who were
sent out in a small boat from one of the ships during the fog to
reconnoiter, and, running aground, were captured by James O'Sullivan.
Bantry Bay is a magnificent inlet twenty-one miles long, and with an
average breadth of four miles and an average depth of sixty fathoms,
without a shoal or sandbank or any other peril to navigation. It is
completely sheltered from the weather and is considered the finest
harbor in Ireland. It is the rendezvous of the British North Atlantic
fleet and the fleet of the channel, which come here regularly to
practice maneuvers, to correct their compasses and regulate their range
finders and do light repairs. The only town on the bay is a village of
the same name, which has been described as a seaport without trade, a
harbor without shipping, and a fishery without a market. There is a
convent, a monastery, and a factory for the manufacture of Irish tweeds.
[Illustration: GLENGARIFF BRIDGE]
Adjoining the village is Bantry House, a stately mansion surrounded
by a beautiful lawn and grove, which was the residence of the late Earl
of Bantry, and was inherited by his nephew, Leigh White. Another nephew,
Simon White, occupies the ancient Glengariff Castle, which is nearer the
head of the bay--a large and gloomy-looking structure almost entirely
hidden by the surrounding trees. Thirty-one thousand acres of land
around the bay was inherited by these two young men, but it is very poor
land. Three-fourths of it is bare rock, and the entire population upon
their holdings is only about four hundred men, women, and children. A
daughter of the late Earl of Bantry married Lord Ardilaun, who was
Arthur Edward Guinness, a son of the great brewer of Dublin and probably
the richest man in Ireland. The hotel is inclosed in a beautiful hedge
of fuchsias, which flourish in this climate, and are commonly used for
hedges. The grounds of the hotel extend over two hundred and fifty
acres, mostly dense forest, with a beautiful garden of twelve acres or
more. All the vegetables, poultry, eggs, and other produce are raised on
the place, and the milk and cream and butter come from a private herd of
cows, which is a great luxury.
There is splendid fishing, both in the bay and in two small lakes, one
hour's walk from the hotel, also boating, swimming, and any number of
beautiful walks and drives through the woods and along the mountain
roads. The only antiquity in the immediate neighborhood is a picturesque
ruin called Cromwell's bridge. While the grim old Covenanter was passing
up the glen with an escort to visit the O'Sullivans, citizens of
Glengariff who had heard of the devastation he had created elsewhere
tore down a bridge over a mountain gorge, hoping that it would turn him
back. But after much trouble he and his men succeeded in crossing the
canyon into the village, and there he summoned the inhabitants and told
them that if they did not restore the bridge by the time he returned
from his visit he would hang a man for every hour's delay. The bridge
was ready for him, "fur they knew the auld villain would kape his
word."
The surrounding country is sparsely settled by a hardy, stubborn race,
who fish in the winter and farm in the summer, like the people who live
on the bleak New England coast. The children herd cattle, sheep, and
goats upon the mountain sides; the pigs and the poultry share the
ancient stone hovels occupied by their owners; the women cultivate a
little spot of soil wherever they can find it in the crevices among the
rocks, raising a few potatoes and cabbages, and look after the chickens
and the babies. Scattered over the mountain side and reached by steep
but perfect roads, are the roofless walls of what once were the homes of
neighbors who have emigrated to America. The fate of those who remained
seemed hopeless until recently, but the benevolent purposes of the
government are brightening the lives and improving the condition of many
of them. At Glengariff I got my first chance to observe the work of the
Congested Districts Board through which the government is trying to
relieve the distress of the poor and make life worth living for those
wretched but courageous souls who dwell always in the mists of the
mountains and among the moorlands and the peat bogs on the west coast of
Ireland. They are the poorest, the least nourished, and the most
helpless portion of the population. They are scattered widely. The
arable soil is so scarce that they cannot live in communities and
survive. Here and there among the rocks, where the kindly winds have
dropped grains of earth during the ages, they are cultivating little
patches of potatoes and cabbage. They follow a few cows and goats that
nibble at the blades of grass that grow in the cracks of the rock and
keep a few chickens, which share with them the roof shelter of a leaky,
straw-thatched cabin built of rough stone and with a mud floor.
The cabins are as comfortless as one can imagine, but they are no worse
than thousands that may be found in our southern States, in the
mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Thousands of "crackers" in Georgia have no better homes and no more
consolations in life, but their cabins are more neatly kept and are not
situated among such filthy and loathsome surroundings as those of the
poor "bog-trotters" of Ireland.
The interior of the cabins is quite as repulsive as the exterior. The
chickens run in and out with the children, and they "kape the pig in the
parlor" because that is the only room in the house and there is no other
pen. The inevitable baby--you never enter a cabin without finding
one--is always in its mother's arms and another is generally clinging to
her skirts, while two or three more are playing in the filth around the
door. There is only one room, where they all sleep, the elder ones upon
rough benches, covered with pallets of straw, and the younger ones on
the floor--grandparents, parents, children, pigs, and chickens--young
and old, both sexes, lying side by side, with whatever covering their
scanty earnings enable them to provide. There are no sheets or
mattresses; no pillows, only comfortables that have been used for
generations, and tattered blankets that are never washed. There is no
furniture but a table and two or three stools. There are shelves, and a
few nails and hooks driven into the walls. There is no stove, but a peat
fire under the chimney where the mother cooks in pans and kettles when
the weather is stormy and uses a rock outside for a kitchen when it
doesn't rain or blow. There are few dishes, mostly broken china, and the
covers of tin cans. The walls are windowless; there is no light but that
which comes through the door, and during the long winter nights, when,
in this latitude, it becomes dark at four o'clock, the family hibernate
in the darkness because candles are beyond their means and burning peat
gives no light. You can understand why so many of these poor wretches
lose their wits. The insane asylums of Ireland are filled with
unfortunates from this coast, most of them are hereditary and chronic
cases caused by melancholia, nervousness, and starvation. I have been
trying in vain to find out how they spend their time during the long
winter evenings, but have been unable to get any satisfactory
information on that point.
Notwithstanding these conditions a stranger always receives a polite and
a cordial welcome and usually an invitation to come in and rest and
drink a cup of milk. There is no apology for poverty, or the appearance
of things; there is no obsequiousness and no insolence, but a dignified,
hearty handclasp at the coming and at the going and a cheerful
invitation to call again. The Children of the Mist are invariably well
behaved and polite. Although their clothes are ragged and their bodies
are filthy with dirt, they have the same manners you would expect among
the nobility. They are always obedient, deferential, and unselfish. They
are kind and attentive to their younger brothers and sisters, and show
perfect respect to their parents and elders. We have seen them in the
cabins, in the fields, and in the schools. I have asked everybody where
they get their manners, and who teaches them deportment in this barren
wilderness of filth and bad smells. I asked Miss Walshe, the medical
officer of the district, who goes from cabin to cabin as an angel of
healing; I asked Miss O'Donnell, who has charge of the lace school; I
asked the head constable at the police station; I asked the
school-teachers and others, and they all say that the politeness of the
Irish peasants, like their pride, is inborn and final proof that they
are the descendants of kings. This pride is a strange thing, and it is
most surprising. Every woman you find in a soiled and ragged dress in a
wretched cabin receives you as her equal and talks with dignity and
without restraint, and Mr. Duke, manager of the Eccles Hotel, told me
this morning of a mountain peasant whose raggedness aroused his
sympathy, but who would not accept a suit of clothes.
Miss O'Donnell, the lace teacher, and Miss Walshe, the nurse, told us
that the pretty young women we saw in the lace school and the boys and
girls we saw in the national school, all come from such cabins as I have
described. Some of the blue-eyed, bare-footed urchins have complexions
that society belles would give their souls for, and long, beautiful
coal-black hair, yet they sleep on a mud floor with pigs and chickens,
and many of them walk three and four miles and back for the privilege of
attending school. With a little training these children make excellent
servants, faithful, obedient, and tactful, and almost without exception
they go to mass and confession regularly, and they have a high standard
of morals and a conscientious devotion to duty. Although it costs as
much to get married as it does to buy a ticket to America, there are no
unmarried people living together here; illegitimate births are extremely
rare and chastity is the commonest of virtues.
There is no compulsory education law, but the priests drive the children
to school until they are fourteen and will not confirm them until they
have passed a certain grade. A gentle, soft-voiced woman in a rude cabin
in the mountain side told us the other day that her greatest trouble was
that her daughter had been kept from school by sickness and she was
afraid that the priest would not confirm her because she was so far
behind the other girls in her lessons.
The same rule applies to the lace school which has been established by
the government through the Congested Districts Board in the old building
used by the Catholic church before the new one was erected. The
government pays a teacher and advances the material. The girls get the
price their lacework brings when sold in the shops of London or Dublin
or at the Eccles Hotel here at Glengariff. Miss O'Donnell tells me that
Mrs. Duke, the wife of the manager of the hotel, is their best sales
agent, and a stock of samples is always kept where the guests can see
them. Fifty-one girls are now attending the school, and some of them
walk seven miles and back every day. Father Harrington will not allow
them to attend the lace school until after they are confirmed, and it is
a great inducement to join the church because they are able to earn
forty, fifty, and some of them sixty pounds a year, which secures them
better clothes, better food, and some comforts for their families. Last
year this little school sold nearly three thousand dollars' worth of
lace, and the money was divided among fifty-one girls who made it.
Every young person who can get money enough goes to America. And if it
were not for the money they send back here many of their parents and
younger brothers and sisters would starve. A gentleman who handles the
postal orders in one of the most forlorn and wretched villages of
Ireland told me that the Christmas gifts of money that came from America
kept many a family in food during the winter. It is the ambition of
every young man and woman to go to the United States, and only the lack
of steamship fare keeps them in Ireland. A sturdy lad of eighteen who
guided us across the moor to the roadway this morning told me
confidentially that he was going to Arizona as soon as his uncle, who
was doing very well out there, was able to send him the price. He asked
many questions about that part of the country. His uncle is working in a
gold mine near Tombstone and is "earning more than a pound a day,
steady, six days in the week, and they pay him double wages if he works
on Sunday." To a lad whose life is so barren and whose horizon is so
narrow and who sees his father and his neighbors trying to wrest a
scanty sustenance partly from the sea and partly from the land, and who
scarcely catch enough fish or raise enough potatoes to feed the mouths
of their own families, a pound a day looks like the income of an earl.
The Catholic church at Glengariff is a brand new building of stone, and
looks large enough for ten times the population of this parish, which
has only about four hundred souls, men, women, and children. It was
built with American money raised by Father Brown, the late priest, who
went to Brooklyn, Boston, and several other cities of the United States,
hunted up the relatives of the people who live here and those who went
from these parts, and obtained £3,000. He was a good man and took a
great interest in the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of his
people. Since his death Father Harrington has succeeded him and serves
four churches in a radius of seventeen miles.
We attended mass on Sunday. The church was crowded. All the aisles were
filled with kneeling worshipers, up to the very feet of the altar and in
the vestibule, or the steps, and around outside were forty or fifty men
and women kneeling reverently upon the sod, although they couldn't hear
the voice of the priest. One of the men told me that he believed every
person in the parish was present and that they always came unless they
were too ill to move, that no storm could stop them. As a rule they came
from mountain cabins five and six miles away, in carts and on foot, and
some of them carried children in their arms the entire distance.
Notwithstanding their poverty they were better dressed than the working
people of Dublin. Their clothes were neat and well brushed and mended.
However ragged the garments they wear on week days may be, they always
have a decent suit to wear to the house of God. The solemnity of the
service was very impressive. To these people the church is the gate of
heaven. Its decorations and ceremonies appeal to their imagination, to
their senses of color and sound, and the mystic rites sink into their
souls.
Although there are six saloons for a parish of four hundred people the
chief constable tells me there is very little drinking or disorder, and
practically no crime. He hasn't had a case of robbery for a year, and
except upon convivial occasions like weddings and wakes the people are
very orderly. Most of the saloons, he tells me, sell very little liquor,
and some of their licenses run back for years, being renewed annually to
the same family for generations. A liquor license in Ireland cannot be
taken away except for serious reasons, as long as the annual fee is
paid. They can be sold or transferred, but if they lapse they are
cancelled.
In a neat stone cottage, surrounded by a well kept garden, among the
rocky mountain sides that overlook Bantry Bay, lives Lacia Walshe,
strong in body, strong in mind, and strong of purpose. She goes among
the wretched hovels in this locality attending maternity cases which
occur with amazing frequency, for the poorer the family the more
children is the rule. Miss Walshe does not give her entire attention to
midwifery, however, but treats every case of illness that comes within
her ken, from sore fingers to delirium tremens. That is not a figure of
speech, but an actual fact, for many a time at midnight has she been
called from her cottage to some miserable stone hovel in the mountains
to quiet with opiates a drunken ruffian who is haunted with reptiles and
raving in his dreams. Miss Walshe belongs to the poor, and is kept here
by a society with a name of fifteen words--"Lady Dudley's Scheme for the
Establishment of District Nurses in the Poorest Parts of Ireland." She
wears a badge the shape of a heart supporting a crown and in the center
is a shamrock leaf encircled with the words of Another One who went
about doing good as she does: "By love serve one another."
The Countess of Dudley organized this work in 1903, beginning with two
nurses in Geesala and Bealadangan, County Galway. And they did so much
good that the number has now been increased to fifteen and they are
located at as many places in the poorest districts of Ireland, where
there are no physicians and where the people are too poor and the
population too scattered to support a doctor if one could be induced to
go there.
The most distressing cases are those of confinement in cabins of only
one room, into which sometimes six, eight, and ten men, women, and
children are crowded, sleeping upon the floor. We went into a hut of
only one room, not more than twelve by fourteen feet in size, which is
occupied at night by nine persons,--father and mother, and grandmother
and six children, the oldest being eighteen years of age. We visited
another hut where there were eight children living, and were told of one
where there were seventeen, the births of most of them not more than a
year apart. To relieve conditions that may be easily imagined, Lady
Dudley's society with the long name was formed, and is now doing an
immense amount of good. Fifteen courageous and conscientious women are
comfortably placed in localities where their services are most needed,
at a cost of not more than a thousand dollars per year each, which
includes a bicycle, the most convenient means of locomotion they can
find, and an allowance for the hire of horses and jaunting cars when
they can be obtained. Because it is impossible to find lodging and
boarding places, it has been necessary to build cottages for the nurses,
and in some cases the demands upon them are so great that they are
allowed to employ assistance. They are equipped with surgical implements
and medical stores. Each of the nurses has taken a course in surgery
for emergency cases for they are frequently called upon to set bones and
dress wounds and even to perform operations. They are also furnished
with baby clothes, old linen, warm garments, stores of condensed milk
and beef extract, and other delicacies, and although Florence
Nightingale relieved thousands, her work did not compare in peril or
privation or fatigue with the almost daily experience of some of these
noble women.
XXVI
THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY
The big stages that cross the mountains from Glengariff to Killarney are
chiefly loaded with Americans. It is singular how few other
nationalities are represented in the passenger traffic. The morning we
crossed there were four great vehicles carrying twenty-four persons
each, and every passenger, except one German bridal couple and a funny
acting Englishman, was from the United States. In our coach were
representatives from Cincinnati, Washington, St. Louis, Omaha, Texas,
and Minnesota, and I suppose other sections were equally represented
upon the three other coaches. Everybody who comes to Ireland takes this
ride because it offers the grandest scenery and one of the most
delightful experiences that tourists can enjoy. The coach begins to
climb slowly through the beautiful glen as soon as it leaves the Eccles
Hotel and continues climbing, up and up, for six miles through a dense
forest of glowing green, until it emerges into a wilderness of rock and
moorland, wild, picturesque, and almost entirely uninhabited. There is
very little vegetation, only a few streaks and bunches of grass that
grow along the cracks in the rocky surface, or in wind-carried soil that
has been caught in crevices. It is one of the wildest places you can
imagine, and as we go upward it becomes more so. The stage winds around
the brow of a mountain that seems a solid mass of stone, and as far as
one can see there is nothing else in the universe except a ribbon of
silver that winds at the foot of the slope where we left a river when we
began the journey. One has the sensation of awe that solitude often
produces, but it is disturbed by the chatter of the passengers. It is as
dreary and desolate and lonesome a place as the world contains.
This is a comparatively new road. It was not built until 1838, but, like
all the roads of Ireland, it is solid and perfect and made to last
forever. The old road, and the principal line of communication between
the counties of Cork and Kerry for centuries, ran along the slope of
Hungry Mountain, so called because it is so devoid of vegetation that a
goat would have to take his luncheon if he went up there. And from there
it crossed to the mountain of the "Priest's Leap," which was named from
a legend that grows out of persecution of the Catholics in Cromwell's
time. The driver told it in this way:
"Ye see, yer honor, in Cromwell's time there was a bounty of five pun'
fer the head of a wolf and five pun' for the head of a priest; an' a
dale of money was made o' both o' 'em. Well, bedad, one foine day a
priest was ridin' over the hill, whin the Tories caught sight o' him (we
called thim Tories in those days, the blaggards that did be huntin' o'
the priests), and them that purshued him were jist to lay their bloody
hands upon his blessed robe, whin he prayed to St. Fiachna. The blessed
saint heard him, and the donkey he was ridin' gave a lape siven miles
from one mountain to the ither, and yees can see the marks of the
baste's hoofs in the solid rock to this day."
It takes but little encouragement and a minimum of material to supply
legends in this desolate and weird region, where every sound seems
unnatural and the trembling of a leaf causes the nerves to tingle. The
road resembles Brünig Pass in Switzerland more than any other that I
have seen, with the Lakes of Killarney corresponding to Lake Lucerne,
but it is less civilized and there are very few human habitations.
The coach keeps climbing until we come to the grand divide, 1,233 feet
above the sea, where the passage from the "Kingdom of Cork" to the
"Kingdom of Kerry," as once they were called, is made through a tunnel
about six hundred feet long and two smaller ones that are cut through
the peak of the Esk Mountain. Until these tunnels were built travelers
were carried over the rocks to the other end of the road on the backs of
men. The country improves a little after the divide is crossed, and
there is a gradual descent into a rather good grazing country which
belongs to the Marquis of Lansdowne, but even here it is a good deal of
a job for a cow to make a living, and there is a proverb that "A Kerry
cow never looks up at a passing stranger for fear it will lose the
bite."
The Earl of Lansdowne, who has been governor-general of Canada,
governor-general of India, lord of the treasury, secretary of war,
minister of foreign affairs, and has held other important offices in the
British cabinet, is one of the largest landowners in Ireland, although
he spends very little of his time there. He has a long list of Irish
titles inherited from his ancestors. In addition to being Earl Wycombe,
Earl of Kerry, and Earl of Shelburne, he is Viscount Clanmaurice,
Viscount Fitzmorris, Baron of Lixnaw, Baron of Dunkerron, and Viscount
of Calstone, and his eldest son is the Earl of Kerry. He traces his
lineage to Maurice Fitzgerald, who came over with Strongbow, who also
was the ancestor of the earls of Kildare and the Duke of Leinster. The
Lansdowne family have intermarried with the Leinsters, the MacCarthys,
the Desmonds, the Ormondes, and other of the great families of Ireland,
and, near or far, the marquis can claim relationship with nearly all the
Irish nobility.
Occasionally we saw a stone cabin in the far distance, from which a pale
stream of smoke was arising, but until noonday, when we dropped into the
valley and approached the little village of Kenmare, there was scarcely
a human habitation. At Kenmare is an attractive hotel, at which a
bountiful lunch is served for two shillings, and a little time is given
the passengers to rest. Those who wish to do so can take a railway train
here and run over to Killarney in three-quarters of an hour, but they
will lose the most attractive part of the ride and some of the sublimest
scenery in Ireland. The stage commences to climb again shortly after we
leave Kenmare, and crawls along the mountain sides between the rocks and
the heather all the afternoon. This country was fought over again and
again ages ago. The mountain range was a sort of barrier between the
warlike clans of MacCarthy and O'Sullivan, who met upon its rocky
slopes and slew each other for any pretext, less for reason than for the
love of fighting.
The war cries of all the clans of southern Ireland, however, have been
heard upon these rocks. "Shannied-Aboo" was the cry of the earls of
Desmond; "Crom-Aboo" was the cry of the Geraldines, and the Duke of
Leinster has it for the motto upon his coat of arms. The word "aboo" is
the Gaelic equivalent to our "hurrah." The cry of the O'Neills was
"Lamh-Dearg-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Red Hand, which was the crest of the
O'Neills). The O'Brien cry was "Lamh-Laider-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Strong
Hand). The Burkes cried "Galraigh-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Red Englishman).
The Fitzpatricks, "Gear-Laider-Aboo" (Hurrah for the Strong and the
Sharp).
In the tenth year of the reign of Henry VII. an act passed by parliament
prohibited the use of these war cries in the following quaint terms:
"Item; Prayen the commons in this present parliament assembled; that for
as much as there has been great variances, malices, debates and
comparisons between divers lords and gentlemen of this land, which hath
daily increased by seditious means of divers idle, ill-disposed persons,
utterly taking upon them to be servants to such lords and gentlemen; for
that they would be borne in their said idleness, and their other
unlawful demeaning, and nothing for any favor or entirely good love or
will that they bear under such lords and gentlemen. Therefore be it
enacted and established by the same authority; That no person nor
persons, of whatsoever estate, condition or degree he or they be of,
take part with any lord or gentleman or uphold any such variances or
comparisons in words or deeds as in using these words, Com-Aboo,
Butler-Aboo, or other words like, or otherwise contrary to the King's
laws, his crown, his dignity and his peace; but to call on St. George in
the name of his sovereign lord, King of England for the time being. And
if any person or persons of whatsoever estate, condition or degree he or
they be of, do contrary so offending in the premisses, or any of them be
taken and committed to ward, there to remain without bayle or maiprixe
till he or they have made fine after the discretion of the King's Deputy
of Ireland, and the King's Counsail of the same for the time being."
The above is a sample of British legislation at the period that act was
passed, and that conglomerate of words means simply that enthusiastic
Irishmen were forbidden to excite their own emotions and the emotions of
others by the cries of their clan and were admonished to use only the
war cry of the King of England, who in battle is supposed to appeal to
St. George.
The first glimpse of the Lakes of Killarney is obtained as the coach
comes around the point of a mountain, and a great green amphitheater
with a body of glimmering water at the bottom is suddenly spread out
before the passengers. The outlines are fringed with forests and the
lakes are studded with tiny islands of different sizes and shapes, but
all glow with a vivid color that is not found anywhere else. And this
picture is before the vision until the stage plunges into a tunnel of
foliage at the foot of the slope, near the ancient ruins of Muckross
Abbey, and follows along through a tunnel made of high stone walls and
overhanging boughs until the village of Killarney is reached.
Long, long ago there were two giants, the giant of Glengariff and the
giant of Killarney, and they were very jealous of each other. They kept
up a continual controversy, each boasting of his own strength and valor
and daring the other to cross the mountains. Finally, after everybody
got tired of these threats and challenges, just as people do nowadays
about the talking matches of pugilists, the giant of Killarney decided
to go over to Glengariff and see what sort of a person his foe might be.
Disguising himself as a monk, he crossed the divide, came down into the
village, and was shown the way to his enemy's cabin. The giant of
Glengariff, having heard of the approach of his rival, became very much
frightened and hastily made a cradle big enough to hold his enormous
carcass, and, lying down in it, ordered his wife to tuck him up with a
blanket. And there he lay, pretending to be asleep, when the giant of
Killarney approached the door and politely offered the compliments of
the season to the lady he saw sitting on a three-legged stool with her
knitting in her lap. Her hand was on the edge of a cradle twelve feet
long, and she rocked it gently, crooning an old lullaby.
"Hush, you spalpeen, lest ye wake the baby!" and she continued to sing
the slumber song in a soft, sweet voice.
"Let's see your baby," whispered the giant of Killarney, and she lifted
the blanket gently from her husband's face.
His enemy looked at him in amazement for an instant, and then, begging
the good lady's pardon for the intrusion, started back over the mountain
trail as fast as his big legs could take him.
"If the baby's as big as that, how big must the ould man be!"
Valentine Charles Browne, Earl of Kenmare, owns all of the Lakes of
Killarney, all the land that surrounds them, and, according to the grant
of James I., Feb. 16, 1622, "all the islands of, or in the same, and the
fisheries of said lakes, and the soil and bottom thereof." He owns all
the mountains round about, and one of his stewards told me that they
comprised 999,000 acres. He owns the village and everything within it,
even the ground on which the railway station stands. All of the hotels
occupy his soil under lease, and the insane asylum, with its six hundred
patients, and the poorhouse for County Kerry, with four hundred
friendless and destitute creatures within its walls.
Sir Valentine Browne, Knight of Totteridge, Lincolnshire, England, was
constable, warden, victualler, and treasurer of Berwick in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, who sent him with Sir Henry Wallop in 1583 to survey
escheated lands in Ireland. He remained on the island, was subsequently
sworn of the privy council, represented the County of Sligo in
parliament in 1588, and in June of the same year purchased from
MacCarthy More, Earl of Glencare, certain lands, manors, etc., in
counties Kerry and Cork, and obtained by patents from Queen Elizabeth
all the remainder of the Glencare estates. He was afterward quite useful
to her majesty, as his posterity have been to her successors.
Sir Valentine Browne, his grandson, was created Baronet of Kenmare in
1622 and received a grant, from which I have quoted, of all the lakes
and all the lands and mountains round about them to the very bottom
thereof. In 1689 these estates were forfeited by his son because of his
fidelity to the unfortunate James II., but were restored to the family
in 1720, and in 1724 Valentine, the fifth viscount, was made an earl.
The late earl was one of the most devoted councilors and confidential
advisers of the late Queen Victoria. She was very much attached to him,
and he had charge of her household as vice chamberlain and lord
chamberlain from 1872 to 1886, and was one of her lords in waiting until
her death. His mother was Gertrude Thynne, a niece of the Earl of Bath,
and is still living. The father died in 1905 at the age of eighty, after
a useful and honorable career.
The present earl was educated at Eton and Oxford, served for a time in
the army, went to Australia as an aid-de-camp to the Governor of
Victoria, was state steward to the Earl of Aberdeen during the first
term of the latter as lord lieutenant of Ireland, and married Elizabeth
Baring, daughter of Lord Revelstoke of the famous firm of Baring
Brothers, bankers, London. He has a brother-in-law in New York. The Earl
of Kenmare is the most prominent and influential Roman Catholic in the
Irish peerage. He is devoted to the interests of the church, is devout
in his habits, maintains a private chapel in his London residence and at
his mansion here, and a family chaplain in the old-fashioned way. He
never leaves his house in the morning without prayers at which all the
household and guests are present and the servants are called in from
their tasks. There is a cathedral of pretentious architecture upon his
grounds in the village to which his father contributed a quarter of a
million dollars. It has been built within the last few years by Bishop
Mangan of this diocese, and is already being enlarged, although to a
stranger it seems to be big enough as it is.
