The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 16

The mob indulged in some lively work. A good many windows of houses belonging to my supporters were broken and a man stabbed.

The polling day was made the occasion of a public holiday, which meant that the bulk of the population was imbibing a great deal more than was compatible with the laws of equilibrium. Some amus.e.m.e.nt was caused by the panic of The O'Donoghue's supporters at the votes I was getting, and presently they brought up in cars one poor man in an advanced stage of consumption, and another unable to walk from old age.

It was a wearisome day to me; but before its close it became abundantly evident that if the electors were allowed to exercise a free discretion and vote according to their consciences, I should have headed the poll by a large majority. However in Ireland man proposes and the priest disposes.

At a meeting of the Conservative electors in Cork, Mr. Standford read a telegram announcing the return of The O'Donoghue in Tralee, which was received with hisses. He said the reason I had stood there was a requisition, signed by Sir Henry Donovan, in the presence of nine grand jurors of the County of Kerry, calling on me to do so. Sir Henry Donovan had since turned over to The O'Donoghue from the man he had forced into the field. Now that would teach them not to be fooled by Liberal promises. It almost made him believe no truth, no honour, and no sincerity existed among their opponents.

This was received with applause, which was renewed with laughter when Mr. Young observed:--

'I will make one remark. I think Sir Henry Donovan and The O'Donoghue are well met.'

To show that strong views in my favour were not confined to Protestants, I may quote the following letter written from the Augustinian Convent in Drogheda by J.A. Anderson, O.S.A.:--

'If the electors of Tralee return Mr. O'Donoghue (_alias_ The O'Donoghue) as their representative in the coming Parliament, they will be false to Ireland, false to the men that galvanised the dead body that Gavan Duffy left on "the dissecting table" before starting for Australia, and they will have the honour (?) of returning to Parliament the greatest political renegade to Irish nationality that this generation has known.'

A lady has recently drawn my attention to a footnote in Mr. Lecky's _History of Ireland_, where is quoted from a letter of my ancestor, Colonel Maurice Hussey, the following opinion:--

'It--i.e. Tralee--was a nest of thieves and smugglers, and so it always will be until nine parts of ten of O'Donoghue's old followers be proclaimed and hanged on gibbets on the spot.'

So when O'Donoghues have troubled me, it is a case of history repeating itself, and if the percentage of the followers of the modern chieftain had been 'removed'--as the modern phrase in Ireland ran--according to the manner advocated by my ancestor, I could have voted in Parliament against dismembering the Empire to gratify the eagerness of an old man to truckle to the traitors of the country intrusted to his care.

CHAPTER XI

DRINK

Of course one of the great troubles in Ireland is drink. I am no advocate for teetotalism, for I think a man who can enjoy a moderate gla.s.s is a better one than his brother who has to drink water in order that he may not yield to the overpowering 'tempitation'--to quote Mr.

Huntley Wright--to get drunk! But for my fellow-countrymen I can see that drink is a terrible curse, one which is the cause of half the crime, half the illness, and more than half the misery that exists there.

Of all Irish benefactors, possibly Father Mathew was the greatest; but in my boyish days, when it became known that men, not yet in a lunatic asylum, had taken up the notion that human life was possible without alcoholic drinks, the wits of Kerry and Cork were heartily diverted at the bare idea.

It used to be the stock joke after dinner, even when Father Mathew was in the zenith of his triumph.

In Cork if you laugh at a thing you can generally suppress it, for, whereas all Irishmen are keenly susceptible to ridicule, the Cork folk are even more so.

The cold water business furnished endless jests, but it survived them.

Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the clergyman who preached against it as being irreligious, taking as the text of his sermon, 'Wine, that maketh glad the heart of man.'

I like a man who is disinterested, therefore I wish to remind the present generation that Father Mathew came of a stock of distillers, and his family was among the first to suffer by his preaching.

It was probable there would be a reaction after his death; and when that event took place, after the famine and fever, none really took his place to warn the diminishing population, in sufficiently effective fashion, of all the ills that drink was laying up for them.

Wherever, in my work, I found Government relief works, within a stone's throw of every pay office a whisky shop started into operation.

New Ireland arose from the famine, and she has never since shown much sign of temperance. Indeed, an excessive amount of money is, and has ever since then been, spent on liquor in Ireland.

