Ireland Under Coercion Volume I Part 9

At Falcarragh we met a person who knew much about the late Lord Leitrim, who was murdered in this neighbourhood on the highway some years ago. He spoke freely of the murderer by name, as if it were matter of common notoriety. Of the murdered man, he said that he had made himself extremely unpopular and odious, not so much by certain immoralities freely alleged at the time of his death, as by vexatious meddling with the prejudices and whims of his tenants. "He used to go into the houses and pull down cartoons and placards, if he saw them put up on the walls." "No! he had no party feeling in the matter; he used to pull down William III. and the Pope with an equal hand." It seems that in this region, too, a local legend has grown up of the birth at a place called Cashelmore of a "Queen of France." The case is worth noting as throwing light on the genesis and accuracy of local traditions. The "Queen of France" referred to proves, on inquiry, to have been Miss Patterson, who married Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the first Emperor, afterwards created by him King of Westphalia! This Avas the lady so well known in America as Mrs. Patterson Bonaparte of Baltimore, who died at a great age only a few years ago. I have no reason to suppose that she was born at Cashelmore at all or in Ireland. But her father, reputed in the time of Washington to be the richest man in the United States, who came from the North of Ireland and settled in Baltimore as a merchant, may very well have been born there.

To my great regret Father M'Fadden of Glena, or Falcarragh, was absent from home. As we drove homeward we met on the way a young lady on a smart jaunting-car, with a servant in livery. This was the daughter, our driver told us, of Mr. Griffiths, the Protestant clergyman, past whose residence our road lay. His church stands high upon a commanding cliff, and is a feature in the landscape. We met the parson himself also, walking with a friend. The road from Bedlam to Derrybeg goes by a region of the "Rosses," reputed the most woe-begone part of the Gweedore district. This is the scene of a curious tale told about Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, by his ill-wishers in these parts, to the effect that he advises English Members of Parliament and other "sympathising" visitors who come here to make a pilgrimage to "the Bosses," where, no matter at what time of day they appear, they invariably find sundry of the people sitting in their huts and eating stewed seaweed out of iron pots. I cannot vouch for this tale, but certainly I have seen no people here of either s.e.x, or of any age, who look as if they lived on stewed seaweed.

Another person at Falcarragh told us, as an ill.u.s.tration of the influence exerted by Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, in this parish, over which he has no proper authority, that, in obedience to an intimation from him, the persons whose seats in the chapel had been occupied on two successive Sundays by the policemen now stationed here, yesterday refused to allow the policemen to occupy them, the only exception being in the case of a man who had been arrested at the same time with Father Stephens, and who had been so well treated by the police, that he felt bound to repay their courtesy by offering one of them his seat.

CHAPTER III.

DUNGLOE, _Tuesday, Feb. 7._--We rose early this morning at Gweedore; the sun shining so brightly that we were forced to drop the window-shades at breakfast, while I read my letter from Rome, telling me of the bitter cold there, and of a slight snow-fall last week. Here the birds were singing, and the air was as soft and exhilarating as that of an April morning in the Highlands of Mexico or Costa Rica.

Our host gave us a capital car, with a staunch nag and a wide-awake jarvey, thanks to all which I found the thirteen miles drive to this place too short. No doubt it will be a great thing for Donegal when "light railways" are laid down here. But I pity the traveller of the future here, if he is never to know the delight of traversing these wild and picturesque wastes in such weather as we have had to-day, on a car, well-balanced by a single pleasant companion, drinking, as he goes, deep draughts of the Atlantic air! Truly on a jaunting-car "two are company and three are none." You have almost the free companionship of a South American journey in the saddle, jumping off to walk, when you like, more freely still.

We drove near the house of the "beauty of Gweedore," but she was not visible, though we met her mother (by no means a _pulchra mater_) as we crossed the Clady at Bryan's Bridge.

We soon pa.s.sed from the bogland into a wilderness of granite. Our jarvey, however, maintained that there was "better land among the stones than any bogland could be." He was a shrewd fellow, and summed up the economical situation, I thought, better than some of his betters, when he said of the whole region that "it will fatten four, feed five, and starve six."

