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

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The Rev. P. O'Neill spoke as he always does, in a more gentlemanly and
conciliatory manner, and I therefore, as the confusion in the room was
great, offered to discuss the matter with him, the Rev. O'Donel, C.C.,
and the tenants, if the other priests, who were strangers to me, and the
reporters would leave the room. This the Rev. Mr. Dunphy declared they
would not do, and I accordingly refused further to discuss the matter.

After they left the house, one of the tenants, Mick Darcy, stepped
forward and said, "Settle with us, Captain." I replied, "Certainly, if
you come back with me into the house." The Rev. Mr. Dunphy took him by
the collar of his coat and threw him against the wall of the house, then
turning to me with his hand raised said, "You shall not do so; we, who
claim the temporal as well as spiritual power over _you_ as well as
these poor creatures, will settle this matter with you."

The tenants were then taken down to the League rooms, where two M.P.s,
Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Mayne, were waiting to receive the rents,
which, one by one, they were ordered in to pay into the war-chest of the
"Plan of Campaign."

I have I fear written too much of this commencement of the war on the
estate which has since led to over seventy of the tenants and their
families being ejected, and has brought ruin on nearly all who joined
it. I have considerable experience as a land agent, but I know of no
estate where the tenants were more respectable, better housed, or, as a
body, in better circumstances than on the Brooke estate. They had a
kind, indulgent landlord, and they knew it; and nothing but the belief
that, led by their clergy, they were foremost in a battle fighting for
their country and religion, would have induced them to put up with the
great hardships and loss they have undoubtedly had to suffer.

NOTE L.

A DUCAL SUPPER IN IRELAND IN 1711.

(Vol. ii. p. 283.)

The following entry I take from the Expense-Book of the Duke of Ormond,
under date of August 23, 1711:--

His Grace came to Kilkenny, half an hour after 10 at night.

HIS GRACE'S TABLE.

Pottage. Sautee Veal.
5 Pullets, Bacon and Collyflowers.
Pottage Meagre.
Pikes with White Sauce.
A Turbot with Lobster Sauce.
Umbles.
A Hare Hasht.
Buttered Chickens, G.
Hasht Veal and New Laid Eggs.
Removes.
A Shoulder and Neck of Mutton.
Haunch of Venison.

_Second Course._

Lobsters.
Tarts, an Oval Dish.
Crabbs Buttered.
4 Pheasants, 4 Partridges, 4 Turkeys.
Ragoo Mushrooms.
Kidney Beans. Ragoo Oysters.
Fritters.
Two Sallets.

NOTE M.

LETTER FROM MR. O'LEARY.

(Vol. ii. p. 291.)

In the first edition of this book I credited Mr. O'Leary with making
this pungent remark about figs and grapes, because I found it jotted
down in my original memoranda as coming from him. In a private note he
assures me that he does not think it was made by him, and though this
does not agree with my own recollection, I defer, of course, to his
impression. And this I do the more readily that it affords me an
opportunity for printing the following very characteristic and
interesting letter sent to me by him for publication should I think fit
to use it.

As the most important support given by the Irish in America to the
Nationalists is solicited by their agents on the express ground that
they are really labouring to establish an Irish Republic, this outspoken
declaration of Mr. O'Leary, that he does not believe they "expect or
desire" the establishment of an Irish Republic, will be of interest on
my side of the water:--

"DUBLIN, _Sept._ 9, '88.

"My Dear Sir,--I am giving more bother about what you make me say
in your book than the thing is probably worth, especially seeing
that what you say about me and my present attitude towards men and
things here is almost entirely correct.

"It is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and my main reason
for believing I did not say the thing about figs and grapes is that
I never could remember the whole of any proverb in conversation;
but I am absolutely certain I never said that 'some of them (the
National Leaguers) expect to found an Irish republic on robbery,
and to administer it by falsehood. We don't.' Most certainly I do
not expect to found anything on robbery, or administer anything by
falsehood, but I do not in the least believe that the National
League either expects or desires to found an Irish republic at all!
Neither do I believe that the Leaguers will long retain the
administration of such small measure of Home Rule, as I now (since
the late utterances of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone) believe we
are going to get. My fault with the present people is not that they
are looking, or mean to look, for too much, but that they may be
induced, by pressure from their English Radical allies, to be
content with too little. It is only a large and liberal measure of
Home Rule which will ever satisfy the Irish people, and I fear
that, if the smaller fry of Radical M.P.'s are allowed to have a
strong voice in a matter of which they know next to nothing, the
settlement of the Irish question will be indefinitely postponed.--I
remain, faithfully yours,

"JOHN O'LEARY."

