The Land-War in Ireland: A History for the Times

by James Godkin

CHAPTER XXI.

FARNEY—MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'

When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives were all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the county Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts in Dublin. The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued that the Irish could have no legal rights, no property in the land, because they did not enclose it with fences, or plant orchards. True, they had boundary marks for their tillage ground; but they followed the Eastern custom in not building ditches or walls around their farms. They did not plant orchards, because they had too many trees already that grew without planting. The woods were common property, and the apples, if they had any, would be common property too, like the nuts and the acorns.

The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy their own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as we have seen, were bound to deal differently with the English settlers; but their obligations resolved themselves into promises of freeholds and leases which were seldom granted, so that many persons threw up their farms in despair, and returned to their own country.

In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration of the manner in which the natives struggled to live under their new masters. The successors of some of those masters have in modern times taken a strange fancy to the study of Irish antiquities. Among these is Evelyn P. Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr. W. Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain, consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel, charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was 'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till 1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former times (when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no lord deputy did ever venture himself into those parts, without an army of 800 or 1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the barony of Farney to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of 250l. payable in Dublin. After fourteen years the same territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500l. In the year 1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022l. 18s. 4d. paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then taken gives the several townlands and denominations nearly as they are at present. Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his estates devolved on his sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the former of whom married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter Sir Henry Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half the barony. Ultimately the other half became the property of the Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at 1313l. 14s. 4-1/2d. Gradually as the lands were reclaimed by the tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000l., and the Shirley estate 5,000l. The total of 8,000l. per annum, from this once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census in 1841 the population of the barony exceeded 44,000 souls, and they contributed by their industry, to the two absentee proprietors, the enormous annual revenue of 40,000l., towards the production of which it does not appear that either of them, or any person for them, ever invested a shilling.

Mr. S. Trench was amazed to find 'more than one human being for every Irish acre of land in the barony, and nearly one human being for every 1l. valuation per annum of the land.' The two estates join in the town of Carrickmacross. When Mr. Trench arrived there, March 30, 1843, to commence his duties as Mr. Shirley's agent, he learned that the sudden death of the late agent in the court-house of Monaghan had been celebrated that night by fires on almost every hill on the estate, 'and over a district of upwards of 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his decease.' Mr. Trench says, the tenants considered themselves ground down to the last point by the late agent. As he relates the circumstances, the people would seem to be a very savage race; and he gives other more startling illustrations to the same effect as he proceeds. But here, as elsewhere, he does not state all the facts, while those he does state are most artistically dressed up for sensational effect, Mr. Trench himself being always the hero, always acting magnificently, appearing at the right place and at the right moment to prevent some tremendous calamity, otherwise inevitable, and by some mysterious personal influence subduing lawless masses, so that by a sudden impulse, their murderous rage is converted into admiration, if not adoration. Like the hearers of Herod or of St. Paul, when he flung the viper off his hand, they are ready to cry out, 'He is a god, and not a man.' Of course he, as a Christian gentleman, was always 'greatly shocked,' when these poor wretches offered him petitions on their knees. Still he relates every case of the kind with extraordinary unction, and with a picturesqueness of situation and detail so stagey that it should make Mr. Boucicault's mouth water, and excite the envy of Miss Braddon. Not even she can exceed the author of 'Realities of Irish Life,' in prolonging painful suspense, in piling up the agony, in accumulating horrors, in throwing strong lights on one side of the picture and casting deep shade on the other.

It is with the greatest reluctance that I thus allude to the work of Mr. Trench. I do so from a sense of duty, because I believe it is one of the most misleading books on Ireland published for many years. It has made false impressions on the public mind in England, which will seriously interfere with a proper settlement of the land question. The mischief would not be so great if the author did not take so much pains to represent his stories as realities 'essentially characteristic of the country.' It is very difficult to account for the exaggeration and embellishment in which he has permitted himself to indulge, with so many professions of conscientious regard for truth. They must have arisen from the habit of reciting the adventures to his friends during a quarter of a century, naturally laying stress on the most sensational passages, while the facts less in keeping with startling effects dropped out of his memory. Very few of the actors in the scenes he describes now survive. Those who do, and who might have a more accurate memory, are either so lauded that it would be ungrateful of them to contradict—or so artfully discredited as 'virulent' and base that people would not be likely to believe them if their recollections were different. There is one peculiarity about Mr. Trench's dialogues. There were never any witnesses present. He always took the wild Irishman, on whom he operated so magically, into his private office; or into a private room in the house of the 'subject;' or into a cell alone, if secrets were to be extracted from a Ribbonman in gaol. Even conversations with the gentler sex, who knelt before him as if he were a bishop, were not permitted to reach the ear of his chief clerk. On some matters, however, others have spoken since his book appeared. He is very precise about the trial for an agrarian murder in Monaghan, giving details from his own actual observation. Mr. Butt, Q.C., who was engaged in the case, has published a letter, stating that Mr. Trench was quite mistaken in his account. It seems strange that he did not refresh his memory by looking at a report of the trial in some newspaper file.