It may well fatten six, though, I should say, if the natural wealth of this vast granite range can be properly turned to account. On every side of us lay vast blocks of granite of all hues and grades, all absolutely unworked, but surely not unworkable. We stopped and picked up many specimens, some of them almost as rich in colour as porphyry. Of lakes and lakelets supplying water-power the name too, is legion.

Beyond Annagary we caught a glimpse of the Isle of Arran, the scene, a few years ago, of so much suffering, and that of a kind I should think as much beyond the control of legislation as the misery and destruction which have overtaken successive attempts to establish settlements on Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

This town of Dungloe sprawls along the sh.o.r.e of the sea. It is reputed the most ill-favoured town in Donegal, and it certainly is not a dream of beauty. But it blooms all over with evidences of the prosperity of that interesting type of Irish civilisation, the "Gombeen man," of whom I had heard so much at Gweedore. Over the doorways of most of the shops appear the names of various members of the family of Sweeney, all of them, I am told, brought here and established within a few years past by the head of the sept, who is not only the great "Gombeen man" of the region, but a leading local member of the National League, and Her Majesty's Postmaster. The Sweeneys, in fact, commercially speaking, dominate Dungloe, their, only visible rivals being a returned Irish American, who has built himself a neat two-story house and shop just at the entrance of the village, and our own host, Mr. Maurice Boyle, whose extremely neat little inn just faces a large shop, the stronghold of the Chief of the Sweeneys. I am sorry to find that this important citizen of Dungloe is not now here. We went into his chief establishment to make some purchases, and found it full of customers, chiefly women, neatly dressed after the Donegal fashion, and busily chaffering with the shopgirls and shopmen, who had their hands full, exhibiting goods such as certainly would not be found in any New York or New England village of this sort. When we secured the attention of the chief shopman, a nattily dressed, dark-haired young man who would not have discredited the largest "store" in Grand Street or the Bowery of New York, we asked him to show us some of the home-made woollen goods of the country.

These, he a.s.sured us, had no sale in Dungloe, and he did not keep them.

But he showed us piles of handsome Scottish tweeds at much higher prices. Now as this is an exclusively agricultural region, it is evident that the tenants must be able to make it worth a trader's while to keep on hand such goods as we here found, and therefore that they cannot be exactly on "the ragged edge" of things.

Mr. Sweeney is also the proprietor of the chief "hotel" of Dungloe; our host, Mr. Boyle, being in fact supposed to be "boycotted" for entertaining officers of the police. This "boycott," however, has entailed no practical inconvenience upon us; and Mr. Boyle's pretty and plucky daughters, who manage his house for him, laughed scornfully at the notion of being "bothered" by it.

After luncheon we took a car and drove out to Burtonport, on the Roads of Arranmore, to visit the parish priest there, Father Walker, and Mr.

Hammond, the agent of the Conyngham estates.

We pa.s.sed near a large inland lake, Lough Meela, and the seaward views along the coast were very fine. With peace and order this corner of Ireland might easily become the chosen site of the most delightful seaside homes in the United Kingdom. The Recorder of Cork has discovered this, and pa.s.ses a great part of the year here. This Donegal coast is no further from the great centres of British wealth and population than are Mount Desert and the other summer resorts of Maine and New Hampshire from New York and Philadelphia; and the islands which break the great roll of the Atlantic here cannot well be more nearly in "a state of nature" than were the Isles of Shoals, for example, in my college days, long after Mr. Lowell first wandered there with the transcendental Thaxters to celebrate the thunders of the surf at Appledore.

The wonderful granitic formations we had seen on the way from Gweedore stretch all along the coast to the Roads of Arranmore. At Burtonport they lie on the very water's edge. At a place called Lickeena, ma.s.ses of beautiful salmon-and rose-coloured granite actually trend into the tidewater, and at Burtonport proper is a promontory of that richly-mottled granite which I had supposed to be the peculiar heritage of Peterhead, and which is now largely exported from Scotland to the United States. Why should not this Irish granite be shipped directly from Donegal to America, there to be built up into cathedrals, and shaped into monuments for the Exiles of Erin? All these formations which we have seen present themselves in great cubical blocks, so jointed that they may be detached without blasting, with great comparative ease, and with little of the waste which results from the squaring of shapeless ma.s.ses. At the same time, as we saw while coming from Gweedore, the many lakes of this region offer all the water-power necessary for polishing-works, columnar lathes, and the general machinery used in developing such quarries. Without being an expert in granites, I have seen enough of the granite works at home to feel quite sure that a moderate and judiciously managed investment here ought to return a handsome result. If the National League is as well off as it is reputed to be, it might go into this business open a new and remunerative industry to the people of a "congested" district, and earn dividends large enough to enable it to pay the expenses of the war against England at Westminster, without drawing on the savings of the servant-girls in America, The only person likely to suffer would be the "Gombeen man," if the peasantry earned enough to pay off their debts to him, and stop the flow of interest into his coffers.

