A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

The Land War In Ireland (1870) by James Godkin

J >> James Godkin >> The Land War In Ireland (1870)




'Mr. Winter, a godly man, came with the commissioners, and they flock
to hear him with great desire; besides, there is in Dublin, since
January last, about 750 Papists forsaken their priests and the masse,
and attends the public ordinances, I having appointed Mr. Chambers,
a minister, to instruct them at his own house once a week. They all
repaire to him with much affection, and desireth satisfaction. And
though Dublin hath formerly swarmed with Papists, I know none (now)
there but one, who is a chirurgeon, and a peaceable man. It is much
hoped the glad tidings of salvation will be acceptable in Ireland, and
that this savage people may see the salvation of God.'

Political economists tell us that when population is greatly thinned
by war, or pestilence, or famine, Nature hastens to fill up the void
by the extraordinary fecundity of those who remain. The Irish must
have multiplied very fast in Connaught during the Commonwealth; and
the mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood resulting from the union of the
Cromwellian soldiers with the daughters of the land must have produced
a numerous as well as a very vigorous breed in Wexford, Kilkenny,
Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, East and West Meath, King's and Queen's
Counties, and Tyrone. But these were not 'wholly a right seed.' This
was to be found only in the union of English with English, newly
arrived from the land of the free. The more precious this seed was,
the more care there should be in bringing it into the field. This
matter constituted one of the great difficulties of the plantation.
There were plenty of Irish midwives: they might have been affectionate
and careful, possibly skilful; but if they had any good quality, the
council could not see it. On the contrary, it gave them credit
for many bad qualities, the worst of all being their idolatry and
disloyalty. It was really dreadful to think of English mothers and
their infants being at the mercy of Irish nurses. Consequently, after
much deliberation, and 'laying the matter before the Lord' in prayer,
it was resolved to bring over a state nurse from England, and to her
special care were to be entrusted all the _accouchements_ in the city
of Dublin. Endowed with such a monopoly, it was natural enough that
she should be an object of envy and dislike to those midwives whom she
had supplanted. She was therefore annoyed and insulted while passing
through the streets. To put a stop to these outrages, a proclamation
was issued from Dublin Castle for her special protection, which began
thus:--

_By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of Ireland_.

'Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness,
that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very
successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and
skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe
sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the
comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come
into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due helpe,
and necessitated to expose their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives,
ignorant in the profession, and bearing little good will to any of
the English nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to
evidence this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person
so eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of
for piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and
protection,' &c.

Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying heroic
remedies for what they conceived to be grievances. The Irish
parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the Irish cities,
and everything else that could be called Irish, except the thing for
which they fought--_the land_, which was to be Irish no more. The new
England which the Protector established in the Island of Saints
was represented, like Scotland, in the united parliament at
Westminster--which first assembled in 1657. In that parliament, Major
Morgan represented the county of Wicklow. In speaking against some
proposed taxation for Ireland, he said, among other things, the
country was under very heavy charges for rewards paid for the
destruction of three beasts--the wolf, the priest, and the tory. 'We
have three beasts to destroy,' he said, 'that lay burdens upon us. The
first is a wolf, on whom we lay 5 l. a head if a dog, and 10 l. if a
bitch. The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10 l.; if he
be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be
a public tory, we lay 20 l.; and 40 s. on a private tory. Your army
cannot catch them: the Irish bring them in; brothers and cousins cut
one another's throats.'

In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed declaration.
'Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore
swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation
of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness
which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this
rebellion; insomuch that frequently some are found feeding on carrion
and weeds,--some starved in the highways, and many times poor children
who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by them, are found
exposed to and some of them fed upon _by ravening wolves and other
beasts and birds of prey._'

No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when they fed
upon such dainty fare as Irish children! By what infatuation, by what
diabolical fanaticism were those rulers persuaded that they were
doing God a service, or discharging the functions of a Government,
in carrying out such a policy, and consigning human beings to such a
fate!

By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1, 1656,[1]
the commanders of the various districts were to appoint days and times
for hunting the wolf; and persons destroying wolves and bringing their
heads to the commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to
receive for the head of a bitch wolf, 6 _l_; of a dog wolf, 5 _l_; for
the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40 s.; and for the head
of every sucking cub, 10 _s_: The assessments on several counties
to reimburse the treasury for these advances became, as appears from
Major Morgan's speech, a serious charge. In corroboration it appears
that in March, 1655, there was due from the precinct of Galway 243
l. 5 s. 4 d. for rewards paid on this account. But the most curious
evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles north of
Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under conditions of
keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf hounds for killing
the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted in wolves' heads, at
the rate in the declaration of June 29, 1653. Under this lease Captain
Edward Piers was to have all the state lands in the barony of Dunboyne
in the county of Meath, valued at 543 l. 8 s. 8 d., at a rent greater
by 100 l. a year than they then yielded in rent and contribution, for
five years from May 1 following, on the terms of maintaining at Dublin
and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds
of sixteen couple (three whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing
huntsman, and two men and one boy. Captain Piers was to bring to the
commissioners of revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads
in the first year and a diminishing number every year; but for every
wolf-head whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5 l. was to
be defalked from his salary.[2]

[Footnote 1: A/84, p.255. Republished 7th July, 1656.--'Book of
Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of Ireland.'
British Museum.]