Mr. Trench 'adds his testimony to the fact that Ireland is not altogether unmanageable,' that 'justice fully and firmly administered is always appreciated in the end.' And at the conclusion of his volume he says:—

'We can scarcely shut our eyes to the fact that the circumstances and feelings which have led to the terrible crime of murder in Ireland, are usually very different from those which have led to murder elsewhere. The reader of the English newspaper is shocked at the list of children murdered by professional assassins, of wives murdered by their husbands, of men murdered for their gold. In Ireland that dreadful crime may almost invariably be traced to a wild feeling of revenge for the national wrongs, to which so many of her sons believe that she has been subjected for centuries.'

There is a mistake here. No murders are committed in Ireland for 'national wrongs.' The author has gathered together, as in a chamber of horrors, all the cases of assassination that occurred during the years of distress, provoked by the extensive evictions which succeeded the famine, and by the infliction of great hardships on tenants who, in consequence of that dreadful calamity, had fallen into arrears. People who had been industrious, peaceable, and well-conducted were thus driven to desperation; and hence the young men formed lawless combinations and committed atrocious murders. But every one of these murders was agrarian, not national. They were committed in the prosecution of a war, not against the Government, but against the landlords and their agents and instruments. It was a war pro aris et focis, waged against local tyrants, and waged in the only way possible to the belligerents who fought for home and family. Mr. Trench always paints the people who sympathise with their champions as naturally wild, lawless, and savage. If he happens to be in good humour with them, he makes them ridiculous. His son, Mr. Townsend Trench, who did the illustrations for the work, pictures the peasantry as gorillas, always flourishing shillelaghs, and grinning horribly. With rare exceptions, they appear as an inferior race, while the ruling class, and the Trenches in particular, appear throughout the book as demigods, 'lords of the creation,' formed by nature to be the masters and guides and managers of such a silly, helpless people. Nowhere is any censure pronounced upon a landlord, or an agent, with one exception, and this was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Trench at Kenmare. To his gross neglect in allowing God to send so many human beings into the world, he ascribes the chaos of misery and pauperism, which he—a heaven-born agent—had to reduce to order and beauty. But there were other causes of the 'poetic turbulence' which he so gloriously quelled, that he might have brought to light, had he thought proper, for the information of English readers. He might have shown—for the evidence was before him in the report of the Devon Commission—with what hard toil and constant self-denial, amidst what domestic privations and difficulties, Mr. Shirley's tenants struggled to scrape up for him his 20,000l. a year, and how bitterly they must have felt when the landlord sent an order to add one-third to their rack-rent. I will supply Mr. Trench's lack of service, and quote the evidence of one of those honest and worthy men, given before the Devon Commissioners.

Peter Mohun, farmer, a tenant on the Shirley estate, gave the following evidence:—

'What family have you?—I am married, and have two daughters, and my wife, and a servant boy.

'What rent do you pay?—Sometime ago I paid 3l. 19s. 11d. I was doing well at that time; and then my rent was raised to 5l. 19s. 9d., and sometimes 6l., and one year 5l. 19s. 6d.

'How do you account for the difference?—I do not know; perhaps by the bog rent. We had the bog free before, and we were doing well; and then we were cut down from the bog, and we were raised from 3l. 19s. 11d. to 6l. We are beaten down now quite.

'What does the county-cess come to?—Sometimes we pay 1s. 6-1/2d. an acre, and oftener 1s. 7-1/2d., the half-year.

'Have you paid your rent pretty punctually?—Yes, I have done my best so far to pay the rent.

'How much do you owe now?—I believe I shall pay the rent directly after May; I am clear till May. I cannot pay it till harvest comes round.

'How do you get the money to pay the rent?—When I had my land cheap, and myself a youth, I was a good workman, and did work by the loom, and I would be mowing in the summer season, and earn a good deal, and make a little store for me, which has stood by me. I buy some oats and make meal of it, and I make money in that way. It was not by my land I was paying my rent, but from other sources.

'How much wheat have you now?—Half an acre, rather above.

'How much oats have you?—Half a rood.

'How much potato land shall you have?—Three and a half roods besides the garden.