NOTE N

BOYCOTTING PRIVATE OPINION.

(Vol. ii. p. 293.)

This case of Mr. Taylor is worth preserving _in extenso_ as an
illustration of that spirit in the Irish journalism of the day, against
which Mr. Rolleston and his friends protest as fatal to independence,
manliness, and truth. I simply cite the original attack made upon Mr.
Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the comments
made upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all tell
their own story.

(_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 16.)

Mr. John F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish
National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the
acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are
all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential
valet in _The Rivals_, "it hurts his conscience to be found out."
There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are
the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty
morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always
shown himself ready to say anything or do anything that may serve
his own interests. In the general election of 1885 he made frantic
efforts to get into Parliament as a member of the Irish Party. He
ghosted every member of the party whose influence he thought might
help him--notably the two men, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien, at whom
he now sneers, as he fondly believes, in the safe seclusion of an
anonymous letter of an English newspaper. During the period of
probation his hand was incessant on Mr. Dillon's door-knocker. The
most earnest supplications were not spared. All in vain. Either his
character or his ability failed to satisfy the Irish leader, and
his claim was summarily rejected. Since then his wounded vanity has
found vent in spiteful calumny of almost every member of the Irish
Party--whenever he found malice a luxury that could be safely
indulged in.

"His next step was a startling one. We have absolute reason to
know, when the last Coercion Act was in full swing, this
pure-souled and disinterested patriot begged for, received, and
accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship under a Coercion
Government. As was wittily said at the time, he sold his
principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that
stirred the mess. Strong pressure was brought to bear on him, and
he was induced for his own sake, after many protests and with much
reluctance, to publicly refuse the office he had already privately
accepted. Mr. Taylor professes to model himself on Robert Emmet and
Thomas Davis; it is hard to realise Thomas Davis or Robert Emmet as
a Coercion Crown Prosecutor in the pay of Dublin Castle. Since then
there has been no more persistent caviller at the Irish policy and
the Irish Party in company where he believed such cavilling paid.
When Home Rule was proposed by Mr. Gladstone, he had a thousand
foolish sneers for the measure and its author. When the Bill was
defeated, he elected Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. T.W.
Russell as the gods of his idolatry. Such a nature needs a patron,
and Mr. Webb, Q.C., the Tory County Court Judge who doubled the
sentence on Father M'Fadden, was the patron to be selected. It is
shrewdly suspected that he supplied most of the misguiding
information for Dr. Webb's coercion pamphlet, and it is probable
that Dr. Webb gives him a lift with his weekly letter to the
_Manchester Guardian._

(_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 23.)

MR. JOHN F. TAYLOR.

_To the Editor of "United Ireland."_

Sir,--You would not, I am sure, allow intentional misstatements to
appear in your columns, and I ask you to allow me space to correct
three erroneous observations made about myself in your current
issue--

1. The first statement is to the effect that I owe everything I
have, or that I am, to the Irish National Party. I owe absolutely
nothing to the Irish Party, except an attempt to boycott me on my
circuit, which, fortunately for me, has failed.

2. The second is to the effect that I made "frantic efforts" (these
are the words, I think) to enter Parliament, and besieged Mr.
Dillon's house during the time when candidates were being chosen. I
saw Mr. Dillon exactly twice, both occasions at Mr. Davitt's
request. Mr. Davitt urged me to allow my name to go forward as a
candidate, and it was at his wish and solicitation that I saw Mr.
Dillon.

3. It is further said that I begged a Crown Prosecutorship.
Fortunately, Mr. Walker and The M'Dermot are living men, and they
know this to be absolutely untrue. I was offered such an
appointment, and, contrary to my own judgment, I allowed myself to
be guided by Mr. Davitt, who thought the matter would be
misunderstood in the state of things then existing. I believe I am
the only person that ever declined such an offer.

As to general statements, these are of no importance, and I shall
not trouble you about them.--Yours very truly,

JOHN F. TAYLOR.