[Footnote 2: Cromwellian Settlement, p.154.]

Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the second
'burdensome beast,' and to harbour him was death. Again I avail myself
of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few orders on this
subject.

'_August_ 4, 1654.--Ordered, on the petition of Roger Begs, priest,
now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his miserable condition by being
nine months in prison, and desiring liberty to go among his friends
into the country for some relief; that he be released upon giving
sufficient security that within four months he do transport himself to
foreign parts, beyond the seas, never to return, and that during that
time he do not exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move
from where he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without
permission. Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel,
priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak, and
not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to reside in
Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see fitting, provided,
however, he do not remove one mile beyond the appointed place without
licence, nor use his priestly function.'

At first the place of transportation was Spain. Thus:--'_February_
1, 1653. Ordered that the Governor of Dublin take effectual course
whereby the priests now in the several prisons of Dublin be forthwith
shipped with the party going for Spain; and that they be delivered
to the officers on shipboard for that purpose: care to be taken that,
under the colour of exportation, they be not permitted to go into the
country.'

'_May_ 29, 1654.--Upon reading the petition of the Popish priests
now in the jails of Dublin; ordered, that the Governor of Dublin take
security of such persons as shall undertake the transportation of
them, that they shall with the first opportunity be shipped for some
parts in amity with the Commonwealth, provided the five pounds for
each of the said priests due to the persons that took them, pursuant
to the tenor of a declaration dated January 6, 1653, be first paid or
secured.'

The commissioners give reasons for this policy, which are identical
with what we hear constantly repeated at the present day in Ireland
and England and in most of the newspapers conducted by Protestants.
For two centuries the burden of all comments on Irish affairs is 'the
country would be happy but for priests and agitators.' 'Hang or banish
the priests!' cry some very amiable and respectable persons, 'and then
we shall have peace.' 'We can make nothing of those priests,' says the
improving landlord, or agent, 'they will not look us straight in the
face.'

On December 8, 1655, in a letter from the commissioners to the
Governor of Barbadoes, advising him of the approach of a ship with a
cargo of proprietors deprived of their lands, and then seized for not
transplanting, or banished for having no visible means of support,
they add that amongst them were three priests; and the commissioners
particularly desire they may be so employed as they may not return
again where that sort of people are able to do much mischief, having
so great an influence over the Popish Irish, and alienating their
affections from the present Government. 'Yet these penalties did not
daunt them, or prevent their recourse to Ireland. In consequence of
the great increase of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a
general arrest by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which,
in April, 1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have
been filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board such
ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the Barbadoes. One
may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by the petition of one
of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at Maryborough,
and sent to Philipstown on the way to Carrickfergus, there fell
desperately sick, and, being also extremely aged, was in danger of
perishing in restraint for want of friends and means of relief. On
August 27, 1656, the commissioners, having ascertained the truth of
his petition, ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness; and
(in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be spared from
transportation) their order directed that it should be continued to
him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to Carrickfergus, in
order to his transportation to the Barbadoes.'

At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have shaken
the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel
Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would
under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the
Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to dispense with the
transportation, if they could give good Protestant security for the
sincerity of their professions.

As for the third beast--the tory, the following extract gives an idea
of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from which he sprang.

'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews, uncles,
and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do remain in
the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having little or no
visible estates or subsistence, but living only and coshering upon
the common sort of people who were tenants to or followers of the
respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an opportunity, as
may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy the English who, as
adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants, are set down to plant upon
the several lands and estates of the persons so attainted,' they
are to transplant or be transported to the English plantations in
America.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Act for Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland, passed 1656.
Scobell's 'Acts and Ordinances.']

No wonder that Mr. Prendergast exclaims:--

'But how must the feelings of national hatred have been heightened,
by seeing every where crowds of such unfortunates, their brothers,
cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole country given up a prey
to hungry insolent soldiers and adventurers from England, mocking
their wrongs, and triumphing in their own irresistible power!'

