Is Ulster Right?

by Anonymous

But not even the immediate prospect of Home Rule can be said to have made those parts of Ireland where the League is supreme a happy place of residence to any but advanced Nationalists. The following report of a case in the Magistrate's Court at Ennis in November 1912 will speak for the condition of the County Clare:-

Patrick Arkins was charged with knocking down walls on the farm of Mrs. Fitzpatrick in order to compel her to give up the farm. Inspector Davis gave evidence that from January 1910 to that date there were 104 serious outrages in his district. In 42 firearms were used, 27 were malicious injuries, 32 were threatening notices, 1 case of bomb explosion outside a house, 1 robbery of arms, and 1 attempted robbery. A sum of £268 had been awarded as compensation for malicious injury and there were claims for £75 pending for malicious injuries committed during the week ended 11th inst. There were two persons under constant police protection, and 16 receiving protection by patrol. Head Constable Mulligan said that Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under police protection. Since February 11th, 1912, there had been 12 outrages in the district, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under almost constant police protection. Acting Sergeant Beegan deposed that there had been 12 outrages on the Fitzpatrick family during the last four years; these included driving cattle off the lands, threatening notices, firing shots at the house, knocking down walls, spiking meadows; the new roof of a hay barn was perforated with bullets, and at Kiltonaghty Chapel there were notices threatening death to anyone who would work for Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Timothy Fitzpatrick gave similar evidence as to the outrages, and said that his father had taken the farm twenty-one years ago, and had paid the son of the former tenant £40 for his goodwill.

(I may add that Arkins was committed for trial, convicted at the Assizes and sentenced to seven years penal servitude; and was released by Mr. Birrell a few weeks afterwards.)

In another Clare case, in February of the present year, the resident Magistrate said as follows:-

"It is a mistake to say that these outrages are arising out of disputes between landlord and tenant; nine out of ten arise out of petty disputes about land. What is the use of having new land laws? A case occurred not long ago in this county of a man who had bought some land twenty years ago, and paid down hard cash to the outgoing tenant. The man died, and left a widow and children on the land for fourteen years. But in 1908 a man who had some ulterior object got the man who had sold the farm to send in a claim under the Evicted Tenant's Act, which was rejected. That was what the advisers of the man wanted-they only wanted a pretext for moonlighting and other disgraceful outrages, and the woman was kept in a hell for four years. A man was caught at last and convicted, and one would think that this was a subject for rejoicing for all right-minded men in the county. But what was the result? A perfect tornado of letters was printed, and resolutions and speeches appeared in the public press, condemning this conviction of a moonlighter in Clare as an outrage against justice."

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, in a sermon preached in December 1912, referring to County Clare said:-

"That county had had an evil record in the matter of crime, and they were so accustomed to outrages of almost weekly occurrence around them that it was not easy to shock them. There was an inoffensive family sitting round the fireside with a couple of neighbours. They had given no offence, they had wronged no man, they had crossed no man's path. But that inhuman beast went to the door and lifted the latch, and there, at a few yards distance, fired into that innocent group of men, women and children, as if they were a flock of crows, killing the mother outright and almost blowing the forehead off a young girl. There was no denying the fact that that brutal murder was the natural outcome of the disgraceful system of intimidation and outrage that had been rampant for a long time in certain districts of that unhappy county and of the immunity from punishment enjoyed by the wicked and cowardly moonlighter. In addition to their other acts of savagery, they had shot out the eyes of two men within the last couple of years. A decent, honest man was shot on the road to Ennis. The people passed the wounded man by and refused to take him into their car through fear. Not one of these well-known miscreants was brought to justice. The murderers of poor Garvey, the cow-houghers, the hay-burners, were said to be known. In any other country, for instance in the United States, such ruffianism would be hunted down or lynched; but there, in the places he referred to, they had a curtain of security drawn round them by the cowardice or perverted moral sense on the part of the community amongst whom they lived.... It was only last Thursday night, before the county had recovered from the shock of Mrs. O'Mara's murder, that right over the mountain an unfortunate postman was shot on the public road between Crusheen and Baliluran for no other reason apparently than that another fellow wanted his job of one and six-pence a day! It has come to this, that if you differ with one of them for a shilling, or refuse to give him his way in everything the first thing that comes into his head is to moonlight you.... They have not elevation or social instinct to settle their petty disputes by process of law provided for the purpose by a civilized society, nor have they Christianity enough to bear a little wrong or disappointment for Christ's sake. No, nor the manliness even to meet an opponent face to face and see it out with him like a man; but with the cunning of a mean and vicious dog, he steals behind him in the dark and shoots him in the back, or murders the helpless woman of his family, or shoots out the eyes of the poor man's horse, or cuts the throat of his bullock and spikes his beast upon a gate."

Nor has the present year brought much improvement. In May 1913, Mr. R. Maunsell was fired at and wounded close to the town of Ennis. His crime was that he managed a farm for a Mr. Bannatyne, whose family had been in possession of it for about sixty years, but who had recently been denounced by the United Irish League and ordered to surrender it. As he has refused to do so, he is now compelled to live under police protection.

The abolition of landlordism and the acquisition of firearms can hardly be said to have brought peace and tranquillity to the County of Clare.