_P.S._--The introduction of Dr. Webb's name was a gratuitous
outrage, Dr. Webb and I never assisted each other in anything
except in the defence of P.N. Fitzgerald. J.F.T.

_To the Editor of "United Ireland."_

Dear Sir,--As my name has been introduced into the controversy
between yourself and Mr. Taylor, I feel called upon to substantiate
the two statements wherein my name occurs in Mr. Taylor's letter of
last week. It was at my request that he called upon Mr. John
Dillon, M.P. I think I accompanied him on the occasion, and unless
my memory is very much at fault, Mr. Dillon was not unfriendly to
Mr. Taylor's proposed candidature. This visit occurred some three
months after Mr. Taylor had, on my advice, declined the Crown
Prosecutorship for King's County, a post afterwards applied for by
and granted to a near relative of one of the most prominent members
of the Irish Party. With Mr. Taylor's general views on the present
situation, or opinions upon parties or men, I have no concern. But,
in so far as the circumstances related above are dealt with in your
issue of last week, I think an unjust imputation has been made
against him, and in the interests of truth and fair play I feel
called upon to adduce the testimony of facts as they
occurred.--Yours truly,

MICHAEL DAVITT.

Ballybrack, Co. Dublin,

June 19, 1888.

_To the Editor of "United Ireland."_

Sir,--As this is, I believe, the first time I have sought to
intrude upon your columns, I hope you will allow me some slight
space in the interests of fair-play and freedom of speech. Those
interests seem to me to have been quite set at naught in the
attack, or rather series of attacks, upon Mr. Taylor in your last
issue. Mr. Taylor's views upon many matters are not mine. He is far
more democratic in his opinions than I see any sufficient reason
for being, and he is very much more of what is called a land
reformer than I am; but on an acquaintance of some years I have
ever found him an honourable and high-minded gentleman, and as good
a Nationalist, from my point of view, as most of the members of the
Irish Parliamentary Party whom I either know or know of. Of some of
the charges made against Mr. Taylor, such as the seeking for Crown
Prosecutorships and the like, I am in no position to speak, save
from my knowledge of his character, but I understand Mr. Davitt
knows all about these things, and I suppose he will tell what he
knows. But of the main matter, and I think the chief cause of your
ire, I am quite in a position to speak. I have read at least a
score of Mr. Taylor's letters to the _Manchester Guardian_, and I
have always found them very intelligently written, and invariably
characterised by a spirit of fairness and moderation; indeed, the
chief fault I found with them was that they took too favourable a
view of the motives, if not the acts, of many of our public men,
but notably of Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien. You may, of course,
fairly say that I am not the best judge of either the acts or the
motives of these gentlemen, and I freely grant you that I may not,
for my way of looking upon the Irish question is quite other than
theirs; but what I must be excused for holding is that both I and
Mr. Taylor have quite as good a right to our opinions as either of
these gentlemen, or as any other member of the Irish Parliamentary
Party. But this is the very last right that people are inclined to
grant to each other in Ireland just now. Personally I care very
little for this, but for Ireland's sake I care much. Some twenty
years ago or so I was sent into penal servitude with the almost
entire approval, expressed or implied, of the Irish Press. Some
short time after the same Press found out that I and my friends had
not sinned so grievously in striving to free Ireland. But men and
times and things may change again, and, though I am growing old, I
hope still to live long enough to be forgiven for my imperfect
appreciation of the blessings of Boycotting, and the Plan of
Campaign, and many similar blessings. It matters little indeed how
or when I die, so that Ireland lives, but her life can only be a
living death if Irishmen are not free to say what they believe, and
to act as they deem right.--Your obedient servant,

JOHN O'LEARY.

June 18, 1888.

_To the Editor of "United Ireland."_

Dear Sir,--I observe that in your last issue, amongst other things,
you state that Mr. Taylor accepted a Crown Prosecutorship in 1885.
I happen to know the precise facts. Mr. Taylor was offered the
Crown Prosecutorship of the King's County, and some of us strongly
advised him to accept it. There were no political prosecutions
impending at the time, and it seemed to me that a Nationalist who
would do his work honestly in prosecuting offenders against the
ordinary law might strike a blow against tyranny by refusing to
accept a brief, if offered, against men accused of political
offences or prosecuted under a Coercion Act. I know that a similar
view was entertained by the late Very Rev. Dr. Kavanagh of Kildare,
and many others. However, we failed to influence Mr. Taylor further
than to make him say that he would do nothing in the matter until
Mr. Davitt was consulted. I, for one, called on Mr. Davitt, and
pressed my views upon him; but he was decided that no Nationalist
could identify himself in the smallest way with Castle rule in
Ireland. This settled the question, and Mr. Taylor declined the
post, which was subsequently applied for by Mr. Luke Dillon, who
now holds it.--Faithfully yours,

JAMES A. POOLE.