Every possible mode of repression that has been devised at the
present time as a remedy for Ribbonism was then tried with unflinching
determination. John Symonds, an English settler, was murdered near
the garrison town of Timolin, in the county Kildare. All the Irish
inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood were immediately transported
to Connaught as a punishment for the crime. A few months after two
more settlers were murdered at Lackagh.

'All the Irish in the townland of Lackagh were seized; four of them
by sentence of court-martial were hanged for the murder, or for not
preventing it; and all the rest, thirty-seven in number, including two
priests, were on November 27 delivered to the captain of the "Wexford"
frigate, to take to Waterford, there to be handed over to Mr. Norton,
a Bristol merchant, to be sold as bond slaves to the sugar-planters in
the Barbadoes. Among these were Mrs. Margery Fitzgerald, of the age
of fourscore years, and her husband, Mr. Henry Fitzgerald of Lackagh;
although (as it afterwards appeared) the tories had by their frequent
robberies much infested that gentleman and his tenants--discovery that
seems to have been made only after the king's restoration.'

The penalties against the tories themselves were to allow them no
quarter when caught, and to set a price upon their heads. The ordinary
price for the head of a tory was 40 s.; for leaders of tories, or
distinguished men, it varied from 5 l. to 30 l.

'But,' continues Mr. Prendergast, 'a more effective way of suppressing
tories seems to have been to induce them, as already mentioned,
to betray or murder one another--a measure continued after the
Restoration, during the absence of parliaments, by acts and orders
of state, and re-enacted by the first parliament summoned after
the Revolution, when in that and the following reigns almost every
provision of the rule of the parliament of England in Ireland was
re-enacted by the parliaments of Ireland, composed of the soldiers and
adventurers of Cromwell's day, or new English and Scotch capitalists.
In 1695 any tory killing two other tories proclaimed and on their
keeping was entitled to pardon--a measure which put such distrust and
alarm among their bands on finding one of their number so killed,
that it became difficult to kill a second. Therefore, in 1718, it was
declared sufficient qualification for pardon for a tory to kill one
of his fellow-tories. This law was continued in 1755 for twenty-one
years, and only expired in 1776. Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus
became common pursuits. No wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an
existence, to find traces of the tories in our household words. Few,
however, are now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have
so truly historical a foundation:--

'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story?'
'I went to the wood and shot a tory:'
'I went to the wood, and shot another;'
'Was it the same, or was it his brother?'

'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,
Three times through the bog, and about and about;
Till out of a bush I spied his head,
So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.'

After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions, and, a
great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate, they betook
themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged the replanting of
the kingdom by their frequent murders of the new Scotch and English
planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so runs the language of
the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed and despoiled, than to
apprehend or convict the offenders.' In order, therefore, for the
better encouragement of strangers to plant and inhabit the kingdom,
any persons presented as tories, by the gentlemen of a county, and
proclaimed as such by the lord lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws
and traitors; and any persons harbouring them were to be guilty of
high treason.[1] Rewards were offered for the taking or killing of
them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of the ancient native race,
were to make satisfaction for all robberies and spoils. If persons
were maimed or dismembered by tories, they were to be compensated by
10 l.; and the families of persons murdered were to receive 30 l.'

[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement, p.163, &c.]

The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to the
imprisoned Irish nation. They rushed across the Shannon to see their
old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full of hope
that the king for whom they had suffered so much would reward
their loyalty, by giving them back their inheritances--the 'just
satisfaction' promised at Breda to those who had been unfairly
deprived of their estates. The Ulster Presbyterians also counted on
his gratitude for their devotion to his cause, notwithstanding the
wrongs inflicted on them by Strafford and the bishops in the name of
his father. But they were equally doomed to disappointment. Coote
and Broghill reigned in Dublin Castle as lords justices. The first
parliament assembled in Dublin for twenty years, contained an
overwhelming majority of undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan
representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors
had been excluded. 'The Protestant interest,' a phrase of tremendous
potency in the subsequent history of Ireland, counted 198 members
against 64 Catholics in the Commons, and in the Lords 72 against 21
peers. A court was established under an act of parliament in Dublin,
to try the claims of 'nocent' and 'innocent' proprietors. The judges,
who were Englishmen, declared in their first session that 168 were
innocent to 19 nocent. The Protestant interest was alarmed; and,
through the influence of Ormond, then lord lieutenant, the duration of
the court was limited, and when it was compelled to close its labours,
only 800 out of 3,000 cases had been decided. If the proportions
of nocent and innocent were the same, an immense number of innocent
persons were deprived of their property. In 1675, fifteen years after
the Restoration, the English settlers were in possession of 4,500,000
acres, while the old owners retained 2,250,000 acres. By an act passed
in 1665, it was declared that no Papist, who had not already been
adjudged innocent, should ever be entitled to claim any lands or
settlements.'

