Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) by William Henry Hurlbert

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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 passing 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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 lustily.
The poor girl said these were all she had, and she had brought them "to
make soup for the Duchess, 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 hoarse 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, _Saturday, 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 nobody took notice of it, or that
there was anything wrong, and so the water was piled up behind the
chapel, and at Mass 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 L700 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 masses, and a good man he is, but
he gets L400 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 L15 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!

At our request Sergeant Mahony made some remarks in Irish; very wooing
and winning they were in sound. Before he left Baron's Court he promised
to make out and send me a schedule of the parochial income at Gweedore,
under the separate heads of the sources whence it is derived.

Obviously Sergeant Mahony would make a good "devil's advocate" at the
canonization of Father M'Fadden. But, all allowances made for this, one
thing would seem to be tolerably clear. Of the three personages who take
tribute of the people of Gweedore, the law intervenes in their behalf
with only one--the landlord. The priest and the "Gombeen man" deal with
them on the old principle of "freedom of contract." But it is by no
means so clear which of the three exacts and receives the greatest
tribute.

We leave Baron's Court in an hour for Dublin, whence I go on alone
to-night into Queen's County.

CHAPTER IV.

ABBEYLEIX, _Sunday, Feb. 12._--Newtown-Stewart, through which I drove
yesterday afternoon with Lord Ernest to the train, is a prettily
situated town, with the ruins of a castle in which James II. slept for a
night on his flight to France. He was cordially received, and by way of
showing his satisfaction left the little town in flames when he
departed. Here appears to be a case, not of rack-renting, but of
absenteeism. The town belongs to a landlord who lives in Paris, and
rarely, if ever, comes here. There are no improvements--no
sanitation--but the inhabitants make no complaint. "Absenteeism" has its
compensations as well as its disadvantages. They pay low rents, and are
little troubled; the landlord drawing, perhaps, L400 a year from the
whole place. The houses are small, though neat enough in appearance, but
the town has a sleepy, inert look. On the railway between Dundalk and
Newry, we passed a spot known by the ominous name of "The Hill of the
Seven Murders," seven agents having been murdered there since 1840! I
suppose this must be set down to the force of habit. At Newry a cavalry
officer whom Lord Ernest knew got into our carriage. He was full of
hunting, and mentioned a place to which he was going as a "very fine
country."

"From the point of view of the picturesque?" I asked.

"Oh no! from the point of view of falling off your horse!"

At Maple's Hotel I found a most hospitable telegram, insisting that I
should give up my intention of spending the night at Maryborough, and
come on to this lovely place in my host's carriage, which would be sent
to meet me at that station. I left Kingsbridge Station in Dublin about 7
P.M. We had rather a long train, and I observed a number of people
talking together about one of the carriages before we started; but there
was no crowd at all, and nothing to attract special attention. As we
moved out of the station, some lads at the end of the platform set up a
cheer. We ran on quietly till we reached Kildare. There quite a
gathering awaited our arrival on the platform, and as we slowed up, a
cry went up from among them of, "Hurrah for Mooney! hurrah for Mooney!"
The train stopped just as this cry swelled most loudly, when to my
surprise a tall man in the gathering caught one or two of the people by
the shoulder, shaking them, and called out loudly, "Hurrah for
Gilhooly--you fools, hurrah for Gilhooly!"

This morning I learned that I had the honour, unwittingly, of travelling
from Dublin to Maryborough with Mr. Gilhooly, M.P., who appears to have
been arrested in London on Friday, brought over yesterday by the day
train, and sent on at once from Dublin to his destined dungeon.

An hour's drive through a rolling country, showing white and weird under
its blanket of snow in the night, brought us to this large, rambling,
delightful house, the residence of Viscount de Vesci. Mr. Gladstone came
here from Lord Meath's on his one visit to Ireland some years ago. I
find the house full of agreeable and interesting people; and the chill
of the drive soon vanished under the genial influences of a light
supper, and of pleasant chat in the smoking-room. A good story was told
there, by the way, of Archbishop Walsh, who being rather indiscreetly
importuned to put his autograph on a fan of a certain Conservative lady
well known in London, and not a little addicted to lion-hunting,
peremptorily refused, saying, "no, nor any of the likes of her!" And
another of Father Nolan, a well-known priest, who died at the age of
ninety-seven. When someone remonstrated with him on his association with
an avowed unbeliever in Christianity, like Mr. Morley, Father Nolan
replied, "Oh, faith will come with time!" The same excellent priest,
when he came to call on Mr. Gladstone, here at Abbeyleix, on his arrival
from the Earl of Meath's, pathetically and patriarchally adjured him, on
his next visit to Ireland, "not to go from one lord's house to another,
but to stay with the people." This was better than the Irish journal
which, finding itself obliged to chronicle the fact that Mr. Gladstone,
with his wife and daughter, was visiting Abbeyleix, gracefully observed
that he "had been entrapped into going there!" Some one lamenting the
lack of Irish humour and spirit in the present Nationalist movement, as
compared with the earlier movements, Lord de Vesci cited as a solitary
but refreshing instance of it, the incident which occurred the other day
at an eviction in Kerry,[18] of a patriotic priest who chained himself
to a door, and put it across the entrance of the cabin to keep out the
bailiffs!

It is discouraging to know that this delightful act was bitterly
denounced by some worthy and well-meaning Tory in Parliament as an
"outrage"!

Despite the snow the air this morning, in this beautiful region, is soft
and almost warm, and all the birds are singing again. The park borders
upon and opens into the pretty town of Abbeyleix, the broad and
picturesque main thoroughfare of which, rather a rural road than a
street, is adorned with a fountain and cross, erected in memory of the
late Lord de Vesci. There is a good Catholic chapel here (the ancient
abbey which gave the place its name stood in the grounds of the present
mansion), and a very handsome Protestant Church.

