Ireland Under Coercion Volume I Part 10

There was a great cyclone here a year or two ago, which prostrated in a night over a hundred thousand trees. You see the dentated gaps left by this disaster in the great circle of firs and birches on the surrounding hills, but they make hardly a serious break in the thoroughly sylvan character of the landscape. We visited the centre of the devastation, where I found myself in what seemed to be a backwoods clearing in America. An enterprising Scot, Kirkpatrick by name, has taken a contract under the Duke, built himself a neat wooden cabin and stables, set up a small saw-mill driven by steam, and is hard at work turning the fallen trees into timber, and making a very good thing of it, both for the Duke and for himself. He has one or two of his own people with him, but employs the labour of the country, and has no fear of disturbance. He thinks, however, that he must get "a good wicked dog" to frighten away the tramps, who sometimes stray into his woodland, and put the enterprise in peril by smoking and drowsing under haystacks.

Near this clearing is a model village, the houses scrupulously neat, with trees and flowers, and here we met the d.u.c.h.ess with her devoted dog walking briskly along to visit one of her people, a wonderful old man, bearing the ancient name of the O'Kanes, and five years older than the Kaiser William. Until six months ago this veteran was an active carpenter, coming and going, about his work at ninety-six like a man in middle age. Then he went to bed with a bad cold, and will probably never rise again. In all his life he never has touched meat or soup, and when they are now offered him rejects them angrily. He has lived, and preferred to live, entirely on oatmeal in the form of cakes and porridge, and on potatoes; so I make a present of him as a glorious example to the vegetarians. As in so many other cases, his memory of recent events is dim and clouded--of events long past, clear and photographic: the negatives taken in youth quite perfect, the lenses which now take, dimmed and fractured.

He perfectly recollects, for example, the a.s.sembling here of the recruits going out to the Continent before the battle of Waterloo, and can give the names and describe the peculiarities of stalwart lads long since crumbled into dust around Mont St. Jean. With the curious unconcern about death which marks his people, this expectant emigrant into the unknown world chats about his departure as if it were for Dublin, and his kinsfolk chat with him.

"Ye'll be going soon!"

"Oh yes, I shan't trouble ye more than an hour or two more."

In quite another part of the domain we came upon a Covenanter--a true, authentic Covenanter, who might have walked out of _Old Mortality_; the name of him, Keyes. He greeted Lord Ernest cheerily enough, nodded to me in a not unfriendly way, and at once broke into exhortation: "It's a very short life we live; man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble. Well for them that are the children of light--if seeing the light they sin not against it"; and so on with amazing volubility.

There are eighty-five of these Covenanters here. They touch not nor have touched the accursed thing. To them all parties and all governments are alike evil. The Whigs persecuted the Solemn League and Covenant--so did the Tories. Nationalists and Unionists are to them alike abominable, sold under sin. Withal they are shrewd, canny, successful farmers--and, as I inferred from sundry incidents, before Lord Ernest confided the fact to me, not averse from a "right gude williewaught" now and then.

Mr. Keyes, I thought, was not a blue-ribbon man, nor a ribbon-man of any kind.

The d.u.c.h.ess told me afterwards she had vainly endeavoured more than once to get these people to vote at elections.

We had a sprinkling of such people, and very good people in quiet times they were, in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, to whom Federals and Confederates were alike anathema.

We wound up our drive to-day just beyond "the Duke's seat," a little rustic bench put up by the late Duke on a hill range which commands a magnificent view over the whole domain of hill and forest and lakes, and far away to the mountains of Munterlony. There, in the bogs and woods James Hamilton, "lord baron of Strabane," with "other rebels, unknown, in his company," hid himself till, after the fall of Charlemont in August 1650, he was captured by a party of the Commonwealth's men--whereby, as the record here runs, "all and singular his manors, towns, lands, and so forth were forfeited to the Commonwealth of England." Under this pressure he sought "protection," and got it a fortnight later from Cromwell's General, Sir Charles Coote, whose descendants still nourish in Wicklow. But on the 31st of December 1650 he "broke the said protection, and joined himself with Sir Phelim O'Neill, being then in rebellion."