'Have you any clover?—Very near a rood of clover.

'What is the smallest quantity of land that you think a man who has no other means of support can subsist and pay rent upon?—I was paying rent well myself when I had three acres, when I was paying 3l. 19s. 11d.

'You weave a little?—Yes, but very little; but there was a good price for the barrel of wheat, and for pigs, and so I made a little store. But as for any man to support himself out of a small farm, at the high price of land, and the price of labour that is going, it is impossible.

'What is the smallest farm upon which a man can support himself at the present rate of rent, taking a man with five or six children?—That is a hard question.

'Supposing a man to pay 35s. an acre, and to have two acres, and to be obliged to live out of the farm, do you think he could do it and pay rent?—He could not; his land must be very good. Unless he lived near a town, and had cheap land, it would be impossible. But a man with five acres, at a moderate rent, he could support his family upon it.

'What should you earn at weaving?—I only weave for my own family. I weave my own shirt.

'Do your family ever spin any wool and weave it?—Yes.

'Do you live upon the Shirley estate?—Yes.

'How much bog do you require to keep your house in fuel?—Half a rood, if it was good; but it is bad bog ground, red mossy turf, white and light; it requires more than the black turf.

'What do you pay for half a rood of turf?—It is 13s. 4d. for a rood—that is, 6s. 8d. for half a rood. There is 4s. 6d. paid for bad bog.

'Do you pay anything for the ticket of leave to cut?—Yes, I do; I have not a ticket unless I pay 6d. for it.

'That is over and above the 4s. 6d.?—Yes.

'Did you ever pay more than 6s. 8d. for the bog in the late agent's time?—He took the good bog off us; we were paying 6s. 8d. for it. They left us to the bad bog, and we do not pay so high for that.

'Was the good bog dearer or cheaper than the bad bog at 4s. 6d.?—Half a rood of the good bog was worth half an acre or an acre of the other. The bad bog smokes so we have often to leave the house: we cannot stay in it unless there is a good draught in the chimney.'

The Rev. Thomas Smollan, P.P., has published a letter to the Earl of Dunraven, a Catholic Peer, to whom Mr. Trench has dedicated his book. In this letter the parish priest of Farney says:—