[Illustration: KENMARE HOUSE, KILLARNEY]
Kenmare House has one hundred and nine rooms. The grand reception salon
is 135 feet in length and 42 feet in width, with a deep recessed
fireplace and a massive oak mantel; the library is 48 by 42 feet, the
state dining-room 52 by 30 feet, the drawing-room 36 by 24 feet, the
smoking-room 25 by 17 feet, the family dining-room 21 by 16 feet, the
earl's study 24 by 16 feet, her ladyship's boudoir 18 by 30 feet, the
state bedroom 33 by 24 feet, and nine other state apartments of similar
dimensions. There are sixteen family bedrooms, each with a bath
attached, on the second floor, and twenty-six double and single bedrooms
on the third floor, with a bachelor's wing of fifteen rooms entirely
separate from the rest of the house and reached by a long corridor.
There is a nursery and schoolroom 36 by 18 feet, a servants' hall 30 by
20 feet, and fifteen bedrooms for servants. Altogether there are eighty
living-rooms, amply furnished, besides the kitchens, bakery, storerooms,
pantries, and servants' quarters. There is a garage, and stabling for
seventeen horses, a dairy, a fish hatchery which stocks the brooks with
trout and the lakes with salmon; seven thousand acres of forest preserve
with deer and other game, and, altogether, more than one hundred
thousand acres of shooting upon the hills and mountains, the bogs and
forests surrounding the Lakes of Killarney. In 1907 the game bag
included 2,500 rabbits, 470 pheasants, 400 woodcock, 200 grouse, 150
hares, 100 snipe, and 40 teal ducks, 14 stags, 6 hinds, and 4 does. No
account was taken of the trout and the salmon which abound in the lake
and in the several rivers and brooks which feed it. It is undoubtedly
one of the most beautiful and attractive estates in all the United
Kingdom.
The fishing is very good in the spring. An Englishman at our hotel
brought in several beautiful ten and twelve pound salmon, which he
caught with a fly, although it was warm weather and the poorest time of
year for the fishing. His lordship charges a fee of five dollars for the
privilege of fishing in his lake. That pays for a license of one year,
but is not transferable. A transient guest at a hotel, however, can go
out with licensed fishermen as often as he likes. In the spring, when
the salmon are running, nets are used, and his lordship gets the
proceeds of the catch. The fish are shipped to Dublin and London, and
the returns are $3,000 and $4,000 a year. His lordship allows none but
rowboats upon the lakes. He will not permit a steamer or motor launch or
even a naphtha launch, and every one who has a boat has to take out a
license, for which he collects ten shillings. But the boatmen make it up
during the tourist season.
The Earl of Kenmare will share his blessings, so far as his park is
concerned, with you or any one else for a sixpence, and they are well
worth it. I do not know any place where a lover of nature or one who is
fond of strolling through the woods can get as much for his money. The
demesne or park contains about nineteen hundred acres of forest and
garden with many miles of walks and drives. The lodgekeepers at every
one of the six gates are always alert to collect the sixpence and give
you a ticket, numbered and stamped and good for that day only. But you
can pass the gates with it as often as you like until they are closed at
night, and a wise man will spend as much time as he can spare within the
demesne every day. When we were there in June the trees were glorious;
hundreds of acres of rhododendrons were in flower and made great banks
of purple blossoms; the hawthorns, arbutus, laburnums, and other
flowering trees and the woodbine were in their greatest glory. And when
they fade we can admire the oaks and beeches that have been growing
there for hundreds of years. Many of the trees were planted after
designs. There are long avenues that are completely roofed by boughs,
and at one place a magnificent cathedral of beeches has been devised of
foliage, three wide aisles made by five rows of venerable beech trees
more than three hundred years old, which were trimmed almost to the top
when young and the branches trained to overlap so that they are almost a
rain-proof roof. The trunks are smooth and almost straight, like the
columns of a basilica, and the ground is covered with half decayed
shells of beech nuts that have fallen during the centuries.
But the most glorious part of the demesne is the garden, which surpasses
any that I have seen for years. It occupies a terrace surrounding
Kenmare House upon the highest eminence in the demesne and overlooks the
lakes. It is laid out in the Italian style, and the gardener told us
that it was designed by the Dowager Lady Kenmare when she was a bride.
If that is true her ladyship must have been a very clever landscape
gardener. The most striking feature is a tennis court inclosed within a
hedge of cypress ten feet high and six feet thick, with the top trimmed
to represent the wall of a castle, with arches for entrances and bays
and recesses where benches have been placed to accommodate spectators.
This unique wall of cypress is so dense that a tennis ball will rebound
from it. Adjoining the tennis court is a croquet ground, and just behind
them an exquisite little cottage where her ladyship serves tea every
summer afternoon to her guests.
I was told that no other garden in Ireland compares with this, and the
only ones that approach it are those of the Duke of Devonshire at
Lismore and the Duke of Ormonde at Kilkenny. Although those at
Versailles and Fontainebleau are much more extensive, they are not so
artistic.
The Lakes of Killarney are three in number and, strangely enough, have
no romantic names. They really are only one lake, the Lower, Upper, and
Middle lakes being connected by narrow channels only a few yards long.
The three are thirty miles in circumference and the extreme end of Upper
Lake is eleven miles from the extreme end of Lower Lake. The Lower Lake
is the largest, being about five and a half miles long and two and a
half miles wide at the widest place; Middle Lake and Upper Lake are each
about two miles long at the greatest length and about three-quarters of
a mile wide at the widest point. They all contain numerous islands of
different sizes. Somebody has counted them, and I think has found
sixty-five, large and small. One of them, Innisfallen Island, was
occupied by a monastery back in St. Patrick's time, and the famous
"Annals of Innisfallen," one of the earliest and most authentic of the
ancient Irish histories, was written there by the monks, who began the
manuscript at least twelve hundred years ago. The original is now in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, and is one of the most valuable manuscripts
in the world, with fifty-seven leaves, closely covered with beautiful
penmanship. The earlier portion consists of extracts from the Old
Testament and a history of the world down to the arrival of St. Patrick
in 432. From that time it treats exclusively of Irish affairs,
terminating with the year 1319. It is evidently a record of certain
facts which came to the knowledge of the monks of Innisfallen Abbey
during a period of nearly seven hundred years until, in 1320, the abbey
was plundered and the monks massacred by Maolduin O'Donaghue and the
MacCarthys. It has since remained in ruins, a few broken walls covered
with ivy, which are visited regularly by Augustinian brothers who come
here on pilgrimages.
The lakes are surrounded almost entirely by a range of mountains, except
on the north, where they break into low hills. There are six peaks
rising over two thousand feet, including Carran-Tuel (3,314 feet), the
highest mountain in Ireland; Mangerton (2,756 feet), Purple Mountain
(2,739), Devil's Punch Bowl (2,665), Toomies (2,500), and Torc (2,100).
There are several other mountains which approach these in height,
forming a mighty barrier between County Cork and County Kerry, and
protecting Killarney from the cold southwest winds of the ocean. The
Devil's Punch Bowl is an extinct volcano, and gets its name from an
enormous crater near its summit which is filled with water and fed from
subterranean springs. There is no bottom so far as people have been able
to discover. The crater reaches down into the bowels of the earth
somewhere and furnishes an inexhaustible reservoir of pure, cold water,
which is now piped down to the village of Killarney.
[Illustration: UPPER LAKE, KILLARNEY.]
By a curious freak of nature these mountains are all detached and
separated by narrow valleys and gorges, although at a distance they seem
to be in a cluster. The passes are watered with streams that fall
over precipitous rocks and form numerous cascades. We came through one
of them on our way from Glengariff, and nearly all the others have hard,
smooth roads which are utilized for excursions on coaches, and in
jaunting cars. Some of them are impassable except on horseback. They
furnish delightful diversions for tourists and people who are spending
the summer at the hotels, and give a good opportunity to see the scenery
and Irish life. The excursion system is well organized. It is only
necessary to buy a ticket and to "follow the man from Cook's." There are
many short drives also and visits can be made to the islands by
rowboats. There are several romantic old castles and the Earl of Kenmare
has built tea houses at different points which are greatly appreciated.
There is no more delightful place in the world for rest and mild forms
of enjoyment, but sporty people will find Killarney "beastly dull." It
is not in the least bit exciting; there is no dressing and there is no
dancing, and some of the hotels are without barrooms. The most thrilling
excitement is found in tennis, golf, fishing, walking, driving, and
listening to a phonograph in the evening. There is an active rivalry
between the worshipers of the Scotch and the English lakes and the
admirers of the Lakes of Killarney. They all have a certain resemblance,
and the latter are like Alpine lakes in miniature--not so much mountain,
not so much water, but a similar canopy of blue sky and green settings.
The mountains were grouped by a competent Artist and are embroidered and
fringed with foliage, but are bare as a bone on their slopes and peaks.
They are good for nothing but scenery. The grass is so scarce that it
doesn't pay to pasture cattle over them, and a goat would have nervous
prostration from loneliness. There are said to be plenty of deer, but
that is doubtful.
But as features of a picture the mountains around Killarney, with their
shifting lights and shadows as the sun rises and declines, are exquisite
pictures. They appear at their best when the sun goes down and the mist
rises and softens their outlines. The lingering twilight leaves deep
shadows of purple and blue, and every evening we sit on a bench in the
hotel garden and watch them fade away like a scene in a theater when
curtains of gauze are dropped one after another.
The vivid Irish imagination has furnished a volume of legends and
superstitions about the lakes. Some of them have been handed down from
the earliest generations. These attractions drew to them the lovers of
the beautiful ages ago and they were originally known as "The Lakes of
Learning," because at one time there were three monasteries there,
attended by multitudes of students from all over the world. They have
been a favorite theme of all the Irish poets, and the scene of
innumerable romances. The legends, which account for the origin of the
lakes, are not consistent. Some one neglected to close the entrance to
an enchanted fountain in the mountains, which caused a flood and covered
fair and fertile fields and splendid palaces with water. One of the
ancestors of the O'Donaghues, who originally owned all the water and all
the mountains, as the Earl of Kenmare does at present, full of
skepticism and wine, defied the gods, who threatened destruction if a
stone from a certain sacred well should be disturbed. With the bravado
that was characteristic of his descendants, he carried the stone to his
castle. When the people heard of this impiety they fled to a neighboring
mountain, and in the morning when the sun rose they looked down and saw
that the valley in which their homes had been was covered with water.
The O'Donaghue is the hero of most of the legends. He is identified with
almost every island and with almost every glen. The legends all agree
that the men and women who inhabited the lovely valley did not perish
with him, but The O'Donaghue lives at the bottom of the lake in a
gorgeous palace, surrounded by congenial friends and enjoys feasting and
folly as much as he did before the flood. Every seven years in the
summer he comes to the surface, and makes a journey from one end of the
lakes to the other, riding a splendid white stallion, in an armor of
gold and a helmet that glitters with diamonds. He gallops through the
town and around the mountains just as he did when he was the lord of
the land, and will continue to do so until the silver shoes on the hoofs
of his stallion are worn out. Blessings are showered upon every one who
is fortunate enough to see him. If a girl can catch a glimpse of this
brilliant knight as he makes his midnight journey she is sure to be
married before the end of the year.
O'Donaghue's horse, his prison, his stable, his library, his cellar, his
pulpit, his table, his broom, and various other things that belonged to
him are pointed out among the rocks upon the islands of the shore. Every
freak of nature has some association with him.
Scores of peasants may be found who have actually seen him, and half the
population believe in his seven-year visits. Many curious stories of
which O'Donaghue is the hero have been invented in the generations that
have passed by imaginative mothers to entertain their children. When I
asked a thoughtful jaunting car driver if he believed in the periodical
appearance of the ancient lord of the lake, he answered:
"Wall, I dunno', I dunno'; me mither tould me the tale wid her own
blessed lips; me wife has tould it jist the same to our own children,
and I am shure The O'Donaghue isn't in Killarney the rist of the toime,
and why shouldn't he have the pleasure of comin' for one noight?"
St. Patrick never came to Killarney, but the legend is that he climbed
up to the top of the tallest mountain, stretched out his hands over the
lakes and said: "I bless all beyint the reeks" (mountains).
Fin MacCool kept his tubs of gold in the lake near Muckross Abbey and
his dog Bran watched them. "One day a brute of an Englishman, an' a
great diver intirely, came over to git the goold, and when he wint down
into the wather the dog Bran sazed him by the trousers and shook the
life out of him until he died, and his ghost has been wanderin' around
there ivir sence."
The shore of the lake under the windows of Ross Castle is strewn with
curious-looking flat stones. They are the books of his library which
The O'Donaghue threw out of the window when he was mad one day, and they
turned to rocks.
When The O'Donaghue was a slip of a boy and was sitting in front of the
castle an old woman came running along shrieking that the O'Sullivans
had come through the pass from County Cork and were stealing the cattle.
"The O'Donaghue, thin only thirteen years old, bedad, seizes an oulde
sword and kills every mother's son of the thaving blaggards, an' sticks
their bodies up agin the wall as a warning to all the ruffians of the
clans beyant the mountains.
"When The O'Donaghue was a young man and went into his first battle he
slew six hundred of his enemies in a single day. He fought so long and
became so tired that his legs and arms would have fallen off his body if
they hadn't been held together by his armor.
"One day when Ossian, the poet, came to Killarney he met an old priest
trying to carry a sack of corn on his back. Ossian relieved him of the
burden. The priest called on the Holy Virgin to bless him, whereupon
Ossian said, 'I help you because you are an old man and not for the sake
of virgins or married women or widdies,' for Ossian was a hathen and he
didn't know any better, an' how could he know what the holy father meant
when he sphoke of the Blessed Virgin? But, nevertheless, the curse was
on him, and in a minute he was an ould shrivelled, crippled crater, a
dale oulder than the priest whose sack of corn he was carrying. And all
this for takin' the name of Blessed Virgin in vain, and not knowing any
better. But the priest, with a few words of prayer, relaved the
enchantment and converted Ossian to Christianity on the sphot."
[Illustration: ROSS CASTLE, KILLARNEY]
Ross Castle was the stronghold of the O'Donaghues. It was built
somewhere about the twelfth century by the celebrated Hugh O'Donaghue,
who lives in the lake and rides about the country every seven years. It
is an historic fact that he lived there once, although the legends that
are told of him go back for centuries before its foundation. There is a
massive tower or keep, about one hundred feet high and one hundred
feet square, "and ivy clasps the fissured stones with its entwining
arms." The walls of the tower are almost perfect. There is a long
extension, however, entirely in ruins, but it gives an idea of the
enormous dimensions of the castle. It was surrounded by outworks of
great strength, and you can see traces of the round watch towers at the
angles. A stone staircase leads to the top of the tower, where a
beautiful view of the country can be obtained. Few ruins in Ireland are
so extensive and so well kept.
Everybody has to pay a sixpence to see Ross Castle, and the money goes
into the empty pocket of the Earl of Kenmare. You have to pay to see
everything in this country, however, and sometimes the petty hotel
charges are exasperating. They are insignificant, but everything goes in
the bill; every time you draw a breath or ask a question it costs
twopence. If the hotel managers would make a straight rate per day to
cover all these trifles they would make a great deal more money and save
a great deal of temper. The only free ruins are those of the ancient
Abbey of Agahadoe, which occupy a conspicuous site on the ridge back of
the town where they were built in the eighth century by Finian, the
leper saint.
Ross Castle has withstood many a siege in its time, but was finally
captured, dismantled, and left in its present condition during the civil
war in 1652. It was attacked by General Ludlow with an army of four
thousand footmen and two hundred horse, and defended by The O'Donaghue
of that time. Finding it impregnable by land, Ludlow left a portion of
his force to hold it in a state of siege, while he retired to
Castlemaine and built a fleet of boats with which he made an attack by
water. There was an ancient proverb that "Ross Castle will never fall
until ships float in the Lake of Killarney," hence, the garrison
remembered that saying when they saw Ludlow's flotilla approaching, and
were so demoralized by the superstition that they abandoned it and laid
down their arms. It was the last of the O'Donaghues. Their power and
glory have never been regained.
The village of Killarney is unattractive and untidy, but it is a busy
place. One doesn't understand why in a country where there is so much
room to spare, the villages should not be made up of detached cottages
with gardens and lawns, hedges and shade trees, instead of sections of
solid blocks that look as if they had been cut out of the tenement house
districts of crowded cities. Killarney is a solid mass of brick and
mortar, with stuccoed fronts, painted a dingy yellow, without the
slightest thing to relieve the monotony until you suddenly pass the last
house and the green fields begin.
It is a great tourist center, and there are a dozen hotels and
boarding-houses of different pretensions and prices. There are "licensed
houses" and "unlicensed houses" and some of them are licensed for seven
days in a week, which means that the proprietor has permission to sell
whisky and beer from two to five o'clock on the Sabbath day. Cook's
excursion parties come in like swarms of bees, buzzing around the hotels
and shops where laces and other curiosities are for sale and carry off
loads of queer things as souvenirs. They breakfast at seven o'clock in
the morning and are piled into great four-horse coaches by nine and
start off on excursions with their luncheons in baskets under the seats.
They return at sunset completely tired out, but the next morning are off
for Dublin or Glengariff. It is about as hard work to travel with an
excursion party as anything I know of, for every moment must be
economized and everybody feels under obligations to see everything.
Killarney is quite an educational center also. There are several popular
schools there and several monasteries. The Franciscans conduct a
theological seminary and the Christian Brothers have a college in
connection with the cathedral. There are two or three convents where
young ladies are educated, and a large institution in which two hundred
and ten girls are being taught by the nuns to make lace, which is one of
the most profitable occupations an Irish woman can engage in. And they
have a School of Housewifery, conducted by the British government under
the supervision of the minister of agriculture at Dublin. Paternalism is
carried farther in Ireland than in Switzerland, Germany, or any other
place I know of, as you will admit when you hear that twenty-three
rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed mavourneens are being educated at the expense of
the taxpayers as domestic servants. They are rescued from the filthy
cabins in the mountains, washed, and clothed in neat liveries, natty
little muslin caps are pinned to their raven tresses, frilled muslin
aprons are fastened to their frocks, and they are taught how to wash
dishes and cook and make beds and do plain sewing, and dust the
bric-a-brac in the drawing-room and say, "Yes, me lady," and "Yes, me
lord," and courtesy when they are spoken to. They learn to mend and
embroider, to do up hair, to fasten dresses and other duties pertaining
to the jurisdiction of a lady's maid, and, after a year or so of this
training, they are found positions in the households of the nobility,
where they will spend their lives as servants and marry a footman or a
gamekeeper, as will their children and grandchildren generations to come
after them, because domestic service is a profession in Great Britain,
and is followed by families who are trained for their work.
This school is a great thing for the Irish girls in the mountain cabins,
whose lives might otherwise be hopelessly sunk in squalor and filth that
seem to be inseparable from the peasant population. I have never been
able to find anybody to explain why an Irish farmer piles his manure in
front of the only door to his cabin. It is an habitual subject of
witticism, just as it is in Switzerland, where similar customs prevail,
but with thousands of acres of bare ground all around the cabin, it
would seem that some other place might be found.
It occurred to me, too, as I was going through the School of
Housewifery, that our government might do worse than establish similar
schools in the Southern States for training colored girls in the same
way, but I suppose the Supreme Court would pronounce such a scheme
unconstitutional.
A house by the roadside now occupied by a farmer named McSweeny is
pointed out as the birthplace of Robert Emmet.
Lord Kitchener was born about nineteen miles from here, at Crotto
House, Tralee, where his father and mother were stopping for the summer.
His father was a colonel in the army and was on leave from his regiment
at the time of Kitchener's birth.
The great Daniel O'Connell was also born in the neighborhood, and his
nephew, Sir Maurice O'Connell, lives in a stately mansion that overlooks
the lower lake in the middle of a beautiful grove.
Muckross Abbey ranks with Melrose Abbey in Scotland and Kenilworth
Castle in England as among the most picturesque and interesting ruins in
the world. The walls and the Gothic windows, the tower and several other
distinctive features are well preserved, and the ivy drapery makes it an
exquisite picture. The abbey stands within the park of two hundred and
ninety acres that surrounds Muckross House and is the property of Lord
Ardilaun, who has many beautiful places in different parts of Ireland,
and cannot possibly enjoy them all; but none is so beautiful as Muckross
House.
[Illustration: MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY]
He purchased the property of the Herbert family who inherited it from
Florence MacCarthy More, who, in 1750 married Agnes, daughter of Edward
Herbert of this county, and they had one son who was the last MacCarthy
More in the direct line, and that famous family became extinct, for he
died without issue in 1770, and the estate passed into the possession of
his mother's family, being the nearest relatives. The Honorable Arthur
Herbert died in 1866, and a beautiful Celtic cross has been erected to
his memory upon the highest hill in the neighborhood, overlooking the
park that he prized so highly, and where he enjoyed so much pleasure.
His widow and daughters lived there for thirty years until they expired,
when the place was offered at auction and Lord Ardilaun bid it in for
£63,000 for the estate, and paid £10,000 more for furniture, pictures,
live stock, and other property, making it cost him altogether about
£73,000. And now he offers it for sale--the whole thing, a house of
thirty-two rooms, a park of two hundred and ninety acres, the ruins of
Muckross Abbey, and history and legends galore--for £75,000. And
perhaps he would take less from the proper person. In 1907 a syndicate
was organized to purchase the place and turn it into a Monte Carlo. They
proposed to make the handsome old mansion a gambling-house and erect a
large hotel with all possible allurements near by; but when Lord
Ardilaun learned of the scheme, he instructed his solicitors to insert
in the deed a clause stipulating that it should be used for residential
purposes only, and that made it worthless to the syndicate. So Muckross
Abbey and its beautiful surroundings are still in the market.
The abbey dates back to the dawn of Christianity in Ireland, and its
site was originally occupied in the fourth or fifth century by a
monastery founded by St. Finian of Innisfallen and his monks. The
present building, however, was erected by Donald MacCarthy More, Prince
of Desmond, in 1330, and was finished by his son in 1340 for the
Franciscan friars, who occupied it as a monastery and as a college.
There was some kind of an institution on the same site between the
monastery of St. Finian and the present one, for an ancient manuscript
in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, gives an account of its
destruction by fire in the eleventh century. The founder, Donald
MacCarthy More, built the beautiful chapel as a burial place for himself
and his posterity. It is also the burial place of the O'Donaghues of the
Glens, and in the very center of the choir is a large square tomb in
which was deposited the body of "The Great O'Donaghue," the chieftain of
the lakes, of whom Mr. Maurice R. Moriarity, the custodian, gives many
interesting legends in his history of the ruins.
The O'Donaghues were connected by marriage with the MacCarthys, kings of
Munster, and had their headquarters at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Twelve
generations, so far as the inscriptions can be deciphered, of that proud
family are lying there, and more than twenty generations of O'Donaghues.
The last MacCarthy buried here was Florence, husband of Agnes Herbert,
who lived in Muckross House until his death in 1770. The last O'Donaghue
buried here was Donal, a direct descendant of The O'Donaghue of the
Glens, who was a member of parliament and died in 1889. His son Jeffrey,
"The O'Donaghue," as the head of the family is always called, is a
barrister living in Dublin, a gentleman of high reputation and much
influence, although he has lost almost everything but his proud name and
a lineage that is interwoven with the history of Ireland since human
actions were recorded.
The grandfather of "The O'Donaghue" was a captain in the Munster
Fusiliers, which were recruited in County Kerry and was stationed at
Chester, near Liverpool, the home of Gladstone, in 1860, during a
religious agitation. A band of rioters were making ready to burn an
effigy of the pope when Captain O'Donaghue warned the leaders that if
such an insult to the holy father was offered the Kerry men of his
regiment would burn the city of Chester to the ground. When this threat
became known the mob dispersed, and there were no more religious
demonstrations while Captain O'Donaghue and the men of Kerry were in the
Chester barracks.
"The O'Donaghues were ginerally prayin' when they woren't foightin' or
dhrinkin'," said the ancient oracle who gave me this information. "They
feared none but God, and since Maolduin O'Donaghue burned the monastery
of Innisfallen and murdered the monks in 1158 they have spint much toime
doin' pinnance for his sins."
It is customary for the heads of these old families to use the word
"The" as a prefix to their names to indicate their rank, and I have seen
letters signed in that way, without the initials of the writer. For
example, "The MacDermott" is a barrister of importance in Dublin. "The
O'Donivan" lives at Cork and retains a part of the ancestral estates.
"The O'Shea" is a clergyman of the Church of England stationed at
Manchester and makes much of his position as the head of the clan. "The
O'Neill" is the Lord of Londonderry, and "The O'Connor" lives at
Sligo--a brother of the late Sir Nicholas O'Connor, who was British
ambassador at Constantinople at the time of his death. "The O'Flaherty"
is a justice of the peace near Galway, and a man of importance. And
members of other old families recognize the head of their clan in a
similar manner, although it carries nothing but glory and gratification
with it.
"The O'Sullivans, the MacCarthys, and all the old families loike the
O'Donaghues, are gone; played out, as ye moight say," remarked the
oracle. "For tin cinturies the O'Sullivans ruled whole counties in
Ireland, but they have lost their proid as well as their property, and
are now contint to kape pooblic houses [saloons] and sit around
complaining of the hard toimes. The whole country south of here is full
of O'Sullivans. There's more of thim than of any other name. If anny wan
were to sail across County Kerry in a balloon and cast out a bag of
corn, ivery kernel would hit an O'Sullivan, but they are only proivates
in the clan. The ruling line is extinct and no O'Sullivan now owns an
acre of the old estates. Nor do the O'Donaghues; they're as poor as
church mice, having lost all but the name and the spirit of the race.
"Look at that grave there; it's filled with the bones of Black Jeffery
O'Donaghue. They called him the Black Prince of the Glenflesk. He lived
at Killaha Castle, situated five moiles from here and built on a rock
standin' in the middle of a bog, and nobody could find the way but those
who knew it. His spirit nothing could contain. He hated the English as
no man ever hated thim before or since, and whin he saw an Englishman
his temper would rise like the hair on the back of an angry dog. No
Englishman ever came within soight of Killaha Castle and got home
aloive. But Black Jeffery died in his bed after all, of tuberculosis; ye
kin see the date on the tomb--1756, age 36.
"Did yez ivir hear about the midnight marriage of the master of Blarney
Castle which took place here in the ruined abbey in the year 1590, which
Quane Elizabeth an' the intire parlymint did their best to prevint? It's
a great story. The heads of the two branches of the MacCarthy family
were thin united in the persons of Florence MacCarthy of Blarney Castle,
the same gintleman that deludered Quane Elizabeth with his soft words
and caused the invintion of the word 'blarney' that is used so much
these days. Waal, he was in love with Aileen MacCarthy, his cousin,
daughter of Donal MacCarthy Mor, Earl of Glencare. The two factions had
been inemies, and it was the policy of the English to kape thim apart,
because a reconciliation would bring them togither an' make thim more
dangerous to British authority. And that was what Quane Elizabeth was
trying to prevint. She feared that if the MacCarthy factions made frinds
they would join Hugh O'Neill and the great Earl of Desmond, thin in
rebellion, and so the marriage was forbidden by her majesty. An' that
made Florence MacCarthy all the more determined to wed Aileen, who had
been his sweetheart in sacrit for several years, and one day he crossed
the lake wid Lady Aileen and her mother in a boat rowed by four lusty
gallowglasses with their battle-axes lyin' where the oars had been.