29 Harcourt Street.

EDITORIAL NOTE.

_"United Ireland," June 23._

We devote a large portion of our space to-day to the apparently
organised defence of Mr. J.F. Taylor and his friends, and we are
quite content to rest upon their letters the justification for our
comments. When a gentleman who avows himself a disappointed
aspirant for Parliamentary honours, and who owns his regret that he
did not become a petty Castle placeman, is discovered writing in an
important English Liberal paper, venomous little innuendos at the
expense of sorely attacked Irish leaders which excite the
enthusiasm of the _Liarish Times_, it was high time to intimate to
the _Manchester Guardian_ the source from which its Irish
information is derived. The case against Mr. Taylor as a
criticaster is clinched by the fact that his cause is espoused by
Mr. John O'Leary. The Irish public are a little weary of Mr.
O'Leary's querulous complaints as an _homme incompris_. So far as
we are aware, the only ground he himself has for complaining of
want of toleration is that he possibly considers the good-humoured
toleration for years invariably extended to his opinions on men and
things savours of neglect. His idea of toleration with respect to
others seems to be toleration for everybody except the unhappy
wretches who may happen to be for the moment doing any practicable
service in the Irish cause.

NOTE O.

BOYCOTTING BY "CROWNER'S QUEST LAW."

(Vol. ii. p. 312.)

The following circumstantial account of this deplorable case of Ellen
Gaffney preserved here, as I find it printed in the _Irish Times_ of
February 27, 1888.

"In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Saturday, the Lord Chief-Justice (Sir
Michael Morris, Bart.), Mr. Justice O'Brien, Mr. Justice Murphy, and Mr.
Justice Gibson presiding, judgment was delivered in the case of Ellen
Gaffney. The original motion was to quash the verdict of a coroner's
jury held at Philipstown on August 27th and September 1st last, on the
body of a child named Mary Anne Gaffney.