It is a curious fact that two of the men implicated in the Phoenix Park
murders had been employed, one, I believe, as a mason, and one as a
carver, in the construction of this church. Both the chapel and the
church to-day were well attended. I am told there has been little real
trouble here, nor has the Plan of Campaign been adopted here. Sometimes
Lord de Vesci finds threatening images of coffins and guns scratched in
the soil, with portraits indicating his agent or himself; but these mean
little or nothing. Lady de Vesci, who loves her Irish home, and has done
and is doing a good deal for the people here, tells me, as an amusing
illustration of the sort of terrorism formerly established by the local
organisations, that when she met two of the labourers on the place
together, they used to pretend to be very busy and not to see her. But
if she met one alone, he greeted her just as respectfully as ever.

The women here do a great deal of embroidery and lace work, in which she
encourages them, but this industry has suffered what can only be a
temporary check, from the change of fashion in regard to the wearing of
laces. Why the loveliest of all fabrics made for the adornment of women
should ever go "out of fashion" would be amazing if anything in the
vagaries of that occult and omnipotent influence could be. The Irish
ladies ought to circulate Madame de Piavigny's exquisite _Lime
d'Heures_, with its incomparable illustrations by Carot and Meaulle,
drawn from the lace work of all ages and countries, as a tonic against
despair in respect to this industry. In one of the large rooms of her
own house, Lady de Vesci has established and superintends a school of
carving for the children of poor tenants. It has proved a school of
civilisation also. The lads show a remarkable aptitude for the arts of
design, and of their own accord make themselves neat and trim as soon as
they begin to understand what it is they are doing. They are always busy
at home with their drawings and their blocks, and some of them are
already beginning to earn money by their work.

What I have seen at Adare Manor near Limerick, where the late Earl of
Dunraven educated all the workmen employed on that mansion as
stone-cutters and carvers, suffices to show that the people of this
country have not lost the aptitudes of which we see so many proofs in
the relics of early Irish art.

Among the guests in the house is a distinguished officer, Colonel
Talbot, who saw hard service in Egypt, and in the advance on Khartoum,
with camels across the desert--a marvellous piece of military work. I
find that he was in America in 1864-65, with Meade and Hunt and Grant
before Petersburg, being in fact the only foreign officer then present.
He there formed what seem to me very sound and just views as to the
ability of the Federal commanders in that closing campaign of the Civil
War, and spoke of Hunt particularly with much admiration. Of General
Grant he told me a story so illustrative of the simplicity and modesty
which were a keynote in his character that I must note it. The day
before the evacuation of Petersburg by the Con federates, Grant was
urged to order an attack upon the Confederate positions. He refused to
do so. The next day the Confederates were seen hastily abandoning them.
Grant watched them quietly for a while, and then putting down his glass,
said to one of the officers who had urged the assault, "You were right,
and I was wrong. I ought to have attacked them."

It is provoking to know that the notes taken by this British officer at
that time, being sent through the Post Office by him some years ago to
Edinburgh for publication, were lost in the transmission, and have never
been recovered. Curiously enough, however, he thinks he has now and then
discerned indications in articles upon the American War, published in a
newspaper which he named, going to show that his manuscripts are in
existence somewhere.

ABBEYLEIX, _Monday, Feb. 13._--To-day, in company with Lord de Vesci
and a lady, I went over to Kilkenny. We left and arrived in a snowstorm,
but the trip was most interesting. Kilkenny, chiefly known in America, I
fear, as the city of the cats, is a very picturesque place, thanks to
its turrets and towers. It has two cathedrals, a Bound Tower (one of
these in Dublin was demolished in the last century!), a Town Hall with a
belfry, and looming square and high above the town, the Norman keep of
its castle. The snow enlivened rather than diminished the scenic effect
of the place. Bits of old architecture here and there give character to
the otherwise commonplace streets. Notable on the way to the castle is a
bit of mediaeval wall with Gothic windows, and fretted with the
scutcheon in stone of the O'Sheas. The connection of a gentleman of this
family with the secret as well as the public story of the Parnellite
movement may one day make what Horace Greeley used to call "mighty
interestin' reading." A dealer in spirits now occupies what is left of
the old Parliament House of Kilkenny, in which the rival partisans of
Preston and O'Neill outfought the legendary cats, to the final ruin of
the cause of the Irish confederates, and the despair of the loyal
legate of Pope Innocent.

Of Kilkenny Castle, founded by Strongbow, but two or three towers
remain. The great quadrangle was rebuilt in 1825, and much of it again
so late as in 1860. There is little, therefore, to recall the image of
the great Marquis who, if Rinuccini read him aright, played so
resolutely here two centuries and a half ago for the stakes which Edward
Bruce won and lost at Dundalk. The castle of the Butlers is now really a
great modern house.

The town crowds too closely upon it, but the position is superb. The
castle windows look clown upon the Nore, spanned by a narrow ancient
bridge, and command, not only all that is worth seeing in the town, but
a wide and glorious prospect over a region which is even now beautiful,
and in summer must be charming.

Over the ancient bridge the enterprise of a modern brewer last week
brought a huge iron vat, so menacingly ponderous that the authorities
made him insure the bridge for a day.

Within the castle, near the main entrance, are displayed some
tapestries, which are hardly shown to due advantage in that position.
They were made here at Kilkenny in a factory established by Piers
Butler, Earl of Ormonde, in the sixteenth century, and they ought to be
sent to the Irish Exhibition of this year in London, as proving what
Irish art and industry well directed could then achieve. They are
equally bold in design and rich in colour. The blues are especially
fine.

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