At Castleisland, the scene of so many outrages, the population of the town is thirteen hundred, and the number of whisky shops is fifty-two.

Very nearly the same proportion can be noticed in several other towns.

There never was an outrage committed without an empty whisky bottle being found close to the scene of the murder.

In the worst time a moonlighter slept for a fortnight close to the house of an Irish landlord, who was well aware that he was there for the express purpose of shooting him, but he never even attempted it.

'Time after time I lay in a ditch to have a go at him, but he would ride by, looking for all the world as if he would shoot a flea off the tail of a shnipe, so that, with all the whisky in the world to help me, I dared not do it,' was his explanation before he left for America.

Did you never hear the parish priest's sermon?

'It's whisky makes you bate your wives; it's whisky makes your homes desolate; it's whisky makes you shoot your landlords, and'--with emphasis, as he thumped the pulpit--'it's whisky makes you miss them.'

There is as much truth in that sermon as in any that was preached last Sunday between Belfast and Glengariff.

As a matter of fact, the profits to the drink retailer are not so enormous as might be imagined, owing to the compet.i.tion.

In the neighbourhood of Castleisland there is one group of twelve houses and nine of these are whisky booths. However anxious the population may be to consume immoderate amounts of the fiery liquor, and however large the traffic on the road--never a big thing in Ireland, except on market-day--the division of the local receipts by nine is apt to diminish the profits in each case.

It has been suggested to me by a lady who knows Kerry well, that the consumption of drink might be diminished if a law were pa.s.sed forcing the publicans to sell food. As she very truly remarks, it is often impossible for the country folk, even on market-day, when coming into a town, to get food for immediate consumption.

However, I do not think this would have any effect. When away from his cabin the Irishman and the Irishwoman want drink, not food, for there are a few potatoes at home which will provide all the solid sustenance most of them desire.

If her proposal were made law, each publican would keep a loaf in his window, and there it would stay for a year.

That reminds me of the man who was waiting in Waterford Station on March 12th, and to pa.s.s the time had a ham sandwich at the bar.

After one mouthful he asked the astonished barmaid for another, made of February bread, because he really felt that it was time January bread might have a rest.

To give an example of how Irishmen crave for drink, I will relate an incident connected with the Parnell Commission.

Three of Lord Kenmare's tenants had been sent over in charge of an experienced and reliable man to give evidence, and on their return journey, when they arrived at North Wall--the hour being 6 A.M.--the conductor said:--

'There is cold meat, or bread and cheese. Now, what will your fancy be?'

Far from wanting nutrition after an all night journey, or even the soothing solace of a cup of tea, it was half a pint of whisky apiece that they all asked for.

Just as much drinking exists among the Protestants as among the Roman Catholics, only there is a trifle more geniality in the bibulous propensities of the latter. Much less affects an Irishman than a Scotsman. The latter, when he has absorbed all the whisky he can a.s.similate in a bout--and no bad amount it is, let me observe--will go quietly to sleep. But an Irishman's joy is incomplete unless he knocks somebody down, which may account for the fact that the Irish are the best soldiers in the world.

One redeeming feature in the liquor traffic is the increasing consumption of porter, for that at least has some nourishment in it, and is reasonably wholesome, whereas the whisky is vilely adulterated, not only by the publicans before it reaches the consumer, but also in some of the factories.

Puck Fair is the great annual fete and mart of Killorglin; and it is so called because a goat is always fastened to a stave on a platform, and gaily bedizened. Formerly the animal was attached to the flagstaff on the Castle. To this fair all Kerry for many miles congregates, and the neighbouring roads towards evening are literally strewn with bibulous individuals of either s.e.x.

On one occasion a Killorglin publican was in jail, and his father asked for an interview because he wanted the recipe for manufacturing the special whisky for Puck Fair. It has been a constant practice to prepare this blend, but the whisky does not keep many days, as may be gathered from the recipe, which the prisoner without hesitation dictated to his parent:--

A gallon of fresh, fiery whisky. A pint of rum. A pint of methylated spirit. Two ounces of corrosive sublimate. Three gallons of water.

An Irishman's const.i.tution must be tougher than that of an ostrich to enable him to consume much of the filthy poison. Temperance orators are welcome to make what use they like of the recipe of this awful decoction, annually sold to a confiding population.