At Burtonport we found the "Gombeen man," of Dungloe, represented by a very large "store." He runs steamers between this place and various ports on the Scottish and Irish coasts, bringing in goods and taking out the crops which his debtors turn over to him.

This Burtonport "store" towers high above the modest home of the parish priest, Father Walker. To our great regret he was absent on parochial duty, but his niece very kindly welcomed us into his modest study, where we left a note begging him to honour us with his company at dinner in Dungloe.

Mr. Hammond, too, was absent, so after paying our respects to his wife, we drove back to Dungloe, and walked about the village till dark, chatting with the good-natured, civil people. The local sensation here they tell us is not the trial of the priests at Dunfanaghy, but a "row"

breeding between the chief of the Sweeneys and one of his brethren over the possession of Her Majesty's Post-office. It seems there is an official regulation or custom that the post-office once established in a particular building shall not be moved thence without positive cause shown. The head of the Sweeneys, having completed his new and grand establishment, wishes to move the post-office thither; but the brother to whom he confided the office in the older building, where he left it while making the change of his own business, now desires to keep the office where it is, and, I suppose, to become postmaster himself![17] A trivial matter enough, but not without edification for students of the actual situation in this most curious country.

About seven o'clock Father Walker made his appearance--a fine-looking, dignified, most amiable man. He is a teetotaller, which we esteemed a stroke of good fortune, a bottle of port wine which we obtained, despite the "boycott," from the Gombeen shop, proving to be of such a quality that it might have been concocted in the last century, expressly to discredit the Methuen treaty.

Father Walker is the President of the National League branch.

Like Father M'Fadden at Gweedore, he speaks of the landlords in this part of Donegal as really owning, not so much farms as residential grounds for tenants who export their thews and sinews to Scotland and other countries, and live by that traffic mainly. It is a common practice here, he tells me, for the children, who are very sharp and bright, to be taken by their parents into Tyrone and other parts of the North, and put out to live with the people there, who prize them, and pay very good wages. I asked him if he thought the official estimate I had seen of the proportion of these "migratory labourers" to the whole population of Ulster, as about one-tenth of one per cent., an under-statement. He thought it was an under-statement for this part of the county of Donegal, but to be explained, perhaps, by the fact that so much of the migration is merely from one county into another, and not out of the kingdom. He agreed that the practice goes on upon a much more extensive scale in the County Mayo, where more than thirteen per cent, of all the adult male population are said to belong to the category of migratory labourers. The Irish population of England seems to be recruited at regular seasons in this way, very much as is the Albanian population of Constantinople.

Father Walker was full of information about the granite quarries, and much interested in the prospect of their development. He told us that a practical engineer from Liverpool had, not long ago, been here seeking a lease of the quarries--or, in other words, of the quarrying rights over sixty or seventy miles of Donegal--from the agent of Lord Conyngham.

This engineer had come to Donegal on a sporting expedition last year, and gone back full of the capabilities of the granite region. Father Walker had been told by him that similar quarries also exist in the County Mayo at Belmullet, where preparations are now making, he thinks, to develop them, though on a smaller scale than would be both practicable and desirable here.

In Mayo, as in Donegal, labour must be plentiful enough, and the comparatively unskilled labour required in such quarries would be particularly abundant here. It would be a great thing, Father Walker thought, to introduce here the custom of a regular pay-day, and with it gradually habits of exactness and economy, not easily developed without it.

He gave me also, at my request, some valuable information as to the stipends of the Catholic clergy, and the sources from which they are derived. This subject has been agitated in the local press of this part of Ireland in connection with estimates of Father M'Fadden's income at Gweedore, which Father M'Fadden declares, I believe, to be greatly exaggerated. Father Walker has been parish priest at Burtonport for about nine years. In all that time the highest sum reached in one year by the stipend has been 560; this sum having to be divided between the parish priest, who received 280, and two curates receiving 140 each.