"They landed at midnight at the abbey, thin half in ruins, solemn and
mournful, in silence and decay. The moon shone through the roofless
walls and the broken windows of the crumbling shrine of Irrelagh, upon
the blissed head of a vinerable friar, Florence MacCarthy's chaplain,
who was awaiting thim himself--one of thim who, in the dark days of
Henry VIII. was expelled from the abbey at the point of a Protestant
sword. Wid him was O'Sullivan Mor, MacFinian, the Countess of Glencare,
and the beautiful Lady Una O'Leary, and that was all. No bard was there
to sing the bridal song, no harp to give swate sounds, no banner to
wave, no clansmen to raise a joyous cheer, an' no spear or battle-ax
gleamed in the moonlight, but the Blissed Virgin and all the saints were
lookin' down all the while, approvin', through the roofless aisles, when
Florence MacCarthy and Aileen MacCarthy pledged their vows.
[Illustration: A WINDOW OF MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY]
"This sacred marriage was proclaimed an act of treason by Quane
Elizabeth, and for that Florence MacCarthy went to the Tower, but he got
the bist of it after all."
The windows of Muckross Abbey are the most perfect of any ruin in
Ireland, and the moldings of several of the doorways are in a fine
state of preservation, so that the carving can be carefully studied.
There is a cloister thirty-three feet square, encircled by a vaulted
corridor seven feet wide and lighted by twenty-two arched windows, which
is as good as if it were built yesterday. And in the center of the
quadrangle is a venerable yew tree, said to be the largest in the world,
having been planted by the monks at the foundation of the abbey in 1340.
It was usual, so I am told, for Franciscan monks to plant yew trees in
the courtyards of their monasteries, and they are found frequently in
ruins. The trunk of this tree is smooth and straight to a height of
twenty feet, and is about twelve feet in circumference at the base. The
branches spread over the inclosing walls like an umbrella and darken the
entire quadrangle, which never had any other roof.
Several legends are woven around this majestic tree which, in the eyes
and hearts of the people of Killarney, is an object of great veneration.
If any one should injure it, even by breaking off a twig, he would
excite popular indignation. They believe that such sacrilege will be
punished by the death of the guilty person within a year, and it is a
remarkable coincidence that such things have occurred several times.
The kitchen, the refectory, the chapter-rooms, and several other
apartments are in an excellent state of preservation and are well cared
for, but the cells of the dormitory have almost disappeared. The tower
stands as it was five hundred years ago, but is an empty shell, having
no roof, flooring, or staircase, and visitors are prohibited from
climbing the walls.
Some of the graves are quite modern. Muckross Abbey is still open for
the burial of members of four families, who have ancient rights. The
latest grave was made in 1902. Several of the epitaphs are quite
interesting, particularly those which bear testimony to the virtues and
the happiness and usefulness of the women of the O'Donaghue and
MacCarthy families. For example, one of them describes a beloved wife,
"who, in her progress through life, fulfilled all its duties with
uniform and exemplary prudence, whose respectful love as a daughter,
whose affectionate kindness as a sister, whose fond and provident care
as a mother, and whose endearing tenderness as a wife, were eminently
conspicuous. Combining the discharge of social obligations with piety,
edifying yet unobtrusive, she lived and died a Christian. To rescue her
memory from oblivion, to preserve a remembrance of her virtues for the
instruction and imitation of the young, this stone is erected by her
disconsolate husband."
If you want a description of Muckross Abbey that is worth reading you
will find it in the works of Sir Walter Scott, who was there in 1825,
and if you are pleased with that, and would like a little more of the
same sort, read Lord Macaulay's account of his visit in 1849; in which
he says that one of the boatmen on Lake Killarney "gloried in having
rowed Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth about the lake when they were
here twenty-four years ago, and said it was a compensation to him for
having missed a hanging which took place in the village that very day."
XXVII
INTEMPERANCE, INSANITY, AND CRIME
There is a great deal of drunkenness in Ireland. There is more in Dublin
than anywhere else, but not so much as in Scotland. In Ireland a saloon
is called "a public house" and a saloon-keeper is called a publican. All
liquor selling is done under licenses granted by the justices of the
peace upon petitions signed by the people of the community in which the
saloon is to be located. There is no limit to the number of licenses;
and there seems to be no particular rule about granting them, except
that the fee of one pound must be paid annually. A license once granted
is perpetual as long as the annual fee is paid and the police do not
show cause why it should be revoked. Licenses are held chiefly by
ordinary merchants, at what we would call country stores, by the
wayside, at "four corners," where the peasants go to trade, and along
highways frequented by teamsters, jaunting cars, bicyclers, and other
people with vehicles. The publican usually puts a watering trough in
front of his place, and thus affords refreshment for man and beast. In
most of the rural districts licenses are held in families and handed
down from generation to generation of storekeepers, who keep bottles on
the shelves and manage to sell enough liquor to pay the fees. If the
business is sold or inherited the license goes with the place, and many
have been running for a hundred years or more.
Until recently anyone could get a license by obtaining a few signatures
of political influence, but a recent act of parliament prohibits the
issue of new licenses except for hotels, genuine clubs, and new villages
of a certain population. The effect of this legislation will be to
gradually reduce the number of liquor sellers and prevent the extension
of the traffic except as new towns may be started, which is not common
in Ireland, as it is in the United States.
In the five principal cities of Ireland, Dublin, Belfast, Cork,
Limerick, and Waterford, special licenses are necessary, and the fees
vary from one pound to sixty pounds per year, according to the amount of
business done. There are "six-day licenses" and "seven-day licenses."
The latter permit liquor selling between two and five o'clock on Sunday
afternoons and require an additional fee. The Sunday closing law is said
to be well enforced throughout all Ireland, but in Dublin crowds of men
and women can be seen standing around the "publics" during the open
hours on Sunday afternoons.
For the year ending March 31, 1907, a total of 23,835 licenses were
issued in Ireland, of which 17,496 were granted to publicans, 2,510 to
wholesale dealers, and 1,022 to wholesale grocers who handle wine, beer,
and spirits to be consumed off the premises; and 2,807 special licenses
were issued for temporary privileges.
The public houses show a slight decrease. Ten years ago, in 1898, there
were 17,407 licenses granted for them; in 1900 there were 17,596; in
1903 there were 17,749; in 1905 there were 17,571, and in 1907 there
were 17,496, or an average of one to every 250 people. The licenses for
the wholesale and grocery traffic also remain about the same.
W.R. Wigham, a Quaker, who is secretary of the Irish Association for the
Prevention of Intemperance, told me that there is less private drinking
and less habitual drinking in Ireland than is generally supposed. The
Irish are a convivial people, but comparatively few men or women drink
for the love of the liquor. Most of the drunkenness is seen at the fairs
and cattle sales, the festivals and wakes, although the use of liquor at
the latter has been forbidden by the bishops and is now much less
frequent than formerly.
In England and Scotland drinking is more regular and general for the
sake of the stimulant, while an Irishman very seldom drinks alone. In
order to lessen intemperance from conviviality an anti-treating
movement was started a few years ago. It was popularly known as "The
League of the Lonely Pint," and for a couple of years was quite
successful, but it did not last.
The quantity of spirituous liquors consumed in Ireland is much less than
in England or Scotland because the population is less, but the average
is greater than in Scotland. The _per capita_ consumption in England for
1906 of alcoholic liquors was 2,090 gallons, in Scotland, 1,430 gallons,
and in Ireland 1,614 gallons.
The drink bill _per capita_ is less in Ireland. Taking all liquors into
the calculation the expenditure _per capita_ for liquor in England last
year was £3 19_s._ 9_d._, in Scotland £3 3_s._ 1_d._, and in Ireland £3
2_s._ 10_d._
The number of arrests for drunkenness and for crimes and offenses which
may be attributed to liquor have been decreasing in Ireland for several
years. In 1902 in all Ireland, 80,054 men and 11,163 women, making a
total of 91,217, were arrested for drunkenness. In 1906 the figures were
68,656 men and 8,606 women, making a total of 77,262. This is a decrease
of 11,398 men and 2,557 women and a total decrease of 13,955 in four
years.
In 1902 one person out of forty-eight was arrested for drunkenness in
Ireland, in 1906 one in fifty-eight, which is a decided improvement; but
think of 8,000 and 11,000 women being arrested for drunkenness!
The number of arrests for assault during the year 1907 in all Ireland
was less than ever before, being only 16,055, in comparison with 24,027
in 1896, 22,065 in 1900, and 16,666 in 1904, while the number of persons
arrested for disorderly conduct decreased from 90,233 to 77,262 during
the same years. There is a terrible side to the picture. Of the women
arrested for drunkenness in Ireland last year more than one thousand
were under twenty-one years of age, 118 between sixteen and eighteen
years of age, while 156 were over sixty.
The Sunday law is pretty well enforced, and during the last year,
outside of the five principal cities, 2,289 persons were arrested for
its violation. That is about the average for the last ten years.
In Dublin there has been a decided falling off in the arrests for
drunkenness on Sunday; the total in 1898 was 1,280, while in 1907 it was
only 404. The number of arrests for drunkenness on Sunday in Cork
decreased from 265 to 193 during the same period, and those in Belfast
from 537 to 434.
In the city of Dublin alone 1,772 women were arrested for drunkenness in
1907 and 2,941 men. In 1904, 1,976 women were arrested for drunkenness.
I don't suppose there is any city in the world where there is so much
drunkenness among women as there is in Dublin, except it be Glasgow and
Edinburgh, although the number of drunken men arrested is not so much
larger than the average in other cities of Europe and the United States.
And what is even more lamentable, the public is so hardened to the
repulsive spectacle that it does not attract as much curiosity as the
appearance of an ordinary drunken man upon the streets of Chicago or New
York. Women stagger from the doors of saloons along the sidewalks with
disheveled hair and disordered garments without attracting any attention
whatsoever.
The Roman Catholic clergy are doing a great deal to suppress disorder
and promote temperance by prohibiting the use of liquor at wakes.
Cardinal Logue and the several archbishops and bishops are determined to
abolish the disgraceful orgies that have been so common on such
occasions, and have forbidden priests to officiate at funerals or even
to say masses for the souls of the dead where liquor is offered to the
neighbors and mourners who sit up with the corpse. Some of the bishops
require the remains to be brought to the church on the day before the
funeral. As a consequence, the scandalous custom of holding a carousal
the night before the funeral is almost entirely obsolete except in the
slums of the large cities and in remote rural districts. As a rule
throughout Ireland, where friends now gather to "sit up" with the corpse
as a token of respect and sorrow, they are furnished with no stronger
refreshments than tea. The teapot is placed upon the stove or upon the
peat fire and the mourners help themselves as they desire; but if a
bottle of liquor is passed around it is done with the greatest caution
for fear the priest will hear of it.
Like the colored people of the United States, the peasants of Ireland
are possessed with an ambition to have "a fine funeral." Among the poor
this form of extravagance has been the cause of a great deal of distress
and privation, and formerly poor families often deprived themselves of
food to supply liquor that was consumed at the wake. This hospitable
custom, however, is rapidly passing away.
The Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance is composed of
delegates from nearly all of the many temperance societies in Ireland,
both Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Nonconformist, and Independent.
There are many mutual benefit societies among workingmen which
affiliate, and various associations of women and children. For the
purpose of co-operation and economy and to avoid friction and
duplication of labor, this central organization has been formed, and
consists of one representative from every contributing society. The
general council meets three times a year, has a complete organization,
sends lecturers into the field, issues literature, makes investigations,
and has committees to look after legislation that concerns the liquor
traffic.
The special work of the council is to secure temperance legislation and
the enforcement of laws that are already on the statute books,
especially the Sunday closing act and the law which forbids the sale of
liquor to minors. Another object is to encourage the formation of
temperance clubs throughout the country, to organize opposition to
applications for licenses, to promote meetings, to educate the people as
to the evils of the liquor traffic, and to create public sentiment
against it. It also has committees to encourage the establishment of
restaurants at which liquor is not sold, to encourage healthful
recreation, and to provide local amusements that will keep the men out
of the public houses.
The president of the council is a Roman Catholic barrister; the
secretary is a Quaker; the vice-presidents include all of the Roman
Catholic and all of the Church of Ireland archbishops and several
bishops of both denominations, the president of the Methodist
conference, the president of the Maynooth College (Roman Catholic), the
provost of Trinity College, the moderator of the Presbyterian general
assembly, several earls and other members of the nobility, the leaders
of the Irish party in parliament, and several other gentlemen of equal
prominence and influence.
"The Church of Ireland has a very strong organization," said Mr. Wigham,
"but, of course, it is not so strong or so extensive as that of the
Roman Catholics, because they constitute at least three-fourths of the
population of Ireland. The Presbyterians and Methodists are also well
organized and have a temperance society in every parish and connected
with every chapel. Our central organization is supported by them all,
and is entirely nonsectarian, as you will perceive upon examining our
list of officers.
"Nearly all the temperance work in Ireland is done by religious
organizations, and whatever may be the differences of the denominational
leaders over theology and other matters, they are united and harmonious
in their opposition to the liquor traffic. I should say that the
influence of Maynooth College is greater than that of any other
institution. The temperance sentiment under the influence of President
Mannix is very strong there, and the students have a society called 'The
Pioneers,' the members of which take a pledge that they will abstain
from all intoxicating liquors during their entire life. No man can join
'The Pioneers' until after two years of probation, in order that he may
take the vows with his eyes wide open and with plenty of reflection; but
more than two-thirds of the priests that come out of that institution
are 'Pioneers.'
"There has been a decided change in the habits of the priesthood of
Ireland during the last generation or two. Formerly it was not
considered improper, and, indeed, it was customary, for a priest to set
out a bottle and a glass for the refreshment of all visitors of
importance, and his parishioners would feel very much mortified if they
could not offer similar hospitality to the priest when he came to see
them. It was common for a priest to have wine and whisky on his table
and to linger with the rest of the guests at a dinner party when the
ladies had left the dining-room. But that is the exception nowadays.
Those customs are obsolete and most of the priests would as soon think
of offering a dose of poison to a parishioner as to hand him a bottle of
liquor. The old-fashioned rollicking parson has entirely disappeared
from both the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Ireland, and the
priesthood is at present composed almost entirely of earnest, devout
men, who abstain entirely from liquor and try to promote habits of
temperance among their parishioners. A majority of the bishops have
forbidden the use of liquor at wakes and will not allow anything
stronger than tea on those occasions. A majority of them will not
confirm a child that will not take a pledge of total abstinence until it
is twenty-one years of age. Some of them put the limit at twenty-five. A
great work is also being done by the Jesuits, the Capuchins, and the
Franciscans, who have been asked by the bishops recently to co-operate
in a great propaganda that is to include the entire island.
"Dr. Walsh, the archbishop of Dublin, and other archbishops, have
recently undertaken to secure the closing of all saloons on St.
Patrick's day, and it is proposed to boycott the publicans who keep open
doors. Last year Archbishop Walsh published a pastoral in his diocese in
which he said, 'In certain districts, not a few of the licensed houses
for the sale of intoxicating drinks are still kept open on that day.
This continues to be done, although a number of the proprietors of
licensed houses, indeed the majority of them, closed their
establishments in honor of the holy festival of our national apostle. In
so doing they did their part toward securing the observance of the
national holy day that should not be marred by intemperance among the
people. It is lamentable that the efforts thus made in so good a cause
should be frustrated to a large extent by the selfish actions of those
members of the licensed trade who are setting the healthy public opinion
of the city at defiance and seem to make the praiseworthy action of
others an occasion of profit to themselves. A vigorous combined effort
should be made by the clergy to secure a general closing of licensed
houses on St. Patrick's day.'
"This patriotic action of Dr. Walsh has had a decided effect upon the
celebration of St. Patrick's day," continued Mr. Wigham, "and it is now
more of a religious festival than an occasion for carousing. Several
other bishops have taken the same stand with similar results.
"The labor party has also taken an advanced position in favor of
temperance legislation," continued Mr. Wigham. "At the annual meeting of
the labor unions last year a resolution was adopted in favor of local
option. The resolutions declare that 'the liquor traffic is a frightful
source of poverty, crime, and lunacy,' and demand a law 'giving the
inhabitants of every locality the right to veto any applications for
either the renewal of existing licenses or the granting of new ones,
seeing that public houses are generally situated in thickly populated
working class districts.'
"The vote on the adoption of this resolution was 666,000 against
103,000.
"The local option bill now pending before parliament applies to England
only," continued Mr. Wigham. "It does not affect Ireland, but we expect
to see the passage of a law prohibiting liquor to be taken from the
premises on which it is sold and also forbidding a man to use the wages
of his wife and children or to pawn the property of his family for
drink."
"What is the drink bill of Ireland?" I asked, and in reply Mr. Wigham
gave me the following table showing the total expenditure and the _per
capita_ expenditure of the people of Ireland for liquor annually for the
last six years:
Total. Per capita.
1902 £14,257,751 £3 4s 5d
1903 14,311,034 3 4s 10d
1904 13,816,318 3 2s 10d
1905 13,340,472 3 0s 10d
1906 13,787,970 3 2s 10d
1907 13,991,314 3 3s 10d
The consumption of liquors in Ireland last year was as follows:
Distilled spirits (gallons) 2,391,595
Beer (barrels) 4,574,263
Wine (gallons) 92,465
Other liquors (gallons) 25,000
---------
Total 7,083,323
Average gallons per capita 1,614
"The people of Ireland are drinking less spirits," continued Mr. Wigham,
"and more beer. Ten years ago, for example, they consumed 4,713,178
gallons of spirits, which has been reduced to 2,391,595. During the same
time the consumption of beer has increased from 2,903,915 barrels to
4,574,263 barrels.
"Last year, by the official statistics, the Guinness brewery in Dublin
produced 2,136,629 barrels of beer and other malt liquors, and paid
£2,092,000 duty to the government, an average of £3,000 a day. Alsopps
Company produced 1,125,178 barrels, another company 887,175 barrels,
still another 827,997 barrels; so you see that the manufacture of malt
liquors is very large and is increasing. Some people consider this a
great improvement, but it is still very harmful, and it is a startling
fact that the population of Ireland pay more money for whisky and beer
than they pay for rents or for food or for clothing. The total income of
the population of Ireland is given at £70,000,000, and, as you have seen
from the table I have given you, they spent last year £13,991,314 for
intoxicating drinks."
The Guinness brewery is the largest establishment of the kind in the
world. The buildings cover fifty acres of ground; 3,240 men are employed
in them, and 10,000 people are dependent upon the wages paid. The
brewery was founded in 1759 by an ancestor of the present owner, and did
a purely local business until 1825, when the managers began to seek
trade in England and Scotland. They undertook to secure a foreign market
in 1860. At present the foreign trade is much larger than local
consumption. Last year the total sales amounted to 76,540,000 gallons,
which is an average of nearly two gallons _per capita_ for every
man, woman, and child in the kingdom. An average of 3,600 barrels
of stout are produced daily in one brewery and a new brewery has a
capacity of 2,100 barrels daily. The duty paid in 1907 was more than
$10,000,000--one-fourteenth of the entire revenue collected on liquor in
the United Kingdom. The cold storage capacity of the establishment is
200,000 hogsheads of beer of fifty-two gallons each. One vat will hold
1,700 hogsheads. The main warehouse contains an average of 1,000,000
bushels of malt and similar amounts of other supplies are required. From
eight to ten thousand empty casks arrive at the wharf of Guinness & Co.
daily, chiefly from London, where all the beer, ale, stout, and porter
is sent by steamer in the wood to be bottled, and the fifteen hundred
new casks, required each week, are supplied by cooper shops on the
premises. The life of a cask averages ten years.
Although there is a deplorable amount of intemperance in Ireland, and
according to the estimates of those who have made a study of that
subject, at least one-fifth of the earnings of the people are spent for
liquor, there is comparatively little crime. If the offenses growing out
of the land troubles were deducted the criminal statistics would be very
small and Ireland would rank, with Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark,
among the most orderly and peaceful countries on the globe.
It may be said also that in comparison with the United States the
criminal statistics are very much in favor of Ireland. For example,
during the year 1906 there were only four murders in Ireland to eleven
in the District of Columbia, and only eleven assaults with dangerous
weapons in Ireland to fifty-three in the District of Columbia. During
the year 1907 there were eight murders in Ireland and eighteen in the
District of Columbia and only seventeen assaults with dangerous weapons
in Ireland to fifty-one in the District of Columbia, notwithstanding the
difference in population. The population of Ireland is 4,398,565, and
that of the District of Columbia is 317,380.
During the year 1905 there were 9,728 persons indicted for crimes in
Ireland; in 1906 the total was 9,465, and in 1907 it was 9,418, or 2.2
per 1,000 of the population. The same ratio is reported for 1897, and
the average for the ten years was 2.5 per 1,000.
During the year 1906 there were 372 persons indicted for crime in the
District of Columbia, or 1.17 per 1,000 of population, and in 1907 there
were 381 indictments, or 1.20 per 1,000.
During the year 1906 there were 4,922 indictments found in Chicago (Cook
County), with a population of 2,166,055, or less than one-half that of
Ireland, the ratio to population being 2.27 per 1,000. For the year 1907
there were 4,699 indictments found in Chicago, which was 2.16 per 1,000
of the population.
In Ireland, however, at least one-fifth, and usually more of the
indictments, are for cattle driving, for attempts to burn crops,
hayricks, and stables, for killing and maiming cattle, and for writing
threatening letters. The authorities are very severe in their efforts to
suppress the land troubles, and sometimes half the population of a
village will be indicted for using popular methods of persuasion to
compel the large landowners to sell their farms. A great many
threatening letters are written, for which there is a heavy penalty, and
when some ranchman who has refused to divide up his pastures into farms
and sell them to the "landless" finds his fences broken down and his
cattle scattered all over the country, every suspected person is
indicted for moral effect. There are very few convictions. The people
who are engaged in the outrage will not testify against each other and
there are no other witnesses.
In Ireland there are very few cases of robbery or burglary. Petty
larceny is the principal item in the list of offenses. Grand larceny,
embezzlement, forgery, and similar crimes are infrequent.
The largest buildings in the county towns of Ireland are workhouses,
almshouses, and insane asylums, and they are always well filled. I
visited an insane asylum at Killarney, which is an enormous building,
well arranged and equipped with all modern conveniences, under the
direction of Dr. Edward Griffin, and surrounded by a beautiful garden
and hedges in the midst of an estate of sixty acres. It was opened in
1852. The number of inmates in 1908 was 619, of whom 299 were women and
320 men. During the last six or seven years the number of women has
largely increased. The average age of the inmates is about thirty years.
There are more young men than old men in the institution. Dr. Griffin
told me that many causes lead to insanity. Whisky, however, has little
to do with the condition of the inmates. In 1907 only five men and two
women were there for that cause. Tea has a large number of victims,
destroying the nervous system by excessive use. The largest proportion
come from the country districts, especially from the seacoast,
comparatively few from the towns and cities. The greatest number are of
the farming and laboring classes, who made up three-fourths of the
inmates received last year--common laborers and poor farmers with two
acres of land and two cows. Those from certain districts are generally
related, predisposition to insanity being manifest in many families. The
farming class, coming from the moors and mountains with their barren
soil and great privations, are inclined to insanity because of their
impoverished conditions of life. Their only food is often tea, bread,
and tobacco. The first treatment at the asylum is to give them plenty of
nourishing food and build them up. They are furnished meat every day
except Friday. Religious delusions have disturbed the minds of many who
fear that they are damned forever and cannot enter heaven. They are hard
to cure and the slowest of recovery. The influence of the chaplain in
these cases is most beneficial. Under his ministration they receive
temporary consolation, but after he has left they often relapse into
their former melancholy.
The principal cause of insanity among those who come from the barren
moors and desolate mountains is not so much their isolated condition or
impoverished life, but their strange delusions. The mountain peasants
are very superstitious and imaginative. They believe in fairies and
bogies and hear strange voices in the air around them. They believe in
leprecawns, which are little men that come out of the ground. They
imagine that the fairies and goblins can come through the key-holes of
their rooms in the asylum; they are ever hearing strange voices and
seeing strange specters as they did upon the moors and mountains.
Of both men and women now in the institution at Killarney more than two
hundred have come back to Ireland after a sojourn in America. The
superintendent says that the dissipations and excitement of their
experience in the United States have caused their mental breakdown after
the quiet life and habits of the early days in Ireland. But hereditary
predisposition exists in almost every case and in time would have caused
the same affliction even though they had remained at home. Hereditary
influence and generations of poverty and privation are the general
causes of insanity. Very few recoveries are found among those who have
been born of insane parents. Most of those dismissed are soon back
again, broken down as before by poor nourishment, poverty, and want. The
number of readmissions is very large. There are two chaplains, one of
whom is Rev. Mr. Madden of the Protestant Church of Ireland. There are
very few Protestant patients, however, only twenty being in the asylum
at present, the population of the district being largely Roman Catholic.
The Roman Catholic chaplain, Rev. D. O'Connor, is in constant
attendance.
XXVIII
THE EDUCATION OF IRISH FARMERS
In connection with the breaking up of the big estates into small farms
and the introduction throughout Ireland of the system of peasant
proprietorship, the government has wisely provided for the education of
the farmers so that they may enjoy a larger reward for their labors.
There was some scientific farming on the large estates, but until
recently 95 per cent of the tenants throughout the country have been
simply scratching the land to raise a few potatoes and vegetables to
supply their tables and "laving the pig to pay the rint," as the saying
goes. But now things are different. A department of agriculture has been
organized, in some respects upon the lines of that in the United States,
and after frequent consultation between Sir Horace Plunkett, who was the
leader of the movement, and our own Secretary Wilson at Washington. The
question of agricultural education was taken up seriously, and what is
known as the "recess committee," formed by Sir Horace Plunkett, during
the winter of 1896, suggested a definite plan. The committee consisted
of himself, Lord Mayo, Lord Monteagle, John Redman, T.P. Gill, and
others.
They presented to the government a project for state aid toward the
development of agriculture and mechanical industries with a minister
responsible to parliament in charge, assisted by two councils--one for
agriculture, the other for technical instruction, composed of gentlemen
in touch with public opinion and familiar with the weaknesses and the
requirements of the farmers and the small manufacturers. The act was
passed by parliament in 1899 and a capital sum of $1,000,000 and an
annual appropriation of $830,000 was made for its support.
The department was promptly organized with Sir Horace Plunkett, the
leader of the movement, at its head, and various other branches of the
public administration not originally contemplated were placed under his
jurisdiction, including the quarantine of animals, the regulation of
railway freights on agricultural products, county fairs and markets, the
enforcement of the pure food and drugs laws, the fisheries, the
collection and publication of statistics, the suppression of frauds in
weights and in the sale of agricultural requirements and products, the
colleges of science and art, the art galleries, the Royal Museum and
library, and all technical education throughout the island. The
department very naturally took up first the work of aiding the
development and introducing improvements in agriculture, horticulture,
forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle, sheep, swine,
poultry, and bees; the protection of game and fish, the cultivation of
flax, home and cottage industries, such as spinning, weaving,
lace-making, and similar household arts; the improvement of cooking and
household economy, nursing, and various other occupations and industries
pertaining to the common people and of the utmost importance for their
health, happiness, and prosperity.