'In pages 63 and 64 Mr. Trench tells his readers that on the very night the news of the late agent's sudden death, in the county courthouse of Monaghan, reached Carrickmacross, "fires blazed on almost every hill on the Shirley estate, and over a district of more than 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his decease." This paragraph, my lord, taken by itself and unexplained in any way, would at once imply that the people were inhuman, almost savages, whom Mr. Trench was sent to tame—that they were insensible to the agent's sudden death, a death so sudden that it would make an enemy almost relent. Mr. Trench assigns no cause for this strange proceeding except what we read in page 64, and what he learned from the chief clerk, viz., "that the people were much excited, that they were ground down to the last point by the late agent, and they were threatening to rise in rebellion against him," &c. One would think that Mr. Trench having learned so much on such authority, would have set to work to try and find out the cause of the discontent and apply a remedy. He does not say in his book that he did so, but seems still unable to understand this to him incomprehensible proceeding. However, I am of opinion that Mr. Trench knew the whole of it, if not then at all events before "The Realities" saw the light, for in a speech of his, when Lord Bath visited Farney (page 383), he said, "A dog could not bark on the estate without it coming to his knowledge." And therefore I say that a man so inquisitive as to find out the barking of a dog on the Bath estate, who had so many sources of information close at hand, could not have been long without knowing the causes of the "excitement, threatened rebellion, bonfires, &c., on the Shirley estate," if he had only wished for the information. Either he knew the cause of all this when he wrote his book, or he did not. If he did, I say he was bound in fair play to tell it to the public; if he did not know it his self-laudation in his speech goes for nought. But, my lord, with your permission, I will inform your lordship, Mr. Trench, and the public, as to some of the causes of so remarkable an occurrence, which could not pass unobserved by Mr. Trench. At the memorable election of 1826, Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., and Colonel Leslie, father of the present M.P., contested the county of Monaghan, and the former brought all his influence to bear on his tenants to vote for himself (Shirley) and Leslie, who coalesced against the late Lord Rossmore. The electors said "they would give one vote for their landlord, and the other they would give for their religion and their country;" the consequence was, Shirley and Westenra were returned, and Leslie was beaten. Up to this time Mr. Shirley was a good landlord, and admitted tenant-right to the fullest extent on the property, but after that election he never showed the same friendly feelings towards the people. Soon after the election Mr. Humphrey Evatt, the agent, died, and was succeeded in the agency by Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who very soon set about surveying and revaluing the estate, of course at the instance of his master, Evelyn John Shirley, Esq. He performed the work of revaluation, &c., and the result was that the rents were increased by one-third and in some cases more. The bog, too, which up to this time was free to the tenants, was taken from them and doled out to them in small patches of from twenty-five to forty perches each, at from 4l. to 8l. per acre. At the instance of the then parish priest, President Reilly, Mr. Shirley gave 5l. per year to a few schools on his property, without interfering in any way with the religious principles of the Catholics attending these schools; but the then agent insisted on having the authorised version of the Bible, without note or comment, read in those schools by the Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, could not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism, and insisted on the children being withdrawn from the schools. For obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic parents were treated most unsparingly. I have before me just now a most remarkable instance of the length to which this gentleman carried his proselytising propensities, which I will mention. In the vestry, or sacristy, attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school taught by a man named Rush, altogether independent of the schools aided by Mr. Shirley, and by largely subsidising the teacher, the then agent actually introduced his proselytism into that school too. The priests and people tried legal means to get rid of the teacher, but without success, and in the end the people came by night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in the morning when the teacher came he had no house to shelter him. The Catholics were then without a school, and in order to provide the means of education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting" Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of them from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends over an area of fifteen miles by ten, Father Keone went on the next Sunday to the neighbouring chapels outside the Shirley estate, told his grievances, and on the next day the people came with their horses and carts and left sand, lime, and stones in sufficient quantities to build the house inside the chapel-yard. The priest and people thought it necessary to "thatch" their old chapel, and, though strange it may seem, the agent actually served an ejectment process on the father of the two boys who assisted the priest to make the collection at the chapel door for so absolutely necessary a work. I may add, this man owed no rent. Lastly, the then agent was in the habit of arranging matrimonial alliances, pointing out this girl as a suitable match for that boy, and the boy must marry the girl or give up his farm. These facts being true, my lord, and more which I might state, but that I have trespassed too much already on your lordship's time, I ask you, my Lord Dunraven—I ask any impartial man, Irishman or Englishman—for whom Mr. Trench wrote his "book," is it strange or wonderful that the Catholic people, so treated, would rejoice—would have bonfires on the hill tops at their deliverance from such conduct? I flatter myself that you, my lord—that the learned reading public—that the English people would sympathise with any people so treated for conscience' sake; and having pronounced the sentence of condemnation against Mr. Trench for not having noticed these facts, that you will direct your name to be erased from the "book." I have the honour to remain, my lord, with the most profound respect, your lordship's faithful servant.'

'THOMAS SMOLLAN, P.P.

'Clones, Feb. 15, 1869.'

The electors of Monaghan, in their simplicity, thought they were fairly exercising the rights conferred by the constitution when they gave one vote for the landlord, and one for their religion and their country, thus securing the return of one Liberal. But Mr. Shirley soon taught them that the blessings of our glorious constitution belong not to the tenant, but to the landlord; and so he punished their mistake by adding one-third to their rent, and depriving them of proper fuel. Not content with this, he carried the war into their chapels and schools, and punished them for their religion. These facts may help to explain the scenes which Mr. Trench describes so poetically.

The persecuting agent died suddenly in the court-house. The landlord and a new agent, Mr. Trench, arrived at Carrickmacross; and the tenants presented a petition, imploring him to remove the new and intolerable burden that had been put on their shoulders. They were told to come back for an answer on the following Monday:—

'"Monday! Monday!" was shouted on all sides. The most frenzied excitement ensued. Hats were thrown in the air, sticks were flourished on all sides, and the men actually danced with wild delight. After a little time, however, the crowd cleared away, and the news flew like wildfire over the town and country, that the whole tenantry were told to come in on Monday next, that they might know the amount of the reduction to be granted, and have all their grievances removed!'

Mr. Shirley quickly repented having given the invitation, and sent out a circular countermanding it, and requesting the tenants to stay at home. On Monday, however, a vast excited mass assembled to hear his ultimatum, which was announced by the new agent. 'He would not reduce their rents. They might give up their lands if they pleased; but they had little or no cause of complaint.' They insisted on his mounting a chair and making a speech. He softened the message as well as he could. When he had done there was a dead silence. In describing what follows Mr. Trench surpasses the wildest romancers in piling up the agony. I copy the description that the reader may see the difference between romance and history.

'There was a dead silence when I stopped speaking. It was broken by a stentorian voice.

'"Then you won't reduce our rents?"