The annual stipend, however, has more than once fallen below 480, and Father Walker thinks 520 a fair average, giving 260 to the parish priest, and 130 each to his curates. Where there are only two priests in a parish, as is the case, for example, in each of the parishes of Gweedore and Falcarragh, the parish priest receives two-thirds, and the curate one-third of the stipend.

The sources of this stipend are various, and in speaking upon this point Father Walker desired me to note that he could only speak positively of the rules of this particular diocese, as they do not cover in their entirety the usages of other provinces, or even of other dioceses in this province of Ireland. One general and invariable rule indeed exists throughout Ireland, which is that every parish priest is bound to offer the Holy Sacrifice, _pro populo_, for the whole people, without fee or reward, on all Sundays and Holy Days, making in all some eighty-seven times a year.

In the diocese of Raphoe, to which Burtonport belongs, there are four recognised methods by which the revenues of the priests are raised. The first is an annual fixed stipend of four shillings for each household or family. "Sometimes," said Father Walker, "but rarely, the better-off families give more than this; and not unfrequently the poorer families fail to give anything under this head." The second is a fixed stipend of one pound upon the occasion of a marriage. "Sometimes, but not often, this sum is exceeded by generous and prosperous parishioners." The third is a standard stipend of two shillings for a baptism. "This also suffers, but on rare occasions," said the good priest, "a favourable exception. I mention the exceptions as well as the rules," said the good Father, "in order to make grateful allusion to the donors."

The fourth and last consists of the offerings at interments. "These vary very much indeed, but they const.i.tute an important, and, I may say, a necessary item in the incomes of the clergy."

Besides these four forms of stipend, the priests derive a revenue from "those who ask them to offer the Holy Sacrifice 'for their special intention.'" In such cases it is customary to offer a sum, usually of two shillings, but sometimes of half-a-crown, which is intended both as a remuneration for the priest, and to cover the cost of altar requisites.

Father Walker estimates the families in his own parish in round numbers at about thirteen hundred, and in Gweedore and Falcarragh at about nine hundred each. We had some conversation about the great fisheries, which one would think ought to exist, but do not exist, on this coast, such fishing as is done here by the natives being on a very limited scale.

Father Walker tells me that formerly 80,000 worth of herring were taken on this coast, though he is not sure that Donegal fishermen took them.

But of late years he thinks the herring have deserted these waters. He admits, however, that the people have no liking for the sea. "Going over once," he said, "to Arranmore from the mainland in a boat with a priest of the country, the water was a little rough, and the poor man nearly pinched a piece out of my arm holding on to me!" Father Walker himself thought the trip across the "sound" to Tory Island rather a ticklish piece of business. Yet the natives make it sometimes in their little corraghs or canvas boats, which would seem to show that some of them must be capable of seamanship. Most of these islands, notably Arranmore, Father Walker thought quite incapable of supporting the people who dwell on them, without constant help from the mainland. Is it not an open question whether an age which countenances the condemnation of private property in houses declared unfit for human habitation ought to hesitate at dealing in the same spirit with nurseries of chronic penury and intermittent famine? On one of these islands, known as Scull Island, Father Walker tells me great quant.i.ties of human bones are found in circular graves or trenches, very shallow, and going all around the island. There are legends of great battles fought on the little island, and of pestilences, to account for these. But it is likely enough that the island was simply used as a cemetery by the dwellers on the sh.o.r.e at some early date. Father Walker when he was last, there had brought away some of these relics. One he showed us, the beautifully formed jawbone of a young child, apparently ten or twelve years old, with exquisite pearly teeth. The chin was not in the least prognathous, but very well formed. In this district of Dungloe, too, the women weave and knit as well as at Gweedore; and Father Walker, before he left us for his home, after a most agreeable evening, promised to send me some specimens of their handiwork. He is sure that with a proper organisation this industry might be so developed as to materially relieve the people here from the pressure of their debts to the dealers of all kinds, a pressure much more severe than that of the rent. According to the dealers themselves, no tenant really in debt to them can now expect to work himself free of the burden under four or five years. It is obvious how much power, political as well as social, is thus lodged in the hands of the dealers, and especially of the "Gombeen men."