An advisory council of one hundred and four members was formed, composed
mostly of landowners and farmers, with a few merchants and clergymen,
including the bishops of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church
of Ireland, and a board of technical instruction of a similar character,
with several professional educators, the provost of Trinity College, the
Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin, and representatives of the clergy
of the Presbyterian and other nonconformist churches.
After considering the problem of technical education, which had never
been undertaken in Ireland to any extent, it was decided to commence by
introducing ordinary instruction in the common schools, and the sum of
$275,000 has annually been distributed, in proportion to population,
among the various counties to train children in the secondary schools of
the rural towns in trades and in the simple principles of the
cultivation of the soil, the breeding of cattle, and other practical
duties of farming life. In order to qualify teachers to give this
instruction summer schools were established at Dublin, Belfast, Cork,
and other central points, and in the cities evening schools were
provided for those who could make use of them. Faculties of experts were
employed for all these schools, and inspectors were sent about the
island inquiring into the methods and reporting upon the competency of
the teachers.
The Metropolitan School of Art and the Royal College of Science, which
have been in existence at Dublin for many years, were re-organized on a
practical basis, inspired with new vitality, and brought into full
activity for the instruction of young men and women in various forms of
arts and handicrafts which were practiced by their ancestors for
centuries, but have long since been lost sight of or neglected. The
Science and Art Museum on Kildare Street, which was seldom visited
except by tourists, is now a live place, and every morning is filled
with young men and women eager to learn lace-making, designing,
decorating, and other arts and industries which have been allowed to
languish in Ireland.
In connection with these schools instruction is given in domestic
economy, in the chemistry of cooking, in nursing, in dressmaking,
millinery, laundry work, and various other branches of domestic economy
which have never before been taught in Ireland. For the benefit of those
who cannot attend these schools twenty-nine itinerant instructors are
sent throughout the country to give instruction to the wives and
daughters of farmers and laborers, how to make the best use of foods and
how to practice other economies in household administration; how to
raise poultry and bees, do cottage gardening, the culture and the
preserving of fruit, and other practical domestic sciences.
This is something entirely new in Ireland, and the reports of the
itinerant instructors and of the inspectors who have followed them to
observe their work have been most encouraging as regards the interest
taken by the younger women and girls and the improvement that has
already been made in the conditions of the households of the working
classes in the country, for these efforts are confined to the rural
districts. There has been some attempt at reforming the sanitary
conditions of the tenement houses of Dublin and other cities, but they
have scarcely gone beyond the experimental stage, for the task is
greater than the department would dare undertake at present.
A large staff of itinerant instructors who are thoroughly posted and
trained in agricultural science are employed among the farmers, and
especially among those who have recently become the owners of small
farms under the Land Act of 1903. A sense of the responsibility of
proprietorship is being gradually developed. Heretofore those who have
occupied rented lands have had no incentive to improve them or even keep
them in good condition, because they never knew when they might be
evicted. But to-day one-third of the farmers in Ireland own the soil
they till, and when the government is able to furnish the money to pay
for purchases that have already been arranged one-half of the entire
number will have permanent homes and land of their own. Realizing this,
they are willing and in many cases eager to learn how to make the best
use of their possessions, how to get the largest returns for their
labor, and how to increase the value of their property. The demoralized
condition of the farming population caused by the frequent political
agitations has made instruction in these lines of economy useless until
recently; but now that the land wars are over and the causes for
agitation are being removed, and the farmers of Ireland are coming into
their own, they take a different view of life, and welcome every offer
of instruction that will enable them to improve their situation.
The itinerant instructors are practical men. They work among the farmers
in the fields in the summer, and during the winter deliver lectures with
practical illustrations in the schoolhouses, the town halls, and other
convenient places. There have never been any agricultural schools in
Ireland, and it would be difficult to persuade the farmers to attend
them, even if they were established. Therefore the officials of the
department have undertaken their work with the children of the farms in
the secondary rural schools with the hope and confidence that the next
generation can be persuaded to follow up this rudimentary learning by
taking advanced courses in agricultural science. Indeed, many of them
have already done so. There are to-day one hundred and twenty-eight
young men, all of them sons of poor farmers, studying agricultural
science in different institutions of Ireland, and many of them are being
assisted financially to gain a technical as well as a practical
education. The department has provided a system of pecuniary aid so that
boys who have shown special aptitude in the secondary schools may pass
on to the agricultural college, and the reorganized college of science,
and even to the university.
The itinerating instructors are introducing better varieties of
potatoes, grain, and other crops. They advise farmers as to the
selection of crops after making a chemical analysis of their soil; they
encourage the purchase of the best qualities of seed, show how it should
be planted, and conduct field experiments, inspect buildings and suggest
improvements, show how simple remedies can be applied to diseases of
live stock, explain the most approved methods of feeding dairy cattle
and butter-making, fattening chickens for market, egg packing, and other
little matters which are of the greatest value to those whose happiness
and prosperity depend upon the intelligent application of their labor.
In 1907, 8,394 farms were visited in this way by the instructors and
66,144 persons received instruction. More than two thousand lectures
were given, with an average attendance of sixty-seven.
To improve the live stock of the country the department loans money to
competent farmers to purchase high-class stallions, bulls, rams, and
boars, and takes their notes to be paid in annual installments. Last
year eleven stallions, one hundred and thirty-five bulls, seventy-four
rams, and a proportionate number of other animals were purchased in that
way. And to encourage breeding it offers prizes for the best stock in
the different counties, of a sufficient value to be an inducement for
competition. It gives financial subsidies for the aid of stock, poultry,
horticultural and agricultural exhibitions, plowing matches, implement
trials, labor competitions, and for the best yields of potatoes, grain,
corn, and other staples. It offers prizes in the different counties for
the best gardens, the best kept poultry-yards, and the best butter,
which has excited a widespread interest and resulted in a general
advancement of conditions.
As a result of prize competition a rivalry has sprung up among the
cottagers all over Ireland to improve the appearance and convenience of
their farms and buildings. The prizes are sufficiently large to make it
an object to keep their residences and stables in repair and neat and
clean, both inside and out. There is a similar improvement in cottage
gardens for the same reason. Last year more than $25,000 was given in
prizes in the different counties for the best kept cottages and house
gardens.
The department is encouraging tobacco and flax growing, and a very fair
quality of tobacco is now being raised in Ireland.
Special schools have been established for the instruction of creamery
managers and attendants, and the department has inaugurated a series of
inspections which are voluntary, but the certificate of the inspectors
adds considerably to the value of the butter in the market. Last year
359 creameries invited inspection, as compared with 166 in 1906 and 82
in 1905. This indicates that the value of the inspectors' certificates
is becoming appreciated.
Forestry operations are being undertaken also, and eighteen young men
are now under training for professional foresters. They are the first
that have ever been known in Ireland.
If anyone should attempt to distribute the credit and honor that are due
to those who have accomplished the good and promoted the prosperity that
Ireland is now enjoying, he would find himself in serious trouble at
once. Rivalries are very keen. Nowhere else is partisanship so
pronounced and so intolerant. People of different political theories
and policies are seldom willing to concede honest motives to their
opponents. The leaders of the national party insist that all the
beneficial legislation that has been enacted by the British parliament
has been yielded reluctantly by the government, not from any interest in
the welfare of the Irish people, but solely to avoid a revolution. But I
am sure that no one will deny that Sir Horace Plunkett has been one of
the most active and disinterested and effective agents in bringing about
the great reforms that have been accomplished there within the last few
years. He rushes about like an American hustler, carrying out his plans
for the welfare of the farmers of Ireland with intense earnestness,
independent of public opinion, and as confident of his success as he is
of his integrity. He was described to me by one of his friends as "the
most transparently sincere man in the kingdom, thoroughly unselfish,
disinterested, and patriotic, and with a sanguine disposition that
nothing can discourage." He spends $10,000 a year from his own pocket in
his benevolent work, and while he was at the head of the agricultural
department he turned over his entire salary to the Irish Agricultural
Organization Society, of which he is the founder and the president.
Sir Horace Plunkett is the son of the late Lord Dunsany of County Meath,
a very old Irish family, descended from the ancient Lords of the Pale,
who have lived in the same house for seven centuries and have had an
active part in the history of Ireland from the beginning of days. A
famous old Irish book called "The Annals of the Four Masters" says:
"There are many fierce barons in the Pale, and the traveler leaving
Dublin must pass between the Baron Killeen and the Baron Dunsany," and
Sir Horace referred to the reputation of his ancestors in a speech that
he made not long ago, as follows:
"I was reared in one of those old castles of the Pale, almost under the
shadow of the Hill of Tara, where the Plunkett family for seven
centuries have managed to cling to the same house. Of course, in the
good old days, we fought for what we considered our rights, which was
to treat the inhabitants of the country as mere Irish and to avail
ourselves of their long-horned cattle without payment. I have never
started a new creamery without a sense of restitution for their little
irregularities. An old chronicle we have in the family runs thus: 'There
be in Meath two Lords Plunkett, a Lord of Killeen and a Lord of Dunsany,
and so it comes to pass that whoever can escape being robbed at Dunsany
will be robbed at Killeen--and whoever can escape being robbed at
Killeen will be robbed at Dunsany.' This shows that our family took an
interest in the tourist traffic in those days, though our methods of
developing it, judged by the polite standards of to-day, may appear
somewhat crude. You will notice also the germ of the co-operative idea."
(The point of this joke lies in the fact that Sir Horace Plunkett is the
originator and the most active leader in establishing co-operative
societies throughout the island.)
He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and, when he got his degree, went to
the United States and bought a ranch in Wyoming, which he still owns in
partnership with former Senator Carey of that State. He also has large
interests in Nebraska and lived there for more than ten years. He keeps
up his acquaintance by annual visits.
Sir Horace Plunkett came back from America to Ireland with his soul
stirred by patriotism and an ambition to do something to improve the
condition of his fellow countrymen. He realized the great disadvantages
under which they were laboring in their antiquated methods of farming,
their rude tools and their ignorance, and in 1894 proceeded to organize
a nonpolitical movement to improve their condition by carrying
instruction to them because they would not go anywhere to receive it.
His enthusiasm and his activities attracted the sympathy and assistance
of several other patriotic people, including Lord Monteagle and R.A.
Anderson, who was then collecting rents and looking after the tenants of
Lord Castledown. In 1894, their work having become too large to be
carried on by individuals, they organized the Irish Agricultural
Organization Society with about four hundred subscribers, mostly people
who were not connected with agriculture. With the exception of Lord
Monteagle, Colonel Everhart, Sir Henry Bellew, Sir Joslyn Bore Booth,
and a few others, the landlord class took little interest in the
movement, but they are beginning to recognize the value of the society
and are giving it more sympathy and support than formerly.
R.A. Anderson, the permanent secretary of the society from the
beginning, told me the story as follows:
"An adequate staff was first employed who went about among the farmers
holding meetings, delivering lectures, talking with them privately,
explaining the advantages of education and co-operation, and organizing
local societies in every county and district to co-operate with the
general society in Dublin. This work has been going on ever since until
we have now about ninety thousand members, mostly small landowners and
farmers, although in the southern counties we have several prominent
ones.
"The next step was to organize co-operative creameries, the farmers
contributing the capital and sharing the returns, as in the United
States. They deliver their milk at the creameries every day and receive
credit tickets for it, which are settled once a month. This has proven
to be a great economy over the old plan, where each farmer made his own
butter at home, because it was badly made as a rule, brought a low
price, and kept down the reputation of the dairy industry in Ireland. We
have now in operation three hundred and fifty co-operative creameries to
which forty thousand farmers contribute. The butter is exported to
England and Scotland by the managers under the supervision of a
committee. The reputation of Irish butter has been restored. It commands
twenty-two cents a pound, about the same as the Danish butter, whereas
farm butter used to bring only fifteen or sixteen cents a pound, and it
is difficult to sell it even at that price in these days in competition
with the co-operative creameries.
"We have introduced the most modern methods of butter-making and
machinery. Pasteurization is being generally adopted and our cooling
machinery permits the ripening of cream much more accurately and the
production of better butter with a lower per cent of moisture. The
creameries are setting an excellent example in planting ornamental
shrubs around the buildings and forest trees for shelter, while several
have laid out attractive gardens. These external signs of care and taste
make a favorable impression upon the public, and the creameries are
being constantly visited by people from all parts of the country.
"Our next step was to organize societies among the farmers for the
co-operative purchase of supplies of various kinds, for the purchase of
seeds, manures, feeding stuffs, machinery, implements, carts, harness,
and everything a farmer needs but his live stock. We have one central
agency at Dublin acting for about two hundred local societies in
different parts of Ireland, representing about seventeen thousand
families, who buy everything they want in that way at much lower prices
than are charged by the local dealers. They are always sure of getting
wholesale prices, the best quality of articles, and there is no
possibility of being swindled. Every buyer gets what he orders, which is
very important, particularly if it concerns seeds. A farmer who wants a
machine or a lot of seeds or a new kind of potatoes, or a cart, or
anything else, fills up a blank prepared for that purpose, posts it to
the secretary of the society, and the latter orders the article from the
central agency, to be paid for upon shipment in cash. This co-operative
movement has been a tremendous success and is entering directly into the
lives of the people.
"The next step," continued Mr. Anderson, "was to organize co-operative
credit societies from which farmers who are members may borrow money at
low rates and keep out of the hands of the 'gombeen men'--the Celtic
word for usurer--who bleed their clients in a merciless manner. The
loans are made for productive purposes only--to buy better machinery,
more cattle, sheep, swine, and horses, seeds and manures, and other
things of tangible value. We do not loan money to pay debts or fines, or
to get wild boys out of trouble, or to pay blackmail, or to provide
dowries for marriageable daughters. All these things are prohibited, and
the managers look to it that not a penny of the society's money is
invested in any speculative enterprise. There are 270 of these
Agricultural Co-operative Credit Societies in Ireland under the
supervision of our organization with about 20,100 members, and they
handle an average of $300,000 in loans averaging not more than $25,
which amount shows that they are serving the purpose for which they were
intended--to help the small farmer to improve his condition.
"It is quite remarkable," said Mr. Anderson, "that none of these
societies has ever lost a penny. They are managed by committees
appointed by the members, who borrow their capital from joint stock
banks upon the individual and joint indorsement of the board--each
individual being responsible. They get the money for four per cent and
loan it for five or six per cent, thus leaving a margin which pays the
expenses and leaves a surplus which is carried to a reserve that may
also be lent out. These societies also receive deposits from their
members and other people in the district and pay three per cent
interest, the same as the savings banks. They sometimes obtain loans of
£50 to £100 from the Department of Agriculture or the Congested
Districts Board at three per cent, which they loan to their members in
small amounts at from five to six per cent interest. Last year they got
about $60,000 from those two sources.
"The great advantage of these credit societies, in addition to keeping
their members out of the clutches of the gombeen men, is to teach them
the proper use of credit, the difference between borrowing to make and
borrowing to spend, to promote thrift by giving a fair interest upon
deposits, to encourage sobriety and industry and to teach a sense of
responsibility and the value of reputation, because a man's character is
the sole qualification to membership, and everybody wants to get in. To
be admitted to membership is an indorsement that is very highly
regarded, and when a man is in his neighbors look after him.
"There are various other co-operative societies," continued Mr.
Anderson. "Last year we organized thirty-two new co-operative credit
societies, twenty-two co-operative purchasing societies, twelve
co-operative creameries, five flax societies to encourage the
cultivation and handling of flax, and six co-operative bacon-curing
factories, where farmers can send their hogs to be slaughtered and cured
in a proper manner, which enables them to get a quick sale and a higher
price for their pork. We also organized a large number of co-operative
poultry societies to promote the raising of hens and chickens, the
shipment and sale of eggs and poultry, so that the farmers can get
better prices, have reliable selling agencies, lower freight rates, and
sure collections. Eggs are sold here by weight instead of by the dozen,
so that people who raise large eggs have the advantage. The eggs are all
tested, graded, and packed according to the continental system, which we
prefer to the cardboard arrangements which you use in the United States.
These co-operative poultry societies are improving the breeds of hens,
are teaching the members how to raise poultry, protect it from diseases,
and make the best use of the feed. This is a very important industry,
and we have brought it up so that now the average revenue from twenty
hens is equal to that from one cow.
"The farmers' wives are also taught how to raise bees, although for the
last few years there has been no money in them. We have had the worst
years on record for honey.
"The latest attempt of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society is to
introduce co-operation among the small farmers who have recently come
into the ownership of their lands to assist each other in building more
comfortable homes for themselves and better buildings for their cattle
and the storage of their crops. This is in the line of self-help and
mutual aid among neighbors and furnishes employment for many days during
the winter season which otherwise would be spent in idleness. The most
economical building material we have here now is cement blocks, which
are easily made with a little instruction, and we are sending around
instructors to show the farmers how to utilize their spare time in the
winter in making a sufficient number of blocks of this artificial stone
to build the walls of a house in the spring. The neighbors can then get
together and help each other put them in place under the direction of
the instructor of the society, just as your pioneers in America used to
help each other put up their log cabins. There is a universal desire and
ambition on the part of the two hundred and fifty thousand farmers who
have recently become the owners of their places under the Land Act of
1903 to improve their dwellings, and the Irish Agricultural Organization
Society is doing a great deal to encourage them in this way."
XXIX
LIMERICK, ASKEATON, AND ADARE
Limerick looks like a medieval city, and it is one of the oldest in
Ireland. There is an old tower that was built seven centuries ago, and
portions of walls forty feet high and thirty-six feet thick which date
back to the time of King John in the twelfth century. The castle is one
of the finest Norman fortresses yet remaining in the kingdom and
overlooks the River Shannon in a most formidable manner. The ancient
gate is carefully retained and there is a bridge across the river
approaching it that might have been built by the Romans. The Shannon is
a good deal of a river, and has been walled in with cut stone and wide
quays that are equipped with modern machinery for loading and unloading
vessels, although there isn't much commerce. Occasionally a steamer
loaded with coal arrives, but there is no regular traffic, and we saw a
big four-masted bark discharging a cargo of wheat that was brought all
the way around Cape Horn from California and will be ground up in the
mills of Limerick, because it is cheaper to bring it that distance than
to raise wheat on the farms in that vicinity. It seems incredible,
because there is so much land given up to pastures that might be plowed
and sowed with grain. We rode about Limerick County in an automobile for
several days and didn't see a wheat field,--not one,--although there are
several flour mills in the immediate neighborhood. In two grocery stores
where I inquired they told me that they handled American flour or flour
from American wheat almost exclusively, and that they were selling a
good deal of bacon from the Chicago packing-houses, which also seems
strange, because Limerick bacon is supposed to be the best in the world,
and three big establishments, employing several hundred men, do nothing
but cure bacon and hams. Each slaughters about ten thousand hogs a
week, which doesn't seem a very large business in comparison with that
of the packing-houses of Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City, but there it
is something to brag about. Limerick bacon brings the highest price in
the London market and sells at three or four cents a pound more than
that which is imported from Chicago. In order to realize the difference
the people of the city are willing to ship their bacon to England and
eat the Chicago product.
Limerick is also the center of a large butter trade and has the biggest
condensed milk factory in the kingdom, using the milk of ten thousand
cows daily, which is gathered morning and evening by enormous motors
that go thundering around the roads like Juggernauts. They look like
steam-rollers, and are built the same way with four wheels that have
tires more than a foot wide, and they serve a double purpose by rolling
the roads daily while they are hauling in the milk. Each of these
ponderous vehicles carries a large tank that will hold a hundred gallons
of milk and hauls a trailer that carries two tanks of similar size, thus
making about three hundred gallons to the load, but it makes noise
enough for ten thousand gallons. The big tanks are painted white and the
machines are polished like the knockers on the front doors of the
Limerick houses. There are three of these machines, which start out at
daylight in the morning, and each goes in a different direction, picking
up the milk that is left in cans by the farmers at convenient cross-road
stations. When the tanks are all filled the Juggernaut comes rumbling
into town, making more noise than the railroad train, discharges its
load at the condensed milk factory, and then starts out in another
direction.
Limerick has a population of about forty thousand, which has been
reduced from fifty thousand during the last ten or twelve years by
emigration to America; and, as we find it the case everywhere, all the
young men who can get money enough to pay their steamship fares are
emigrating. Many young women go also, and "the best blood of the country
is lost to us," one of the priests remarked. The city has not increased
in numbers for centuries. It has merely held its own, and some
historians contend that it had more population five hundred years ago
than it has now. It was founded before the beginning of history.
In 1168 lived and reigned Donald O'Brien, the last king of Limerick. He
was fifth in descent from Brian Boru, and was among the first to swear
allegiance to the Norman invader, King Henry of England, when the latter
arrived, permitting an English governor to be placed in possession of
the city. But after King Henry returned to England, Donald O'Brien lost
no time in renouncing allegiance and declaring his independence. And
from that time he fought the English with great energy until his death
in 1194, after a reign of twenty-six years of almost continuous
conflict. However, King Donald found time and money during the intervals
of his wars to erect a splendid old church that still stands and is
called St. Mary's, the Protestant Cathedral of the Church of Ireland. He
erected several other churches and monasteries in Limerick County which
bear witness to the religious zeal of Donald O'Brien. The ruins at
Cashel, which are the most extensive in all Ireland, are reminders of
his piety, energy, and generosity in the Christian propaganda. He is
supposed to have been buried in St. Mary's Cathedral, and the most
ancient and noteworthy monument in that venerable temple is a
brown-stone slab covered with a Celtic cross and inscription that is
supposed to be the lid of his coffin. This monument originally stood on
the grounds outside the church and was moved inside in 1860.
On the other side of the chapel in which this precious relic is
preserved is a monument erected to the memory of the soldiers of the
Eighty-fifth Regiment of the King's Light Infantry who have died in
battle. And above it hang the flags which that regiment has carried
during the last two hundred years, including the Crimean war, the South
African, the war in Spain, the war against Napoleon, and the war for
independence in the United States. Upon one of these flags is inscribed
the name "Bladensburg," the battle, or rather skirmish, that was fought
a few miles from Washington in 1813, and it was this regiment which
entered the city and burned the capitol, then unfinished, the White
House, and the navy yard. Gen. Frederick Maunsell, who commanded the
regiment at that time, is buried near by.
The old church was restored very carefully between 1879 and 1892 under
the direction of the dean, Very Rev. Thomas Bunbury, D.D. The work has
been admirably done at an expense of about $50,000, which was
contributed by members of the parish and natives of Limerick, who are
interested in preserving its antiquities. The present dean is Very Rev.
Lucius Henry O'Brien, a son of that famous Irish patriot, William Smith
O'Brien, who was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for
treason in the revolution of 1848, but fortunately escaped that
barbarous penalty.
An interesting volume has been written concerning St. Mary's Cathedral
and its history and the curious tombs that are found under its roof.
Some of the epitaphs are unique. Here is one:
"Johne Stretche, Aldermane, third son too Bartholomewe
This monument made in Febrarye most true,
Wher he and his heyres males resight theyre mortalle bons
Tyll Chryste do come to judge all mans atte ons."
Another curious inscription upon a gravestone two feet square reads:
"Fifteen years a mayd, one year a wyfe,
Two years a mother, then I left this life.
Three months after me mine offspring did remain,
Now earth to earth we are returned again."
And here is still another in memory of Geoffrey Arthur, treasurer of the
cathedral, who died in 1519:
"Do thou excite the solemn train,
And with the doleful trumps proclaim
Eight times the mournful story
Then to Eana oblation make
Of eight prayers for the sake
Of his soul in pergatory."
One of the bishops of the eighteenth century, named Adams, is buried in
the church, and his monument consists of two slabs, one above and the
other below a space which was evidently intended to contain a bust. On
either side the emblems of the passion--the reed, the spear, the
scourge, and the crown of thorns--are engraved, and after the name and
biographical information are the lines:
"Sufficient God did give me, which I spent;
I little borrowed and as little lent;
I left them whom I loved enough in store,
Increased the bishoprick, relivd the poore."
One of the tombs contains this laconic epitaph:
"Dan Hayes,
An honest man,
And a lover of his country."
The bells of St. Mary's Cathedral at Limerick are famous for their sweet
tones, and a very pretty story is told about them. It is said that they
were cast in Italy at the expense of a rich Italian and presented to a
monastery in Italy. In a few years the monks became very poor and sold
their bells to the Bishop of Limerick for money to relieve their
immediate distresses. The Italian nobleman who had given them also met
with misfortune and became a wanderer over the earth. Coming up the
Shannon River from a long ocean voyage one day, the first sound that
greeted him was the chimes from St. Mary's tower. He instantly
recognized the bells, the pride and the joy of his heart, and tried in
vain until his death to recover them.
Although this story is touching, it is not true. The history of the
chimes is perfectly well known. They were cast in that city about 1660
by William Perdue, a resident of Limerick, who is buried in the
cathedral with an appropriate epitaph:
"Here is a bell founder, honest and true
Until the ressurection lies Perdue.
William Perdue
Obiat III X Xbris Ao. Dini MDCLXXIII."
The royal capital of the O'Briens is often known as "The City of the
Violated Treaty." It was stoutly defended against Cromwell's army in
1651 by Hugh O'Neill, but after a six months' siege it was captured by
General Ireton, the son-in-law of Cromwell, who became governor until
his death of the plague the year following. The house in which Ireton
lived and died stood next to the cathedral. It was torn down some years
ago and the site added to the cathedral grounds.
Limerick was also besieged in 1691 during the war between James II and
William of Orange. The latter captured the city with an army of
twenty-six thousand men and made a treaty with Gen. Patrick Sarsfield,
who surrendered Oct. 3, 1691. The ninth article of the treaty of
surrender provided that Roman Catholics could enjoy the same privileges
as Protestants and were given immunity for all religious offenses in the
past. This article, however, was repeatedly violated by the Protestant
authorities, although it was no fault of William of Orange. His
representatives made it so hot for the Catholics who had served under
James that they fled from Ireland for France and formed the Irish
brigade that was so famous in continental wars during the next twenty
years. Sarsfield, who was one of the ablest and bravest soldiers Ireland
has ever produced, was killed in battle in 1693, and it is estimated
that during the next half century four hundred and fifty thousand other
Irishmen died fighting for the King of France.
A monument to Patrick Sarsfield has been erected near the Roman Catholic
Cathedral with the following inscription:
"To commemorate
the Indomitable Energy
and stainless honor of
General Patrick Sarsfield,
Earl of Lucan,
the heroic defender of Limerick
during the sieges of 1690 and 1691.
"Sarsfield is the word,
And Sarsfield is the man.
'T would be a shame to let his name
Like other names decay."
[Illustration: TREATY STONE, LIMERICK]
The treaty of Limerick was drawn by Sir John Browne, a colonel in the
service of King James and the first Marquis of Sligo. It was signed upon
a large flat stone which now stands upon a pedestal at the entrance to
the ancient bridge that crosses the Shannon River.
The women of the poorer classes in Tipperary and Limerick wear heavy
woolen shawls made at Paisley, Scotland, and costing from five to ten
dollars, according to the quality. They wear them over their heads in
place of hats, and although it was very hot while we were there, it made
no difference; they go around with their heads hidden in their shawls,
as the Spanish women wear mantillas; and most of them are barefooted.