'"I have already given you Mr. Shirley's answer upon that point," said I. "Stranger as I am, it is impossible for me to form any opinion as to whether they are too high or not."

'"Down on your knees, boys!" shouted the same voice; "we will ask him once more upon our knees!" and to my horror and amazement the vast crowd, almost all at least who were in my immediate vicinity, dropped suddenly on their knees, and another dead silence ensued.

'It was a dreadful spectacle. Their hats were on their heads, and their sticks in their hands, some leaning upon them as they knelt, others balancing and grasping them. It was fearful to see the attitude of supplication, due only to a higher power, thus mingled with a wild defiance.

'"We ask you upon our knees, for God's sake, to get us a reduction of our rents!" again the same voice cried aloud.

'I was greatly shocked. I instantly got down off the chair. I entreated them to rise. I told them that I was distressed beyond measure, but that I had given them the only message I was authorised to give; and quite overcome by such a scene, I endeavoured to move again across the crowded space from the office, in order to enter the house, and report proceedings to Mr. Shirley, intending to request that he would himself appear and address his excited tenantry.

'The moment I moved towards the door, the vast crowd leaped again to their feet; I was instantly surrounded, hustled, and prevented from getting near it. I bore this good-humouredly, and the door being quite close to me, I had no doubt they would ultimately let me in. But whilst this scene was going on, a shout was raised by those who were at a distance up the road leading to the town, and who had not heard what had been said. "Bring him up—bring him up, and let us see him!" In a moment I was seized, and though I resisted to my utmost, I was dragged up the narrow road which led from Shirley House to the town. I was kicked and beaten, and pushed and bruised, my hat knocked off, and my clothes torn; and in this state I was dragged into the main street of Carrickmacross.

'Here a scene of the wildest excitement took place, some cried one thing—some another. I was beaten again, my clothes torn off my back, and sticks whirled over my head. Four or five policemen met me as I was being dragged along, but they might as well have attempted to stop the rushing of an Atlantic wave, as to stern the crowd that had assembled around me; and they only looked on and let me pass.'

If the sub-inspector, who was present, and his men acted in this manner, I venture to say it is the only instance in the whole history of the force in which the Royal Irish constabulary were guilty of such a cowardly neglect of duty. However, not only the police, but the best part of the crowd deserted this strange gentleman, and he was 'left in the hands of the vilest and most furious of the mob.' Where was Mr. Shirley? Where were the clergy and the respectable inhabitants of the town? The mob dragged him along towards Loughfea Castle—a mile and a half—whither they heard Mr. Shirley had fled, still beating, kicking, and strangling their victim, without any object; for how could they serve their cause by killing an agent who had never injured them? And how easy it was to kill him if they wished! But here comes the climax; he asked the murderous multitude to let him stop a few moments to breathe—he then proceeds: 'I shall never forget that moment. I was then about a mile from the town on the broad and open road leading to Loughfea Castle. I turned and looked around me, thinking my last hour was come, and anxious to see if there was one kind face, one countenance, I had ever seen before, who could at least tell my friends how I had died. But I looked in vain. The hills were crowded with people. The long line of road was one mass of human beings, whilst those immediately around me, mad with excitement, seemed only to thirst for my blood.

'Having got a few moments' breathing-time, and seeing all appeal to be vain, I turned again on my way, determined, however, to hold out to the last, as I felt that to fall or to faint must be certain death. Just then I became conscious of an able hand and a stout heart beside me, and I heard a whisper in my ear: "They are determined to have your blood, but hold up, they shall have mine first." The speaker grasped my arm firmly under his own, and walked on steadily by my side.

'By this time I was completely naked with the exception of my trousers. My coat, even my shirt, had been torn off, and I walked on, still beaten and ill-treated, like a man to execution; my head bare, and without any clothes from my waist upwards. To increase the misery of my situation, I found that my friend had been beaten and dragged away in spite of himself, and again I was left alone in the hands of those merciless men. I felt also I could now go no further, and that a last effort must be made before my senses left me from exhaustion. Stopping therefore once more, I asked to be led towards a high bank at the roadside, and leaning against this I turned and faced those whom I now believed would soon become my murderers.

'"I can go no further," said I; "what have you brought me here for? What do you want me to do?" Again the same voice which I had first heard at the office, though I could not identify the speaker from the shouting and confusion around me, cried aloud, "We want a reduction of our rents, will you promise to get us that?"

'There are times of instant danger, when it is said that the whole of a man's past life rushes before him in the spaces of a single moment. If ever there be such a time, this was such to me. I stood there, exhausted, without one friendly face on which to rest, and surrounded by the worst of ten thousand men who seemed determined to have a victim. I knew and felt all this. So I said very quietly, as a last effort to save my life, and hoping they would name something I could promise to ask,

'"And what reduction will you be content with?"

