IRELAND.
The condition of this unhappy country during the year 1850 was only a little less miserable than it had been in what were emphatically called the “famine years.” Great distress prevailed, aggravated by bad laws, and the general social state and spirit of the people. The moral condition of the country was still worse than its material circumstances. Scarcely had the year opened, when a series of the most atrocious murders that ever disgraced a country were perpetrated. A gentleman, steward to a person of large landed property in the county Tipperary, was shot near his own dwelling by cowardly assassins, who fired upon him from behind a hedge. Two brothers, in the same county, disputed about land; the younger clove the skull of the elder with the spade which he held in working. A poor emaciated man, in the same blood-stained county, while in a state of starvation pulled a turnip in a turnipfield, and was caught by the owner in the act of satisfying his hunger upon it; the inhuman wretch shot the miserable delinquent on the spot.
These atrocities were but samples of the barbarous deeds which took place over many districts in Ireland throughout the year. The criminals were not always poor men; farmers, farmers’ sons, and even men of this class possessing what might be called affluence, either committed, or caused others to commit, the savage acts which disgraced their country and shocked all civilized nations. Sometimes the murders were effected by men who had no wrong to complain of, no injury to redress, but who for a small sum of money, or being chosen by the ballot of the ribbon lodges, assassinated men whom they had never seen before, having been pointed out by their associates in the ribbon conspiracy. Sometimes the assassinations were on account of religion; in a few cases, for personal vengeance; but, generally, they were in connection with disputes about land. The state of the law was such as to have enabled the government to put down these societies, and to disarm the people, who were unworthy to be trusted with the liberty of keeping dangerous weapons; but the Whigs were unwilling to incur unpopularity, and only acted with spirit and determination when the government itself was endangered, and anarchy impended. The Conservatives charged the government with tolerating, to a certain extent, for political purposes, evils which nothing could justify a government for allowing to be perpetrated. This imputation was deserved.
The political agitations were of the usual character, but gradually diminished; the events of the two preceding years having nearly extinguished the Young Ireland party, and so lowered the tone of its rival, as to deprive it of much notice either in Ireland or England.
An agitation for what was called tenant right extended itself, but especially in Dublin, the great centre of all Irish agitation, and in the north. The character of this movement will more fully appear when noticing the debates in parliament which afterwards took place on the subject: it is here only necessary to say, that the ostensible and real objects of the agitators were very different. They professed to seek justice for the occupying tenant; they desired to inflict injustice upon the owner of the soil. The Irish tenant suffered much from an unfair state of the law in favour of the landlord, who often used to the uttermost the inequitable advantage thus afforded him. In the province of Ulster this was less the case; a more generous disposition prevailed among the landlords, and a more confiding one among the tenantry; the relations between the two classes were, as described by themselves, “live, and let live.” The outgoing tenant claimed a right to a certain sum for his improvements and interest, from the incoming tenant, which was altogether irrespective of any bargain between the latter and the owner of the soil. This prescriptive right was so generally recognised, that all parties were satisfied. In the other provinces of Ireland it was otherwise. The English and Scottish settlers in Ulster found this usage, which was an old Celtic tradition, and adopted it; their power enabled them to assert it; but the vanquished Celts themselves were not permitted by those to whom the estates were confiscated, to retain a custom so favourable to the occupier. The professed object of the agitation was to secure compensation to the occupying tenant all over the country for his improvements, and such certainty of tenure, according to the nature of his lease or taking, as would secure him from vexatious lawsuits and inequitable ejectments, against which, notwithstanding that they were inequitable in the eyes of all men, there was no redress. As the agitation was developed, it was plain that the real object was political and religious on the part of the prime movers. It became noticeable that while the clergy of the Established Church, the Methodists, Congregationalists, &c., abstained from all participation in the struggle, those of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian communions fiercely fanned it. The higher classes were generally episcopal Protestants, the former in the north, to a large extent, were Presbyterians, and in the other provinces Roman Catholics; it was the interest of the clergy of both sects that their flocks and chief supporters should be placed in as independent position as possible. Ultimately, however, the two parties ceased to coalesce, their objects became so dissimilar, that all co-operation was impossible. The tenant-right league became a focus of Roman Catholic agitation, for purely Roman Catholic objects. Mr. Lucas, an English proselyte to the Church of Rome, who had formerly been a Quaker, became a very prominent person, and he carried his fanaticism to great lengths. Charles Gavan Duffy coalesced with him, and these men, abetted by others, so disgusted their Presbyterian confederates, that the latter seceded altogether from the confederacy. The doctrines taught by the party which remained became increasingly bold, and it was soon apparent that the league was a knot of conspirators, whose object was to transfer the property of the Protestant landlords of Ireland to the hands of their Roman Catholic tenants, the former having a sort of rent-charge upon their own land, which would in time have been also taken from them. The state of the law of landlord and tenant was so unjust, that a well-organized opposition to it, conducted with truth, dignity, and honour, must have speedily adjusted matters. The imperial legislature could not have resisted demands so fair. But the movement, like almost all others in Ireland, no matter for what object originally framed, became a mere sectarian and party one, conducted without justice or decency, and with designs that were disloyal to the government, and insidious to all classes of Irishmen not identified with it. These remarks anticipate the progress and character of this unprincipled agitation, as it soon became, but in doing so, an explanation is afforded to the reader which enables him to comprehend occurrences and debates which entered into the history of subsequent years.
The remaining matters of interest connected with Ireland will be found in the section given to the affairs of parliament.