BARON'S COURT, _Wednesday, Feb. 8._--Since last night I have travelled from one extreme to the other of Irish life--from the desolation of the Rosses of Donegal to the grandly wooded, picturesque, and beautiful demesne of Baron's Court. We made an early start from Dungloe on a capital car for Letterkenny, where we were to strike the railway for Strabane and Newtown-Stewart. The morning was clear, but cold. On leaving Dungloe we drove directly into a region of reclaimed land, where improvements of various kinds seemed to be going on. All this our jarvey informed us, with a knowing look, belonged to Mr. Sweeney.

"Was he a squire of this country?" I asked innocently.

"A squire of this country, sorr? He is just Mr. Sweeney, the Gombeen man; he and his brothers, they all came here from where I don't know."

An energetic man, certainly, Mr. Sweeney, and not likely, I should think, to allow the National League, to push matters here to the point of nationalising the land of Donegal, if he can prevent it. In the highway we met, two or three miles out of Dungloe, a very trim dainty little lady, in a long, well-fitting London waterproof ulster, with a natty little umbrella in her hand, walking merrily towards the town. How weatherwise she was soon appeared, the rain coming up suddenly, and coming down sharply, in the whirling way it has among the hills everywhere. The scenery was desolate, but grand. Countless little lochs give sparkle and life to it. Everywhere the granite. About Doocharry, a romantic little spot, where Lord Cloncurry has a fishing-box in the heart of a glorious landscape, ma.s.ses crop out of a rich red granite, finer in colour than any we had previously seen. In that neighbourhood the wastes of Donegal take on an aspect which recalls, though upon quite a different key in colour, the inimitable beauty of those treeless North-western highlands of Scotland, upon which Nature has lavished all the wealth of her palette. Vast s.p.a.ces of brown and red and gold shimmer away under the softly luminous mountain atmosphere to the dark blues and purples of the hills. We pa.s.sed Glen Veagh again, but from quite a different point of view, which gave us a beautiful picture of Lough Veagh in its length, and of the smiling pastoral landscape upon its further sh.o.r.e.

As we drew near the eastern boundary of Donegal, hedges and civilised agriculture reappeared. With these we came upon mud cottages, such as I had not seen in Donegal, being the huts provided for their labourers by the tenant-farmers, whose comfortable stone-houses and out-buildings stood well back under the long ranges of the hills.

We pa.s.sed through much striking scenery, perhaps the finest point being a magnificent Gap in the hills, guarded and defined by three colossal headlands, one of them a vast long rampart, the other two gigantic counterscarps. The immediate approach to Letterkenny, too, from the west is charming, pa.s.sing in full view of the extensive and beautiful park and the large mansion of Colonel Stewart of the Guards, and skirting the well-kept estate of Mr. Boyd, the owner of the ivy-clad cottages which so took my fancy the other day.

In the Ulster settlement under King James I. a patent for Letterkenny was issued to one of the Crawfords. Then, as the records tell us, "Sir George Marburie dwelt there, and there were forty houses all inhabited by British tenants. A great market town, and standeth well for the King's service."

Again we found a fair going on--this time attended by swarms of peddlers vending old clothes and all sorts of small wares, bread-cartmen, and tea-vendors. These latter aver that it is easier to sell tea in the "congested" districts at 4s. 6d. than at 2s. 6d. The people have no test of its quality but its price!

The town was gay with soldiers and police--whose advent had created such a demand for bread and meat, a man told us, that all the butchers and bakers in Letterkenny and Dunfanaghy were at their wits' ends to meet it. "But they don't complain of that!" We reached Newtown-Stewart by railway after dark. As we pa.s.sed Sion the mills were all lighted up, giving it the look of an English or New England town. A New England snow-storm, too, awaited us at our journey's end; and, after a wild drive of several miles through the whirling white mists, it was a delectable thing to find ourselves welcomed in a hall full of light and warmth and flowers by merry children and lively dogs, the guard of honour of the most gracious and charming of hostesses.