'Again the same voice replied,

'"We will never pay more than one-half our present rents."

'"Then," said I, "there ends the matter, I never will promise that."

'There was a pause, and a dead silence. I stood naked and bareheaded before them. They stood opposite to me, with their sticks clenched in their hands, ready to strike. I looked at them, and they at me. They hesitated; no one would strike me first. I saw that they wavered, and instinctively, in a moment I felt that I had won. This sudden revulsion of feeling—though I was still externally motionless—sent the blood throbbing to my temples with a rush that became almost oppressive. But the strange pause continued—when at length a shout was raised from the old stentorian voice again, "Stand off, boys—for your lives! no one shall harm him—he is a good man after all!" and in a moment I was surrounded by a new set of faces, who dashed furiously towards me. They raised me on their shoulders, swept my old enemies away from me, procured me some water to drink, and carried me, now completely overcome, exhausted, and almost fainting, into the demesne of Loughfea.

'Here again these suddenly converted friends desired me to get up on a chair, and speak to the crowd now assembled before the castle. I did so. A reaction for the moment had taken place within me, and I felt some return of strength.

'I told the people I had never injured them. That it was a shame, and a disgrace of which I had not believed any Irishman to be capable, to treat a stranger as they had dealt with me that day. That in my own country I could have as many to fight for me as were now against me, and in short I abused them right heartily and soundly. They bore it without a murmur. My new friends cheered me vociferously, and I was carried, now quite unable to walk, into the Castle of Loughfea. Mr. Shirley's architect here appeared upon the scene, and perceiving that the people were much exasperated at not finding Mr. Shirley at the castle, and that some of the most violent were disposed in consequence to make a fresh attack upon me as I was being carried exhausted inside the gates, he promised to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and in some degree calmed their feelings. The excitement was past. Mr. Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly dispersed.

'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and scarcely able to stand—musing over the strange transactions which had happened that day—and wrapped in a countryman's frieze coat which had been borrowed to cover my nakedness.'[¹]

When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask him to turn to the history of this transaction—bad enough in itself—and see what fancy and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes 'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian, writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in his mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners as his sworn evidence:

'William Steuart Trench, esq., agent.

'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they originated?—There have been none, except during a late short period of peculiar local excitement.

'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what then occurred?—I think my best mode of doing so will be by handing in the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local magistrate for the information of government.—[The witness read the following letter:—]

'Dear Sir—In reply to your communication, enclosing a letter from Mr. Lucas, requesting that I should give a statement of the particulars which occurred to me in Carrickmacross, on Monday last, I beg leave to lay before you the facts, as follows:—

'Mr. Shirley has recently appointed me to the agency over his Monaghan estate. We both arrived here on Thursday, the 30th of March, and on the following morning we went together into the office; and having remained there about an hour, we were much surprised, on our return, to find an immense mass of people outside the door, who immediately presented a petition to Mr. Shirley, requesting a reduction of rent.

'Mr. Shirley declined giving an immediate answer to such an unexpected request; but having read the petition, he told them he would give an answer to it on the Monday following. By Saturday, however, he had arrived at a full conclusion upon the point, and, anxious to avoid any unpleasant altercation with his tenants, he thought it advisable to let his determination be known as soon as possible; and accordingly, on Saturday, he issued and circulated a printed notice, stating the determination at which he had arrived, and declining any further communications upon the subject. I enclose a copy of the notice.

'Notwithstanding this notice, the people came in on Monday in immense numbers; and at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, the upper part of the street opposite to Shirley House, where we were residing, was filled with dense masses of men. I then thought it my duty to go out, and repeat to them in my capacity as agent, the determination at which their landlord had arrived. I did so in the mildest terms. I told them I had been able to go over only a part of the estate; but that from what I had seen, I was of opinion that a better system of farming and of general management of their land, was in my judgment much more required than a reduction of the rent. That I knew Mr. Shirley had the kindest feeling towards them, and that I was myself quite prepared and willing to render them any assistance—to go to every man's farm, if possible, and to assist them by my counsel and advice. But that as Mr. Shirley had come to a determination to make no present reduction in his rental, I did expect that all who were able to pay their rents would come in and do so; that the utmost leniency would be extended towards those who could not pay; but that my duty was plain, and if those who really were able to pay, refused to come forward and do so, that I had no alternative left but to take advantage of the power which the law afforded for the recovery of the rent—and this I was fully prepared and determined to do, if driven to that unpleasant necessity. I also made some further observations, of less importance; but my manner towards them was quiet and calm, and I expressed myself most anxious to do everything in my power to promote their welfare and comfort.