Tipperary was the first place in Ireland where we saw barefooted women
in the streets, and it isn't an agreeable sight. We saw more in
Limerick, and it was still less agreeable. The workingmen do not go
barefooted, although many of them have shoes very much the worse for
wear, but it seems to be the custom for the wives and mothers and
daughters of the working classes to go about without shoes or stockings
and with heavy shawls over their heads, which, like charity, cover a
multitude of sins and other things. Their dresses are tattered at the
bottom and often ragged and always greasy, and their hair, so far as it
can be seen under the shawls, is very untidy, which gives them a
disreputable and repulsive appearance, so different from the women we
saw at Drogheda, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Blarney, and other places we
had been to.
There is no occasion for the women of Limerick to dress as they do,
because the town is prosperous and it used to boast of the reputation of
having the prettiest girls in Ireland. Some poet who knew them long ago
has written thus:
"The first time me feet got the feel of the ground
I was sthrollin' along in an old Irish city,
That hasn't its aquail the whole wurrld around,
For the air that is swate and the gurrls that are pretty.
And the lashes so thick round thim beautiful eyes
Shinin' to tell you its fair time o' day wid 'em.
Back in me heart wid a koind of sorprise
I think how the Irish girls has th' way wid 'em."
Judging from what we saw on the streets, at church, and in the parks on
a Sunday, when all the feminine population of Limerick seemed to be out,
we would think that the beauties had gone to America with the fairies.
There is "the Irish town" and "the English town" in Limerick, and
between them is a good deal of animosity, which has continued for
several hundred years and probably never will be entirely removed. The
old castle built by King John in 1205, when the British first occupied
Limerick, and considered one of the finest specimens of Norman military
architecture in existence, is now used as an ordnance store for the
military garrison. There is a romantic story associated with the old
town and I cannot resist the temptation of telling it.
Toward the beginning of the ninth century the Danish King of Limerick,
Turgesius, by name, who occupied a fortification that stood upon the
site of the present castle, fell in love with the daughter of Malachi,
the King of Meath--the same who
"Wore the collar of gold
Which he won from the proud invader."
Turgesius demanded her hand in marriage and Malachi, who was not in very
good shape for a fight, dare not deny him. The girl, however, had her
wits about her and suggested to her timid father a plan to outwit the
odious lover. At her suggestion he entreated Turgesius that his daughter
might be received by him privately and at night, and promised to send as
her attendants fifteen of the most celebrated beauties of his kingdom.
The arrangement was acceptable, and, at the appointed time, the princess
and her fifteen ladies-in-waiting arrived at Limerick and were conducted
to the apartments of the king, who was eagerly awaiting them. When
Turgesius took the princess in his arms the fifteen ladies-in-waiting
immediately threw off their disguise and the astonished king of Limerick
saw before him fifteen of the stoutest and bravest of the Irish
chivalry, each with a flashing sword in his hand. Before he could
recover from his astonishment Turgesius was seized and bound, his
guards were surprised, and the gates of the fortress were opened to
Malachi and the men of Meath, who massacred the entire garrison and
thereafter ruled in Limerick.
The migration to America from County Limerick has been very large and
every person we have met has one or more relatives in the United States.
Every family is represented there and those who have not gone are
anxious to go. Each spring and summer quite a number of young people
return to their old homes, and the airs they put on and the raiment they
wear are very amusing. We saw them at the railway stations, at church,
on the streets, and elsewhere, surrounded by admiring and envious
friends.
More laborers' cottages have been erected by the government in County
Limerick than in any other part of Ireland, and more are being built all
the time. Any laboring man who wants a home of his own need only to make
application for the assistance of the commissioner of the poor and
express his preference for a site. The commissioners are not required to
accept his choice, but usually do so when there is no particular
objection, and he is entitled to an acre of ground for a garden. After
certain legal preliminaries are fulfilled, they erect for him a
two-story, five-room cottage, costing about $750, with an outhouse for
fuel, storage, and the accommodation of a cow. They inclose the property
in a stout fence and turn it over to the new owner without the
expenditure of a farthing on his part. He, however, undertakes to
reimburse the county for the investment it has made in his behalf at the
rate of 3-1/4; per cent of the cost price, which usually amounts to about
thirty dollars a year. The laboring class of no other country is so well
treated.
Before I left Washington a highly esteemed friend, and one of the most
charitable and public-spirited citizens of that city, intrusted me with
a mission which was fulfilled as soon as possible after arriving in
Limerick. It was to leave with the parish priest of his native village
of Askeaton a generous sum of money for the benefit of the poor, and you
may imagine the pleasure that attended our visit there for that reason.
Askeaton is an ancient village of seven or eight hundred inhabitants
about twenty miles from Limerick, where the River Deel tumbles over
ledges of rocks into the Shannon and forms a series of cascades, which
make it the second best water-power in Ireland and perpetuates the name
of a Celtic chieftain, concerning whom nothing else is known.
We went down in an automobile, visiting several other places of interest
by the way, passing Donmore, the seat of the Earl of Limerick, an
ancient ruin in which a holy hermit lived several centuries ago, Dysart
House, the seat of the Earl of Dysart, and a beautiful place called
Holly Park, where resided a queer man by the name of Taylor. He
inherited a fine farm and considerable wealth, but lived a bachelor
until he was sixty years old, when he married his cook. There was
nothing wrong with him except a mania for buying coats, and he used to
haunt the second-hand stores of Limerick, Dublin, London, and wherever
else he happened to go, picking up all the queer patterns and colors
that he could find. He spent most of his time brushing and cataloguing
them, and when he died last spring more than five thousand coats were
found hanging on racks in the upper rooms and the attic of Holly Park.
It took three big wagons to carry them away, for his wife, the former
cook, got rid of them as soon after the funeral as she could arrange
for.
Askeaton used to be a place of some importance, and at one time returned
two members of parliament, but it has lost population and trade, and
many years ago the franchise was taken away and the sum of $75,000 was
paid as indemnity to Lord Massey, who controlled the suffrages. It isn't
far from the sea and there is a good deal of fishing, although
agriculture is its chief dependence. There is a carbite factory owned by
John B. Hewson, and a big flour mill, which, however, is idle because
the people find it cheaper to buy American flour. The farmers here
cannot compete with California wheat. They told me that it is more
profitable to raise potatoes for market and turnips for cattle.
Askeaton has one irregular street and old-fashioned houses of brick and
mortar, hugging closely to the walls of an ancient castle which was the
stronghold of the earls of Desmond and the scene of much fighting in
ancient times. It is one of the largest ruins in Ireland, a monstrous
pile covering more than two acres, and the walls of stone, now standing,
are more than ninety feet high and ten to fifteen feet thick. The great
hall measures ninety by thirty feet and is lighted by four great windows
in a fair state of preservation. Over the first arch from the stairway
is a small chamber measuring eight by seven feet, called "Desmond's
prison," in which Gerald, the twelfth Earl of Desmond, imprisoned by
Edmond MacTeig, who contested his succession, "for six years pined in
captivity, shut up in the castle of Askeaton, till his release, which
was obtained by the intercession of his wife, who was related to
Edmond." A battlemented wall surrounds the entire structure, which could
be entered only by a narrow pathway cut through the rock so that any
attempt to force an entrance would be impossible.
Askeaton Abbey, which was founded under the protection of the castle for
the Franciscan monks in 1420, by the seventh Earl of Desmond, is only a
few steps distant, and, judging from the huge masses of masonry, it must
have been an extensive and solid structure. Some of the walls are twenty
feet thick and the lightest are four feet and a half thick. It is kept
with great care by the board of public works and the cloister is
remarkably perfect, being inclosed by twelve pointed arches of black
marble. It was destroyed at the same time as the castle, and many of the
monks were murdered by the Irish troops under the Earl of Ormonde and
Sir Henry Pelham. In 1641 an attempt was made to restore the abbey to
its former magnificence, but it was abandoned shortly afterward.
The parish church, which stands upon a hill on the edge of the village,
was built by the Knights Templar, who had an establishment at Askeaton
dating from the thirteenth century, but nothing remains of it now but a
curious tower in the churchyard.
With Sergeant Quirk, the head constable, we inspected the ruins under
the very best auspices, and I found Father Edmond Tracy, the parish
priest, a most charming companion. He is an ideal type of the Irish
priesthood, a man of culture, learning, and charming personality. He
accepted the trust I was instructed to place in his care and told me
that, although Askeaton was fairly prosperous and the people of the
neighborhood parish were well to do, he frequently had appeals for
charity that the scanty revenues of the church made difficult for him to
respond to.
Upon our way back to Limerick we stopped at Adare, which is considered
the model village and belongs to the Earl of Dunraven, who has the
enviable reputation of being one of the best landlords in Ireland. The
village of Adare has about six hundred people living in model cottages,
which he and his father built for them, with vegetable and flower
gardens and everything that an Irish peasant could ask for, including
both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The former was once "The
White Abbey," founded by the Augustinians in 1230 and restored by the
Earl of Dunraven in 1811 with great care. A portion of the monastery has
been rebuilt for a national school and given to the Roman Catholics. The
neighboring Franciscan Abbey, founded in 1315, was restored for use as
the Protestant church in 1807. The Earl of Dunraven who lived in those
days built a family mausoleum in connection with it, and turned the
refectory of the monks into a schoolhouse for Protestant children.
Although the earls of Dunraven have been members of the Church of
Ireland, they have been generous and frequent benefactors of the Roman
Catholic church, and there seem to have been successive generations of
wise, thoughtful, and considerate men in that family.
[Illustration: ADARE ABBEY, IN THE PRIVATE GROUNDS OF THE EARL OF
DUNRAVEN, NEAR LIMERICK]
The house of Dunraven enjoys the proud distinction of being one of the
few of the ancient Celtic aristocracy to survive the vicissitudes of the
centuries. The earl traces his lineage back to the chief of the
Dalcassian clan of prehistoric days. He is of the same stock as the
O'Briens of Limerick, who have a common ancestor in Cormac Cas, son
of Olliol Olum, monarch of all Ireland at the beginning of the third
century. And the present earl has a curious and interesting letter
written by Thady Quin of Adare in the time of James I., giving the
complete pedigree.
Adare Manor, as the estate of the Dunravens is known, is one of the most
extensive and beautiful in Ireland. There is a stately mansion of the
Tudor school of architecture, begun in 1832, upon the site of a former
residence of the family and built entirely of material found upon the
estate, by artisans of Adare. The material is gray limestone, relieved
by blocks of red, and the striking feature is a tower which rises one
hundred and three feet from the level of the ground. The stone work of
the parapet which surmounts the front façade is inscribed in old English
letters with the text, "Except the Lord build the house, their labor is
in vain that build it." The late earl seemed to be fond of inscriptions,
for over the main entrance is carved in stone this admonition: "Fear
God, honor the Queen, eschew Evil and do Good," while upon a panel set
into the front wall is the coat of arms of the Dunravens and the
inscription:
"This goodly Home was erected by
Wyndham Henry, Earl of Dunraven,
And Caroline, his Countess
Without borrowing, selling or leaving a debt."
"This goodly home" is surrounded by one of the finest parks in the
world--about three thousand acres of glorious native forests, meadows,
and pasture lands, all inclosed within a high wall. There are lakes and
ponds and a roaring brook whose waters alternately dash over cascades
and lie spread out in calm pools where trout and salmon can be seen
motionless upon the bottom under the shadows cast by the overhanging
trees. Roadways several miles in length reach every part of the demesne
and permit views of the most picturesque portions of the scenery. They
cross and recross the river over ancient bridges and through undulating
pastures where the famous Dunraven herds are feeding, and follow long
avenues between colonnades of very old trees.
There are several interesting ruins within the demesne, including those
of the ancient castle of Adare, which was built some time before 1331,
because a record of that date gives a description of its appearance. It
was afterward strengthened and enlarged, and for several centuries was
one of the most formidable strongholds in all Ireland. It was from this
castle in 1520 that the Earl of Kildare, viceroy of Ireland, left for
London to answer charges brought against him by Cardinal Wolsey, by whom
he was imprisoned in the Tower.
There are ruins of several monasteries which also date back to the
fourteenth century and are kept in perfect order. The most beautiful was
once a monastery of the Franciscan order, and is within a step of the
mansion, in the midst of the golf links.
The present Earl of Dunraven, Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, was born in
1844, educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford, and in 1870
married Florence, daughter of Lord Charles Lennox Kerr, a member of
parliament from County Wexford. Dunraven is one of the most active and
versatile men in the kingdom, and is almost as well known in the United
States, being soldier, sailor, horseman, sportsman, yachtsman, explorer,
politician, newspaper correspondent, author, antiquarian, economist, and
historian. After receiving his degree at Oxford Dunraven served for
several years in the Life Guards, and in 1871 resigned upon succeeding
to the title and estates. While he was in the army he gained the
reputation of being the best steeple-chase rider in the kingdom. Upon
leaving the army he became a correspondent of the _London Daily
Telegraph_ and represented that paper in an expedition to Abyssinia and
during the Franco-Prussian war. He then went into politics and was under
secretary for the colonies during two of Lord Salisbury's
administrations. He then went into parliament and made a reputation as
chairman of committees on the sweating system and the housing of the
working classes. He devoted much time and attention to horse breeding
and has a stock farm adjoining his estate at Adare with "Desmond," the
most famous stallion in the kingdom, at the head of his stud. He has
been offered $150,000 for the horse.
In 1874 Dunraven went to the United States with his wife and spent
nearly a year in the Rocky Mountains hunting big game and exploring and
climbing peaks and shooting buffaloes with General Sheridan and Buffalo
Bill. He wrote a book giving an account of his experience. He then took
up the Irish question, went into it very deeply, and has retained his
interest until now. He has written several books on the land question
and the other economic problems of Ireland. He has been a prolific
contributor to the magazines, and was the inventor of what is known as
the "devolution policy" as a substitute for home rule in Ireland, which
Sir Antony MacDonnell worked up into the so-called "Irish councils
bill," which proposed to give home rule in every respect except the
courts, police, and legislation. His lordship went through Ireland
making speeches in favor of the project, but the leaders of the Irish
parliamentary party declined to accept it and it fell to the ground.
The Earl of Dunraven is best known in the United States, however, as a
yachtsman. For several years he was the leader of that sport in England,
and in 1893, 1894, and 1895 sailed for the _America's_ cup with three
successive yachts named _Valkyrie_. The third contest was a fiasco, as
may be remembered. Lord Dunraven published a pamphlet setting forth his
side of the controversy, which created a great sensation. His lordship
has made a thorough study of the archæology of this section of Ireland,
and has written several interesting volumes on the subject.
XXX
COUNTY GALWAY AND RECENT LAND TROUBLES
County Clare and County Galway are the districts of the greatest unrest
in Ireland; and the largest number of boycotts, cattle drives, and
evictions have occurred there of late years because certain large
landowners, chief of whom is the Earl of Clanricarde, stubbornly refuse
to sell their estates under the Land Act of 1903 or restore the tenants
they have evicted or divide up their pastures into farms. The Earl of
Clanricarde carried the matter into court, where he was sustained in his
refusal to sell, on the ground that the law is not compulsory, and it is
probable that parliament will adopt an amendment, now pending and
introduced since the decision, requiring every large landowner in
Ireland to divide up his estates among his tenants at prices to be fixed
by the courts.
The disturbances that are taking place at present are gentle and mild
compared with what have occurred during the land wars of the past, and
they are confined to a limited area and a small number of estates. The
methods of "persuasion" used by the tenants and the "landless" men, as
those who are entirely without farms are called, are, however, very much
the same as those adopted years ago, but they are not so effective as
they used to be. They are severely punished by the courts, and the
taxpayers are assessed for all the damages committed. If these
assessments could be confined to the particular parish within which the
outrages occur it would be very much better, for it is not fair to ask
innocent property owners twenty and thirty miles from the scene to pay
for the mischief of a few reckless and irresponsible persons over whom
they have no control.
County Limerick is usually quiet. There has been no trouble there and
the best of feelings prevail between the landlords and their tenants,
with a few exceptions. There was only one criminal case (of infanticide)
at the dockets of the courts in July, 1908, when I was there, two
boycotts, and twenty-one complaints of intimidation, which, however, did
not all relate to land matters. There were thirty-four evictions in
County Limerick that year, most of them being due to poor crops and the
lack of remittances from America.
Lough Rea, the seat of the Clanricarde, has been the residence of that
family since the year 1300. Althenry, the neighboring town, is also very
old, and has belonged to the earls of Clanricarde since 1238. There is a
castle, a Dominican monastery, a Franciscan monastery, and several
churches, all in ruins, destroyed by Red Hugh O'Donnell in 1596. The
Earl of Clanricarde never visits his Irish property. He has never
occupied his ancestral home and has been seen in the vicinity but once
since he came into the inheritance thirty or forty years ago.
The boycott was invented at the little town of Ballinrobe, a pretty
village of about fifteen hundred inhabitants, on Lough Mask, about
twenty miles north of Galway. Charles S. Parnell made a speech at Ennis,
the capital of County Clare, Sept. 19, 1880, advising the people to
punish those who did not sympathize with them by "isolating them from
their kind as if they were lepers." This advice was first applied to
Captain Boycott, agent for the estate of Lord Erne, near Ballinrobe, and
he was a complete victim of the policy. The police could do nothing.
There was no law under which dealers could be compelled to sell him food
and drink, and all his supplies had to be shipped to him from Dublin.
Nobody would speak to him, nobody would work for him, nobody would
accept his money, and, as Parnell suggested, he was treated as if he
were a leper. The plan was so successful that it was promptly adopted
throughout Ireland, and has since been commonly used elsewhere under the
name of the first victim.
But boycotting is growing unpopular in Ireland. It is condemned by the
bishops and the clergy generally. They are taking more and more positive
grounds, and many refuse the communion to persons who are guilty of
either boycotting or cattle driving, because they are contrary to
justice and charity and are therefore sinful. I heard one of the bishops
preach an impressive sermon on the subject. He condemned all
combinations of persons to cause suffering or distress in their
neighbors as inhuman, immoral, and unjust. He declared that boycotting
was worse than murder, because it caused a greater degree of suffering.
When a man was shot he usually died without agony, but when he was
boycotted he suffered the worse sort of mental torture, and to cause
such sufferings was one of the worst of sins. Father Gilligan, parish
priest at Carrick-on-Shannon, preached against boycotting the Sunday we
were there. He said, in introducing the subject, that he deeply
regretted that many of his parishioners had joined in a boycott for
which they imagined they had a good excuse, but nothing would justify a
boycott. It was a crime, and those who had engaged in it would not be
admitted to communion until they had sincerely repented. Every effort
had been made by advice, by intimidation, and even by threats of
violence, to keep the people from dealing with some of the most
respectable merchants in the town. There were three degrees of
boycotting--mild, medium, and savage--and all three had been condemned
by the Church. "Have nothing to do with it," said Father Gilligan, "do
not touch it with a pole that would reach New York."
At present boycotting is applied to landlords and cattle men who are
occupying their land that is wanted for farms. The cattle men have no
permanent tenancy, they erect no buildings, they make no improvements,
and the cattle business is so profitable that they are able to pay twice
as much rent as the ordinary farming tenant. For those reasons, and
because he has only one man to deal with, a landlord is always glad to
rent his lands for grazing, and gradually Ireland is becoming one great
pasture.
Cattle driving is another weapon used by the same people for the same
purpose, and that is condemned by the bishops and the clergy with equal
emphasis. Archbishop Fennely of Tipperary recently preached a sermon in
which he expressed the hope that before he closed his eyes in death he
would see every acre of land in Ireland owned by the men who tilled it,
but he could not sympathize with and he must earnestly condemn every
form of violence and every unlawful measure that was used to secure that
end. He gave his diocese a solemn warning that cattle driving,
boycotting, and similar unlawful practices would not be tolerated by the
Church.
This form of argument, it must be admitted, is a great advance over the
fierce methods that have been used in the past, when murder and
bloodshed were quite common, and other damages that cannot be repaired
by money or by the judgment of the court were suffered. It was a
habitual jest to speak of the "closed season for landlords."
The Irish never overlook the humor in a situation, and at a cattle drive
which took place in 1908 at Tuam, which is a place of considerable
ecclesiastical importance, being the residence of the Most Rev. John
Healey, one of the ablest and most influential Roman Catholic bishops in
Ireland, the following lines were pinned to the tail of one of the cows:
GOD SAVE IRELAND.
"Leave the way, for we are coming.
And, on my soul, we got a drumming;
They cleared us out so mighty quick,
And, faith, they used their hazel stick.
Well, now, Paddy, of you we implore,
Don't put us through Cloomagh any more;
For if you do you're bound to die,
And we have the powder fresh and dry;
God bless the Cattle Drivers."
The taxpayers are compelled to pay damages for all cases of cattle
driving, for loss of business in boycotting, and for other claims
growing out of such outrages. Usually the courts assess one pound per
head for cattle where no harm is done, five pounds per head where an
animal is injured, and about one-third as much for sheep. Most of the
cattle driving and the boycotting is committed by irresponsible young
men who are led by mischief-makers with private grudges, and they never
reason for themselves. It goes without saying that the love of fighting
is one of the most conspicuous traits of the Irish character. The
history of Ireland from the foggiest period of the past is a tale of
continuous warfare. In the early days fighting was the chief end and aim
of men, and women fought beside their fathers and husbands and brothers
until St. Patrick forbade them to do so. And they thought very little of
the consequences.
The case was well stated in a little poem from an American paper that
was shown me by a friend the other day:
"'Who says that the Irish are fighters by birth,'
Says little Dan Crone;
'Faith, there's not a more peacable race on the earth
If ye l'ave them alone.'"
But sometimes they won't be let alone. In the summer of 1908 there was a
riot in the town of Thurles and a mob did a lot of damage in order to
show its disapproval of legal proceedings that had been taken against a
fellow townsman. Richard Burke, who was "licensed to sell spirits not to
be consumed on the premises," was unable to meet his obligations and
went into bankruptcy. The sheriff took charge of the establishment under
the orders of the court, and the license, good will, and the stock in
hand were offered for sale to the highest bidder. But the bids did not
come up to the valuation of the court and were all rejected. A few days
later a private offer from Mr. Cody, who has been competing with Mr.
Burke to quench the thirst of Thurles for several years, to take the
entire place for £2,000 was accepted. Mr. Burke, who has been in the
habit of consuming too much of his own merchandise for the good of his
business, became very indignant because his old enemy was going to step
into his place, gathered together a few sympathetic friends, raided his
own establishment, smashed the bottles, knocked in the heads of the
barrels, and invited the whole town to help themselves, which they did
with an energy that would have been commendable in another cause. Then,
when almost every citizen of the town, young and old, was drunk, they
started up the street smashing their own windows and doors and doing
what is estimated at $15,000 worth of damages to their own property,
besides $7,000 worth of destruction in Mr. Cody's place.
Although Cody had signed the papers, he had not paid for Mr. Burke's
former stock, and naturally he now refuses to do so, since it does not
exist, so that Mr. Burke and his creditors suffer the entire loss of his
own raid and hospitality, and the taxpayers of Thurles have been
assessed to pay for the other foolishness.
There are twenty thousand Galway people in the United States, or "across
the herring pond," as a banker there expressed it, who have been in the
habit of making remittances to their fathers and mothers and brothers
and sisters here in generous amounts, and many families are partly and a
large number are wholly dependent upon them. Most of the Galway
emigrants are in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other
large cities, earning good wages, but they were out of employment after
the recent panic and have had all that they could do to take care of
themselves. Hence very little money has been received here from America
for nearly a year. The postmaster told me that the American money orders
cashed at the Galway post office have averaged £40,000 a year for the
last eight or ten years, and in 1908 the total will not reach £15,000.
An even larger sum of money has been coming in checks and drafts and the
bankers say that the remittances in that form are not more than ten per
cent of the usual amount. The merchants complain that their customers
are not bringing in any American checks, which have been presented in
payment daily for ten or twelve years. Christmas checks were very scarce
in 1907, and that is the principal reason for the poverty. Wages are
very low in Galway--ten shillings a week, and two shillings a day is the
average for ordinary labor. The Allan Line steamers have been touching
at Galway since 1881, and have carried to Quebec an enormous number of
emigrants for the United States as well as Canada, but the faster boats,
touching at Queenstown, have reduced the business considerably. The
steerage passage is $27.50 and $30; the average emigrants are chiefly
between seventeen and twenty-three years of age, and most of them go to
Boston.
Galway is a foreign-looking little town, unlike any other we saw in
Ireland, and much of the architecture is Dutch and Spanish, departing
from the plain, ugly brick front without cornice or eaves which is so
common elsewhere. The streets are irregular and run all sorts of ways;
some very narrow and some very wide, and they vary in width at different
places, with occasionally an odd-shaped space at the intersection.
Everything looks old and shabby and out of repair. It is queer as well
as significant to see buildings half in ruins in the principal streets
and others with the glass broken out of the windows. There are some
smart-looking shops, however, and neatly kept residences, but they are
not frequent. Nor is the town well kept. The Common Council evidently
lacks a sense of the æsthetic, because the streets are dirty, the park
is scraggly, and the grass and trees are very much neglected. It is
altogether the untidiest public park I saw in Ireland. Many of the
people we met on the principal streets, particularly the women, are
repulsive in their rags and dirty faces and unkempt hair and bare feet.
We saw a few barefooted women in Tipperary and Limerick, but in Galway
none of the working women wears shoes, although the men seem to be well
shod. The women cover their heads with thick shawls that are often
greasy and torn, and their faces show evidences of sorrow and privation,
and perhaps other causes have left a mark.
[Illustration: FISH MARKET, GALWAY]
The foreign appearance of Galway is accounted for by the fact that many
Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Dutchmen were in business there in early
times. The town was named from the Gauls, and for centuries an extensive
trade was carried on with the Continent by foreign merchants and foreign
fleets. Richard de Burgo, founder of the Burke family, was given the
country of Connaught by the king, and, having in 1232 crushed the
O'Connors, who were formerly kings there, he enlarged the Castle of
Galway and made it his residence, calling around him a flourishing
foreign colony. But the "tribes of Galway," as Cromwell called the
natives, would not submit to him, and kept up a guerrilla warfare that
was very annoying. The English took all the measures they could to
protect themselves, and in 1518 a law was passed forbidding the people
of the town "to recieve into their housses at Christemas, Easter nor no
feaste elles, any of the MacWilliams, Kellies, Joyces, Lynches nor to
cepte Elles without permission of the Mayor and Councill; on payn to
forfeit £'5 and that no one called O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne swaggere
thro the streetes of Galway." And the following inscription was formerly
to be seen over the west gate to the city:
"From the fury of the O'Flaherties
Good Lord deliver us."
There are some quaint old houses--one of them on the principal street,
known as "the mansion," being elaborately decorated with carved
moldings, drip stones, cornices, balustrades, medallions, crests, coats
of arms, and other ornaments in which the lynx and the monkey, which
were used upon the family arms, appear frequently. The same story is
told to account for the monkey that is used to explain the appearance of
that animal upon the escutcheon of the Earl of Desmond--that the heir to
the house was rescued by a monkey when it was burning.
The Burkes, the Joyces, and the Lynches were the leading families there.