BARON'S COURT, _Thursday, Feb. 9._--Among a batch of letters received this morning I find one from a most estimable and accomplished priest in the West of Ireland, to whom I wrote from Dublin announcing my intention of visiting the counties of Clare and Kerry. "I shall be very glad," he says, "to learn that no evil hath befallen you during your visit to that solitary plague-spot, where dwell the disgraceful and degraded 'Moonlighters.' Would not 'martial law,' if applied to that particular spot, suffice to stamp out, these-insensate pests of society?" This language, strong, but not too strong in view of the hideous murder last week near Lixnaw of a farmer in the presence of his daughter for the atrocious crime of taking a farm "boycotted" by the National League, shows that the open alliance between this organisation and the criminal cla.s.ses in certain parts of Ireland is beginning (not a day too soon) to arouse the better order of priests in Ireland to the peril of playing with edged tools. For my correspondent is not only a priest, but a Nationalist. I have sent him in reply a letter received by me, also to-day, touching the conduct in connection with the Lixnaw murder of a priest, a curate, I think, comparatively new to the place, who, standing by the corpse of the murdered man, endeavoured, so my informant states, to make his unfortunate daughter give up the names of the murderers, the effect of which would have been to put them on their guard, and "under the protection of that public conspiracy of silence, which is the shield of all such criminals in these parts!" Baron's Court is a very large, stately mansion, lacking elevation perhaps like Blenheim, but imposing by its ma.s.s and the area it covers. It was rebuilt almost entirely by the late Duke of Abercorn, who also made immense plantations here which cover the country for miles around. His grandfather, the handsome Marquis of the days of the Prince Regent, came here a great deal towards the end of his life, but did little towards making the mansion worthy of its site. Two very good portraits of him here show that he deserved his reputation as the finest-looking man of his day, a reputation attested by a diamond ring, the history of which is still preserved in the family. A fine though irregular pearl given by Philip of Spain to his hapless spouse, Mary Tudor, is another of the heirlooms of Baron's Court; but the ring and the note left by Mary Stuart to Claud Hamilton, Lord Paisley, mysteriously disappeared during the long minority of the late Duke under the trusteeship of the fourth Earl of Aberdeen, and have since, it is said, come into the possession of the Duke of Hamilton.

Of the three castles given to Lord Claud Hamilton by James I., to enable him to hold this country, one which stood at Strabaue has disappeared, the memory of it surviving only in the name of Castle Street in that town. The ivy-clad ruins of another adorn a height in this beautiful park. They are "bosomed high in tufted trees," and overlook one of three most lovely lakes, stretching in a shining chain through the length of the demesne.

Another ruined tower of the time of King John stands on an island in one of these lakes. When the Ulster settlement was made, these lands with all the countryside were held by the O'Kanes. With the other Celtic and Catholic inhabitants, they were driven by the masterful invaders into the mountains and bogs. There still remain their descendants, still Celtic and still Catholic, and still dreaming of the day when they shall descend into the low country and drive the Protestant Scotch and English from the "fat lands" which they occupy. In this way the racial and religious animosities are kept alive, which have died out in Tipperary and Waterford, for example, where the Cromwellian English have become more Irish and often more Catholic than the Irish themselves.

I took a long drive and walk with Lord Ernest this afternoon through the park, which rivals Curraghmore in extent. It is nowhere divided from the lands of the adjoining tenants, and with great liberality is thrown open to the people, not only of Newtown-Stewart and Strabane, but of all the country. Parties, sometimes of seven hundred people, from Belfast come down to pa.s.s the day in these sylvan solitudes, and it is to be recorded to the praise of Ireland that these visitors always behave with perfect good sense and good feeling.

The "terrible trippers" of the English midlands, as I once heard an old verger in a northern Cathedral call them, who chip off relics from monuments, pull up flowers by the roots, and scatter sandwich papers and empty gingerbeer bottles broadcast over well-rolled lawns, are not known, Lord Ernest tells me, in this island. As he neatly puts it, the Irishman, no matter what his station in life may be, or how great a blackguard he may really be, always instinctively knows when he ought to behave like a gentleman, and knows how to do so. In the lakes were hundreds of wild fowl. The sky was a sky of Constable--silvery-white clouds, floating athwart a dome of clear Italian blue. The soil here must be extraordinarily fertile. The woods and groves are dense beyond belief. Cut down what you like, the growth soon overtakes you, as lush almost as in the tropics.