Troublous times those, and a "lord baron of Strabane" needed almost the alacrity in turning his coat of a harlequin or a modern politician! It is a comfort to know that at last, on the 16th of June 1655, he found rest, dying at Ballyfathen, "a Roman Catholic and a papist recusant." As we came back into the gardens and grounds, Lord Ernest showed me, imbedded in the earth, a huge anchor presented to the present Duke by the Corporation of Waterford, as having belonged to the French 28-gun frigate, on which in 1689 James II. and Lord Abercorn sailed away from Ireland for Prance. I believe that because of its weight the present First Lord of the Admiralty avers that it is no anchor at all, but a buoy fixture. It might have been ten times as heavy, and yet not have availed to keep James from getting to sea at that particular time.

BARON'S COURT, _Friday, Feb. 10._--Here also, in County Tyrone, the Irish women show their skill in women's work. Mrs. Dixon, the English wife of the house-steward of Baron's Court, has charge of a woollen industry founded here, after a discourse on thrift, delivered at a temperance meeting of the people by the then Marquis of Hamilton, had stirred the country up to consider whether the peasant women might not possibly find some better and more profitable way of pa.s.sing their winter evenings than in sitting huddled around a peat fire with their elbows on their knees, gossiping about their neighbours. Lord Hamilton cited the women of Gweedore as proofs that such a way might by searching be found.

The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess found the funds, the stewardess invested them in buying the necessary yarn and knitting-needles, and the Marchioness of Hamilton acted as corresponding clerk and business agent of the new industry. The clothing department of the British army lent a listening ear to the business proposals made to it, and the work began. From that time on it has been the main substantial resource against suffering and starvation of the families of some three hundred labourers in the hill country near Baron's Court.

These labourers work for the small farmers from April to November; and between the autumn and the spring their wives and daughters knit, and by the Baron's Court machinery are enabled to dispose of, nearly twenty thousand pairs of woollen socks. The yarns are brought from Edinburgh to the store-house at Baron's Court. Thither every Wednesday come the knitters. Mrs. Dixon weighs the hanks of yarn, and gives them out.

On the following Wednesday the knitters reappear, each with her bale of stockings or socks. These are again weighed, and the knitters receive their pay according to the weight, quality, and size of the goods. In some families there are four, five, or six knitters. All these people, with four or five exceptions, are small cottars living on wretched little mountain farms, not on the Duke of Abercorn's property; and but for this industry they would be absolutely without employment all the winter through.

Some of them come from a distance of twelve or fourteen miles, and but for this resource would literally starve. They are nearly all of them Catholics, and the Protestants here being Unionists, they are probably Nationalists. About three hundred knitters in all are employed. In the year 1886-87 the orders given for Baron's Court work enabled Mrs. Dixon to pay out regularly about five pounds a week, not including casual private orders. For the current year the orders have been much larger, and the expenditure proportionally greater. Mrs. Dixon's storehouse was full of goods to-day. The long knickerbocker stockings which she showed us were remarkably good, some in "cross-gartered" patterns, handsomer, I thought, than similar goods in the Scottish Highlands--and all of them staunch and well-proportioned.

For socks such as are supplied to the volunteers and the troops the War Office pays 8-3/4d. a pair.

It was pleasant to learn from Mrs. Dixon that these people thoroughly appreciate the spirit which prompted and still directs this enterprise.

Last spring when the d.u.c.h.ess was thought for a time to be hopelessly ill, a young girl came down to Baron's Court weeping bitterly. On her arm was a basket, in which were two young chanticleers crowing l.u.s.tily.

The poor girl said these were all she had, and she had brought them "to make soup for the d.u.c.h.ess, for she heard that was what the great people lived on, and it might save her life."