The records show that eighty-four members of the Lynch family have held
the office of mayor. A tragic story of James Lynch, the second mayor
after the charter of the city was granted by Richard III., is kept in
the minds of the people by a tablet imbedded in the wall of a ruined
house on one of the principal streets. It bears this inscription:
"This memorial of the stern and unbending justice of the chief
magistrate of this city, James Lynch Fitzstephen, elected mayor,
A.D. 1493, who condemned and executed his own guilty son, Walter,
on this spot, has been restored to its ancient site, with the
approval of the town commissioners, by their chairman, the Very
Rev. Peter Daly, P.P. and Vicar of St. Nicholas."
The Rev. Mr. Daly has immortalized himself in this simple way, and his
character may be judged by the fact that his name appears even more
prominently on the tablet than that of the unnatural father whose act he
perpetuates. The story goes that Mayor Lynch, being one of the most
successful of the shipping merchants in the city, visited Spain in the
very year that Columbus discovered America, to make the personal
acquaintance of his customers, and, being treated with generous
hospitality, invited the son of one of his friends to return with him to
Ireland. The young man spent several months in Galway, as the guest of
Mayor Lynch, and as the companion of his son, Walter. The latter, a
great favorite in the city, was engaged to a young lady of good family,
who behaved rather imprudently with the young Spaniard. This excited the
jealousy of Walter Lynch, who murdered his playmate, and then, from
remorse, gave himself up to justice. He was tried, convicted, and
condemned to death by his own father, sitting as judge of the court, and
when the sheriff, in obedience to public opinion, refused to carry out
the sentence, Judge Lynch hanged his own son with his own hands. As
there were other judges and courts in Ireland and as changes of venue
were common in those days, as they are now, one cannot sympathize with
this Spartan heartlessness.
There is a quaint old church, built in 1320, in honor of St. Fechin, who
was born about the year 600, in County Sligo, was the founder of
numerous monasteries and churches along the western coast of Ireland,
and was the first to bring the gospel to County Galway. Queen's College,
supported by the government, has a fine Gothic building, copied after
All Souls of Oxford, with about three hundred students, and there is
another college, under the Christian Brothers, which is very prosperous.
The most interesting sight in Galway is the thousands of fat salmon
lying motionless on the bottom of the river which carries the water of
Lough Corrib--one of the largest fresh-water lakes in the country--into
Galway Bay. The river is short and swift and flows through the center of
the city. Its banks are walled up with masonry and it is crossed by a
series of ancient iron bridges. From the railings of the bridges one can
see the salmon through the transparent water lying with their noses up
stream so closely that the bottom of the river is hidden; and I am told
that when they are running in the spring the stream is black with them.
They come in from the sea and go up a ladder that has been built for
them over the rapids into Lough Corrib.
The exclusive right of fishing that river was granted in 1221 by King
John to one of his favorites, and the monopoly has been recognized ever
since. It has been sold many times. The last purchaser was an ancestor
of a Mrs. Hallett, who enjoys the privilege at present, and lives in a
big stone house on the river banks, surrounded by high walls. A series
of traps extends from her garden across the river, covering four-fifths
of its width, one-fifth being always kept open by act of parliament, so
that the fish can go up and down freely, but as they are all strangers
in Galway, and young and reckless, many of them run into the traps
instead of the passageway and become the property of Mrs. Hallett. She
ships them to London and makes three or four thousand pounds a year by
selling them. The fishermen in charge told me that in the spring they
often caught as many as two or three hundred a day in each of the traps.
Any one who desires to try his luck with a fly can do so by getting a
permit from Mrs. Hallett, for which the fee is $2.50 a day or $25 a
year.
Near the mouth of the river and at the head of the Bay of Galway is an
ancient village called Claddagh, whose inhabitants have been engaged in
the herring and salmon fisheries for ten centuries, and have lived apart
from the world, having their own municipal organization, their own laws
and courts and customs and manner of dress. From the beginning of time
they have been ruled by one of their own number, elected by themselves
for a term of years, who exercises executive, legislative, and judicial
functions, from which there is no appeal. They have no written laws, no
records of their judicial proceedings, but when there is a dispute
between any of the fishermen they take it to their chosen umpire, who
decides it according to the merits of the case. And his decision is
always accepted. I am told that no citizen of Claddagh has ever been
before a Galway court, either as a plaintiff or defendant. They live in
low thatched cottages, grouped in irregular streets on the bank of the
river, with a large and very modern-looking church, which they attend
regularly. They are remarkable for their piety and their morals. They
will not work, nor will they leave their village for any reason, on
Sundays or religious holidays. They never allow strangers to live among
them, their young men and women never marry outside of the colony, they
take care of their own sick and poor, and, although they are only five
minutes' walk from the principal street of Galway, they are as isolated
as if they were on an island in the middle of the ocean.
Formerly the Claddagh people wore a distinctive dress, resembling that
of the fisher folks of Holland,--a red skirt, a blue waist, elaborate
headdress, and bare feet and legs,--but this costume has been discarded
by the younger women and is only worn by their grandmothers now. But all
the women go barefooted. They never wear shoes or stockings. The men are
engaged exclusively in fishing, although they do all of their own
masonry, carpentering, and boat building. They pack their fish in the
village, but carry a portion of each catch across the river to the fish
market of Galway.
There is an attractive resort for city people on the Bay of Galway, with
a long promenade, several hotels, and a number of comfortable villas.
[Illustration: SALMON WEIR, GALWAY]
XXXI
CONNEMARA AND THE NORTHWEST COAST
Clifden is the extreme western point of Ireland, and for that reason
Marconi selected it for his wireless telegraph station in communicating
with Canada and the United States. It is 1,620 miles in a direct line of
St. John, New Brunswick, and, as a native remarked, "There's not a
spheck of droy land upon which a burrd could rist the sole of its foot
bechune this blessed spot and Americky." If you will examine the map you
will understand the situation better, and a geological chart of the
island will show you that the western coast, from Mizzen Head to Bloody
Foreland, is protected by a chain of mountains, bleak, rugged, and
abrupt, which nature has placed as a buttress to support the rest of
Ireland against the fierce attack of the Atlantic. They have terrible
storms there, and a northwest gale several times a year that is
terrific. The east winds, which we dread, bring good weather in Ireland,
but the west wind brings storms and cold and mists that are almost as
bad as the London fog.
Connemara is the congested district, but it does not bear that name
because the population is overcrowded, but because there are too many
people for the inhospitable soil to support. The inhabitants are
scattered over a vast area. I could see everything from one point as far
as a radius of twenty-two miles, and there wasn't a human habitation in
sight, nor was there any inducement to build one because the country was
a bleak, barren, rocky wilderness without soil for crops or shelter for
cattle. There is the greatest degree of poverty and suffering in
Ireland, and there the government is doing its greatest benevolent work
in trying to place the people upon farms that are large enough to
support them, and finding them other occupations by which they can earn
a few additional dollars.
A railway was built from Galway along the edge of the ocean to Clifden a
few years ago, and the track hugs the coast as closely as possible. An
hour after leaving Galway nature begins to disclose her unfriendliness,
the mountains begin to loom up to a height of two thousand and
twenty-two hundred feet, the landscape becomes stern and forbidding, and
there is no vegetation except heather, which, when in full bloom, adds a
purple hue to the wilderness. Heather seems to be as brave, as enduring,
and as self-reliant as the sage brush that decorates the arid plains of
our western States, and nothing seems to discourage its growth.
Alternating with the rocks are peat beds, in which both men and women
spend much time getting out a supply of fuel for the next winter and
stacking it in little piles to dry.
The most prominent feature of the landscape is a group of mountains
called the Twelve Bens--sometimes written the "Twelve Pins." They are so
called because of their conical, dome-like peaks and the similar
individuality of each. They rise almost from the level of the Atlantic,
and for that reason look higher than they really are. The highest is Ben
Baun, 2,393 feet, and the lowest is Ben Brach, 1,922 feet. Their sides
are scarred with the wounds of terrestrial convulsions and glacial
action, and they are composed very largely of quartzite, which
frequently furnishes a white surface that glistens in the sunlight and
adds to the picturesque effect. From these mountains comes the Connemara
marble, the most valuable stone in the United Kingdom, often as fine in
grain as the malachite and lapis lazuli of the Urals and the onyx of
Mexico. It is used both for construction and for ornamental purposes,
and the quarries are very profitable.
[Illustration: A SCENE IN CONNEMARA]
The landscape is dotted with little lakes and ponds which have no
visible outlet, but are all connected somehow underground. Most of them
cover only an acre or two, but Lough Corrib is the largest in Ireland
except Lough Neagh, near Belfast. Lough Mask and Lough Cong are also
several miles in length and two or three miles in width. There are said
to be 365 lakes in Ireland, and one would judge that the larger number
of them are in Connemara. They are fed by springs and rainfall and are
said to abound in fish. The railway companies advertise this as the best
fishing ground in the world, and announce that they have leased several
of the loughs in order to provide free fishing to all excursionists.
That is a great attraction for city people when they take their
vacations, because elsewhere as a rule when a man wants to go fishing he
is compelled to take out a license and pay handsomely for the
privilege--from $2.50 to $5 a day. Therefore the advertisements of free
fishing in Connemara, combined with the scenery, which is highly admired
and considered second only to that of Switzerland, tempt a great many
people there. But most of them are disappointed. There is plenty of
water to fish in, there are plenty of boats to hire, but fish are
scarce, and, no matter where you go, the oldest inhabitant always
insists that he never knew a time when fishing was so bad as it is now.
There are many skeptics and a few cynics about who give you a true
statement of the situation. "Boots" at the hotel asserted that if
anything could be caught in the lakes we might be sure that the fishing
would not be free, and added sarcastically that the only reason it was
free was that nobody ever caught anything.
The O'Briens were once kings of that country and they were driven out by
the O'Flahertys, who in turn were driven out by the English. You can see
the ruins of Castle Bally Quirk, the principal fortress of the
O'Flahertys, from the car window, and read the terrible story of how the
chief of that clan was imprisoned in its keep in the time of Queen
Elizabeth and starved to death. The O'Flahertys were always "agin the
government," and were so impertinent in their replies and so arrogant in
their demeanor that Queen Elizabeth decided to bring them to submission,
and nearly exterminated the family before she did so. "The O'Flaherty,"
the head of the family at present, is a justice of the peace, who lives
at Lemonfield, upon the ancient estates, but retains very little of
them.
If Clifden wasn't such a dirty town it might be made a popular health
resort. The air is glorious; the natural surroundings are grand and
would tempt many artists as well as admirers of scenery. There are
excellent small hotels, but the town is decidedly unattractive, the
streets are filthy, the walks in the neighborhood of the town are used
so much by the cattle that they are quite unclean, and the people do not
seem to have any idea of neatness or order. The principal business seems
to be the sale of liquor, which can be purchased at thirty-three places
within this little town of eight hundred people, as advertised by the
sign boards. And they all look as if they were doing a good trade. There
is considerable fishing at Cleggan, a neighboring village, which has
been encouraged and assisted by the government, and large shipments of
fish are made to Dublin every day. Early in the morning several ancient
fishwives appear in a triangular space between the rows of houses in the
center of the village with baskets of fish, and from our windows in the
comfortable Railway Hotel we can see the inhabitants come strolling
along in an indolent and indifferent manner to buy their breakfasts.
They have the choice of a variety of fish, and the prices are remarkably
low. A fine, fat mackerel costs a penny, a codfish sixpence, and for a
shilling one can get a haddock big enough to last a large-sized family
for a week.
Upon the hillside overlooking the town is an imposing church which has
an air of magnificence in comparison with the rest of the town; it is
ten times as large and ten times as glorious for Clifden as St. Peter's
is for Rome. It was built only a few years ago from the contributions of
the peasants, the same people that the government is trying to make
comfortable and aid in earning a living. It will seat nine hundred
people and is filled twice on Sunday with devout worshipers. Father
Lynch, the curate, told me that it was necessary to have two masses and
sometimes three on Sunday to accommodate them all, and some of them come
eleven and even twelve miles, most of them on foot, to attend worship.
Here, as everywhere in Ireland, religion is the first and most important
thing in life, and the church is the gateway to happiness and Heaven.
There is also a Protestant church, much smaller, but not insignificant,
which stands upon an opposite hill, surrounded by a graveyard, in which
there are some venerable tombs.
Clifden is the seat of several important families, including the
Martins, who formerly lived at Ballynaninch Castle, a plain, large,
stern-looking embattled building, which was the scene of Charles Lever's
novel, "The Martins of Cro' Martin." It was the home of Col. Richard
Martin, M.P., the inventor and organizer of the first society for the
prevention of cruelty to animals in the world, and the author of
"Martin's Acts," punishing those who are guilty of that offense. He
spent large sums of money in the enforcement of this law and in
organizing societies and establishing hospitals for diseased and wounded
animals throughout the kingdom, but was otherwise extravagant and went
through his fortune.
Colonel Martin was the original of "Godfrey O'Malley," the hero of
Lever's novel, and the sketch is said to be very accurate. He was a
reckless, extravagant, but generous, warm-hearted man and died a
sacrifice to his efforts to relieve the sufferings of his tenants at the
time of the famine.
His only child, Mary Martin, married an American, Colonel Bell of New
York, and lived in that city until her death. Although she was known as
the Princess of Connemara and inherited an empire in area, she was never
able to maintain the state that her father was so proud of, and 192,000
acres of her vast domain was sold by the courts to settle his debts,
being purchased by the Law Life Assurance Company. Richard Berridge, a
London brewer, bought another tract of 160,000 acres and the young woman
scarcely missed it, so extensive were her lands. But they were of little
value, being mostly mountain peaks and barren moors. Colonel Martin once
silenced the prince regent, who during the early part of Queen
Victoria's reign was boasting of the famous Long Walk of Windsor, by
scornfully declaring that the avenue which led from his front gate to
his hall door was thirty miles long; and that was very nearly the truth.
Clifden Castle is the seat of the De Arcy family, who built and owned
the town of Clifden and were formerly very rich, but a very little is
seen of them at present.
Marconi's wireless telegraph station occupies a bleak, rocky promontory
extending out into the sea about three miles from the village. It is
surrounded by a large tract of barren moor and is inclosed in barbed
wire fence, which no one is allowed to pass without a permit. There are
several corrugated iron buildings, comfortable but temporary, for
generating furnaces, offices, and dormitories for Mr. Marden, the
superintendent, and seven assistants. There is a miniature railway
connecting them with the harbor to bring up coal and other supplies from
the bay, for it requires a lot of fuel to generate the tremendous
voltage necessary to throw a message across the Atlantic Ocean. When the
operators are sending a Marconigram the sound can be heard for half a
mile--a deafening whirr and buzz like that of a sawmill, interspersed
with sharp detonations, long and short, according to the dots and dashes
of the Morse code. An ordinary operator could read the message a long
distance away, but would not be able to understand it because every word
is sent in cipher. This is the reason why people are kept out of the
grounds and why so large an area is necessary for protection. The
station is a profitable thing for the town, because about fifteen
hundred dollars a month is spent for supplies and labor, and employment
is given to a large gang of men.
After several romantic engagements to American girls, Signor Marconi
finally married a local beauty, Miss O'Brien, daughter of "The O'Brien,"
the representative of the family that were kings over this country in
the early days.
[Illustration: CLIFDEN CASTLE, COUNTY GALWAY]
As Clifden is the terminus of the railway, we cruised around the
rockbound coast of the Atlantic and across the bleak mountain sides to
Westport, in what they call an "excursion car"--an exaggerated jaunting
car on four wheels, drawn by two horses, with seats for six
passengers on each side and a cavity in the center between them, opening
from the end like a hearse, in which the baggage is carried. It is one
of the most uncomfortable vehicles you can imagine. None of the
passengers can see more than half the scenery, as they sit back to back
and face out toward either side of the road. The ordinary jaunting car
is quite as awkward and uncomfortable, and if you take a drive to see
the scenery you have to go over the road twice because you can see only
half of it at a time.
The scenery in Connemara reminds one very much of Norway except in the
lack of the cleanliness for which the latter country is famous. The
coast line is cut by deep jags and precipitous cliffs, like the fiords,
and the mountains have the same stern and stony appearance, and the peat
bogs that lie between them are similar to those in the Scandinavian
countries, although the climate is much milder here. The fuchsia plant
is commonly used for hedges, which all summer long is loaded with
blossoms of purple and red. I had never seen a fuchsia hedge until I
came to Ireland. The first was at Glengariff, on the southern coast, but
since then we have found them everywhere along the Atlantic shore, in
the western counties, hundreds of miles of them, inclosing pastures,
meadows, and gardens and growing with wonderful luxuriance.
There is no fruit in Ireland, or at least very little. I didn't see a
respectable orchard all summer and saw no fruit trees except a few
cherries and plums in gardens. Gooseberries seem to be the only "fruit
of the season" at the hotels, and gooseberry tart is served for luncheon
and for dinner every day. There are a few strawberries, but they are
very expensive and are sold by the pound. They are never served upon the
regular _table d'hôte_ bills of fare, but are always extra.
We were told the Connemara was very picturesque, and the most
interesting section of Ireland, both in scenery, in local color, and in
costumes, but it is a disappointment in all three respects. The scenery
is grand, as mountains always are, but it is very monotonous; the people
are so poor and so dirty that they repel, and we seldom see them at
work, except in the peat fields as we pass. The Connemara peasant woman
always wears a red skirt, goes barefooted, and covers her tousled head
under a heavy shawl. She works alongside of the men and does her share
of the heavy as well as the light labor. She is expected to do as much
manual labor as her husband or her brother, and judging from what we
observed in the peat bogs, they give her the heavy end of the load.
We spent the night at Leenane, a little fishing village at the head of a
fiord that comes up nine miles from the Atlantic into the mountains.
There is a plain but good hotel, much patronized by fishermen. In the
morning we continued our journey over the mountains through some very
rugged country. We drove through the famous Pass of Kylemore, one of the
most beautiful pieces of scenery in Ireland, and called "The Gem of
Connemara." It was particularly interesting to us because Kylemore
Castle is the home of an American girl, the Duchess of Manchester, who
was formerly Miss Helena Zimmerman of Cincinnati and is now the wife of
the Duke of Manchester. It is one of the most beautiful residences in
Ireland, and is situated upon the banks of a lovely little lake and at
the base of a mountain called Doughraugh, which rises 1,736 feet behind
it as a background and is covered with the most beautiful foliage. The
castle is in the center of the pass, between two lofty mountains, and
the roadway for miles passes through a forest and between fields that
are inclosed with fuchsia hedges.
[Illustration: A SCENE IN THE WEST OF IRELAND; LENANE HARBOR]
Kylemore Castle was built by Mr. Mitchell Henry, a home rule member of
parliament in the '60's, about a hundred years ago, and cost him more
than a million dollars. The chapel, which cost more than a hundred
thousand dollars, was built by his son, who sold the place to the Duke
of Manchester. As the latter was not able to pay for it, his
father-in-law, Mr. Zimmerman, a railroad magnate of Cincinnati,
president of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad, took it off his
hands for £69,000 and presented it to his daughter, who spends most of
her time there, because the climate is very agreeable throughout the
entire year and she loves the seclusion. There isn't a neighbor for
several miles, except the people employed on the place. There are
fourteen thousand acres of shooting, several small lakes, and about
forty acres in garden.
This is the kingdom of Grace O'Malley, the famous Amazon daughter of
Owen O'Malley, King of Connaught. She lived and reigned here in the time
of Queen Elizabeth, and her castle is now used as a police barracks.
While some of the legends of Grace O'Malley are doubtless fiction, many
of them are founded upon fact. She was a real woman and a real queen
with pride and power and all the other qualities that are attached to
royalty. Queen Elizabeth, to whom she once paid a visit, offered to make
her a countess, but Grace declined on the ground that the Queen of
Connaught was the equal of the Queen of England, and could accept no
favors. Her first husband was an O'Flaherty and her second was Sir
Richard Burke. The second was a "trial marriage," and it was agreed that
after the end of one year the union could be dissolved by either husband
or wife saying, "I dismiss you," to the other, and Grace said it first.
We passed around the base of the mountain Crough Patrick, which rises
with great abruptness to a height of 2,510 feet, almost directly from
the Atlantic Ocean, and has a flat plain about half a mile square upon
its summit. There are the remains of an ancient chapel, and a large
Celtic cross stands boldly in the foreground, where it can be seen from
all the country round. This is one of the most sacred spots in Ireland,
because, according to Monk Jocelyn, who wrote a life of St. Patrick in
the twelfth century, and other historians, that most venerated saint
"brought together here all the demons, toads, serpents, creeping things,
and other venomous creatures in Ireland and imprisoned them in a deep
ravine on the sea front of the mountain known as Lugnademon (the pen of
the demons) as fast as they came in answer to his summons, and kept them
safely there until he was ready to destroy them. Then, standing upon the
summit of the Crough, St. Patrick, with a bell in hand, cursed them and
expelled them from Ireland forever. And every time he rang the bell
thousands of toads, adders, snakes, reptiles, and other noisome things
went down, tumbling neck and heels after each other, and were swallowed
up forever in the sea." A less reverent writer says:
"'Twas on the top of the high hill
St. Patrick preached his sarmints;
He drove the frogs from all the bogs
And banished all the varmints."
It is a well-known phenomenon in natural history that there are no
snakes, toads, moles, or venomous reptiles in Ireland, and the fact has
always been accounted for in this way. St. Patrick's miracle, performed
at the summit of the Crough, in County Mayo, in the year 450, is
accepted with as perfect faith as the story of the creation, and on the
anniversary, during the month of July, thousands of pilgrims climb to
the ruined chapel, some of them on their knees, to pray to the patron
saint of Ireland.
As Westport is the nearest town of importance in Ireland to the United
States, there have been several projects to take advantage of that fact
by running a line of steamers from there. The distance to St. John, New
Brunswick, is 1,656 miles; to Halifax, 2,165 miles; to Boston, 2,385
miles, and to New York, 2,700 miles, which in each case is much less
than from Queenstown or any of the English ports. At the same time,
however, passengers landing there would be subjected to a long railway
journey and would be required to cross St. George's Channel, which is
not an amiable streak of water. It is subject to the same moods and
tenses as the English Channel, and whoever crosses it must make
sacrifices to Neptune in the form of discomfort if not other tribute. A
company was formed some years ago to build docks here and to build
steamers, but nothing has been heard from it of late, and the invention
of the turbine engine and the construction of the fast steamers like the
_Lusitania_ make the voyage quite as short without the other drawbacks.
The Marquis of Sligo has his seat at Westport and is one of the largest
landowners in Ireland, but he does not spend much time here. He prefers
his townhouse at 10 Hyde Park Place, London. The greater part of his
land is entirely worthless. He owns many square miles of rock, moorland,
and mountain peaks in Connemara, which furnish admirable scenery but are
good for nothing else. As General Sheridan once said of another place,
under other circumstances, "It would be necessary for a crow to take his
rations with him," if he attempted to make the journey across his
lordship's estates. There is more waste land to the acre in Connemara
than in any other part of the United Kingdom, and the Marquis of Sligo
owns the largest share of it.
The Marquis of Sligo owns the town of Westport, and it is built around
the entrance to his beautiful park. He is more generous than most of the
earls, because he allows the public free of charge and without
restriction to enjoy it with him. The gates are always open to young and
old, rich and poor,--on foot, on bicycle, or in vehicles, except
automobiles. He has a prejudice against them and they are not allowed to
enter.
Across the roadway from the main entrance and nailed to the wall of an
old-fashioned house is an ancient signboard, upon which are inscribed
the tolls formerly demanded by the Marquis of Sligo upon the sales of
produce in the market of this town. He owns the place; the land all
belongs to him, and that which is not occupied by his houses pays him
ground rent perpetually. He owns the market place, and instead of
charging rental to the farmers who come there to sell their produce he
used to tax each sale a penny for a dozen eggs, a penny for a chicken,
tuppence for a sack of potatoes, and so on. There is a long list upon
the signboard giving the exact toll for every article and animal that
entered into the traffic of the market place, fish, fowl, fruit,
vegetables, grain, and all other things. He owns the fair grounds also,
and in olden times collected ten per cent of all the premiums and prizes
that were awarded, and a corresponding toll upon the cattle that were
bought and sold at the monthly and annual fairs. And this custom
prevailed all over Ireland, until 1881, when the people decided that
they would not submit to it any longer, and therefore refused to pay the
collector when he came around. Finally, after a popular agitation which
resulted in a good many broken heads and some loss of life, parliament
abolished the privilege, and the tolls collected in the market houses
now go into the common treasury.
Westport is the residence of Rev. J.M. Hannay, rector of the Church of
Ireland here, who is better known to the world as George A. Birmingham,
author of several political novels which have caused a great stir and
have had an important influence upon land legislation. Mr. Hannay is an
ardent patriot, but has the judicial faculty of looking upon both sides
of a question, and in the vivid pictures he has drawn of the scenes and
events and consequences of the land wars, stripping the screens from the
motives of the leaders, he has convinced thousands of people where
ordinary arguments would have entirely failed. His novel entitled "The
Seething Pot" has frequently been recommended to me by the highest
authorities as the best picture of Irish politics that was ever written.
There has always been a good deal of literary talent up this way. The
County of Longford, just south of here, was the birthplace and home of
two of the most famous of Irish writers,--Maria Edgeworth and Oliver
Goldsmith. It is quite remarkable that both should have derived their
early love and their knowledge of the Irish character from the same
identical parish. Both received their early education at the same
school, and the little hamlet Pallasmore, where the author of "The Vicar
of Wakefield" first saw the light, is still, as it was in his time, the
property of the Edgeworth family. It is now only a group of humble
cabins. The house in which the poet was born, Nov. 10, 1728, long ago
disappeared and there is not a relic left of himself or his family.
Later Rev. Charles Goldsmith, his father, removed to the rectory of
Kilkenny West, six miles from the city of Athlone. There the poet spent
his boyhood days, and there his brother, Rev. Henry G. Goldsmith,
continued to reside after his father's death. And he was residing there
when Oliver dedicated to him his poem, "The Traveler."
A hundred years ago Maria Edgeworth was the most popular of English
novelists. She was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, an Irish
literary man, and was born Jan. 1, 1767, in Berkshire, England, where
her family was stopping temporarily. She made her reputation in 1801 by
the publication of a novel called "Castle Rackrent," which was followed
by "Belinda," "Leonora," and other novels at the rate of one a year
until she closed her labors in 1834 with a charming story for children
called "Orlandino," and died at Edgeworthstown, the family seat, which
they still occupy, in 1849. Miss Edgeworth never married, although she
is said to have been very attractive, and was an admired and courted
favorite at the court at Windsor as well as among the peasants of
Ireland. Her writings are noted for the simplicity and beauty of her
style, originality of expression, truthfulness to nature, and the
ingenuity of her situations.
Rathra, near Frenchport, County Roscommon, is the residence of Douglas
Hyde, the organizer and president of the Gaelic League, which is
intended to revive and restore to common use the ancient language and
the ancient customs of Ireland. Dr. Hyde is the son of a Protestant
clergyman, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, a professional
literary man, author of several books, and a lecturer and teacher at
different times. Although he originated the Gaelic League movement, it
was inspired by Prof. Hugo Meyer, a celebrated German linguist, who is
familiar with forty languages, and in his studies, conceived a profound
admiration for the Gaelic. He came to Ireland as a lecturer at the
university, and there made the acquaintance of Douglas Hyde, who became
his disciple, and by his advice and with his assistance inaugurated the
movement which has since been so successful.