"The Lord Chief-Justice said it appeared that Mary Anne Gaffney, the
child on whose body the inquest was held, was born on the 23d July, and
that she died on the 25th August, 1887. A Dr. Clarke, who had been very
much referred to in the course of the proceedings, called upon the local
sergeant of the police, and directed his attention to the body, but the
sergeant having inspected the body, came to the conclusion that there
was no need for an inquest. The doctor considered differently, and the
sergeant communicated with the Coroner on the 26th August, and on the
next day that gentleman arrived in Philipstown. He had a conference
there with Dr. Clarke and with a reverend gentleman named Father Bergin,
and subsequently proceeded to hold an inquest upon the child in a
public-house--a most appropriate place apparently for the transactions
which afterwards occurred there. The investigation, if it might be so
called, was proceeded with upon that 27th of August. Very strong
affidavits had been made on the part of Mrs. Gaffney--who applied to
have the inquisition quashed--her husband, and some of the constabulary
authorities as to the line of conduct pursued upon that occasion. Ellen
Gaffney and her husband were taken into custody on the day the inquest
opened by the verbal direction of the Coroner, who refused to complete
the depositions given by the former on the ground that she was not
sworn. That did not take him out of the difficulty, for if she was not
sworn she had a right to be sworn, and the Coroner had no right to
prevent her. The inquest was resumed on the 1st September in the
court-house at Philipstown--the proper place--and a curious letter was
read from the Coroner, the effect of which was that he did not consider
that there was any ground for detaining the man Gaffney in custody, but
the woman was brought before a justice of the peace and committed for
trial. She was in prison from August 27th until the month of December,
when the lucky accident of a winter assize occurred, else she might be
there still. At the adjourned inquest the Coroner proceeded to read over
the depositions taken on the former day, and it was sworn by four
witnesses, whom he (the Lord Chief-Justice) entirely credited, that the
Coroner read these depositions as if they were originals, whereas an
unprecedented transaction had occurred. The Coroner had given the
original depositions out of his own custody, and given them to a
reverend gentleman who was rather careless of them, as was shown by the
evidence of a witness named Greene, who deposed that he saw a car on the
road upon which sat two clergymen, and he found on the road the original
depositions which, presumably, one of the clergymen had dropped. The
depositions were handed to a magistrate and afterwards returned to the
police at Philipstown, who had possession of them on the resumption of
the inquest. If the case stood alone there it was difficult to
understand how a Coroner could come into court and appear by counsel to
resist the quashing of an inquisition in regard to which at the very
door such gross personal misconduct was demonstrated. No doubt, he said,
he did not read them as originals but as copies, and it was strange,
that being so, that he did not inform the jury of what had become of
them, and he complained now of not being told by the police of their
recovery--not told of his own misconduct. On the 1st September, Ellen
Gaffney applied by a solicitor--Mr. Disdall, and as a set-off the
Coroner permitted a gentleman named O'Kearney Whyte to appear--for whom?
Was it for the constituted authorities or for the next-of-kin? No, but
for the Rev. Father Bergin, who was described as president of the local
branch of the National League, and the Coroner (Mr. Gowing) alleged as
the reason why he allowed him to appear and cross-examine the witnesses
and address the jury and give him the right of reply like Crown counsel
was, that Ellen Gaffney stated that she had been so much annoyed by
Father Bergin that she attributed the loss of her child to him--that it
was he who had murdered the child. It was asserted that Father Bergin
sat on the bench with the Coroner and interfered during the conduct of
the inquest, and having to give some explanation of that Mr. Gowing's
version was certainly a most amusing one. He said it was the habit to
invite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position in
life--which, of course, a clergyman should be in--and that he asked
Father Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity. But see the dilemma
the Coroner put himself in. According to his own statement he had
previously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to be
represented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, or
accused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one so
situated to occupy a seat on the bench. He (the Lord Chief Baron) did
not believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that was
the Coroner's allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter.
The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originals
or the copies of the first day's depositions, it was on the evidence of
September 1st that the jury acted. If that was so he placed himself in a
further dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on the
second day upon which they could bring a verdict against Ellen Gaffney.
In regard to the recording and announcing of the verdict it appeared
that the jury were 19 in number, and after their deliberations the
foreman declared that 13 were for finding a verdict one way and 6 for
another; that Mr. Whyte dictated the verdict to the Coroner, and the
Coroner asked the 13 men if that was what they agreed to. Mr. Whyte's
statement was that the jury, through the foreman, stated what their
verdict was; that he wrote it down, and that the Coroner asked him for
what he had written, and used it himself. But in addition to that, when
the jury came in the Coroner and Mr. Whyte divided them--placed them
apart while the verdict was being written--and then said to the 13 men,
"Is that what you agree to?" Such apparent misconduct it was hardly
possible to conceive in anybody occupying a judicial position as did the
Coroner, and especially a Coroner who had an inquisition quashed before.
What he had mentioned was sufficient to call forth the emphatic decision
of the court quashing the proceedings, which, however, were also
impeached on the grounds of its insufficiency and irregularity, and of
the character of the finding itself. It was not until the Coroner had
been threatened with the consequences of his contempt that he made a
return to the visit of _certiorari_, and it was then found that out of
ten so-called depositions only one contained any signature--that of Dr.
Clarke's, which was one of those lost by the clergyman, and not before
the jury on the 1st September. He (the Lord Chief-Justice) had tried to
read the documents, but in vain--they were of such a scrawling and
scribbling character, but, as he had said, all were incomplete and
utterly worthless except the one which was not properly before the jury.
Then, what was the finding on this inquisition, which should have been
substantially as perfect as an indictment? "That Mary Anne Gaffney came
by her death, and that the mother of this child, Ellen Gaffney, is
guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food and care to
sustain the life of this child." Upon what charge could the woman have
been implicated on that vague finding? He (his Lordship) could
understand its being contended that that amounted argumentatively to a
verdict of manslaughter; but the Coroner issued his warrant and sent
this woman to prison as being guilty of murder, and she remained in
custody, as he had already remarked, until discharged by the learned
judge who went the Winter Assizes in December. Upon all of these grounds
they were clearly of opinion that this inquisition should be quashed,
and Mr. Coroner Gowing having had the self-possession to come there to
show cause against the conditional order, under such circumstances, must
bear the costs of that argument.

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