'I then attempted to return to the house, across the street; but the mob closed in upon me, and prevented my doing so, and with much violence dragged me up into the town, where I was repeatedly struck and kicked, and nearly strangled, and my coat torn to pieces.

'The mob continued thus to ill-treat me for about a mile along the road to Lough Fea, Mr. Shirley's residence, repeatedly kicking me, especially when I showed symptoms of exhaustion, and pressing their hands violently upon my throat, till I was almost overcome by fatigue, heat and pain.

'All this appeared to be done for the purpose of forcing me to promise to induce Mr. Shirley to lower the rents to 10 s. per acre (upwards of fifty per cent.). This I refused to do. They then brought me on to Lough Fea, where they thought Mr. Shirley was; and upon not finding him, they appeared much exasperated. Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, he induced them to desist from further injury to me.

'Believe me, dear Sir, very truly yours,

'(Signed) 'WILLIAM STEUART TRENCH.

'Carrickmacross, April 8, 1844.

'What has been the general demeanour of the people towards you since that time?—Though they resisted my measures for the recovery of the rent, to myself they have been perfectly civil; nor have I received any personal insult or unpleasantness, arising from the above cause since that period.

'How long did this kind of combination exist?—For about six months.'

Setting aside the embellishments, let us note one or two differences as to facts. In the book the suddenly converted friends placed him on a chair and asked him to make a speech before the castle door. He did so, and there is a grand statuesque picture of the hero, naked to the waist, and standing on the chair as lofty pedestal. In the torn coat the artist could never have made him look like Apollo. Even the shirt would have been too commonplace; so off went the shirt. Three or four times attention is directed to the fact of the nakedness by the hero himself, while the pencil of the filial illustrator has rendered him immortal in this primitive costume. In his speech he 'abused them heartily and soundly.' Yet they cheered him vociferously, and then carried him into the castle, where he could get nothing to cover his nakedness but a countryman's frieze coat. It was when he had been cheered vociferously, and kindly carried in, that Mr. Shirley's architect appeared on the scene. Mr. Trench has not been just to that gentleman, for he really came to his rescue, and perhaps saved his life, by giving the people the only sensible advice they got that day. In his sworn statement, made twenty-five years ago, Mr. Trench said: 'Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, he induced them to desist from further injury to me.'

If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic scenes which have fascinated so many readers, the 'Realities' would lose much of their gilding. Indeed, in most cases the internal evidence is sufficient to convince us that the sensationalist has been laying on his colours pretty heavily. In the sketch of the Farney rent campaign, however, I am willing to accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian. It is a most suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could be done by driving the agricultural population to desperation. A general strike against the payment of rent would convulse society. If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the island, the landlords would be in serious difficulty. The British army might then have become rent collectors, as they had been tithe collectors in 1831.'

Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his legal rights to the utmost. The bailiff was sent to warn the backward tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere received the same answer—'We will pay no rent till our grievances are redressed.' Now all the missiles of the law were showered on the recusants—notices to quit, latitats, processes for arrears, &c. Grippers, process-servers, keepers, drivers, were in full requisition. The grippers were to arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been obtained at the quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch the crops that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs to pound. These constituted the landlord's army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if necessary.

On the other hand, the tenants organised a body called the 'Molly Maguires'—stout young men dressed up in women's clothes, their faces disguised and besmeared in the most fantastic manner. These men waylaid and maltreated the officers of the law so severely, that in a short time no money could induce a gripper, process-server, driver or bailiff to show his nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley, as commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle they could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The expedition started one fine morning, led on by the mounted bailiff, a fat man, trembling like a hare at the thought of encountering the 'Molly Maguires.'

Mr. Trench's description of this foray is very graphic:—'No sooner had this formidable party appeared upon the roads in the open country, than the people rushed to the tops of the numerous hills with which the district abounds; and as we moved forward, they ran from one hill to another shouting and cheering with wild defiant cries, and keeping a line parallel to that in which our party was travelling.

'The object of our expedition was clearly understood by the people; and the exact position of our company was indicated to those in the lowlands by the movements of the parties on the hills; and accordingly, as we advanced, every beast belonging to every tenant who owed rent was housed or locked up, or driven somewhere away. Thus, as we had no legal right to break open any door, or take any cattle out of any house, but only to seize those we might find in the open fields and upon the lands of the defaulting tenants, we soon perceived (as we might have known before we started) that we were likely to return without success. The bailiff declared with a sigh, "that not a hoof nor a horn was left in the whole country-side."