Dr. Hyde visited the United States in 1908, dined at the White House,
spent two or three evenings with the President and made a disciple of
him. He is a man of slender stature, delicate health, and intense
nervous emotional nature. He has the faculty of hypnotizing the people
he talks with, and his fascinating personality has been very effective
in his crusade.
Irish ideals, traits, customs, and superstitions were fast disappearing;
English sports, games, literature, and customs were being adopted. The
legends and folklore of Ireland were being forgotten, and native ballads
and melodies became obsolete with the harp, and, although a hundred
years ago Gaelic was spoken by everybody up to the very gates of Dublin
and Belfast, it has been practically forgotten by the people. The census
of 1901 showed that 638,000 people could speak the language, but most of
those could not read it, and knew only a few phrases and words they had
learned from their grandmothers. It was ignored in the schools and in
the printing houses. No Gaelic books had been published for generations.
Since the time of Daniel O'Connell the Irish peasantry have been anxious
to learn English so as to read his speeches.
This was the situation when Hugo Meyer and Douglas Hyde undertook to
revive an interest in the native language, literature, and customs, and
in 1893 they organized what was called the Gaelic League, a
nonpolitical, nonsectarian society, which has now more than nine hundred
local branches with two hundred thousand members, sending delegates to
the annual _ard-fheis_ or annual assembly. Since 1898 a weekly
newspaper and a monthly magazine have been published in the Irish
language, and both have become self-supporting; and the daily and weekly
newspapers throughout Ireland, almost without exception, have a Gaelic
department conducted in that language. The names of the streets are now
posted in Gaelic in nearly all the towns and cities, and the English
directions upon the signboards on the country roads are duplicated in
that language.
Gaelic is taught for an hour a day in all the national schools, although
a fee is charged for it, which the league is now trying to abolish. In
1907 there were 33,741 children in the primary schools and 2,479 in the
secondary schools receiving paid instruction in Gaelic, an increase from
24,918 primary and 2,029 secondary pupils in 1906. It is confidently
expected that the fee will be abolished during the coming year. The
commissioners of education have recommended it. Gaelic is taught in all
of the normal schools and is required in the examinations for teachers.
The league maintains fourteen organizers and lecturers who go about
organizing classes similar to the Chautauqua circles in the United
States, and more than two hundred thousand adults are studying Gaelic in
that way.
The movement is cordially indorsed by the Roman Catholic Church, by the
Church of Ireland, by the Presbyterian general assembly, and the
Methodist general conference, which is extraordinary. I am told that it
is the only movement except temperance that has ever received the
approval of all the religious sects. That indicates very clearly that
its managers have carefully maintained the nonsectarian attitude which
is one of the chief planks of the platform. And the fact that it has
been kept out of politics is apparent from the indorsement it has
received from the United Irish League and the Irish parliamentary
leaders as well as the anti-home rulers. Dr. Hyde said the other day
that
"For the first time in history, and through the influence of the league,
priest and parson, landlord and tenant, Catholic and Protestant,
Orangeman and nationalist, are working together. It cannot be said that
the league has all parties behind it, but there is no party in Ireland
of which some of the members are not with us, and I expect sooner or
later we will succeed in bringing all conflicting interests in Ireland
together in the movement to restore the language and the customs and the
spirit of our ancestors to modern Ireland.
"In Toomebridge, in the north of Ireland, where for five generations the
Protestant Orangemen and the Catholic nationalists have never met at a
fair or a market without smashing each other and fighting with fist and
stones and shillelah, all parties have come together peaceably at the
assemblies of the league. They held a _feis_ there last year, at which I
was present, and as I looked over the heads of the multitude I could not
say which were the more numerous, the Catholics or Protestants, the
nationalists or Orangemen, and the _feis_ adjourned with the best of
feeling in everybody's heart and without a single angry word having been
exchanged. I am told that this was the first instance where such a thing
has happened, but it has been several times repeated in different parts
of Ireland since."
Dr. Walsh, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, commends the league
in the very highest terms, and takes a great interest in the movement.
He told me it has had a beneficial effect upon the character and the
habits of the people; it has encouraged education, temperance,
self-respect, and has revived an interest in literature, music, oratory,
sports, folklore, and history.
XXXII
WORK OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD
The term "congested districts" is used to describe those wild and rocky
sections on the west coast of Ireland where fertile land is scarce and
insufficient to support the population, who are compelled to eke out a
miserable living by fishing and other employment. The population is not
"congested" as we understand that word, but it is too numerous to be
supported on that kind of soil, and the government is trying to remove a
sufficient number of families to other sections of Ireland, where
fertile farms can be found for them. In the newspapers and public
documents these families are usually referred to as "congests."
As one might naturally infer, the advent of parties of "congests" into
localities where they do not belong is not welcomed by the local
residents. On the contrary, there is a bitter and determined resistance
from that class known as the "landless," which is composed of the sons
of farmers who are ambitious to have farms and homes of their own and
cannot obtain them either because there are none to be bought or they,
unfortunately, lack the price. Instead of dividing up the big estates in
such localities among the "landless," who consider themselves entitled
to them because they are natives of the community and their families
have lived there for generations and their ancestors once owned them,
the government commissioners are giving preference to "congests."
To ignore the claims of the "landless" means a fierce fight over every
attempt at migration. The cattle-driving you read of in the newspapers
is the latest method of persuading the landlords to sell, and the
"landless" class--the young farmers who want farms of their own--is
responsible for these outrages. Anyone who remembers the terrible
passions which have been aroused over the land question in Ireland can
imagine what may happen when "congests" from other portions of the
island are forcibly brought into a community and placed upon farms which
the former owners have been compelled to sell to the government in order
that these aliens may have homes and be able to earn a living.
What is called the Congested Districts Board was created in 1891 to
improve conditions on the west coast, where the standard of living is at
the lowest point and the people are in a chronic state of famine because
of the inferior quality of the soil. This district consists of the
province of Connaught, the counties of Donegal, Kerry, and Clare, and
the districts of Bantry, Castletown, Schull, and Skibbereen in the
County of Cork. The land in those localities is very poor and is
estimated at an average of eighty cents an acre, while farm lands in the
rest of Ireland have an average value of $3.12 an acre. The majority of
the people live on small plots, where they manage to raise a few
potatoes and cabbages and keep a few cows, goats, pigs, and sheep of
worn-out breeds, which they drive wherever they can find pasturage. Most
of them try to earn a little more money by going to other parts of the
kingdom to work as laborers for a portion of the year or by weaving
homespun, fishing, gathering seaweed, and other home industries.
The act empowers the board to aid migration to other parts of Ireland,
to assist in the improvement of live stock and the breeding of horses,
cattle, sheep, donkeys, and swine, to encourage poultry farms,
bee-keeping, basket-making, lace-making, knitting, and the manufacture
of carpets, rugs, and other things that can be made at home, and to
encourage the fishing industry by constructing piers and harbors and
furnishing boats and gear.
[Illustration: BARNE'S GAP, COUNTY DONEGAL.]
Mr. James Bryce, British Ambassador to Washington, is the author of the
act of parliament which authorized a loan of $22,500,000 to build
laborers' cottages in Ireland, and under it, according to the latest
official returns, 22,500 comfortable new homes have been provided in
different parts of the island, and are now occupied by families of farm
laborers and other workingmen in the rural districts. Each cottage has
from an acre to an acre and one-half of land for a garden. Some of them
have barns and other outhouses. They are built of stone and brick of the
most substantial character, with roofs of slate or tiles. Most of them
have four rooms, two rooms upstairs and two downstairs, with large
windows furnishing plenty of light and plenty of ventilation. The cost
varies from $750 to $1,000 for a cottage, and is paid by the government
with funds derived from the loan mentioned. The tenants pay an average
rental of £4 17_s._ 6_d._ a year, which is equivalent to about
twenty-four dollars in American money or two dollars per month, which
covers the interest upon the cost of the cottage, and an installment
which will cancel the indebtedness at the end of sixty-eight years. If
the tenant owner for whom the cottage is built desires to pay for the
property and get a fee simple, he is at liberty to do so at any time,
but I did not hear of any such case. Most of the tenants are willing to
let their indebtedness run along indefinitely. They can sell, lease, or
dispose of the property in any way at any time. The incumbrance goes
with the property and not with the man, and is assumed by the purchaser.
It is difficult to overestimate the vast amount of good this movement
has accomplished. It is gradually changing the standard of life among
the laboring classes throughout Ireland. It has not only furnished
comfortable and decent homes for more than twenty-three thousand
families, who have been living in miserable, filthy cabins for
generations, but it has done much to improve their health. It will
strengthen the physical constitutions of the coming generations by
placing them in sanitary homes and clean surroundings.
Mr. John Redmond, in a speech in the House of Commons, said that "the
agricultural laborers of Ireland had been living under conditions which
were absolutely fatal to health and the habits of cleanliness, and
which, in almost any other country in the world, would have proved fatal
to religion and morality as well. But the Irish agricultural laborers
are a remarkable race of men, highly intelligent, keen and brave,
patriotic, and self-sacrificing in their patriotism. They have preserved
through poverty and squalor a deep religious, spiritual feeling, and the
highest possible standard of morality."
The Congested Districts Board devotes its attention entirely to the
people living in the bleak mountain lands on the west coast of Ireland,
and its agencies are established at different points from the extreme
south to the extreme north of the island. The poverty, the privation,
the suffering, are chiefly found within a few miles from the coast,
where the territory is divided into vast estates of almost worthless
land, and where it is very difficult for any person to earn a living.
The same conditions have existed for ages. The west coast of Ireland has
never been prosperous, the soil has never been fertile, the people have
never had any more comforts than they have to-day, but they have
continued to live there, century after century, clinging to the rocks
and suffering from the weather and the lack of food, which has been
their inheritance, refusing to leave their wretched hovels for a more
favorable climate and better opportunities of making a living.
It cannot be said that they remain there in ignorance, because thirty
thousand or forty thousand men from the congested districts leave their
cabins, their wives, and their families for several months every year
and go to England and Scotland to supply the demand for labor in those
countries. The migratory labor system has been going on for generations,
and many of the men have gone to the same jobs generation after
generation, spending half their time earning good wages in England and
the other half looking after their little gardens and cattle and goats
in Connaught Province, in Clare, Kerry, Galway, Sligo, and Donegal
counties. It is one of the strangest phenomena in human life that they
should cling as they do to their desolate, comfortless, filthy stone
huts in these bleak mountains; but, be it ever so humble, be it ever so
comfortless, there is no place like home.
One of the functions of the Congested Districts Board is to remove as
many as possible of these families to localities where they can make a
living with less labor and find more of the comforts and happiness of
life; but the most pitiful and difficult part of its task is to persuade
them to go. Mr. O'Connor, the solicitor of the board, told me of a
wizen-faced old peasant who occupied a leaky stone hut on the mountain
side, without the slightest comfort within or attraction without. He had
a few acres of sterile soil, on which, with the greatest difficulty, he
was able to produce enough cabbages and potatoes to keep his family from
starvation, and a small herd of goats, lean and gaunt, that were trying
to find sustenance in the heather and the mosses on the rocks; and yet,
even in this condition, the old man stubbornly refused to move. No
inducement could persuade him to abandon the worthless, filthy
habitation, because it was his home. With the pride of a prince he
defied the inspectors of the board, charging them with some malicious
intent of depriving him of property that had been the home of his
family, he declared, for nine hundred years. And nothing could induce
him to leave it for a comfortable cottage and a productive farm fifty
miles in the interior.
They told me, too, of a girl about eighteen years old, who, being
injured by an automobile, was picked up and carried to the nearest
hospital, which happened to be twenty miles or more from the place where
she lived and the scene of the accident. She was being tenderly cared
for in a neat, sunshiny ward, in a comfortable bed, with sheets and
pillow cases of linen, with a nurse to attend her and every delicacy
that could be furnished to eat, and yet she moaned and cried and begged
to be taken home. Finally the Americans who had been in the automobile
at the time of the accident, and had left a deposit of money to pay for
every comfort and surgical attention that the girl could possibly need,
consented to her removal, because the doctor said she was fretting
herself into a fever. So they brought the automobile to the hospital,
placed her carefully in a bed of pillows in the tonneau, and carried
her back into the mountains to her "home," a one-room cabin of the most
repulsive and wretched sort, which, as my friend told me, he wouldn't
have kept his horse in. The walls were of rude stone piled one on
another without mortar and the roof was made of straw. There was no
floor but the earth, no furniture but a hard wooden bench, a table, and
a three-legged stool. There was no window, and the only light that there
was came through the door, which opened into a loathsome barnyard, where
the filth was ankle deep and the stench almost insufferable. And yet
when they laid the poor creature on the earthen floor she gave a long
sigh of relief and satisfaction and thanked them for bringing her
"home." It is true the world over that people prize things that are
worthless if they happen to be all they possess. The less we have the
more valuable it becomes; the more we have the less we value it. This
trait may be found in the mountains of Switzerland, in Lapland, in
Norway, and other countries where people enjoy the least blessings and
comforts and where living is a constant struggle.
The Congested Districts Board consists of Sir Antony MacDonnell, under
secretary for Ireland, who has recently been elevated to the peerage as
Lord MacDonnell of Swineford; Sir Horace Plunkett, a well known
agriculturalist; Rev. Dennis O'Hara, a Catholic priest of County Clare;
Henry Dorran, the chief inspector and executive officer in actual charge
of the work, and Mr. O'Connor, the solicitor in charge of the office
work. The board is constituted by an act of parliament and has a large
staff of agents and officials in the field.
[Illustration: AN IRISH CABIN IN COUNTY DONEGAL.]
The work of the board may be classified as follows:
1. The purchase and division of estates into small farms and placing
thereon families who are unable to earn a decent living in their present
surroundings.
2. The enlargement of holdings by the purchase of neighboring property
for those who cannot be moved.
3. The construction of decent and comfortable cottages for the poor, in
the place of the wretched cabins they now occupy, and the repair of
their present homes as far as possible.
4. The construction of public works, road building, the draining of
swampy lands, and other undertakings that will furnish work and wages to
the poor.
5. Aiding fishermen along the coast by furnishing boats and equipment
and by securing them a market.
6. Instruction of the women in industries that can be carried on in the
home, such as weaving, lace-making, and knitting.
7. Schools of housewifery for the training of mountain peasant girls for
domestic service.
8. Loans of money to farmers to purchase cattle, sheep, and other means
of self-support.
9. General improvement and repair of homes and the relief of individual
distress through parish committees.
In 1907 the board purchased 121,213 acres for the sum of £161,684, which
it is now cutting up into small farms and moving to them families which
are unable to make a living in the mountain districts. Thus far 544
families have been moved in this way and placed in comfortable homes at
an average cost of $435 per family, not including the price of the land;
1,372 dwelling-houses have been erected, and 1,266 buildings on these
and other farms already occupied have been erected at the expense of the
board. In addition to furnishing a farm and a cottage the board gives
its _protégés_, wherever it is necessary, cows, goats, pigs, and
chickens. All this is paid for by money advanced from the public
treasury, which is reimbursed by the beneficiary at the rate of 3-1/2;
per cent a year. Of this 2-3/4; per cent is interest upon the investment,
and three-fourths of one per cent annually goes into a sinking fund to
redeem at maturity the bonds issued to furnish the money. The average
annual payment by the families which have thus been removed is £17
10_s._ or $87.50 in our money. The people who have been benefited can
sell their new homes or dispose of them by inheritance so long as the
interest is paid promptly, but they cannot divide them.
I have before me a statement showing each transaction, and find that the
following figures represent the number of acres given:
176 acres 15 acres 206 acres
174 acres 438 acres 245 acres
362 acres 177 acres 34 acres
371 acres 76 acres 67 acres
254 acres 271 acres 249 acres
318 acres 311 acres 76 acres
240 acres 90 acres 152 acres
136 acres 66 acres 118 acres
119 acres 111 acres 106 acres
These figures illustrate the size of the farms that are being provided,
and the acreage varies according to the fertility of the land. The board
intends to give each of its _protégés_ what is called "an economic
holding"; that is, sufficient land to support his family and produce a
surplus sufficient to enable him to pay his interest and lay by a little
something for a rainy day.
During 1908 it has moved eighty families from County Galway to County
Roscommon and placed them all upon fertile farms, in comfortable new
cottages of four rooms each, at an average cost of one thousand dollars,
not including the price of the land. In addition to this most of the
families have been granted loans varying from twenty-five to sixty
dollars as working capital, to provide tools, implements, necessary
furniture, and other articles.
In addition to this general work in more than eight hundred parishes in
counties Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Donegal, and Sligo, local
committees have been appointed consisting of the parish priest, the
Church of Ireland rector, the parish doctor, and one of the magistrates,
who have immediate supervision over local conditions and make
recommendations for the application of small sums of money for the
improvement of the comforts and health of the people. These local
committees are authorized to repair and improve the homes of farmers,
fishermen, and other workingmen where it can be done economically, and
to erect new homes for them whenever it is necessary, upon certain
conditions, which involve a radical change in the habits of most of the
Irish peasants. In order to secure benefits of this kind the family is
required to remove the dunghill from its usual place in front of the
door, to clean up all around the cabin and keep the place in order, to
keep the pig, the cattle, and the chickens out of the house, and to keep
the interior in a state of sanitary cleanliness. Materials are furnished
to cottagers who are willing to make these improvements for themselves.
It is astonishing that so many peasants will fight such improvements and
often resist attempts that are made to clean up their places and make
them more comfortable. The dunghill has always been in front of the door
and the offal and garbage from the house have been dumped upon it for
generations. They are accustomed to the sickening stench and, as one of
the inspectors told me, they find it difficult to get along without it.
"They wouldn't be happy unless there was a bad smell," he remarked. But
in most cases the conditions are cheerfully accepted and the
improvements appreciated. Last year 1,193 cottages were improved in this
manner at a cost of £31,812.
During the greater part of the year more than three thousand men are
employed by the Congested Districts Board in the counties along the
Atlantic coast, roadmaking, draining lands, fencing, building houses,
bridges, and other improvements, and in planting larches and other trees
that grow in this climate. This has not only kept them busy at good
wages, but has made important permanent improvements. The total area of
land drained last year was 12,089 acres at a cost of £11,391.
The amount of money spent on roads, bridges, piers, docks, and other
public works during the year was £7,102.
One of the most interesting features of the work is the fisheries. There
is an abundance of fish all along the coast and there is always a demand
for them in the London market, either fresh or cured, but the peasants
until recently have had no boats or nets and were unable to raise the
money to provide them. The villages on the shores of the coves and bays
had no landing places for boats, no facilities for storing or curing
fish, and all of these things the board is now trying to provide. It has
several methods of doing so. Wherever necessary docks have been
constructed with warehouses, packing-houses, and cooper shops, and the
board has agencies for furnishing salt, ice, and other necessaries for
the fishing business at cost prices. Docks have been built at a dozen
places costing from $500 to $15,000, which are free to the public and
bring no return.
The board will furnish boats, nets, and the rest of an outfit to a
fisherman, to be paid for in five annual installments, and it has gone
into partnership with the fishermen, in three hundred cases furnishing
the outfit at an average cost of £350 and dividing the proceeds into
nine shares. Six of these shares go to the crew and three to the
government to pay the interest on the investment and create a sinking
fund. When that fund has reached the total of the investment, the entire
property is handed over to the crew. Nearly four hundred thousand
dollars is invested in such partnerships by the government. The
Congested Districts Board finds the market and supervises the sale of
the fish. It also furnishes experts to instruct fishermen in the
business and show them how to make their own barrels.
In other chapters I have told you about the schools for lace-making and
for training the peasant girls for house servants. There are altogether
eighteen schools for servants and forty-three schools for lace-making
and embroidery, besides crochet work, knitting, and weaving. I observe
in the annual report of the board concerning the "domestic training
schools" this sentence: "The pupils can very easily find situations in
this country as domestic servants, and it is a mistake to suppose that
the greater portion of them go to America after the course of training."
The following table shows the amounts of money expended in this
benevolent work by the Congested Districts Board since its organization
in 1891 up to 1907:
1891-92 £3,660 1900-01 168,864
1892-93 50,266 1901-02 199,626
1893-94 47,259 1902-03 210,054
1894-95 74,886 1903-04 197,451
1895-96 81,907 1904-05 229,065
1896-97 87,196 1905-06 375,065
1897-98 99,200 1906-07 341,580
1898-99 107,082 ----------
1899-1900 417,411 Gr. total £2,690,572
This expenditure is equivalent to $13,478,600 in American money.
Denis Johnston, assistant secretary of the United Irish League, gave me
several photographs which illustrate in a striking manner what is being
done for the improvement of the poor peasants in the west of Ireland. He
shows with the accuracy of the camera the appearance of the cabins in
which human beings have lived for generations, and in one case from
which they were driven out because they were too poor to pay the rent
even for such a hovel as appears in the picture. On the other hand, he
photographs the neat and comfortable cottage of artificial stone with
slate roof which has been recently erected in its place by the Congested
Districts Board. It is now the home of the same family that formerly
lived in the miserable shack which was occupied by the fathers and
grandfathers for several generations before them.
These are not exceptional or isolated cases. They are types of
habitations that once existed and in a large measure still exist on the
large estates in the west of Ireland, and the second photograph shows
the improvements that are being made as rapidly as the funds will
permit. I have seen similar cabins, for many of them still exist, and
are still occupied as homes by human beings. In some of them large
families are crowded, six, eight, and often ten people, in a single
room. I was told by a friend of one wretched, loathsome hovel that he
found in County Kerry where nineteen human creatures were living. These
photographs of Mr. Johnston show what has been and is being accomplished
and illustrate the methods and purposes of the Congested Districts
Board.
"All this has been done by the pressure brought upon the government by
the Irish parliamentary party," said Mr. Johnston; "and its members are
entitled to the credit of what has been accomplished. Every concession
that has been made, every reform that has been ordered, every dollar
that has been voted for those improvements, has been obtained by
threatening revolution, and the government has been compelled to yield.
"In 1880 it was quite within the power of the landlords of Ireland to
evict tenants from their holdings by merely serving them with a notice
to quit. The Irish parliamentary party, with the organized forces of the
Irish race behind them, in 1881 secured the passage of the Land Act of
that year, which reduced the rents by nearly $10,000,000. Under this
measure the tenant farmers of Ireland were first vested with a right in
their farms. They had the power to enter a land court constituted under
that act for the purpose of having fair and reasonable rents fixed upon
the property they occupied at intervals of fifteen years, and they were
practically secured from the interference of the landlords or their
agents so long as such rents which were called 'judicial rents,' were
paid.
"In the following year, 1882, the Arrears of Rent Act was secured by the
Irish parliamentary party under the leadership of Parnell, and that
measure wiped off the slate in some cases ten years of unpaid rents and
in others less. The act certainly benefited the people of Ireland to the
extent of at least $15,000,000. Thus the rent question was placed upon a
fair judicial basis and extortion was impossible as long as the tenant
could appeal to a tribunal constituted for that very purpose against
unfair and unjust claims by his landlord. What are known as 'judicial
rents'--that is, rents fixed by such courts and based upon the quality,
the value, and the productive capacity of the land--have since prevailed
very generally throughout Ireland, and they are now being used as the
basis for calculating the selling price of the farms that are being
purchased by the tenants on the big estates under the Land Act of
1903.
[Illustration: THE OLD: A LABORER'S SOD CABIN]
[Illustration: THE NEW: EXAMPLE OF THE COTTAGES BUILT IN CONNEMARA BY
THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD]
"In 1883 was passed what is known as the Act for the Building of
Cottages for the Laborers of Ireland. The benefits of that measure can
never be calculated. Under its authority nearly twenty-five thousand
comfortable and neat cottages have been built for laborers throughout
the whole country, and the miserable habitations, hovels of stone with
leaky straw roofs, in which thousands of honest, hard-working peasants
have been compelled to live, have been torn down and replaced with such
buildings as you see in the picture, with walls of cement and roofs of
slate. In addition to the improvement in their habitations, an acre of
land is given with each cottage on which it is possible for the laborer
to raise vegetables sufficient for his household. No estimate in money
can possibly be made of the benefits that the people of Ireland have
enjoyed from that act.
"In 1885 the Irish party secured the passage of the first Land Purchase
Act and followed it up by winning the acts of 1888 and 1891, which went
farther and still farther and benefited the country to the amount of at
least one hundred and forty millions of dollars.
"Next came the Act for the Establishment of the Congested Districts
Board," continued Mr. Johnston, "expressly to deal with what are known
as the congested areas of Ireland. These districts are not thickly
settled, like Belgium, as one might have comparatively few population,
but altogether more than the land will support. These are mountain
districts along the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean where it is
possible to raise a few cattle and goats that can find pasture in the
narrow little valleys and up the mountain sides, but where there is
seldom enough arable soil in a single patch to support an ordinary
family. For these reasons it is difficult for the most industrious men
to make a living there, and the inhabitants are the poorest, the most
ill-nourished, and the most miserable in all the land.
"The Congested Districts Board was instructed to buy all the lands it
found necessary in such places, moving some of the inhabitants to other
sections of Ireland, where they would be able to make a living, and
distributing the lands among those that remained in allotments
sufficiently large to enable them to live. In deserving cases the board
is authorized to build comfortable houses to replace the wretched
hovels, to restock the farms, to purchase implements where they are
needed, to provide seed, and do whatever is necessary to give the family
a fair start and enable them to enjoy the results of their labors. The
board is also empowered to build new houses upon the locations selected
for the families which are moved, and has done so in many cases. You
will see in these photographs the character of the cabins that were
formerly occupied by the poor people in the congested districts and the
character of those which have been built to replace them, by the board."
Mr. Johnston showed me an object lesson in the form of a photograph of a
cottage in County Meath for which a rental of fifteen dollars a year has
been paid by the tenant for many years. It has a single room, a mud
floor, a thatched roof of straw, and is entirely without the simplest
conveniences or comforts. He showed me another photograph of a cottage
built under the Laborers' Act of 1906, which is now occupied by the same
family with the same rent of fifteen dollars a year, with an acre of
ground attached to it as a garden. It is a one-story structure of four
rooms, with two fireplaces, three windows on each side, a slate roof,
and walls of concrete.
He also showed me a picture of the miserable hovel from which Bernard
King was evicted in 1902. It stands on the De Freyne estate, near the
town of Feigh, County Roscommon. King made a stubborn defense of his
home, but the police finally ejected him. The Estates Commissioners have
put him back, and in place of the miserable hut from which he was
evicted, they have built him a neat two-story six-room cottage that is
good enough for anybody to live in. There could not be any better
illustration of the benefits of the evicted Tenants' Act, and this is a
type of some two thousand cases.
This humane work will be continued as long and as rapidly as the funds
furnished by the British parliament will permit, and it is difficult
to conceive of more direct and comprehensive benevolence. Ireland is
thus being gradually redeemed, and although conditions are by no means
ideal, the improvement during the last decade is a matter of
congratulation to every Irishman and every sympathizer of the Irish
race.
