I am not quite certain that any one of these has ever "hung out his flag for fish" after the manner of the old proprietors who, when they wanted fish for dinner, made their tenants obey their signal and put back, whatever might be the chance of the night's catch. This flag was, so "men seyn," hung out often by the Bodkins, the ancient owners of Omey Island, but how long it is since it was last done is hardly worth while to inquire. Far more interesting is the much talked of "survival" of feudalism in the shape of what is called "duty work." Something analogous to the corvée existed, I believe, in Hungary till a comparatively recent period, when it was commuted for rent. Within the limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about "duty work" clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser island of Turk such work has been insisted on and "processed" for within twelve or eighteen months. Vexatious processes are not undertaken just now for very obvious reasons.
"Duty work," so far as I can gather, is, or was—for no such work will be done again in Ireland—a modified, form of the corvée. Here and there it was enforced in various shapes. At Omey, in Aughrisbeg, at Fountainhill, and at the lesser isle of Turk, the conditions varied greatly. The general principle appears to have been that besides rent in money, fine on entry, and dues analogous to tithes on stock of pigs and poultry, a certain number of days in the year were the property of the landlord. The usual term was about a week in spring and a week at harvest-time. In some places five days only were exacted; in others three. In the case concerning which I am best instructed, five days in spring and five in harvest-time were demanded, together with any one day in the year on which the tenant might be wanted, at a wage of sixpence. If the tenant refuse "duty work" he may be sued in court—the damage incurred by his default being generally assessed at five pounds.
Now it does not require any very clear perception to discover that among agriculturists or fishermen "duty work" is an improper mode of levying tax. In spring and autumn, and especially in the latter, the tenant requires for getting in his own crop precisely the week that the landlord is entitled to claim. Yet he must leave his own to assist his landlord. On one of the little islands, let to a middleman, all the evil features of the corvée are brought into prominence. The island produces three kinds of sea-weed, the so-called "red weed," cut off the rocks and used for kelp; the "black weed" on the shore, used for manure for potato-fields—often the only manure to be got; and the drift, or mixed weed.
After spring tides there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks, half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the other on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of seeing their own washed away during the night.
From Ballynakill—where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated villages, and an "exterminated" people—to the supremely wretched islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite below the level of civilization.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This prediction was literally fulfilled.