'At length when about to return home, without having secured any booty whatever, we came unexpectedly upon a poor little heifer calf, browsing quietly on the long grass beside a hedge. The bailiff having ascertained that she was grazing on the land of a tenant who was a defaulter, we seized upon the unhappy little beast, and drove it ingloriously home to the pound at Carrickmacross, a distance of about two miles, amidst the jeers and laughter of the populace, at the result of our formidable day's driving.'

Thus baffled, Mr. Shirley resolved to try another move.

He applied to the authorities in Dublin for an order for 'substitution of service.' That is, instead of delivering the legal notices at the houses of the parties, which was impracticable, they were to be posted up on the chapel-door. To effect this object, a large police force was necessary, and it was accompanied by a stipendiary magistrate. 'As soon as the party came near the chapel grounds a shout of defiance was raised by the peasantry, who began to crowd into the chapel yard, and with uplifted sticks and threatening gestures swore that they would never allow the walls of the chapel to be desecrated by such a notice. The bailiff, a most respectable and temperate man, did his utmost to pacify the excited mob. He reasoned with them as best he could; and assured them that no desecration was intended—that he was only carrying out the law, which required that the notice should be posted on the chapel walls. But his voice had no more power than if he had spoken to a storm of wind; they leaped and danced madly about, whirling their sticks over their heads, and shouting that they would never allow him to touch the sacred edifice.

'The stipendiary magistrate now ordered him to do his duty, and that he would be protected in doing it by the police, and he, trembling with fear, as well he might, at length approached with the notice in his hand to post it in due form. No sooner had he approached towards the chapel than a volley of stones sent him staggering back, though none actually struck him. The police were now ordered to advance. They did so amidst another shower of stones. The storm of missiles still continuing and several of the police having been struck and injured, they were at length ordered to fire. They aimed low, and directing their fire straight into the crowd of stone-throwers, they soon checked the vigour of the assault—six or seven men fell under the volley and rolled upon the ground. There was a short pause, a dead silence ensued—but it was only for a moment, and before the police could recover themselves and load again, a furious rush was made upon them by the enraged populace. Stones were seen flying as thick as hail; and finally the police, apprehending that they must be annihilated if they remained, ran to their cars, which were waiting at a little distance, and drove into Carrickmacross as fast as the horses could gallop, accompanied by the stipendiary magistrate!

'The field thus quickly won, remained in the possession of the insurgents. One of the rioters was killed upon the spot—shot through the body. The others who fell were only slightly injured; one had his ear taken off, another was wounded in the finger, another shot in the arm.'

This was 'the battle of Magheracloon.' Mr. Trench wisely recommended a cessation of hostilities till the harvest was gathered in, promising the landlord that he would then by quiet means, acting on the tenants individually and privately, induce them to pay their rents. He succeeded, but as Mr. Shirley declined to adopt his plans for the better management of the estate, he resigned.

He came back, however, after some years, as agent to the Marquess of Bath—a post which he occupies still, being manager-in-chief at the same time of the large estates of the Marquess of Lansdowne, in Kerry, and Lord Digby, in the King's County. In all these undertakings, ably assisted by his sons and his nephew, he has been pre-eminently successful. If the Farney men had been driven off in 1843, or swept away by the famine, it would have been said that their fate was inevitable, nothing could be made of them. They were by nature prone to disorder and rebellion. Well, Lord Bath visited his estate in 1865. On that occasion a banquet was given to the tenants, at which Mr. Trench made an eloquent speech. Referring to the outbreak in 1848, he said: 'And yet never, my Lord, never even in the worst of times, did I bate one jot of heart or hope in the noble people of Farney, never for one moment did I doubt their loyalty to their Queen, their loyalty to their country, their respect for their landlord, and above all, that they would be true and loyal to themselves.' So much for the incurable perversity of the Celtic race, for the 'black morass of Irish nature' that can never be drained!

The people of Farney got justice, and they were contented and orderly. They got security, and they were industrious and thriving. They got protection under the constitution, and they were loyal. Densely peopled as the estate is, the agent could not coax one of them to emigrate; and after his former experience at Farney, he did not venture on eviction, though, no doubt, he would gladly repeat the Kenmare experiment in thinning the masses with which he has had to deal. Mr. Horsman, a prophet of the same school of economists, says that Providence sent the famine to relieve the landlords, by carrying away a third of the population, and he seems to think it desirable that another third should be got rid of somehow.

Footnote 1: [(return)]

Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.