This afternoon I went over by the railway to Derry with Lord Ernest to attend a meeting there. The "Maiden City" stands picturesquely on the Foyle, and has a fine, though not large, cathedral of St. Colomb, restored only last year, of which it may be noted that the work never was undertaken while the Protestant Church of Ireland was established by law, and has been successfully carried out since the disendowment of that Church. The streets were white with snow, but the meeting in the old Town Hall was largely attended. It was, in fact, a sort of Orange symposium--tea being served at long tables, and the platform decorated with a pianoforte. The Mayor of the city presided, and between the speeches, songs, mostly in the Pyramus or condoling vein, were sung by a local tenor of renown. It was very like an American tea-fight in the country, and the audience were unquestionably enthusiastic. They quite cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e when Lord Ernest Hamilton reminded them that he had made his first political speech in that hall on a "memorable occasion," when, being an as yet unfledged Parliamentarian, he had taken a hand in a successful attempt to prevent the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr.

Dawson, from making a speech in Derry. One of my neighbours, a merchant in the city, told me that a project is afoot for tearing down the old hall in which we met "to enlarge the street," but he added that "the people of Derry were too proud of their history to allow it!"

I understood him to say it is one of the very few buildings in Derry which witnessed the famous siege, and the breaking of the boom.

We left the "revel" early, caught a fast train to Newtown-Stewart, and returned here an hour ago through a driving snowstorm, most dramatically arranged to enhance the glow and genial charm of our welcome.

BARON'S COURT, _Sat.u.r.day, Feb. 11th._--All the world was white with snow this morning. Alas! for the deluded birds we have been listening to for days past; thrushes, larks, and as, I believe, blackbirds, though there is a tradition in these parts that no man ever heard the blackbird sing before the 15th of February. I suspect it grew out of the date of St.

Valentine's Day. We had some lovely music, however, within doors this morning; and, in spite of the snow and the chill wind, a little fairy of a girl, with her groom, went off like mad across country on her pony, "Guinea Pig," to fetch the mails from Newtown-Stewart.

Not long after breakfast came in from Letterkenny Sergeant Mahony of the constabulary, on whose testimony Father M'Fadden was convicted. We had heard at Letterkenny that he was now on leave at Belfast, and Lord Ernest had kindly arranged matters so that he should come here and tell us his story of Gweedore.

An admirable specimen he is of a most admirable body of men. He is as thoroughly Celtic in aspect as he is by name--a dark Celt, with a quiet resolute face, and a wiry well-built frame.

Nothing could be better than his manner and bearing, at once respectful and self-respectful: that manner of a natural gentleman one so often sees in the Irish peasant. He is a devout Catholic, but no admirer of Father M'Fadden.

As to his evidence, he explains very clearly that he was not sent to report Father M'Fadden's speech at all, but to note and take down and report language used in the speech of a sort to excite the people against the law. He was selected for this duty for three reasons: he is a Donegal man who has lived at Gweedore for sixteen years; he is a fair stenographer; and he speaks Irish, in which language Father M'Fadden made his speech.

"I speak Irish quite as well as he does," said the Sergeant quietly, "and he knows I do. What I did was to put down in English words what I heard said in Irish. This I had to do because I have no stenographic signs for the Irish words." He tells me he taught himself stenography.

"As for Father M'Fadden," he said, "he told the people that' he was the law in Gweedore, and they should heed no other.' He spoke the truth, too, for he makes himself the law in Gweedore. He dislikes me because I am a living proof that he is not the only law in Gweedore!" Of the business shrewdness and ability of Father M'Fadden, Sergeant Mahony expressed a very high opinion, though hardly in terms which would have gratified such an ecclesiastic as the late Cardinal Barnabo. Possibly Cardinal Cullen might have relished them no better. "Certainly he has the finest house in Gweedore, sir, and what's more he made it the finest himself."