[Illustration: INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR OF ONE STORY COTTAGES ERECTED BY THE
CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD]
THE END
INDEX
Aberdeen, Earl of, 34, 44, 54, 154.
Lady, 34.
Absentee landlords, 133.
Academy, Royal Irish, 91.
"Adair, Robin," 271.
Adare Manor, 429.
Adare, Village of, 428.
Addison in Ireland, 90.
Adrian IV, Pope, 280.
Agricultural, Department, 13, 38, 404.
education, 404.
Organization Society, 13, 410.
statistics, 251.
Agriculture in Ireland, 209.
Alexander, Archbishop, 189.
All Hallows College, 143.
American bacon, 417.
flour, 417.
Anderson, R.A., Secretary Irish Agricultural Organization Society, 412.
Anecdotes, 260, 463.
"Annals of the Four Masters," 169, 171, 186, 195, 410.
Annals of Ulster, 196.
Antrim County, 209.
Archbishops of Ireland, 148, 189.
Area of Ireland, 130.
Ardilaun, Lord, 16, 348, 357, 384.
Ard-Ri, The Irish, 174.
Ark of the Covenant, 177.
Armagh, Book of, 195.
Cathedral, 192.
City of, 188.
Art education, 406.
gallery, 93.
Askeaton Abbey, 427.
Village of, 425.
Assassination of Cavendish and Burke, 96.
Automobiles in Ireland, 269.
Avoca, Vale of, 271.
Bailey, W.F., Land Com'r, 62, 130.
Balbriggan factories, 162.
Balfe, M.W., memorial, 18.
"Bally,"--use of the word, 266.
Ballyhack, Village of, 286.
Banks, Coöperative, 414.
Bannow, Ancient town of, 278.
Bantry, Bay of, 353, 355.
Bards, The Irish, 267.
Barry, Arthur Hugh Smith, 296.
Barrymore, Lord, 296.
Bassilia de Clare, 278, 281.
Battle of Clontarf, 123.
Battle of the Boyne, 167, 213.
Beggars, Irish, 283.
Belfast, Castle, 217.
City Hall, 227.
City of, 21, 231.
population of, 222.
Presbyterians of, 223.
Religion in, 223.
rope walk, 235.
shipyards, 236.
Technical School, 230.
Benevolence of British Government, 460.
Beresford, Archbishop, 193.
family, 287.
Lord Charles, 284.
William, 288.
Betting in Ireland, 305.
Birmingham, George A., the author, 454.
Birr Castle Observatory, 10.
Birrell, Augustine, 35.
Birth rate, Irish, 253.
Bishops of Ireland, 148.
Blackrock, Cork, 117.
Bladensburg, Battle of, 210, 419.
Blake, Sir Henry, 331.
Blarney, Castle, 320.
origin of term, 322.
Stone, 323.
Bogs, Irish, 7.
Boleyn, Anne, 289.
Boycott, Birthplace of the, 433.
forbidden by priests, 434.
of landlords, 16, 136.
Boyle, Richard, Earl of Cork, 19, 54, 322.
Boyne, Battle of the, 167, 213.
Valley of the, 167.
Brewery, the Guinness, 16.
Brian Boru, 105, 123, 125, 188.
Bruce, Edward, 197.
Bryce, James, 35, 44, 219, 460.
Buildings erected by government, 71.
Burke, Edmund, 85.
Burke, Sir Bernard, 57.
Butler, James, first Earl of Ormonde, 326.
Cabins, Irish, 12, 74, 358, 461, 465.
Car, Jaunting, 310, 449.
Carrick Castle, 289.
Carrickfergus, 214, 218.
Carrickmacross lace, 344.
Carton House, 151.
Cashel, History of, 9.
Ruins of, 9.
Castle, Dublin, 35, 53.
Kilkenny, 325.
Castles, Ruined, 289.
Cathedral, at Cork, 316.
at Armagh, 193.
Christ Church, at Dublin, 15, 281.
Downpatrick, 196.
Kilkenny, 325.
Limerick, 419.
Londonderry, 242.
St. Patrick's, Dublin, 14.
Catholic, Roman, hierarchy, 148.
Church in Ireland, 51.
Cattle, breeding, 63.
driving, 63, 434.
Causeway, The Giant's, 243.
Census of Ireland, 130, 252.
Channel, Irish, 213.
Characteristics, Irish, 260, 436, 461.
Charity in Ireland, 360, 460.
Charles I, 46, 333.
Cherries, First, in Ireland, 334.
Chesterfield, Lord, 57.
Chief Secretary for Ireland, 35.
Children, Behavior of, 360.
Choirs, Church, 31, 100.
Christ Church Cathedral, 32, 281.
Christian Brothers' schools, 150.
Churches in Belfast, 222.
Church Land Acts, 50, 67.
Church statistics, 49.
City Hall, Belfast, 237.
Civil Service of Ireland, 78.
Clanricarde, Marquess of, 20, 137, 432.
Clergy, Irish, 149.
Clifden, Town of, 443.
Climate of Ireland, 166, 320.
Clontarf battlefield, 123.
Coaching in Ireland, 367.
College, Queen's, at Belfast, 227.
Queen's, at Cork, 313.
Queen's, at Galway, 440.
Trinity, Dublin, 97.
Magee, Londonderry, 242.
Maynooth, 143.
All Hallows, 143.
Colthurst, Sir George, 321.
Columba, Saint, 170.
Commerce of Ireland, 253.
Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, 16.
Condensed milk factories, 418.
Confederation, Irish, 324.
Congested Districts Board, 13, 38, 339, 358, 459, 465.
Connemara, Poverty in, 443.
Scenery of, 443.
Cooke, Rev. Dr., of Belfast, 224.
Coöperation among farmers, 412.
credit societies, 414.
Coöperative stores, 412.
Corbet, Miles, 160.
Cork, City of, 212.
Earl of, 19, 292, 332.
Harbor of, 6.
Cormac, King, 169, 175, 183.
Coronation Stone, British, 177.
of the O'Neills, 238.
Cottages erected by the government, 12, 425, 463.
Courcy, Sir John de, 196.
Courts, The Irish, 56.
Creameries, Coöperative, 412.
Crime in Ireland, 401.
Croughpatrick, Mount of, 451.
Croker, Richard, 3, 306.
Cromwell, Oliver, 56, 163, 270, 284, 289, 336, 344, 357.
Crops in Ireland, 130.
Crosses of Monasterboice, 166.
Cultivated area in Ireland, 70, 130.
Curragmore Castle, 287.
Curran, Philpott, 18.
Curran, Sarah, 83, 84.
Customs, Irish, 260.
Dairies, Irish, 418.
Dalkey, suburb of Dublin, 119.
Davis, John H., 218.
Davitt, Michael, 79.
Death rate in Ireland, 253.
Declan, Saint, 9.
Derry, Town of, 257.
Desmond, Earl of, 330, 332.
Lady, 332.
rebellion, 330.
Devolution policy, 36.
Devonshire, Duke of, 134, 292.
Dillon, John, 44.
Disestablishment, The, 33, 49.
Disraeli, Lord, 148.
Donkeys, Irish, 311.
Donnybrook Fair, 128.
Dougherty, Sir John, 37.
Doughnamore, Lord, 329.
Downpatrick Abbey, 197.
Downpatrick Cathedral, 187, 196.
Drogheda, City of, 159.
Massacre of, 163.
Druids, The, 169.
Drink bill of Ireland, 392.
Drunkenness in Ireland, 229, 391.
Dublin, Castle, 53.
City government of, 44.
Lord Mayor of, 44.
Name of, 47.
Population of, 49.
Sacred spots in, 77.
University of, 102.
Dudley, Countess of, 364.
Earl, 44.
Dufferin, Lord, 217.
Dunraven, Earl of, 36, 428.
Dunsany Castle, 186.
Lord, 410.
Earls, Flight of the, 214.
Eccles Hotel, Glengariff, 354.
Edgeworth, Maria, 454.
Education, 12, 109.
Agricultural, 404.
Art, 406.
at Maynooth, 144.
at Belfast, 231.
at Cork, 315.
Expenditures for, 111.
Roman Catholic, 101.
Statistics of, 111.
Technical, 405.
Edward I, 177.
Edward VII, 104.
Electric railway, The first, 243.
Elizabeth, Queen, 100, 103, 270, 291, 322, 331, 451.
Ellen's Tower at Belfast, 218.
Ely, Earl of, 278.
Emigrants returning, 2.
Emigration, 2, 134, 243, 247, 250, 253, 298, 360, 418, 437.
Emmet, Robert, 79, 82, 118.
England, Hatred of, 38.
Epitaphs, Curious, 336, 420.
Estates, Commission, Work of, 60.
Sale of, 60.
Eva, The Princess, 278, 280, 281.
Evictions in Ireland, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 470, 472.
Expenses of government, 39, 253.
Excursions about Dublin, 115.
"Faerie Queene, The," 271, 337.
Fairies, Irish, 345.
Farms sold by government, 65.
Farms, Prices of, 65.
Farm labor, 75.
Farm lands, 130.
Farmers, Education of, 407.
Father Mathew, 77.
"Father Prout," the poet, 316, 321.
Faversham, Earl of, 153.
Fergus, First Scottish king, 179.
Fenians, The original, 183.
Ferns, Town of, 275.
Finances of land sales, 64.
Fin-Barre, Saint, 314, 350.
Fighting, Irish love of, 436.
Fisheries, The, 13, 441, 445, 465, 467.
Fitzgerald, Family history of, 155.
Gerald, 10, 19, 137.
Lord Edward, 84, 117, 126.
Maurice, 146, 155.
Fitzgibbon, John, 136.
Flax culture, 234.
Flour, American, 417.
Foley, Captain James Arthur Wellington, 328.
Four Courts of Dublin, 48.
Frascati, Estate of, 117.
French invasion of Ireland, 355.
Fruit, Scarcity of, 449.
Gaelic League, 455.
Gaelic, Study of, 456.
Gallery, National, 93.
Galway, City of, 432, 438.
Gambling in Ireland, 269, 305.
George I, 22.
Gerald, Thomas, 156.
Geraldines, The, 157.
Ginger ale, Manufacture of, 212, 235.
Gladstone, William E., 39, 147.
Glencare, Earl of, 371.
Glendalough, Valley of, 272.
Glengariff, Church of, 362.
Legend of, 370.
Town of, 345, 353.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 454.
"Gombeen Man," The, 72.
Gougane Island, 349.
Government, of Ireland, 34, 38.
of City of Dublin, 44.
Grace, Michael P., 328.
Grattan, Henry, 80.
Grave of Parnell, 78.
Grey, Lord, 197, 291, 330.
Griffith, Arthur, 203.
Guinness, Benjamin, 16.
Brewery, 399.
Hale, J.P., 294.
Hall, Rev. Dr. John, 220.
Hammersley, Lillian, 288.
Hamilton, Sir William, 90.
Hannay, Rev. J.M., the author, 454.
Harp of Tara, 183.
Harps, The Irish, 266.
Harrington, Timothy, 46.
Headford, Marquess of, 171.
Hemans, Mrs., 90.
Handel's "Messiah," 87.
Henderson, Sir James, 231.
Hennessy, Sir John Cope, 331.
Henry II, of England, 9, 47, 54, 280.
Henry VII, 369.
Henry VIII, 15, 100, 157, 270.
"Himself," The title, 264.
Historic spots in Dublin, 77.
Hogan, Professor, 143.
Hollybrook, 270.
Home, Love of, Irish, 463.
Home Rule, 11, 36, 39.
"Hook or Crook," Origin of phrase, 280.
Horse Show, Dublin, 310.
Horses, Irish, 300, 311.
Hotels in Ireland, 166.
Housewifery, Schools of, 465.
Howth, Earl of, 126.
Village of, 121.
Huguenots in Ireland, 284.
Hussey, Dr., 145.
Hyde, Douglas, 455.
Imports of Ireland, 253.
Improvement, in conditions, 73.
in cottages, 465.
Insane asylums, 25, 379.
Insanity, Irish, Causes of, 265, 402.
Intemperance in Ireland, 229, 391.
Interest paid by land buyers, 61, 65.
Invasion, French, 355.
of Ireland, The first, 280.
Ireland, Kings of, 290.
Ireton, General, 422.
Irish Academy, 91.
Irish as farmers, 69.
Irish in the United States, 257.
Iveagh, Lord, 17, 91.
Jaunting car, 310, 449.
James I, 239, 331.
James II, 213, 214, 240.
Jewel robbery, The, 58.
Johnston, Dennis, Ass't Secretary, United Irish League, 136, 469.
Jones, John Paul, 218.
Keimaneigh, Pass of, 352.
Kells, Book of, 105, 171.
Village of, 170.
Kelvin, Lord, 219.
Kenmare, Earl of, 371.
House, 373.
Lady, 375.
Park, 374.
Village of, 368.
Kilbarrack, Abbey of, 126.
Kilcolman Castle, 291, 330.
Kilcrea Abbey, 344.
Kildare, House, 94.
Earl of, 10, 19, 20, 137, 152, 156.
"Silken Thomas," 146, 156.
Kilkea Castle, 152.
Kilkenny Castle, 325.
"Kilkenny Cats," Story of, 325.
City of, 323.
Statues of, 323.
Killarney, Lakes of, 366, 375.
Village of, 379.
Killeen Castle, 186.
Kings, Ancient, of Ireland, 174.
Knabenshue, S.S., 245.
Kylemore Castle, 450.
Labor, Farm, 75.
Lack of, in Ireland, 250.
Lace work, 13, 256, 339, 360, 468.
Lacy, Hugh de, 187, 281.
Land Act, Wyndham, 60, 152.
acts, Various, 68.
disturbances, 432.
Land League, 295.
"Landless," The, 459.
Landlord and Tenant Act, 67.
Landlords, Irish, 60, 130, 131.
Land troubles, 295.
Land war of 1901, 136.
Lansdowne, Marquess of, 141, 368.
Laracor, Town of, 27.
Lawrence family, The, 127.
League, United Irish, 135.
Lee, River, 6, 312, 350.
Legend of the O'Neills, 215.
Legends, of Ireland, 160, 191, 367.
of Killarney, 370, 379.
of Limerick, 424.
Leinster, Duke of, 20, 41, 62, 92, 117, 146, 151.
Leopardstown races, 300.
Lever, Charles, 90, 121.
Lewis', Mrs., land case, 137, 139.
Lexington, Irish at Battle of, 18.
"Lia Fail," Coronation Stone, 177.
Library, National, 106.
Royal, 93.
Trinity College, 97, 105.
Liffey River, 115.
Limerick, City of, 417.
lace, 340.
Women of, 422.
Linen, Manufacture of, 211, 232.
Liquor, Consumption of, 400.
licenses, 363, 391.
Lismore, Earl of, 299.
Town of, 293.
Literary reminiscences, Dublin, 90.
Logue, Cardinal, 143, 189, 194, 257.
Londonderry, Apprentices' Hall, 241.
shirt factories, 242.
Siege of, 240.
Statue of Walker, 240.
Town of, 237.
Wall of, 239.
Lord Gough, 77.
Lord Lieutenant, The, 34.
Lover, Samuel, 18, 90.
Lundy, Col. Robert, 241.
Lynch, Story of Mayor, 440.
Lyne, Lucius, Croker's jockey, 307.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 148.
MacCarthy, Cormac, 322.
Eleanor, 158, 322.
MacCarthys, The, 344, 385.
MacCool, Fin, 379.
MacDonnell, Sir Antony Patrick, 36.
Macroom, Village of, 348.
Magee, Alexander, Swift's servant, 27.
Magee College, 108, 242.
Mahoney, Rev. Francis ("Father Prout"), 316.
Malachi the Great, 123.
Malehide, 160.
Manchester, Duke of, 450.
Mansion House, Dublin, 46.
Manufacturing in Ireland, 255.
Marconi's wireless station, 448.
Mareschal, William Le, 325.
Marlborough, Duchess of, 288.
Martello towers, 163.
Martin, Col. Richard, 447.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 161.
Massareene, Lord, 140.
Mathew, Father, 177, 319.
Maynooth, Castle of, 144, 155.
College, 108, 143.
McKinley, ancestry, 245.
cottage, 245.
McMurrough, Dermot, 275, 278.
"Meeting of the Waters," 271.
Methodists, Irish, 52.
Meyer, Prof. Hugo, 456.
Migration of labor, 462.
Missions, Protestant, 339.
Monasterboice, Ruins of, 164.
Crosses of, 166.
Monastery, Trappist, 341.
Monks, Irish, 51.
Monument, O'Connell, 77.
Nelson's, 77.
Parnell, 78.
Patriotic, at Cork, 318.
Moore, Tom, 84, 89, 183.
Motoring in Ireland, 166.
Mountain people, The, 358.
Muckross Abbey, 384, 388.
House, 384.
Municipal utilities in Belfast, 231.
Museum, Dublin, 94.
Music in churches, 31, 100.
Myrtle Lodge at Youghal, 330.
Nanetti, G.P., 45.
National Irish League, 136.
party, 36, 39, 141.
Navan, Village of, 172.
Nelson monument, 77.
Newgate Prison, 95.
Niall of the Nine Hostages, 170, 177, 215.
Nobility, Irish, The, 41, 56, 131.
Nuns, Irish, 51.
Nurses for the poor, 360.
O'Brien, Donald, King of Limerick, 9, 419.
William, 295.
O'Callaghans, The, 299.
O'Callahan, Bishop of Cork, 319.
O'Connell, Daniel, 39, 87, 177.
monument, 77.
Street, 78.
O'Conor, Roderick, 187, 279.
O'Connor, Solicitor Congested Districts Board, 463.
O'Dohertys, The, 239.
O'Donahues, The, 44, 378, 385.
O'Donnell, Rory, 216.
O'Flahertys, The, 445.
Old Home Week, 247.
O'Malley, Grace, Queen of Connaught, 127, 451.
O'Neill, The Coronation Stone, 178, 238.
Hugh, 216, 239.
Owen, 239.
Shane, 216.
O'Neills, The, 215.
Orangemen, The, 213.
Ormonde, Earls of, 19, 325, 327.
O'Toole, Lawrence, 280.
O'Tooles, The, 272.
Otter hunting, 318.
Pale of Dublin, The, 48.
Pamela (Lady Edward Fitzgerald), 117.
Parks, Dublin, 91.
Parliament House, Irish, 24.
The Irish, 56, 81.
Parnell, Charles S., 44, 297.
Home of, 271.
Grave of, 78.
Monument to, 78.
Passage, Town of, 6.
Peat, Value of, 7.
Peel, Sir Robert, 147.
Peerage, the Irish, 39, 57, 131.
Pembroke, Earl of, 279.
"Penelope's Irish Experiences," 167.
Penn, William, birthplace, 348.
Phoenix Park, 35, 95.
"Pig in the Parlor, The," 359.
"Plan of Campaign, The," 136, 295.
Planters, English, 138, 269.
Scotch-Irish, 214.
Plunkett family, The, 186.
Sir Horace, 255, 404, 410.
Population statistics, 130.
of Belfast, 222.
of Dublin, 49.
Portraine, Village of, 161.
Portrush, Town of, 243.
Post, Mrs. Elizabeth Wadsworth, 296.
Potatoes of Ireland, 130, 334.
Poverty, in Limerick, 422.
in Ireland, 358.
Presbyterian House of Belfast, 224.
Seminary, Belfast, 227.
Presbyterians, Irish, 52, 214.
Price of land, 65.
Priests, Irish, 51, 144, 149, 397.
Property owners of Ireland, 130.
Prosperity of Ireland, 10.
Protestants, Scotch-Irish, 213.
"Prout, Father," the poet, 6.
Queen's Colleges, The, 108.
College, Belfast, 227.
Cork, 313.
Galway, 440.
Queenstown, Landing at, 2.
Surroundings of, 4.
Racing in Ireland, 300.
Railway, The first electric, 243.
Railways in Ireland, 1, 343.
Rain in Ireland, 166, 228, 320.
Raleigh, Carew, 332.
Lady, 331, 332.
Sir Walter, 322, 330, 336.
Rebellion, The Kildare, 157.
Rebellions, Irish, 55.
Redemption of Ireland, 60.
Redmond, John, 44.
Statue of, 276.
Reformation, The, 198.
Religion in Belfast, 222.
in Ireland, 149.
Religious antagonisms, 213.
statistics, 49.
tests in education, 107.
Remembrancer, Treasury, 37.
Rents, Land, 12, 61, 133.
Reduction of, 12.
Resorts, Seashore, 268.
Reunions, Irish, 247.
Revenues, 39.
Revolution of '98, 118.
Ri of Ireland, The, 174.
Rice, Edmund, 150.
Riding House, 293.
Riots, Religious, 213.
Roberts, Lord, 284.
"Robin Adair," Song of, 271.
Roe, Henry, distiller, 32.
Romance of the Kildares, 157.
Ropewalk at Belfast, 235.
Ross Castle, Killarney, 379.
Sir John, 210.
Rosse, Earl of, 10.
Rostrevor, Town of, 210.
Rothschild, Baron, 88.
Ruins, Cromwellian, 344.
Kilkenny, 324.
Sacred spots in Dublin, 77.
St. Bridget, 195, 200.
Grave of, 195.
St. Columba, 195, 201.
Grave of, 195.
St. Columba's Stone, 238.
St. Kevin, 273.
St. Michan's Church, 86.
St. Patrick, 47, 164, 169, 188, 195, 199, 239, 451.
Grave of, 195.
Knights of, 17, 57.
Relics of, 92.
Statue of, 177.
Story of, 352.
St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, 15.
St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, 91.
Salaries of officials, 35.
of school teachers, 114.
Salmon fishing at Galway, 441.
Saloons in Ireland, 363, 391.
Sarsfield, General Patrick, 422.
Saul, Monastery of, 198.
Scenery, Irish, 269, 353, 377, 443, 449.
Schomberg, Duke of, 25.
Scone, Stone of, 178.
School for servants, 382.
Schools in Ireland, 12, 109.
Scotch-Irish characteristics, 213.
Scotland tunnel, 213.
Scott, Sir Walter, 91.
Seashore resorts, 268.
Secretary, Chief, of Ireland, 35.
Under, for Ireland, 35.
Selkirk, Lord and Lady, 219.
Servant girls, Irish, 3.
Servants, School for, 382.
Seven Churches, The, 273.
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 217.
Shandon Bells, 317.
Shillelagh, Woods of, 271.
Shipyards, Belfast, 236.
Shirt factories in Londonderry, 242.
Showers in Ireland, 166.
Sigtryg, The Danish King, 32, 123, 124, 161, 284.
"Silken Thomas" Kildare, 146, 156, 322.
Sinn Fein movement, 202.
Skerries, Village of, 162.
Skreen, Hill of, 179.
Sligo, Marquess of, 139, 453.
Snakes banished by St. Patrick, 452.
Society in Ireland, 54.
Soda water, Manufacture of, 212, 235.
Soldiers, Irish, 17.
Spenser, Edmund, 291, 330, 336.
Stage drivers, Irish, 348.
Stager, Miss Ellen, 328.
Starkie, Dr., Commissioner of Education, 111.
Statistics, Agricultural, 251.
Religious, 49, 50, 222.
Statues in Dublin, 78.
"Stella," 161, 173.
Stores, Coöperative, 413.
Strafford, Earl of, 19.
Street car lines, in Dublin, 115.
Strongbow, 32, 278, 280, 281, 285.
Students at Trinity College, 99.
Irish, 144.
Superstitions, Irish, 265, 345.
Swift, Dean, 20, 24, 30, 56, 75, 161, 173.
Swords, Village of, 161.
Synod, Episcopal, 33.
Talbot Castle, 160.
Tara Harp, 105.
Village of, 168, 179.
Taxes, 39.
Taylor, Rev. Jeremy, 198.
Tea, Excessive use of, 265.
Technical school, Belfast, 230.
Temperance in Ireland, 12, 319.
reforms, 12.
Temple, Sir William, 21, 27.
Tenantry, Irish, 66.
Thackeray's comments on Swift, 29.
Tipperary, Town of, 294.
Tobacco, First, in Ireland, 337.
Tombs, Ancient, 169.
Tone, Wolfe, 118.
Tourists, Habits of, 1.
Towers, Martello, 163.
Round, 165.
Tracy, Rev. Father Edmond, 428.
Trade education, 406.
Foreign, 255.
Tram rides of Dublin, 119.
Trappist monastery, 341.
Treasury, Irish, 38.
Treaty of Limerick, 422.
Trial by combat, 55.
Trim, Village of, 172.
Trinity College, Dublin, 21, 97, 99.
Tristram and Isolde, original of, 127.
Tumuli, Ancient, 168.
Turf, The Irish, 300.
Turgesius, King of Limerick, 424.
"Twelve Bens," The, 444.
Tyrconnell, Earl of, 214.
Tyrone, Earl of, 214, 239.
Ulster coat of arms, 215.
Settlement of, 214.
Undertakers, The, 214, 269, 330.
United Irish League, 134, 139, 469.
United States, Exports, 235.
Irish population of, 249, 257.
Universities of Ireland, 109.
University, Dublin, 97.
Van Homrigh, Miss, Swift's sweetheart, 28.
Vanity of the people, 211.
Vale of Avoca, 271.
Vicar, Sir Arthur, 58.
Viceregal Lodge, 96.
Victoria Park, 114.
Queen, 151.
Wages, in Belfast, 233.
in Ireland, 252.
Wakes without liquor, 394.
Walker, Rev. George, 240.
Wall of Londonderry, 239.
Walsh, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, 397.
Walsh, John R., builds shrine, 350.
Walshe, Lacia, Miss, the nurse, 363.
Warbeck, the Pretender, 284.
War cries of the clans, 369.
Waterford, City of, 283.
Marquess of, 289.
Washington Inn at Dalkey, 121.
"Wearing of the Green, The," 298.
Weather in Ireland, 228.
Wellington, Duke of, 88, 92, 172.
Wesley, Rev. John, 198.
Westport, Town of, 452, 453.
Wexford, Town of, 275, 276.
Wicklow, County of, 268.
Hills, 272.
Wigham, W. R., Temperance advocate, 392.
Wilkinson, Mr., of Tara, 180.
William of Orange, 25, 213, 214, 422.
Wit, Irish, 260, 283, 286, 315.
Wheat growing in Ireland, 417.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 156.
Women, Drunken, 394.
in Trinity College, 102.
Whately, Archbishop, 19, 26, 148.
Wyndham, George, 136.
Youghal, City of, 330, 333.
Transcriber's Notes
On p. 167, the words 'good naturedly' appear without a hyphen, and are
retained as printed.
On p. 274, the village of Ennisworthy is referred to several times as
the site of the battle of Vinegar Hill. This took place in the environs
of Enniscorthy. The spelling is retained as printed.
The following list contains those corrections that were made to the
text as printed.
p. 125 eats or sleeps or rest[s] Added.
p. 260 'darlin[,'/',] Corrected.
p. 262 Seven Churches at Glen[g/d]alough Corrected.
p. 267 which had be[e]n plagiarized Added.
p. 281 t[ry/yr]annical Transposed.
p. 311 cha[u]ffeur Added.
p. 334 M[ry/yr]tle Lodge Transposed.
p. 413 ac[c]urately Added.
p. 427 fifteen feet thick[.] Added.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "One Irish Summer" ***
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