Any movement on the part of the Roman Catholics during this reign,
and indeed, ever since, always raised an alarm of the 'Protestant
interest' in danger. While the panic lasted the Catholics were
subjected to cruel restrictions and privations. Thus Ormond, by
proclamation, prohibited Catholics from entering the castle of Dublin,
or any other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls
of fortified towns, and from carrying arms to such places. By another
proclamation, he ordered all the _relatives_ of known 'tories' to be
arrested and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such
tories were killed or surrendered within that time. There was one tory
for whose arrest all ordinary means failed. This was the celebrated
Redmond O'Hanlon, still one of the most popular heroes with the Irish
peasantry. He was known on the continent as Count O'Hanlon, and was
the brother of the owner of Tandragee, now the pretty Irish seat of
the Duke of Manchester. As no one would betray this outlaw, who levied
heavy contributions from the settlers in Ulster, it was alleged
and believed that the viceroy hired a relative to shoot him. 'Count
O'Hanlon,' says Mr. D. Magee, 'a gentleman of ancient lineage, as
accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code
then in force; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must for
ever blot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.'[1]

[Footnote 1: See 'The Tory War of Ulster,' by John P. Prendergast,
author of 'The Cromwellian Settlement.' This pamphlet abounds in the
most curious information, collected from judicial records, descriptive
of Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution--A.D. 1660-1690.]




CHAPTER XIII.

THE PENAL CODE, A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND-WAR.


The accession of James II. was well calculated to have an intoxicating
effect on the Irish race. He was a Catholic, he undertook to effect
a counter-reformation. He would restore the national hierarchy to the
position from which it had been dragged down and trampled under the
feet of the Cromwellians. He would give back to the Irish gentry and
nobility their estates; and to effect this glorious revolution, he
relied upon the faith and valour of the Irish. The Protestant militia
were disarmed, a Catholic army was formed; the corporations were
thrown open to Catholics. Dublin and other corporations, which refused
to surrender their exclusive charters, were summarily deprived of
their privileges; Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by troops,
went in state to their places of worship. The Protestant chancellor
was dismissed to make way for a Catholic, Baron Rice. The plate
of Trinity College was seized as public property. The Protestants,
thoroughly alarmed by these arbitrary proceedings, fled to England in
thousands. Many went to Holland and joined the army of the Prince of
Orange. Dreadful stories were circulated of an intended invasion of
England by wild Irish regiments under Tyrconnel. There was a rumour of
another massacre of the English, and of the proposed repeal of the
act of settlement. Protestants who could not cross the channel fled to
Enniskillen and to Derry, which closed its gates and prepared for its
memorable siege. James, who had fled to France, plucked up courage
to go to Ireland, and make a stand there in defence of his crown.
His progress from Kinsale to Dublin was an ovation. Fifteen royal
chaplains scattered blessings around him; Gaelic songs and dances
amused him; he was flattered in Latin orations, and conducted to his
capital under triumphal arches. In Dublin the trades turned out with
new banners; two harpers played at the gate by which he entered; the
clergy in their robes chanted as they went: and forty young girls,
dressed in white, danced the ancient _rinka_, scattering flowers on
the newly sanded streets. Tyrconnell, now a duke, the judges, the
mayor and the corporation, completed the procession, which moved
beneath arches of evergreens, and windows hung with 'tapestry and
cloth of arras.' The recorder delivered to his majesty the keys of the
city, and the Catholic primate, Dominick Maguire, waited in his robes
to conduct him to the royal chapel, where the _Te Deum_ was sung. On
that day the green flag floated from the main tower of the castle,
bearing the motto, 'Now or never--now and for ever.'

The followers of James, according to Grattan, 'though papists, were
not slaves. They wrung a constitution from King James before they
accompanied him to the field.' A constitution wrung from such a man
was not worth much. His parliament passed an act for establishing
liberty of conscience, and ordering every man to pay tithes to his own
clergy only, with some other measures of relief. But he began to
play the despot very soon. The Commons voted him the large subsidy of
20,000 l. He doubled the amount by his own mere motion. He established
a bank, and by his own authority decreed a bank monopoly. He debased
the coinage, and fixed the prices of merchandise by his own will.
He appointed a provost and librarian in Trinity College without the
consent of the senate, and attempted to force fellows and scholars on
the university contrary to the statutes. The events which followed
are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is with
their effects on the land question.

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

George Lang - "Pixy's Holiday Journey"

Selma Lagerloef - "Jerusalem"

Eleanor Hallowell Abbott - "Little Eve Edgarton"

May Agnes Fleming - "The Unseen Bridgegroom"