"Do you mean that he built it?"

"He did, indeed; and did you not notice the beautiful stone fences he is putting up all about it, and the four farms he has?"

"Then he is certainly a man of substance?"

"And of good substance, sir! The Government, they gave him a hundred pounds towards the house. But it was the flood that was the blessed thing for him and made a great man of him!"

"The flood?" I asked, with some natural astonishment; "the flood? What flood?"

"And did you never hear of the great flood of Gweedore? It was in August 1880. You will mind the water that comes down behind the chapel?

Well, there was a flood, and it swelled, and it swelled, and it burst the small pipe there behind the chapel: too small it was entirely for carrying off' the great water, and n.o.body took notice of it, or that there was anything wrong, and so the water was piled up behind the chapel, and at Ma.s.s on the Sunday, while the chapel was full, the walls gave way, and the water rushed in, and was nine feet deep. There were five people that couldn't get out in time, and were drowned--two old people and three children, young people. It was a great flood. And Father M'Fadden wrote about it--oh, he is a clever priest with the pen--and they made a great subscription in London for the poor people and the chapel. I can't rightly say how much, but it was in the papers, a matter of seven hundred pounds, I have heard say. And it was all sent to Father M'Fadden."

"And it was spent, of course," I said, "on the repairs of the chapel, or given to the relatives of the poor people who were drowned."

"Oh, no doubt; very likely it was, sir! But the repairs of the chapel--there isn't a mason in Donegal but will tell you a hundred pounds would not be wanted to make the chapel as good as it ever was.

And for the people that were drowned--two of them were old people, as I said to you, sir, that had no kith or kin to be relieved, and for the others they were of well-to-do people that would not wish to take anything from the parish."

"What was done with it, then?"

"Oh! that I can't tell ye. It was spent for the people some way. You must ask Father M'Fadden. He is the fund in Gweedore, just as he is the law in Gweedore. Oh! they came from all parts to see the great ruin of the flood at Gweedore. They did, indeed. And some of them, it was poor sight they had; they couldn't see the big rift in the walls, when Father M'Fadden pointed it out to them. 'Whisht! there it is!' he would say, pointing with his finger. Then they saw it!"

I asked him at what figure he put the income of Father M'Fadden from his parish. Without a moment's hesitation he answered, "It's over a thousand pounds a year, sir, and nearer twelve hundred than eleven." I expressed my surprise at this, the whole rental of Captain Hill, the landlord, falling, as I had understood, below rather than above 700 a year; and Gweedore, as Father Walker had told me, containing fewer houses than Burtonport.

"Fewer houses, mayhap," said the sergeant, "though I'm not sure of that; but if fewer they pay more. There's but one curate--poor man, he does all the parish work, barring the high ma.s.ses, and a good man he is, but he gets 400 a year, and that is but a third of the income!"

I asked by what special stipends the priest's income at Gweedore could be thus enhanced. "Oh, it's mainly the funeral-money that helps it up,"

he replied. "You see, sir, since Father M'Fadden came to Gweedore it's come to be the fashion."

"The fashion?" I said.

"Yes, sir, the fashion. This is the way it is, you see. When a poor creature comes to be buried--no matter who it is, a pauper, or a tenant, or any one--the people all go to the chapel; and every man he walks up and lays his offering for the priest on the coffin; and the others, they watch him. And, you see, if a man that thinks a good deal of himself walks up and puts down five shillings, why, another man that thinks less of him, and more of himself, he'll go up and make it a gold ten-shilling piece, or perhaps even a sovereign! I've known Father M'Fadden, sir, to take in as much as 15 in a week in that way."

Sergeant Mahony told us a curious tale, too, of the way in which Father M'Fadden dealt with the people of the neighbouring parish of Falcarragh.

He would go down to the parish boundary, if he wanted to address the people of Falcarragh, and stand over the line, with one foot in each parish!